We are going to Disney World!!

I know this isn't really that big of a surprise huh?? Yesterday I booked the first half of our trip and next Wednesday I can book the other half. We will be staying at the Boardwalk for 7 nights and the Animal Kingdom Lodge-Kindani Village for 5 nights. We are super excited!! We love the Boardwalk. We love being able to walk to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. But this year we decided to try something new. We have wanted to stay at the AKL for some time now. This year we decided to bite the bullet and try it. We are going to do a Savannah view so the girls will be able to see animals from our room. I can't wait to see their faces!! We will be there for Halloween so we will attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. I know they will LOVE it! And we will be able to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival. It's hard to believe we are taking the girls on their 4th vacation to Disney!! Oh coarse they really don't understand that we have to wait 7 months until we go... They think we are going now!!

Toys...

My kids have a new toy (if you can even call them toys) that they love. Squinkies. Anyone else out there have kids that love them too? I think the person who invited these things should have to come to my house every night and pick them up. They are everywhere. And of coarse they are the tiniest things... But my kids love them. They reenact scenes from their favorite movies/shows with them. Which is very cute...



But they do have toys that I love. Especially their Toy Story toys. They have Buzz, Woody, Jesse and Bullseye plush toys. Then they have figurines of Buzz, Woody, Jesse, Bullseye, Ham, Rex and one Alien. I also bought them Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. I love when they play with these toys. I think I like those movies more then they do...



Here's the gang minus Bullseye. Maggie sleeps with him so he's upstairs most of the time...


Then there are the Wonder Pets. My nieces little girl Gracie has loved them for months so I thought I would see what this show was all about. The girls fell in love. Oh they love the Wonder Pets. So we bought them Wonder Pets stuffed animals. The girls love them. Gracie's birthday party theme last year was Wonder Pets. My very talented niece, Holly, made all the kids the capes that Linny, Tuck and Ming Ming wear. So now we can play Wonder Pets. It's really cute!

Love....

You know what I love?

This...



And this...





And these...





And these funny faces...

The many outfits of Charlotte Souza

Charlotte loves to dress up. She's always asking to be Belle, Cinderella, Jesse or her newest favorite, a mermaid (which consist of just her leotard). She cracks me up! Here a some pictures of her get ups. There are some duplicates from other posts...

Pictures

I have started a few posted but just haven't had it in me to finish them.... So I figured I would post some pictures. I bought myself a new camera a few weeks ago. It's a Canon Rebel xs and so far I love it! Still trying to figure it out but that's the fun part. And I have adorable subjects to test it out on!! I will post again soon about what we have been up to. Which isn't much...

Two questions I dread...

There are 2 questions people ask me all the time that I dread. The first one is, "do you have any other children"? The other one is, "do you plan on having more children"?

When people ask if I have anymore kids I want to crawl in a hole and cry. I feel if I say "no" then I am denying that Brian and Lillian were born. They were born and lived for a short period of time. They were here with us and we prayed that they were strong enough to live. But they weren't. They were born too soon. But on the other hand if I tell them the truth I can see the horror on their faces. It's really hard for me. And I am sure it's hard for a stranger to hear my story.

For years we struggled with infertility. I went off birth control when we got married. I figured if I got pregnant it wouldn't be that big of a deal. We were married and we knew we wanted a family. Well after 4 years of nothing happening we decided to look into what was going on. You all know the rest of the story. IF (infertility) robbed us of getting pregnant on our own. By the time we started treatments we were going into our thirties. I was almost 33 and Brian was 35 when the girls were born. Not old by any means but old enough that if we were going to try for another one we weren't going to be able to wait too long. We had talked about the girls being our only children. We didn't think we could go through IVF again, chance getting pregnant with twins again, having another high risk pregnancy and take care of toddler twins. After delivering the girls, the doctor could not got my uterus to contract. They were working really hard to get it to do so. The doctor came over to us and asked if we planned on having anymore kids. It's one thing if you decide this was it. It's another thing when the choice is taken away from you. She explained what was going on. Obviously saving my life was more important then my uterus. I didn't have time to process this because I went right into surgery.

Even after after I had the girls it really hadn't sunk in that I wouldn't be able to have anymore kids. When we lost Brian and Lillian I met an awesome woman. Her name was Peg and she was the grief counselor at the hospital. By some strange twist of fate she had found out that I was in the hospital having the girls. She stopped by to say HI. We talked about all the emotions that were going on in my heart. How happy I was to have the girls and how sad I was that Brian and Lillian weren't here with us... She also told me I needed to grieve the loss of ability to have more children. To be honest there was so much going on I didn't have time to even think about that. But it clicked with me a few weeks later. I wasn't going to be pregnant again. I would never get a BFP again. I would never hear a heartbeat from within again. I would never feel a baby growing in my belly again. I am VERY GRATEFUL for my girls. I know how lucky I am to have them. But I was sad that once again the choice was taken away from me.

Most of the time when people ask me if we will have more kids I just say, "no, we are happy with what we have". Deep down I would of loved to have one more. But I guess it just wasn't in the cards.

I'm still here!

The past couple of weeks have been rough here at the Souza house. Just as Maggie was getting over bronchitis Charlotte caught a nasty cold. Of coarse Maggie got it too. Yesterday I took Maggie back to the doctors. She wasn't doing good. But he said it's just a viral thing. He recommended a couple meds to give her. So that's what we are doing. Hopefully by the end of the week they will be back to their normal selves. Last night Maggie slept all night in her bed! It was great for her and for me! It's amazing what a good nights sleep can do for you. She is like a different child today!

Charlotte and Maggie definitely have cabin fever. Between being sick and the amount of snow in the yard we have been staying inside. We have been invited to a kids Valentine's day party on Friday. I am hoping everyone is healthy enough to attend.

We got great news today about aunt Theresa! They caught the cancer in the early stage and it hasn't spread!! She starts radiation in 2 weeks. Thank you for all that prayed for her!! I am hoping to get down to see her this weekend.

Next month we get to book our Disney vacation!! We have decided to stay at the Beach Club this year. We are beyond excited! They have a sand bottom pool there with a pirate ship slide. It's so cool. We aren't going until October. It's going to be a long wait but so worth it in the end.

So that's what is going on here. I'm ready for summer to get here. I am done with the cold and the snow.

Here are some pictures for the past few weeks: