Happy Birthday, Ann!

Don't forget, dear reader, that it's still birthday season at the Rhodes' house - and my girls are still my girls - so it's still a big deal to me.

And today is Ann's birthday!

Ann was a week or 2 here. I remember taking this picture and wanting to hold onto the image - her sleeping so peacefully and so glad to have her and thinking it was the heighth of everything to be able to look down into that crib and see my newborn girl. I told myself in this moment how quick it would all go by - it did.

Maybe a month here - this is how babies slept in those days -

on their tummies(or on their side - as in above).

It worked so well!

and her favorite toys

the red apple

the yellow bear

and Tweety Bird.

She was 2 months in this picture.
It was very early in the morning and Mother and Daddy were driving up to Scottsboro to take Ann and me back to Evergreen for her first visit. I think we were gone about 2 weeks. Charlie came and got us. He was actually glad for us to be gone - he was in the middle of jury trials and a newborn was quite a distraction.

And this is what she did all the time - pulled things out of drawers if given even a little bit of open space.

Ann did this anywhere, anytime - even in the grocery cart.
She'd fall asleep.
I had to NOT be out and about if she was overdue for a nap. She would just crash wherever she happened to be...
and no mom wants to lose that precious nap time at home. Those maybe 2 hours of either resting or getting something accomplished.

Cheerios - always the best fingerfood.

But again, she fell asleep while eating.

But not asleep here - probably about 7 months.And then the first birthday - again, forgive the hair.

I was pregnant with Laura Beth here - about to end the first trimester. I did get my hair cut before she was born.

And with Daddy. Looks like he needed a haircut, too.

This is how it all looked before there was Sarah and Kate.
with just the two girls.
The next morning after this very windy, early and cool spring afternoon, Laura Beth woke up with Viral Pneumonia.
I'd never heard of it. It just came on suddenly. Very scary.

Again - just the two -

In this picture we were waiting for a phone call for test results to see if LB had Cystic Fibrosis. What I didn't know then, was just how allergic LB was in the Spring. Insanely allergic - no - she wasn't bottle fed. She had so many of the CF symptoms - but thankfully she didn't have it.

Ellie and Ada at Ada's 2nd birthday.

How about that comparison?

And just this month in McDonough,

Laura Beth, Ellie, and Ann at LB's baby shower.

Happy 29th birthday to Ann.