Devree's 14th Birthday

14 years ago today my beautiful Devree was born. I remember that day so well.

I thought I had "been there done that" as this was my third child. I've always been induced because apparently my womb is so wonderful none of my children have ever wanted to leave on their own accord. So we arrived, were checked in, hooked up, broke my water and proceeded to wait. James needed to go to the store-he was buying me perfume-my signature smell for Devree-I told him to go ahead, I'm sure it'd be hours before she made her apperance. (Kambree and Austin were ten and nine hours of labor respectively.) So off he went. Just minutes after leaving the nurse came in and put oxygen on me....telling me that every time I contract the baby's heart rate drops. (We didn't know if Dev was a girl or a boy. We had one of each and wanted to be surprised. She was going to be Benjamin if she was a boy.)

So, I'm sitting there by myself-in labor-with a Luke Skywalker mask on listening to my breath. This is before the days of cell phones-well people did have them but only the very rich and they were the size of a brick. I was getting nervous. Finally James arrived and upon seeing me with the oxygen on he became nervous too. I wasn't dilated and we seemed to have a lot of nurse's looking at charts and machines and frowning. Around noon-ish the doctor came in and looked at some more charts and announced "We needed to get this baby out now! (Now, I always check in at eight am and had Kambree and six and Austin around five so I figured I might shave off another hour and have Devree around four?) Luckily & miraculously I was dilated when the doctor checked and a push or two later out came my Devree.

When just her head was out the doctor said "This has to be a girl, she's just too pretty to be a boy." And sure enough, he was right. She was red faced but perfect. Such a perfect round little head-I guess that's what happens when you aren't stuck in the birth canal all day?

Anyway, fast forward to fourteen years later and here's Dev on her birthday. Still beautiful and with perfect hair on her perfect head!

She request chicken and dumplings and Jello jigglers for her birthday dinner. Then we opened presents with the family....

Dove Intense Repair shampoo and condition-a requested item for that perfect hair!

She only wanted to invite TWENTY EIGHT of her closest friends to her birthday party so we hosted "Devree's Drive In" in our driveway.

Here she is with her Costco birthday cake.

Out of the TWENTY EIGHT, twenty could make it! (Not counting Rylee and Devree!)

And she got lots of fun, fruffy girl stuff.....

Kambree got home from work and made an appearance and gave her a cute bracelet.

And here's Jazmin sporting some of her new gifts-including the joke gift of the stick on bra-it's on Jazmine's head!

Here's some shots of the movie....it actually showed up better than it photographed.

James almost forgot to put on his "birth shirt". The shirt he wore at her birth. This is his own brain child/tradition and he forgets quiet often to wear it. (Especially Kambree's shirt as it is much too small now) but I reminded him so we snapped a quick picture of the birthday girl and her Dad-in his special shirt.

Happy Birthday Dev!

Since day one you haven't been typical or ordinary. You're one of a kind, and beautiful inside and out!

Love You!