Going to Alabama!!

My best friend is Clayli, and she lives in Huntsville, AL. We've known each other for years and have been able to visit each other a few times since our kids were born. Clayli's twin daughters were born very premature at only 25 weeks gestation (that's 15 weeks early). Her girls were 1lb 3oz and 1lb 4oz. That's, like, the size of your hand. Abigail and Adalynn stayed in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) for 108 days before they were healthy and big enough to come home. Today, they are healthy and very happy 20 month old toddlers!

This weekend is the March of Dimes walk in Huntsville. Zane and I are leaving right after I get off work on Friday to drive the 7ish hours to Alabama so that we can walk with Clayli and her girls to support the fight against prematurity on Saturday morning. I am so excited! We were not able to go last year, so I'm very happy that we can this year.

The first time that I was able to go down and visit Clayli and her girls was when Zane was about 5 months old (her girls were 7 months) in March of 2011.


Me on the left with Zane; Clayli on the right with Abby. (side note: Clayli wore Abby for all of ten minutes like this before declaring her too heavy.... As I wore my child - ten pounds heavier - the whole walk.)


Addy, Zane and Abby. Can you see how much larger my child is? We had the two extremes here - the girls were on the small side and my child is on the very large side.

Later that summer, I surprised Clayli by driving down on the sly with my sister and Zane to surprise Clayli at her girls' first birthday party. Her reaction was THE.BEST. It made getting up and on the road at 4am so worth it! Here's the video we took:






The birthday girls!


My sister, Lauren, holding Abby. Clayli with Addy. And of course myself holding Zane. Zane had a little crush on Addy.

The last time we got to see Clayli and her girls was for Zane's 1st birthday party in October 2011. We tried to get a group shot of all of us.... Here was the result:


Oh mobile babies.

That is Jeremy's hand holding Zane's head up because he was trying to bite Addy. Those poor girls got beat up that visit.

I cannot wait to see how big the girls have gotten!! Two more days!