A’s birthday party…

I was waiting to post on this until I had a few pictures to go along with the comments. I still have no idea how to work our new camera. I should have stuck with the old one.

Our baby girl turned 5 years old earlier this month and to celebrate we had a few of her friends over for an Olympics-themed party. Our kids have never seen the Olympics before and I tend to really get into watching them, so this was a fun little primer for the festivities in August!

As each of the children arrived, we asked them to choose a country that began with the first letter of their first name which they would represent in the games. Most of the children chose a normal-ish country such as Kenya, China, Mexico. We did have one little squirrel that announced his country was Djibouti. And, of course we all had great fun yelling Ja-Booty all day long. In fact, I still call him Ja-Booty….three weeks later.

In preparation for the opening ceremony, we also asked each child to name three things that they are really good at or enjoy very much. We used these pronouncements to introduce each of them and it went a little something like this:

(Olympic theme song playing in the background for full effect)...Introducing KEONA from KENYA!! Keona is a world champion ballerina, a colorer beyond compare and she is great at "imaginating!!" Then we would all clap and cheer as she marched around the swing set. You should have seen their little faces when they were marching around and everyone was cheering. It was so cute! They all looked so proud.

After that, we had four or five games all planned out by fabulous Daddy….soccer kicks, 50 yard dash, golf, and the water relay. We had to call it quits a little earlier than we had planned because the children were not doing so well in the heat. I certainly didn't want anyone fainting on my watch, so we headed inside for cake and gifts and then back out again for the medal ceremony.

All in all it was a great day! Lots of memories and silly moments. Here are a few pics:

A year’s not a long time…if you’re a tree

About a year ago….well, 14 months to the day to be EXACT….I started a little painting project in the house. Not really thinking ahead at the time, I was only able to conquer one wall of our living area before I thought, "Hey, there's a vault in here. Hmm…I don't think I can reach that." Yeah. Not much foresight there. So, after enduring half-painted walls for 14 months which included a lovely piece of blue masking tape up in the hallway ceiling for yes 14 months we finally hired the work out.

Brilliant. I love it.

The walls are now a lovely bluish color – Sherwin Williams Silvermist. Thanks to my ever-encouraging girlfriends, I decided to go with a non neutral and I am SO GLAD!!! Blue is my favorite color. It makes me the happiest. It feels great to have it accomplished.

Now, I get to re-decorate! I'm looking online for some of my other favorites to pull everything together…white McCoy pottery and maybe our first foray into "real" art! Check back in around August '09. Maybe I'll have it finished by then!

Oh and HEY…just as an update…as of today, items one through five on this list have all been FIXED! Yeah!!!

Mrs. Safety – Does she wear a cape?

So, just a short while back we adventured with two dear, dear friends Heather and Natalie and their babes down to The Land of Really Bad Bathing Suits and Hideous Sunburns (a.k.a. White Water). It was the first trip in memory for all of our kids.

Heather and I arrived first in full mommy mode. We were ready for a lovely day and had 5 excited kids in tow. We yelled traumatic warnings as the kids tried to dash through the parking lot in their excitement. We followed our loud STOP STOP STOP warnings with eye to eye lessons on the dangers of running in the lot AND not always IMMEDIATELY stopping when they hear our voices. We fed the children a picnic lunch with not a stitch of un-healthy - you know, natural peanut butter, carrots, cheese and the like. We slathered them with enough sunscreen to keep the sun out for a decade, made sure every non-swimmer had a perfectly fitting life jacket and then headed over to the little tikes area.

The water was cold, but the children seemed to be having a blast with the little sprinklers and the four small, age-appropriate slides. There were no tears, all felt safe and secure and there was fun being had all around.

Enter Natalie. If you don't know Natalie, picture boundless sunshine, fun on wheels and reckless abandon. She the type that wet-willies your children, lets her kids have small rodents in the house and actually enjoys camping. As Heather and I are leading the kids out of the little tikes area (to find another little tikes area to shake things up a bit), we meet Natalie who had come to find us. I'm pretty sure she said – what are you all doing over here?? Let's head to the BIG SLIDES!!! At this point, I think my adrenaline rushed just a bit. I've been on the big slides. My children? – Um…no. She suggested the family slide where we all go down in a giant tube together. I thought that sounded nice and kept me within arm's reach of each of my younguns, so we headed off (after another application of sunscreen and a 7-child potty break that lasted roughly a half hour!).

After the family slide went well, Natalie says, Hey Guys! How about we go on the big ones?! You can go down BY YOUR SELF!!! Right then I'm pretty sure I morphed into full-on Mrs. Safety and if I'd had one handy I would have donned my cape. I immediately experienced the horror in my mind of shoving my precious, priceless children down a slippery, dark, terrifying hole BY THEMSELVES. I could already hear the screaming and trauma in my head. I'm nervous, I'm scared, but Natalie leads on. Carson comes up the hill carrying his own tube and grinning ear to ear. Avery wants to go too, so after waiting my turn at the bottom catching all the kids (and seeing that Carson didn't come out upside down), Avery, Richie and I head up to check out the all-open slide. Avery went down by herself and was quite a trooper. Richie and I rode together and all was well. Whew, ok. We can do this.

I was thinking it might be fun to try that again, but no, that wasn't fun enough for Natalie. No, no. We had to step it up even more. It was as if she wasn't going to be satisfied until we had all peed our suits in terror and then we could laugh all the way home about it. She suggests we all attempt the Bermuda Triangle. Passing by the sign, I notice the height requirement. None of mine are tall enough. Nat says, Aw, Come-on…they never check that stuff. Uhh…..ok. Well, I say THIS SLIDE IS A LEVEL FOUR!! The last one was just a three. I'm not so sure about this. At this point, Nat begins teasing me and reading all other warnings on the sign (like the one about being under 300 lbs – Hey Kids, make sure you're not overweight! Ha ha!). Great. Now I'm scared and I'm being mocked. What fun! J There were also no doubles allowed on this ride, so the kids had to go by themselves. They wanted to. But they had no idea what they were getting into.

At Natalie's urging (and mocking), I let them go against my better judgment. Carson loved it. Avery….not so much. She was screaming as she came out of the slide. Rather than give the official Mrs. Safety I Told You So to my friend, I focused my energy on assuring Avery of how proud I was of her being SO SO brave.

Thankfully, the smaller ones were getting restless, so we headed back over for snacks and the little play area. At the end of the day, we tried one more slide. It was the one the put us all over the edge. It was what has infamously been called simply "the white slide" in our house. Since it was a partially open slide, I thought it couldn't be worse than the all-enclosed Bermuda Triangle that the kids did earlier. Perhaps I was wrong. Carson, the daredevil was ready to go! Avery was trembling at the top of the slide and I had to physically place her in the tube and – again, against the code of Mrs. Safety, push her into the dark. I was so concerned that I really didn't have time to mess with Richie who was outright SCREAMING that he didn't want to go down with me. I shoved him into my lap and pushed off as fast as they'd let us.

That slide scared the beee-jeeeebers out of me. Richie and I were both traumatized. He screamed the whole way down and for 30 minutes after. When we got to the bottom, Avery was screaming as well….she had been helped out of her tube by the life guard who evidently asked repeatedly "WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER??" while I was trying to get down to her.

I did learn a few lessons that day:

1. It can be life-giving to have fun friends who push you to do things you might not normally consider.
   
2. When your mom alarm goes off – before shutting things down, consider if this might not be an opportunity for growth.
   
3. When your mom alarm starts screaming blazing blaring – say no.
   
4. When Mrs. Safety goes to the water park she should never, and I repeat NEVER forget her cape!

Where have you been?

It's the question I've heard often recently. Yes, I realize I've dropped off the bloggy planet. Yes, I have good reasons…well, sorta. And, yes, I know you miss me. At least some of you do.

So, I hope to be better now that summer is upon us and theoretically that means all sorts of time to do nothing other than blog. There has been MUCH that has happened over the last few weeks while I've been away. I'm going to do my best to give a quick recap here. To delve into it all as deeply as I might normally, would be too laborious for me as well as for you, dear gracious reading friend. It may take you a few days to read all of this, but that's okay right? Just making up for lost time! So, in my best attempt at the correct chronological order, may I present to you….what's been UP while I've been OUT?

1. I'll just get this out of the way up front. The main reason I dropped off the planet was due to this thing called "my job" and an immense amount of pressure that came up right around the beginning of May. I'm so thankful for my job but I'm WAY more thankful God is with me through all sorts of situations. I nearly like-ta-have-croaked with that one. But, it's over now! (I think.) I'm still working, just not dying.
   
2. American Idol – David Cook was my fave from the beginning. Loved the crossword puzzles, the increasingly shaggy facial hair, the music, the attitude. Hated Simon for raking him over the coals in the finale. Literally jumped out of my bed and did a fist pump complete with a "YES! YES!" when he was announced the winner. He's gonna rock it out big time. Can't wait for the first album.
   
3. We had hail damage earlier this year. Got a new roof! Those two sentences encompassed about 18 full hours of my life in May. My first real foray into homeowners' insurance claims…what a quagmire.
   
4. Carson won first place in his Kindergarten class spelling bee. Oh the joy and celebration that one sparkly blue ribbon can set off in our household. It was about 3 weeks ago and the prize is still hanging from the light fixture over the kitchen table.
   
5. Avery is seriously good at soccer. We're so proud of her. On the last day of the season, she had a double header and scored 5 goals. Not too shabby, Little One! And, she does it all on quickness and determination…none of that pushing and shoving mess…no ma'am. That's for the Slow!
   
6. Avery also had a ballet recital in May. We spent roughly 45 hours at rehearsals, $119 in gasoline, $40 on her "costume fee" and $20 for tickets all for the pleasure of watching her praise Jesus for a total of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Really…it was priceless.
   
7. I helped a neighbor friend coordinate a neighborhood garage sale. Ugh. But, the purging felt so good.
   
8. I have officially recovered from UNC's loss to Kansas in the Final Four. I told you it would take a few weeks. It did. I'm now looking forward to next year and the return of Psycho T!
   
9. During the garage sale, Super Heather brought over some of her stuff to sell. This point really deserves an entire blog unto itself. In one sentence, she transformed our immensely cluttered and trashed up garage into a glistening palace of organized order and joy. Oh yes, it was that good.
   
10. Then…literally…just a handful of days later, my friend Cindy divulges that she, like Heather, has this amazing gift of organization. She then volunteers to come over and help me with my choice of rooms. The choice was the "craft closet"….Scrapbook Explosion is now Scrapbook Heaven. I'm not even sure I want to scrapbook since I'll have to mess up the closet to do it. Thank GOD for friends like these!!!!
    
11. I took over the family finances. Oh my word. I've been to see a financial advisor. It's been a wicked learning process, but in 50 years I hope to say it was worth it! And I do mean in cold hard cash, people.
    
12. We temporarily traded vans with Richard's parents. We have decided to keep our van until it literally falls apart, so Pop is working his magic on the windshield, the door that Richard damaged in some freak wind storm and the side panel that I ever so slightly rubbed against a ginormous metal dumpster. Dang trash can.
    
13. Richie has managed a newfound love of nakedness. It hearkens back to the days of the diaper and boots ensemble only this time buck naked….as often as we'll let him, but always at naps. He's alarmed several of our friends. Dear souls….they still love us.
    
14. Carson graduated from Kindergarten and it was the river of tears you might expect from this softie. It was complete with cap, gown, singing, Kindergarten bell choir, slide show, scripture recitation and the diploma distribution in which Carson's teacher chose the words "articulate" and "mature" to describe him.
    
15. Avery also graduated from the Sunday/Wednesday preschool program at church. Gosh, the time is really flying by.
    
16. And finally…..this one as well could really use it's own blog. We went to St. Louis as a "school's out" celebration with the kids. We went to a ballgame at which both Avery and Emma got baseballs during practice out in the bleacher seats! They were also chosen to be on Fox that night. Here is the video to prove it! Next day, we went to the zoo. It was great!
    

Ok, I'm tired of writing and I think you're probably tired of reading. I think I'm back online now and you're caught up with all the major events! Sorry for any typos. This came out fast!