Happy 13th Birthday Destiny

Destiny turned thirteen today. I realized the other night that she was growing up very quickly. She isn't a little girl but she isn't quite grown either. Caught somewhere in the middle between playgrounds and dolls and makeup and boys.

I found a picture of her last night from the year that she came to live with us. I can't believe how tiny she was. I don't think we saw how little she was because we had a one year old and a four year old and she seemed huge compared to them. When she came we thought she would be with us for four months, five years later and she is till here and very much a part of our family. Her cards this year said, "To our sister" and "To our daughter". Not to take anything away from her other family but she has become our family.

Her birthday was a bit quieter this year than last. The girls spent the morning finishing up chores and then spent all afternoon playing the Wii and hanging out together. We celebrated as a family and went to dinner and then came home to cake and ice cream and presents.

Birthday Girl!!

Makeup? You're going to let me wear makeup?

Lone Dawg fan in a house of Jackets

Her favorite color blue

Making her wish!!

Thanksgiving Memories

We took our 2nd annual Thanksgiving trip to Gatlinburg this year with our friend Heather and her girls. We had such a good time getting together last year and staying in a cabin that we decided to do it again.

I love being up in the mountains. It is such a relaxed time for all of us. No schedules, no pressure, no responsibility for cooking (Heather's way better than me and covers that department while we are up there), no rush to go after-Thanksgiving shopping. Instead it is lots of catching up, laughter, good food (that Heather cooks:), the girls playing with their friends, Bud getting to watch football uninterrupted and just plain relaxation.

Our gorgeous cabin for the weekend

Our living room, dining room area

The few from our back deck

The lower gazebo deck

The hot tub that Heather and I finally kicked the kids out of so we could get a few minutes of peace and quiet

Bud thought he had died and gone to heaven with this projection screen t.v. He would have slept down there if I would have let him.

The kids absolutely love this million pound (not really but I have no idea how much it weighs) piece of granite in front of the Ripley's museum that spins on a small amount of water. They could spend hours spinning it and getting soaked.

My three gifts all wrapped up under the Christmas tree display.

All five girls together. They are getting so big. Weren't we just celebrating Mack's and Abby's 2nd birthday last year?

David Tallent's illusion show. He is pulling half dollars out of Mack's ears.

Best friends since age 2. Such different personalities they are.

Trying to get a picture under the giant Christmas tree.

The girls got "hillbilly" teeth and Maddie wore hers all weekend, everywhere we went.

Maddie and Sydney. Maddie is a year younger and a foot taller. They are both short here because they are on their knees. Funny kids!

The two youngest in front of the lit Christmas tree

Sisters and friends

It is easy to get wrapped up in what we don't have or what's wrong with our lives. The truth is that we are incredibly blessed and grateful for everything. This trip allows us to step back from the busyness and realize just how much we have to be thankful for.

Busy November

I always thought December went by quick but this November just flew by and here are some of the highlights.......

Secret Keeper Girl Tour

Abby and her friend, Rayna

Abby, on stage her dream come true

I took Abby and Destiny to the Secret Keeper Girl Tour

Fall Soccer 2009

Number 3!

Where's the ball?

Check out that throw in!

Maddie and Coach Paul

Go Number 10!

Maddie's most unfavorite position, goalie

Always looking for the ball

Fall Festival 2009

Abby and one of her friends at the school's Fall Festival

Maddie and Emma with their hair dyed

Hoya Cheerleading

Go Abby!!

The minivan after the girls got done decorating it!

Abby's Rec Cheer Squad

Our crazy friend Drew drumming up some school spirit

Daisy Investiture Ceremony

Maddie is so serious at her Daisy Investiture Ceremony

Maddie getting her Daisy pin

All of the little 1st grade Daisy's

Fall Leaves

Every house we move to seems to have more trees than the last meaning more leaves!! This house is no exception. We are surrounded by woods and even our front yard has large trees in it. Thankfully, the weather here in Georgia is beautiful this third weekend in November and so the girls and I spent the morning cleaning up the yard and raking the leaves. The finale? The annual jump in the leaf pile.

Still warm enough for Destiny to be in shorts

The mad dash for the leaf pile

I found this photo while I was looking through other photo's. It is from the fall of 2004. Look at

at how little the girls were. The video's after it were shot around the same time.

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Sweet Baby

Tuesday morning I flipped through my emails on my phone as I headed out the door. Seeing one from a friend that I hadn’t heard from in a long time and reading the title, I eagerly opened it expecting to see pictures of her new little one. Instead I found a short email that simply stated that her beautiful baby girl had been silently born just a week shy of her actual due date. And my heart broke right there in a million pieces.

She and I haven’t been close for quite a few years, careers, families, busy life. However, she is part of my story, the fiber of my life. She was a roommate in college, she weathered with me my first serious break-up and even let me play the same sad CD a million times on our way to Spring Break, we shared morning cereal and soap opera’s over lunch breaks, many of my funny stories from college have her as a central figure and probably most importantly, we shared our faith and have prayed for and with each other. I have watched her go from funny college girl, to career woman, to wife, to mother, and she makes it look extremely easy.

I debated over whether to go to the service today. It’s almost an hour drive from where I work and I reasoned that she wouldn’t know if I was there or not. As soon as the debate began, it was over though. I got in the car and made the drive to the cemetery for the graveside service. The service was short and poignant.

My friend and her husband are secure in where their hope lies and where their beautiful baby girl is right now. God is their Comforter and he will continue to be. The service reflected this and acknowledged the grief but also the hope that comes together at a time like this. Sorrow for what has been lost and taken away but also joy in knowing that this is not the end, there is more.

My prayer is that God will wrap my friend and her husband in His comfort and peace and carry them through this time.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try

AGAIN!!!!!

Abby's squad finished first at the FInal Face-Off today. So proud of my girl!!!!!

The difference between Mom's and Dad's

There are major differences between moms and dads.

Mom's make sure that their childrens take their own bright, colored, pretty, water bottles to school. Dad's say, "Oh, you can drink out of the water fountain."

Mom's iron outfits even if they are running late because they don't want anyone to think that they are not a good mom. Dad's thinks that the child is good to go if the shoes match each other.

Mom's will insist their child have a piece of cheese in the morning along with their waffle to ensure a balanced breakfast. Dad's think a strawberry pop tart and chocolate milk is a balanced breakfast.

Mom's insist on sweatshirts and jackets and gloves and a hat. Dad's say, "Oh, it's only a short dash to from the car to the school."

Mom's start planning their child's field trip lunch the night before and look to make sure that they have everything they need including drinks and snacks. Dad's decide that soup sounds good for lunch and decide that morning is soon enough to get all the other things together for lunch.

Mom's set their alarms early to get up in order to have everything ready for the field trip. Dad's play the new "Call of Duty" video game way too late and then hit snooze when the alarm goes off.

Mom's then get annoyed at the Dad's, so they make the soup (oh, and there isn't any chicken noodle so we will have to improvise with Chef Boyardee Ravoli), make the sanwiches because the child that the Dad sent in there to make them isn't moving too quickly this morning, insist that some fruit goes into the lunch bags along with the candy from Halloween, realizes that there is only one drink and quickly sends child down to basement to procure more drinks to pack, reminds child to take her camera and gives child extra batteries for the camera, and hands out kisses and hugs before she leaves for work. Dad's get a shower and then glower at Mom because she has "taken over."

Of course, I am not talking about our house. At our house, Dad always does things the way that Mom does :)

Bud took Abby on her 4th grade gifted class field trip today and she had an incredible time with him. Two hours there and back on a bus with 4th and 5th graders, and a wet tramp in the woods. He is my hero!!! Surprisingly enough, he did fine without Mom orchestrating the entire day. He and his girl enjoyed themselves immensely and the soup (or ravioli) that Mom thought wasn't that great of an idea was voted as the best lunch by the class because the State Park was rainy and cool today and it hit the spot.

Oh, and the batteries that Mom took credit for.......dead so no pics until Dad came to the rescue. Thank goodness he (who always knows where his phone is, unlike Mom) thought to take pics with his camera phone and send them to Mom at work so she could enjoy them.

Abby and Bud, Target Field Trip, November 2009

I should clarify that many of the differences I posted are not actually personal ones and the ones that were personal may have been a teeny bit exaggerated to make someone look a little bit better :)

Thankful for a husband who sees the importance of taking a day off now and then to do a field trip with his girls.

October

I love October. I love the change in the weather. The crispness in the air in the morning. The leaves changing colors. Wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts. What I don't like is how quickly it seems to pass. This October was no exception and this weekend has been the busiest of all and it's only Saturday night.

Friday I volunteered to help Maddie's class with pumpkin carving. Now you have to understand that in Cobb County they are obsessed with squeezing learning into every last second of the day and so the only "party" they can have is a "Winter" party (can't call it Christmas because some people find that offensive)and so all of the other holiday celebrations have to have learning attached to them. So for Friday's Halloween celebration, the kid's measured pumpkins (height, weight, inches around) and estimated how many pumpkin seeds were inside their pumpkin and then counted the seeds out by 10's for their math lesson. I love kids at this age. First graders are a funny lot, they will tell you all kinds of things and repetitively call you "Maddie's Mom" when they want to get your attention. I didn't tell Maddie I was coming so the look on her face when I walked through the door was priceless.

Maddie digging out the "guts" of her pumpkin. She laughed every time someone said "guts."

Maddie's teacher, Ms. Rogers

The pumpkin seeds she was supposed to count. We counted to 100 and then stopped.

Maddie and her friend, Caleb

Maddie and her kindergarten buddy, Nicholas

Maddie and friends

Every year in my mind I can picture the perfect fall day. Taking a leisurely drive, stopping at a little pumpkin patch and picking a pumpkin. My dream life rarely matches up to reality and it was no different in this case. Every free minute we had, it rained. So......we bought our pumpkins at Lowe's. Not much atmosphere but then again they only cost me 3.00 a piece which was a steal.

I figured that they would look lovely on our porch for a few weeks and then we would carve them a week or two before Halloween and put candles in them. Wrong again. They actually sat there until this afternoon, Halloween, and while we did carve then by the end it was raining enough and we were not going to be home that the whole candle thing was a moot point.

Let the carving commence

Hard at Work

Maddie and I's haunted house. It kind of looks like one, doesn't it?

Abby's face came complete with eyelashes

Destiny and her face. She also carved "Boo" into the side.

I grew up in Pennsylvania. In Pa. trick or treating was on a night that your community specified and then I moved to the South. Bud laughed at me when I asked him how we would know when Trick or Treating was. "Why it's on Halloween of course." "Well, how do you know what time?" "You start just past dark and go in around 9." Apparently everyone in the South knows the rules. Everyone but me.

The girls have been talking about their Halloween costumes for the last six months. They poured over the catalogs that came, visited the costume section at every store we went into. Maddie decided very quickly that she would be an "80's girl." It took Abby a little bit longer before she decided on a "Disco Dolly" costume (I think the deciding factor was the white go-go boots). A lot of Aqua Net, some blue eyeshadow, black eyeliner and pink lipstick and we were good to go.

Abby, our "Disco Dolly"

Maddie, my "80's girl"

Hamming it up

For the last two years we have stayed in our neighborhood to Trick or Treat. It really hasn't matched up to our past experiences trick or treating on a military base. Here very few of our neighbors participate and there really isn't a sense of community. There are tons of hills and driveways which make it a long haul between houses with actual lights on not just for the kids but for the parents too! One of our very good friends graciously invited us to their Halloween night celebration. Pizza and cookies and cake and drinks and then Trick or Treating in their kid friendly neighborhood with houses close together and lots of participation. It didn't take much arm twisting on their part to make us come. And don't worry, we took the candy we would have given out over to their house.

All of the kids around the table

Cheese

Abby and her cheer friend, Rachael

Maddie and her friends, Emma and Adrianna

Lizzie Grace enjoying a black iced cookie

The gang at the Spencer's for Trick or Treat 2009. You will notice that Destiny is in the pictures, she decided to go as a soccer player instead of spending her money for a costume this year.

My Trick or Treaters Last Year, 2008