Magical Day

She cried as I tucked her into bed tonight. She cried because her special day was over and it had gone by too quickly and she didn't get to spend the day with me and her list went on and on. At first listen, she might have sounded spoiled but she was crying because today was a magical day for her, the day that she turned 10 and she wanted it to last forever.

She wasn't excited about the presents or the cards or the money (not that she didn't like them mind you). She was excited about taking cupcakes to the kids at camp for the last day of camp and playing water games and having dinner with good friends and snuggling and watching a movie tonight. Her face glowed all day and her smile made me smile.

She is somewhere between a little girl and young lady right now. One moment she is fixing her hair and fussing over her clothes and the next she is rolling down a hill and getting covered in grass. How I wish that I could freeze this time and enjoy my little girl for a just a little bit longer. Just yesterday she was learning to toddle. I can still see here opening presents at her first birthday party and now....now she has boys calling the house for her.

I love her so much that sometimes I think my heart will burst. I love that infectious smile and that giggle that makes everyone else around her laugh too. I love her heart. She forgives easily, doesn't hold grudges (unlike her mom) and makes friends everywhere she goes. I love that nothing stops her from singing and worshipping and loving God. She doesn't care if you think she is cool she knows she is cool.

I watch her sleep tonight after the tears have finished and I pray that coming year will go slowly that we will savor every moment of her being 10. I pray that God blesses her and keeps her.

Happy 10th Birthday Monkme! Mommy and Daddy love you so much.

Abby, Carmella, and Emma at Blue Mtn. Christian Retreat 2010

Happy 7th Birthday Maddie

My Maddie girl is now 7. It seems like it was just a little while ago that we threw her first birthday party and she sat in her highchair digging her hands into her little ladybug cake. This year she is all about the cupcake. She was just learning to walk then and now she is literally running everywhere.

I marvel at the girl that she is becoming. The round little baby cheeks are disappearing and she is slimming out and getting taller and taller. She is almost the same size as Abby even though there are three years between them. Thank goodness her lisp remains which reminds me that she is still my little girl

Her birthday was a happy one. We spent it at the "Sweetest Place on Earth," Hershey, Pennsylvania. I grew up very close to there and rode my first looped rollercoaster there with my Dad. Last year when we were home in Pennsylvania I promised Maddie that we could come for her birthday and that's exactly what we did. She rode the Super Duper Looper with her Daddy, just like I rode it with my Daddy so long ago.

We took the Kissing Tower up high and saw the kiss shaped street lights and the Welcome to Hershey on the grass and even where the chocolate is made. It was a wonderful birthday for a wonderful little girl. Mommy loves you Maddie Grace

Ravaged

I am literally watching my home being ravaged around me and I am sick to my stomach.

We came home Monday night to a flooded house from a broken valve. It has been five days of no air conditioning, fans and blowers, and workmen trooping in and out. It has been a little girl crying that she doesn't want to lose her house and another little girl offering up her piggy bank money. It has been a second pipe breaking and reflooding the finished basement and almost dry garage.

Our walls have holes in them, the hardwoods have to be removed from the entire house, our bedroom furniture, bathroom vanity, and basement furniture is destroyed, carpet in the basement and bedroom, kitchen floor and the latest casualty, my marble floor in our master bathroom. And that doesn't even begin to cover all the stuff in the basement that got wet.

The first night I felt disbelief at the amount of devastation. The second day I felt extremely grateful. We were all safe, the house hadn't burned to the ground and it was only stuff. By day three, I was feeling numb as more and more things were determined to be destroyed. Day four, I just wanted to cry and after the second flooding, I just feel numb.

I never will look at floods the same way again. It's amazing the amount of damage water can done and ours was clean water so at least I don't have to worry about some of the nasty bugs that could be lurking around.

I know the meaning of true friendship though as good friends have opened their house to us to live in as long as we need and the long list of friends who have offered their assistance with whatever we need. I truly don't know what we would do without our friends who are more like family to us. They are the ones who step in time and again when we need their help.

I know their is a silver lining, a good side to every bad thing that happens but at the moment I am having a hard time seeing this.