2007 - Year in Review - September

September 11. A sad day for our nation. A happy day in our home. My girl was born on September 11, 2003. What a special day.

A had a pretty big b-day party when she was one. You know the kind. You invite pretty much everybody you know and the b-day baby doesn't really have a clue. Then for b-day number 2, we had another big party. (A initially had surgery scheduled in October, 2005, so I felt like she needed a big ol' blowout. That surgery was cancelled, by the way.)

Well #3 rolls around, and A decides she doesn't want a party. At all. Doesn't even want Grandmommy and Granddaddy to come over. Only wants to go to Chuck E Cheese. Doesn't want anyone to tell her Happy Birthday, and God-forbid if we sing her a song. So that's what we do.

2007 is #4. I'm hoping we'll get some kind of party out of her. Something. She does finally agree to having G'mommy, G'daddy and Cousin Sami come over. She goes with me to W*l-mart to pick out her cake. I just knew it would have a princess or Dora on it.

Nope. She picks out a little doggy cake. I mean really little. Like, it was made out of 2 cupcakes and icing. Very, very, very cute. But not quite large enough to feed a party of 10.

But it was her day, so her choice. (I did grab another pre-made cake for those of us less fortunate ones who can't eat the doggy cake.)

I bring home the doggy cake, and the first thing G says is:

G - What's that?

me - A's birthday cake.

G - Birthday cake? That's not a birthday cake. That's a cake topper.

So, so funny. I love that boy. He's so quick-witted. And it was. A cake topper.

Oh, and the other thing that the Queen of the house insisted upon was that she didn't want to turn 4. She wanted to remain 3. So we compromised, and decided that she could be 3+1. Duh, but it worked. And she remained 3+1 for many months until apparently 4 was acceptable to her. That girl. She's really not spoiled. She just has my heart wrapped around her curvy little spine.

2007 - Year in Review - August

August. My birthday month. Usually it's fine. Not in 2007. The big 4-0. I wasn't ready to be 40. At all. So I told my husband that he needed to take the day off because we were going out of town.

We went to Charlotte to Discovery Place for the day. I wasn't thrilled about all of the phone calls and such that comes with a birthday, so this was a great day for a road trip.

Discovery Place is pretty cool and the kids enjoy it. We go every year or so. They don't change the exhibits enough for me, but it's like any other children's/science museum that has their permanent exhibits and travelling ones.

The trip served it's purpose and the day was enjoyable. Despite entering a new decade of life.

2007 - Year in Review - July cont.

What would July be if it didn't involve water. We got to spend one afternoon at a friend's home who lives on a small lake. They have lots of water toys, including a jet ski built for 3 and a kayak. As has been the custom, we were invited by our pastor to go over there, even though it's not his house. He was taking two of his grandkids and thought our gang would enjoy going as well.

Lots and lots of fun on the jet ski and big tube that you can drag behind it. My lone goal was to try and sling my husband off the tube, but I was never able to make a quick enough turn to get it to happen. I can't wait until we can go again this summer. (Insert evil giggle here!)

We also took a beach trip in July. We are not normally "middle of the summer" beach travellers, but we were invited by some friends who have a house at North Myrtle. It was a great trip. Lots of kids and lots of laughs.

(A wasn't thrilled about getting her pic taken in the sand. Can you tell?)

2007 - Year in Review - July cont.

July also gave us a treat that we had not partaken of before. COW APPRECIATION DAY at Chick-Fil-A. If you dress up as a cow and go to Chick-Fil-A, you could get a free combo meal. I love to feed my people free.

Since we don't do Halloween, this was another opportunity to let the kids dress up. Since I am extremely cheap, I thought I'd dress up as well. My husband was working late, so we decided to go for dinner. Some white shirts, black felt spots and paper cow masks were our costumes. All 5 of us. Our local CFA was having a kids festival of sorts, added to that fact, it was Friday night, and the place was slammed. I mean tons of people. And not a single one of them looked like a cow.

No one looked like a cow, except for us. The absolutely crazy homeschool family who likes free food. Of course, the kids think it's great and we all go up to the counter and moo for our food. I'm thinking it's not too bad, because even though it's only about 10 minutes from our house, it's the opposite direction (and one county over) from church, so surely we won't see anyone.

No one but our NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS. They saw me dressed as a cow. Lovely.

And if we are in town for the next Cow Appreciation Day, you can bet we are going to get out our cow shirts and head back to CFA for some free food.

2007 - Year in Review - July

July is hot in NC. Very, very hot. I've lived here my whole life so I've become accustomed to it. But it is still hot.

We sold a house in July. The house I grew up in and lived in for the first 22 years of my life. The house where I brought all of my babies home from the hospital. The house that held lots of memories, good and bad.

When my husband and I got married, we moved to Charlotte. He worked for a summer camp, so after our honeymoon, we moved to camp, and lived in a cabin with two other people. Lots of stories there. Short version - camp life is hard for newlyweds. Shortly before the camp season was to end, my mother died. Lots and lots of stories there, too. Short version, my dad remarried later, and the house I grew up in was now vacant.

Fastforward to February, 1995. We decide to move back home. And we moved into my old home. With all of its stuff that my dad left behind. Lots and lots of stuff. We worked and worked and worked and worked. Remodeling. Cleaning out junk. Ripping out cabinets, and walls and floors and ............. Everything. But it was still home. Full of memories. Some good and some bad.

In February, 1996 we brought home our first-born, right in the middle of remodeling the kitchen. Stove was on cinder blocks and you could see the basement through the kitchen floor. I can't believe I brought a baby into that.

3 babies and 2 churches later, my husband accepts a position at a church in the next county. It's really too far of a drive, so we decide to rent the house and make a move. Our renters are great and the house stayed rented from October, 2004 until May, 2007. When the renters moved out, we decide to try our luck at selling the house. Our plan was to keep it for a college fund, but with the change in the neighborhood, we felt like we may be able to get a decent amount for the house at that time.

We worked like dogs during June and listed the house on July 4th. We had an offer on it two days later. It closed in August. Praise the Lord. We got to pay off our van, have some $$ in savings and I could take my girl to see Cinderella's house. (We knew at this point that A would have surgery in November, so we wanted to go to Disney before that time.)

It was tough getting to the point where I could emotionally sell the house. My father died of lung cancer in June, 2001, so the house was really symbolic of my heritage, for lack of a better understanding. I was ready though and we were thankful for God's timing.

2007 - Year in Review - June

June. The start of summer. For us, it was a busy, busy month. It began with Preschool Day Camp. Cluelessly, I volunteered to "teach" the school-aged kids, the kids of the workers of our Preschool Day Camp. Clueless, because the week following Preschool Summer Day Camp, our family would be going on our first Family Mission Trip.

The team from our church consisted of families of all shapes and sizes. We had couples go. We had families with both parents and all their children go. We had moms go with one or two of their children. We had grandparents go with their grandchildren. Everyone just wanted to go.

We went to Cleveland, Ohio to work with a new church plant. Our team was to do an Upward basketball and cheerleading camp. The location for the camp was at an inner-city elementary school in the heart of Cleveland. I'm talking inner, inner-city. The majority of camp time was spent on the blacktop parking lot of a school. And I'm here to tell you, that God showed up on that blacktop.

It was such an awesome experience, and I can still see the faces of those little boys that I got to hang out with that week. One of my favorite memories was looking at my little 3 yr. old daughter, with gray dirt all over her face, sitting in a group of kids, most whom did not have her skin color. And she was sitting there singing praise songs to Jesus. In an inner-city elementary school that we weren't even sure would be available for us to use.

There wasn't much time for sightseeing, but we were able to go to Lake Erie one day and witness a beautiful sunset.

Lots of fun times in Cleveland, Ohio that week. Like most mission trips, it was draining, exhausting, fulfilling and memorable, all at the same time.

2007 - Year in Review - May

May got us outdoors and we went to a new local park that has great hiking trails. We sort of went into this trail blind, not really knowing how long it was. There were numbered signs that we followed to make sure that we did not lose our way. (I'm not much of a snake person, so my biggest fear was that there would be little, or big, slithery creatures along our path. Thankfully no anaconda sightings on this visit.) You could tell that the trails were new, but everything was marked well enough that we made it out alive. I would not recommend going on a trail unless you know how long it is. (I will add a footnote here that I was alone with the kids, not with my Eagle Scout husband.)