Celebrate Six!

J’s birthday is not until later this week, but this year we had a party early.  On top of an already busy week, I was worried about having everything ready for her party Saturday, but it happened, and the party seemed like it was a success :)

She wanted a zebra cake.  I was laughing about it to my sister a couple of weeks ago because it just dawned on me that she never really has had a “cute” cake. 

Year one I must of expected 2,000 people because I ordered a Little People Farm Cake with “Happy Birthday Jaiden” on one side and “Happy Birthday Rhett” on the other.  I think I was afraid Rhett would feel left out…never mind that he was only 1.  I also didn’t think about possibly wanting any pictures of her first birthday cake with just her name on it.  Luckily it was so stinkin’ huge that I could still manage. 

Birthday 2 was decent.  It was a lion face to go with our circus theme that year.  Maybe I’m just holding it against the cake because the weather sort of rained on my parade.  Literally.  At least it didn’t pour at the party--only the three days before.  One corner of my front yard was trying to hold water but the bounce house was rented, so the weather would clear up and it would work just like I had planned.  Kind of like the time I convinced Mario to keep heading toward Gulf Shores because I was going to “pray the hurricane away and have a nice family vacation like I had planned.”  I digress.  So the rain stopped, but the temperature DROPPED.  And the wind?? WHEWW!  We jumped in the bounce house and took pony rides on borrowed “Spanky” in ten minute spans.  Many watched from inside the house.  Note to self: No more outside parties in March.

Year 3 was another lousy cake.  I honestly can’t remember if I ordered it through the party place or ordered it and brought it myself.  I’d like to blame it on the place where we had the party, but I’m afraid it might have been me.  It has horses on it, which was thoughtful, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. 

You’d think by year 4, I might have caught on.  I can’t even remember what it looked like right now, and I’m too tired to try to look up the picture.  If memory serves me correctly, it was definitely provided by the party place, and I can still taste the freezer burn.

Year 5 would have to take the prize prior to this year…it wasn’t just unbelievable, but we did make improvement.  And I don’t know why I got off on a 15 minute discussion about cakes.  Jaiden, honey, just know that my lack of planning over the first five years is no reflection of how VERY VERY much I love you!  My mom made most of my birthday cakes and they taste the best anyway!  And don’t even get me started on the Red Velvet she always makes for Aunt Jamie!  Yuuummm.

Where was I??  I was telling my sister that this year I vowed to have cool cake.  So I rolled up my sleeves and got a good early start, and I made this:

  

KIDDING of course.  I ordered it from a super talented lady, but I loved how it turned out!  I made J a little shirt to wear with iron on letters form Hobby Lobby and a cut out “6” from zebra felt.

Here she is, as sweet as the day I first laid eyes on her…

Thanks to my sister for taking some pictures for me.  I didn’t have enough hands.  I was too busy serving ice cream with a butter knife.

Lex wanted to wear her pretty dress for Jaiden to see :)

Mario’s cousins Jermaine and Brandy and Mario’s god-daughter Marlee… 

  

Adi, Rhett & Chloe…

Ryann and Mary Kate…

Jadien with her cousin…

After the party we picked these jonquils and I took these of J:  I edited them to make them a little brighter but you can see the originals next to them.  There aren’t words to describe how special this girl is.  We love you, sis!

Happy Early Birthday!

Dear Self...

March 9th, 2010

Dear Self,

I am writing you this letter as a reminder. IF ever the day comes that you feel that you’ve got it “together,” don’t take yourself too seriously. Humble yourself and remember that it was not always that easy.

Today you woke up to find your left eye messed up. Again. This has gone on for three weeks now.

Today, you wore your dress completely backward to work. While you thought it felt unusually uncomfortable, it still took you until almost noon to figure out what the problem was.

Today you chipped a chunk out of your front tooth while scarfing down lunch. Add trip to dentist to the one million things that need to be done this week.

Today you realized that regardless of how hard you try, you really are so helpless. You admitted that these days, things are just tougher than they used to be. And as blessed as your life is, you actually wasted the rest of your day feeling sorry for yourself.

These days you meet yourself coming and going. You go to bed exhausted and wake up exhausted. These are the days that you are trying to recover from a broken nose, pleurisy and whatever is going on with your eye during the same month.

These are the days of packing lunches, and scrambling to get the kids out the door and a dog in the crate. These are the days that you cry all the way back from a listing appointment because in your state of frenzy you forgot to drop off your daughter’s lunch.

These are the days of dropping everything to rush a toddler in with a double ear infection….of waiting in the car line for the medicine for what seems like hours while the kids cry, fight, and destroy your car right behind your seat.

These are the days that no matter how hard you work to get the house clean, the tornado comes shortly after…the days that the only time to do laundry and housework is after you get home, feed, bathe and tuck everyone in. These are the days that when you kiss and tuck in, you sometimes fall asleep…waking up at midnight to the work you needed to do and lay back down at 3. These are the days that you lie in bed for another hour before sleeping because you are planning the order of events in your head for tomorrow to make sure you can get everything done.

These are the days of wondering if you are even on the right path and praying desperately for God's direction.

These are the days that you wonder if your parenting skills are adequate for equipping your kids to be a light in a dark world and you pray for the Lord’s return. These are the days that you go to ballgames and watch the teenagers and wonder, what will it be like by the time my kids are in high school?

These are the days that I spend hours brainstorming with my husband…the days of dragging the kids with us to his office on Saturdays to clean and work in the office…the days of feeling guilty when we sneak off from the kids for a date every now and then.

These are the days that I feel so blessed, yet so broken down.

Thank you Lord for these days.

Because these are the days that my children are little and laughing…the days that they reach milestones like losing a front tooth and learning to read...the days that they need me for everything, the days that they light up when their parents walk through the door at the end of the day.

These are the days that they cuddle up to me, and fight over who lays next to me before asking me to “just get in the middle.” These are the days that they play too rough until someone gets hurt, tattle, then hug and make up.

These are the days of watching them discover new things…of making them eat their vegetables, and of teaching them bible stories. These are the days that I can give them baths and smell them all night…the days that I can plan their birthday parties and still pick out what they wear.

These are the days that I catch myself staring at them and just savoring the moment…the days that I look at pictures from last year and cry because of how quickly they grow and change. These are the days that I laugh out loud and write down the funny and sweet things they say.

These are the days that I don’t have to struggle alone…thank you Lord for Mario.

These are the days that I always dreamed of…of being a wife and mother. Thank you Lord, for these gifts.

Thankfully Mario talked me into going to Community Group. We are doing a great study on marriage and the book Intimate Allies. We got into a great discussion about not wishing our days away. It seems like so often we are bogged down and we catch ourselves saying, “If I can just get through this day…” or this week or whatever we might say. It was a great reminder that even on our worst days we should be intentional about looking for something positive and not wishing our days away looking to the next one.

There’s a song I hear sometimes that says,
“You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These Are Some Good Times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this”

You may feel helpless today, but the Lord your God fights for you and surrounds you with songs of deliverance!

Sincerely,
Self

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me. Psalm 13:5-6

Minus One

Who else is in love with this great weather?  The kids have had so much fun the last few days enjoying the horses and the time outside. 

Jeryn sure looks up to his daddy.  It’s really neat to watch them together.  He talks nonstop and says stuff like, “let’s catch a horse” and “I rope calves like my daddy.”  Last week he wanted me to team rope with him on their steer dummy before Mario got home.  When I jerked the loop off of one horn and missed, he told me, “Just rope both horns mama.”  He then asked me to sing the song “Cowboy Cool” AS he roped.  Hilarious. 

His favorite story these days is about Mo as a little girl getting chased by a wild dog “with wild rabies in it”…true story.  It’s funny that he says “rabies in it” though…I always just tell it as the “wild dog with rabies.”  At any rate, he can retell it now.  All the way down to standing by the plum thicket and it jumping up on the side of the truck and slobbering on the window as she and her mom raced back to the house.   

We picnics on Friday and Saturday.  Here is Jaiden showing how loose her front tooth is:

 

Sunday after church, the kids wanted to ride again.  They have been watching the two Black Stallion movies and so they wanted to pretend to have a desert race.  Jaiden insisted on riding bareback like the boy in the movie.

Later in the afternoon, we headed to the house of some of our friends from church.  They have ten baby chicks and two rabbits.  They were also getting a new horse.  The mare was being delivered that day, and we were excited to see her.  She is going to have a foal soon!

The kids jumped on the trampoline and played outside ALL afternoon.  They were so tired and dirty but they had a blast!

 

Here’s Josiah with his kiddos looking over their new horse!

She is so sweet and seems great around kids!  Their oldest daughter loves animals and she was eating up every minute with the horses.  We took two horses to their house and everyone took turns riding.

   

 

Josiah and Ann Marie grilled burgers for us, and hot dogs for the kiddos.  Jeryn would not quit tackling their smallest dog.  After dinner the kids ran out to play in the hay :)

They ended up on the trampoline looking at stars:

A little later in the night, Jaiden was climbing over a gate and yelled, “I just lost my tooth!”  Josiah brought a flashlight out and we looked all over for it but couldn’t find it :(  The tooth fairy must have found it late last night because their was $5 under her pillow this morning?? ;)

We pretty much wore out our welcome the first time we had ever been to their house, and then when we did try to leave, Mario’s truck wouldn’t start! It took about another hour before we had it running and the horses loaded.  When we got home, I washed and washed all of the hay out of their hair and took a few more pictures of her missing tooth:

I let her have a soft ice cream sandwich.  She couldn’t wait to show her teacher today :)

Before school, one tooth less than she had yesterday:

 

Forgive Them Anyway

People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It never was between you and them anyway.

- Mother Teresa

Dashing through the snow…

In a one horse open sleigh redneck open sleigh, O’er the hills we go…

Barking all the way…Esther just couldn’t wrap her brain around what was going on.

The kids were having a BLAST!  I even took a ride—I did get some video of all the madness.  (i.e. the horses running on the other side of the fence, the dog barking, the kids squealing and laughing, myself screaming to “be careful”) 

At one point I heard Mario ask, “Wanna go out in the field and find some hills so we can get some air?!!”

They (the kids) thought that sounded like a great idea, but since they were getting enough “air” in our yard to keep my blood pressure up, I talked them out of it.

Esther—If you can’t beat ‘em…join em’:

She finally decided to forget jumping up at horses and barking at them to stop…so she ran a hundred laps around the house instead.

 

After sledding we went in and warmed up.  In the afternoon we came back out and built a snowman and snowwoman.

             

We had fun in the snow, now I’m ready for springtime, flowers, warm weather and sunshine.