Happy Valentine's Day

Yesterday the kids went to a Valentine's Day party with some friends from school and Baby Nae and I hung out with Morning.  In the evening I took AJ on a date while DH took the two middle girls shopping for birthday presents for AJ. AJ,  Nae and I found just what we're we're looking for--some black shoes for AJ that would "go with everything. "

Today we celebrate AJ's 13th birthday with a casual roller skating outing with a few of her friends. 13! I can hardly believe she's a teenager already. She is turning into a delightful,  level-headed,  confident , kind and compassionate young lady. It's amazing to me how much she has grown up,  matured and levelled out these last few years. She's truly a wonderful young person. I'll see if I can get a good bloggy picture of her to post soon.

Wordless Wednesday: Bubbles

Wordless Wednesday: Baby Nae at 7 weeks

She's Here!

Baby N (whom I think I'll call Baby Nae for blog purposes) was born at 5:31am on December 9, 2013. She was my smallest and tallest baby at 6 lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long. The delivery went very well and she is a beautiful,  healthy,  happy baby.

She's incredibly alert and interactive for a newborn,  and was holding up her head and turning to look toward voices by the time she was a day old. Everyone here is totally in love with her,  and I'm lucky if I get to hold her much when she's not nursing.

I haven't been able to get out of bed and on my feet much yet,  but DH and the older kids are taking good care of me and Baby Nae. I'm thankful to be able to just rest and know that everything is pretty much under control. :)

I'll try to write out her birth story soon, but for now, here's a photo I took in the hospital when she was first born.

Wordless Wednesday 23 Sept 2009: Ebee on Flouride

Wordless Wednesday 20 May 2009: Giant Guinea Pig (a.k.a. Patagonian Cavy)--and this is a young/small one!

Wordless Wednesday 29 April 2009: Hoppiness

Wordless Wednesday 04 Feb 2009--Weddingness

(If you know me IRL, the photos that show our faces clearly are up on my Facebook album.)

Harvest Days

Thanksgiving is coming up, and it's a big holiday around here--it's when my side of the family does a big holiday gathering complete with gifts.

This week the kids and I got out the bin of Thanksgiving decorations out, and decided to have a little fun:



Happy Thanksgiving and Fall, Y'all!

More Beach Photos

I couldn't resist posting a few more photos from this weekend. I love beach photos.



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Wordless Wednesday 29 Oct 08: Driftwood Adventure

J's Birthday Party, by AJ

AJ has been doing a unit this week on the writing process. She started with brainstorming ideas and writing a word web. Then she picked a few of her favorite details to include in the story, and numbered them in the order they belonged.

After that we wrote a first draft, revised it, copied the new draft (including some more descriptive words she chose from the thesaurus), proofread it (including looking up words in the dictionary to check spelling), and re-read it again to catch any errors that were missed the first few times.

Then it was time to "publish" her story. I decided to allow her to start her own blog, with careful rules and supervision. If you want her blog address, drop me a note via e-mail. I'm not going to share it online.

Here's AJ's story about her cousin J's birthday party the weekend before last:

One Sunday we went to our cousin J's birthday party in B------. It was fun. While we drove there, we counted cars.

When we got there we ate. The food was delicious. The games were fun. We didn't play the sock race game, but I played the balloon race.

On the trip home it was dim outside and shadowy inside. We were glad to go to bed when we got home. The day was enjoyable.

Here are some photos I took this weekend at Adventurous BIL's and Artistic SIL's property in B-----. It's incredibly beautiful out there.



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Impromptu Trip

We took a wrong turn Satuday night and ended up at the coast, so we decided to make an adventure of it. We spent a night and day at the coast, then came halfway home and stayed at Adventurous BIL and Artistic SIL's house the second night. After an afternoon exploring and playing on their acreage, we finally came home just in time to cook dinner Monday night.

It was a great adventure that the kids and I will remember for a long time.



It's a good reminder that God can take even a wrong turn and make it into a beautiful thing.

Wordless Wednesday 15 Oct 08: "He is happy who has a wonderful dog."--AJ

Mira's Pack

Here are the promised photos of Mira in her service-dog-in-training pack:










The lettering says, "SERVICE DOG in training DO NOT DISTRACT". Having such large, legible lettering helps a lot to make most people not just walk up and pet her while she's working.

Tooth!

Our new camera came today--hooray! I love it. The resolution is much higher and it takes better pictures than the one we lost.

I am finally feeling a little better. It may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I've gone back off of gluten and most sugars. I'm back to where I'm willing to try just about anything if it will help, LOL.



M&M's tooth came out today. She was beyond excited, and AJ was so sweetly enthusiastic with and happy for her. Ebee wanted me to check her mouth to see if she had a loose tooth yet, but no such luck (thankfully).

DH commented, "Now I understand why someone invented the tooth fairy! They needed a way to convince kids not to carry their teeth around for weeks showing them to everyone after they fall out."

Mystery Photo

I found this old photo stuck in the pages of a children's Bible I purchased second-hand. Isn't it interesting? I wish I knew the story behind it and who the people in it are.

Any guesses? I'm guessing the photo was taken in India, in commemoration of the little girl's first communion.

Doggy Smiles

She was so much more relaxed and playful today. And she smiled!



The girls are loving her, and DH likes her a lot too. All three of the girls keep saying things like, "She's the best dog I've ever seen in my life. She's the best dog in the whole world. I love her. I'm so glad she's ours. Isn't she just the greatest dog ever?"



I agree.