Birthday Palooza

Okay, so maybe my birthday celebration did not exactly meet the definition of a "palooza," but I'm running out of snazzy titles.  What do you expect from a CPA turned full-time mom?

I celebrated my birthday with almost all of my favorite people.  Someone has to work to fund my extravagant outings!  My parents treated me and the girls to lunch at Journey's End in Loganville.  This is definitely one of my favorite places to eat because I absolutely love good 'ol country cookin' for a reasonable price that includes all the sweet tea you can drink, all the fried chicken and greasy veggies you can eat AND all the dessert you need and can eat to pad a little extra to those thighs!  I can taste the peach cobbler and ice cream now!  Yummy!

My parents will drive for miles if they find a restaurant they love.  They are notorious for this!  As a child, we would often drive across town from Gwinnett County to Cobb County simply to eat at Spaghetti Warehouse off of Powers Ferry Road.  Unfortunately, Spaghetti Warehouse closed a few years ago.  So, since I had to drive to Duluth to pick my parents up and then to Loganville to eat, they even gave me extra birthday money for "gasoline."

At first I sensed that my birthday luncheon was going to be a disaster as my sweet Sophia tossed her paci aside, and it was nowhere to be found!  We were creeping up on naptime when we left my parents' house around 12:45 p.m., and the restaurant is 45 minutes from their house.  When I realized the paci was missing just as we exited the neighborhood entrance, I decided to turn around to go back to their house and look for the paci.  We left their house the second time at 1:15 p.m. with no paci in hand!  And these particular pacis cannot be purchased everywhere!  After listening to the whining, "I want my paci" one too many times, I pulled over and searched the floor of the backseat again.  I found it attached to the floor of the car by an old piece of gum.  Hmmm...I wonder who dropped that piece of gum?  I promptly gave Sophia her paci and moved on to our destination.  Yuck, I know!  But what's a few germs between sisters?  And our crisis was diverted!

We arrived at the restaurant at 2:00 p.m., and we dined for 2 hours!  Yes, 2 hours!  It usually takes us that long to serve ourselves, potty several times after several cups of lemonade (Annabelle) or sweet tea (Mommy) and treat ourselves to several helpings of dessert.  You have to get your money's worth at an all-you-can-eat buffet!  It dawned on me when we got back into the car how great my children really were to dine for 2 hours.  This is not typical!  It has something to do with the atmosphere and the withholding of dessert until Mommy was also ready for dessert.  Of course, Annabelle also brought along her handmade cards and presents that we had to open in the restaurant as this has become a Journey's End birthday tradition for her.  I am surprised she hasn't asked yet to eat at Journey's End on her birthday!  And, her dolls, Adie and Big Girl (aka Charlotte just recently) ALWAYS have to attend the birthday celebrations at Journey's End! 

Of course we spent 30 minutes taking pictures on the restaurant's porch.  And then Annabelle spotted a bench in the distance for another great picture taking opportunity.  She wanted to take her own family picture with her daughters.  I absolutely love this next picture of my parents with the girls.  They all just look so genuine in this picture!  It is truly one of my favorites of all of them.  Sophia being the silly girl she is insisted on putting her finger in her mouth to smile for these pictures. 

And here is the young mommy herself.  Annabelle pictured with her two daughters, Adie and Charlotte.  Are the pigtails just not precious?  They remind me so much of that 2 and 3 year old I used to know.  The one who grew up to be a beautiful but very sassy 5 year old!

We headed back to my parent's house after a late lunch.  I played inside with Annabelle while Sophia got a short nap in the car with my mom on standby with her.  Before we left, I asked Annabelle to take a picture of me with my parents.  Of course she also wanted to take a picture of me with my grand babies.  She took this next picture (though I edited it quite a bit).  Too bad I don't know how to remove wrinkles and fat rolls in Photoshop!  But here I am with my grand babies!  Apparently I know nothing about holding infants' heads as I was instructed on how to hold Adie's head properly.  I think she was afraid that it might fall off (and rightfully so)!

And we finally drove home around 6:15 p.m. to meet hubby for the evening.  And he surprised me with this!

A Pandora charm bracelet!!!  With two "birthday" charms...each with the girls' birthstones!!! 

He is so sneaky!  After meeting with a good college friend this weekend and admiring her beautiful Pandora charm bracelet, I went home and told hubby first thing Sunday morning on our 12th wedding anniversary that I knew what he could buy me for our anniversary.  He hasn't bought me jewelry in years because I just don't wear it!  He used to buy it, but like I said, I just didn't wear it.  I'm not a big jewelry girl.  I wear my wedding rings every single day, and I feel naked without them, but that is all I ever wear.  But I fell in love with the Pandora charm bracelet as soon as I saw it!

Being the sneaky and very thoughtful husband he is, he contacted my friend who works at a jewelry store on Monday, ordered the bracelet from her on Wednesday, and my sweet friend delivered it priority mail so that it actually arrived on Friday!  Thank you hubby!  You are the best!!!  And thank you sweet friend too!

The girls then treated me to a special hair up-do for my birthday.  They brushed, "dried," "flat-ironed," and styled my hair while I relaxed in the recliner.  Here is a picture of me, my up-do and my beautiful hair stylists!

And no birthday is complete without birthday wishes from my sweet family and friends!  I especially love the sweet young voices singing me birthday blessings.  My sweet friend Kelley's little girl, Adie (age 4), sang happy birthday to me on my voice mail.  As I listened to it, I realized that one day I will not have sweet young voices singing happy birthday to me.  That makes me a bit sad!  It made me think that it would be really neat to take our girls to nursing homes to sing happy birthday to some of the residents on their birthdays just to make them smile!

And, of course, my sweet girls serenaded me at the restaurant!  I love those precious voices!

Thank you all for a wonderful thirty something birthday!!!  I love you all, and I am truly blessed to have such wonderful family and friends!

Swim Lessons

Annabelle started swim lessons this week through our county's parks and recreation system.  The lessons are supposed to be three days per week for three consecutive weeks.  Unfortunately, we will have to miss next week as I have signed Annabelle up for a music camp through our church.  But she has already made great progress considering the girl could not stand to get her face wet in the shower.

I had originally signed her up for the Level I class, but after she attended that class on Monday and I talked to another mom in the class with a young girl just a little bit older than Annabelle, we both decided to move our girls into the Preschool class.  I am so glad I made that decision!  She was dunking her entire head underwater by the second day and blowing bubbles!  And the Level I class almost doubled by the second day!  On the first day there were 7 children to the one instructor, but by Thursday (the last day) there were 10 children in the class.  There would have been 12 if our two girls hadn't moved down to the Preschool class.  I would not have been too thrilled that there was only 1 instructor to 12 children!  When I signed up for this class, I was told that there would be an instructor for every 5 children.  Obviously, you pay for what you get!  I think next year I will sign her up for private lessons.  But this has already served its purpose for this year since she is not scared to dunk her entire head underwater.

Here she is practicing her kicking with her face planted in the water blowing bubbles.

Annabelle working on her floating technique.

Annabelle blowing more bubbles again!

I am so proud of my big girl!  She has already learned more about swimming than her own mommy!  She is so eager to teach me how to blow bubbles underwater.  And she has made a new friend, Sienna, during this journey as well!

Kindergarten Favorites

We are only a few weeks into our Kindergarten curriculum with Heart of Dakota, but I asked Annabelle this evening what she enjoys most.  She actually surprised me with her first choice as I didn't think she was a huge fan of history at first!  These are her selections in order from her most favorite to her least favorite.

1.  History (because she gets to read the Bible)
2.  Reddy Fox (aka Storytime)
3.  Devotionals, particularly Little Visits with God ("because it is like reading the Bible.")
4.  The Reading Lesson
5.  Math
6.  Handwriting

She studies science too, but I think she is lumping that in with the history lesson.  Annabelle loves reading her Bible.  She would read her Bible all day long if I didn't encourage her to read other books for pleasure.  Her love for the Bible began with The Beginner's Bible.  We bought her that first Bible for Easter 2011.  I personally think the characters are a little funny looking, but it is definitely one of her favorites!  Fortunately, the Easter Bunny brought her The Jesus Storybook Bible for Easter this year.  And that is also a new favorite for her!

P.R.A.Y.

This mommy blogger of six beautiful children at Our Family for His Glory is changing my life and my children's lives more than I have the words to even describe it.  She introduced me to this wonderful prayer acronym to help me and my children pray just as Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord's Prayer.

Even little Sophia is somewhat getting it though when prompted "Please forgive me for...", she usually responds with "Mommy and Daddy and Ambelle [Annabelle]."  Perhaps she is actually asking forgiveness for our sins for us!

This evening when prompted "Thank you for...", Sophia responded with "Mommy, Daddy, Annabelle."  And then there was a long pause, so I ended it for her with "Amen."  This was the conversation that followed.

Sophia:  We forgot someting!

Mommy:  Oh, okay.  What did we forget?

Sophia:  Adam

Mommy:  Adam?

Sophia:  and Eve!

Daddy:  Who is Eve?  [Daddy was being silly with her!]

Sophia:  [insert giggle]  Daddy!  You know!  At da Bible!


That silly goose was thanking God for Adam and Eve!  I think she loves reading the Bible as much as her big sister!

LHFHG - Unit 2

Today we studied Adam and Eve, sin and their exit from the Garden of Eden.  We discussed that Adam and Eve were separated from God because of their sin.  And that we too can separate ourselves from God if we continue to sin and do not repent and work hard to change our sinful ways.

For our "Thinking Game" today, we masked off a box on the floor to represent our Garden of Eden.  Annabelle helped mask off our Garden of Eden, and it was a great lesson on measurement.  We started to use the yellow markings on the floor to determine the length of our rectangle, but then Annabelle decided she wanted her Garden of Eden to be square.  So we pulled out the ruler to properly design our Garden of Eden.

Annabelle pet her "lion" in the garden.  I wish I could take credit for her grabbing Shadow as a prop, but this was all the imagination of a 5 year old!

And she rocked her favorite (very, very well loved) baby doll, Adie, in the Garden of Eden.

I loved how she chose to rock Adie in the Garden of Eden.  This direction was not included in the guide.  Annabelle thought this one up on her own.  Though she doesn't understand it, I just pictured that one day those mothers who have lost children before birth or even those who have lost babies will once again rock their babies in heaven.  Those babies that they may have never held here on earth.  I also loved how she connected rocking a baby as a happy thing.  Do you see the joy in her eyes?

Though I don't have pictures of some of the activities outside of the Garden of Eden, she did also work hard digging outside of the garden, walked sadly around the edge of the garden and cried outside of the garden.  She learned that life outside of the garden is definitely hard at times, but that one day if we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we will live happily ever after in heaven with God and Jesus.

Vacation Bible School (2012)

This is Annabelle's second year doing Vacation Bible School (and my second year working as well).  It is Sophia's first, though Vacation Bible School for her is strictly play.  She is in the younger of the two nurseries based on her age, so she has not had the opportunity to enjoy the festivities.  Though I have brought home some crafts for her to do because she generally wants to do everything that her big sister is doing.

I am a co-lead on the Crafts Team this year.  Our church is using Cokesbury's Operation Overboard theme this year.  We have approximately 300 kids!  I never dreamed the amount of hours that goes into planning and preparation before the event.  It has been fun, but I'm not sure I will work VBS again next year.  I think I would really enjoy spending that time with just Sophia since she rarely ever gets any Mommy and Sophia time (without Annabelle that is).

Here is a picture of Annabelle on her first day of VBS wearing her Noah's Ark necklace that she made.  Her favorite activity for Monday was snack with music being a close second!  The snack on Monday was large pretzel sticks dipped into icing to fish for graham cracker goldfish.

I need to get a picture of Sophia in her VBS shirt as well.  It is way too big on her, but she refused to take it off after I put her in it, so she has worn it every day since.  As I marched her to the nursery this morning, she said, "I don't like dat."  She hasn't cried all week, but when I picked her up this afternoon, the lady in nursery said she hadn't cried all day until about 10 minutes before I arrived.  They weren't sure if some older boys who had entered the nursery had scared her or if she was just tired.  I am sure it was probably a little bit of both as she kept talking about, "Dat boy scared me!"  And she hasn't napped well all week or fallen asleep at a decent time in the evenings either.  Even though we would lay her down by 8:30 p.m., she was still up talking until 9:40 p.m. or so on some nights.  And it seems she is now coming down with a cold.

It is weeks like these that I am so thankful my girls have been home with me all along.  I just find that too much stimulation during the day during these younger years is too much for my kiddos!  Though it has actually not tired Annabelle out this year.  She is getting slower and slower each morning, but she still moves full speed ahead in the afternoons and evenings.  We've even managed to work in a few "boxes" with school.  Though we are certainly not moving full-speed or even half-speed ahead on school this week!

LHFHG Unit 1 - Continued

I'm posting this entry almost two months later!  It is amazing how much I forget if I don't post something immediately.  And I even had plenty of pictures to help jog my memory!

Annabelle, you are a handful my dear!  It was after today's lesson, Unit 1 - Day 4, that I posted an entry on the Heart of Dakota forum titled "Dawdling Child Drags out Lessons" to seek advice from more experienced homeschooling moms. 

For today's lesson, we pulled out a blue and brown piece of construction paper.  You wrote the number five on the blue piece of paper and the number six on the brown piece of paper.  I called out names of land animals and water animals and you were instructed to hop, crawl, creep, swim, etc. across the blue paper for water animals and the brown paper for land animals.  The numbers written on the papers represented the fifth (blue for the fish and birds) and sixth (brown for the land animals) days of God's creation.

Being the dawdling and creative child that you are, you promptly left the room when I called out "flamingo."  And you came back dressed appropriately as a flamingo!  It is no wonder it takes us 45 minutes to get through a typical 15 minute lesson on many days!