Twenty-Five

February 24th – last Friday – was my birthday. My twenty-fifth birthday. Why does that sound so old to me? It shouldn’t. I mean, I have three kids already.

Three kids and I just turned 25? How in the world did that happen? Anyway…

I had a really good day. It was a Friday, so the girls had school. My mom offered to take them for me so I could have a relaxing morning.

Well, semi-relaxing. It’s hard to have a fully relaxing morning with a 6-week old. But it was good.

Then Joe picked Camryn up for me. That afternoon Camryn and Jace and I went to Summer’s school to help with her snack sale/fundraiser.

Then we went home for a bit. Joe surprised me by getting off work pretty early, and then the five of us went to my parents house. My mom had asked me what I wanted for dinner.

Why, steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, sauteed mushrooms, and green beans of course! It was delicious. And everyone else had pork chops, which made it even better.

And then there was pie. I requested it instead of cake… it’s a blueberry banana pie with homemade cool whip. I will have to post the recipe, it is amazing.

My aunt Susan never misses my birthday. My cousin Richard doesn’t ever either, except he had a show that night. Have you heard his bands’ new song yet? It’s amazing. Please go listen, I’m so proud of them!

We spent the rest of the evening just hanging out. The girls always love to dress up over there. This was my dress-up dress when I was little. Isn’t it fabulous?

I really never imagined I’d be 25 with three kids, a husband, a dog, a house….. Really, I can’t wrap my mind around it at all. But that is my life, and I’m unbelievably happy. Hopefully this year is just as amazing as the 25 before it!

Excuses, a Birthday, and Some Furry Creatures

I have a very good reason for not blogging. My "g" key on my lap top was stuck. It probably had something to do with Camryn spilling coffee on it last week. When I would try to type anything, I had to hold down the backspace to keep it from doing thisggggggggggggggggg. And if I misspelled anything, I had to delete the whole thing and start over. Trying to type an e-mail or blog entry was maddening, so I gave up. Luckily, yesterday, our friend Kenny took it apart and attempted to fix it, and now the g is behaving itself.

We had a great weekend. Joe's 24th birthday was Saturday! My parents kept the girls at their house overnight on Friday, and Joe, me, and a few friends ate at McCallisters and then saw Transformers. Great movie! Afterward, we got milkshakes at Steak N Shake.

Saturday, Joe got up really early and went fishing with my dad. Once he got back, while Summer and Camryn were still at my parents' house, we had a good lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, and then made a grocery trip. We picked up the girls on our way home and then around 7, Joe's dad, grandma, and my parents came over for cake. Joe wanted an ice cream cake, so we ended up getting a Brownie Batter Blizzard cake from Dairy Queen. Deeeeeeeeelicious.

Sunday I dragged everyone out of the house for a trip to Lowe's. We ended up getting a lot of little things that we needed around the house, plus a pantry, finally!

After the movie on Friday, Audrey said she had to go pick up some kittens her friend had found so she could take them to the shelter the next morning. I don't know if it's because I worked at a pet store and saw and heard stories about animal overpopulation, the difficulty with finding so many animals homes, and the euthanization rate at the local shelters, or if I watch too much Animal Cops, but I said we would keep them at our house until we found them homes. Joe agreed, and she brought them over later that night.

Aren't they adorable?! It was obvious that they were not used to people. They were shaking and the more gray one was hissing at anyone who got near him. I'd estimate that they are 5 weeks old.

Saturday we gave them flea baths (they were COVERED in fleas), and they warmed up to us a bit.



This one is the only girl, we think.


We had to teach them to eat wet food. They are doing pretty good, now.

Birthday Day

Update: Just sent these pictures to my e-mail from my phone. Yesterday morning when I went into the kitchen, I found a present and two cards, one from Joe and one from Summer and Camryn. The cards were really cute and funny, and inside the gift bag was a pink thermos, which I desperately needed, and a pack of Starbucks frappuccino drinks.


Since we're buying a house, Joe wasn't supposed to get me anything. But that little something made my day :-)
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I had a great birthday yesterday. I had talked my parents into getting me glasses for my birthday. At first, when they asked what I wanted, I said a Lowe's gift card. I had visions of using it for house things like paint or carpet. But then I realized that I needed to be able to see to paint, so I decided it would make more sense if they got me glasses, which they agreed to after a bit of begging. I've needed new glasses for quite some time, but that's one of those things as a mom that you keep putting off because you always put yourself last, you know? So it made sense, otherwise I'm not sure I would ever get any. My aunt Susan watched the girls while my mom and I went to the eye doctor and I picked out two frames (they had a buy one get one free sale). I'm pretty happy with them, although one pair needs to be adjusted. Here's the pair that fit:

After we got back from the glasses store, my mom went and got us lunch from Panera Bread. I got some type of chicken sandwich and black bean soup. It was delicious.

Yesterday evening we went to my parents house and my mom cooked one of my favorite meals, pepper steak.

It was extremely delicious, as always. I'm blessed to have parents that have always valued home-cooked meals.

After dinner, we had cake and ice cream. Summer looks a bit worried about that fire...

♥♥♥

I am one lucky woman, to have this great husband and these beautiful little girls, all at the age of 22.

So, that was my birthday. It was pretty perfect.

Happy Birthday, Nanaw!

We had a really nice time at the birthday party yesterday. The food was good and it was nice seeing my family. I think my Nanaw really had a good time.












After the party we went grocery shopping and then home and my brother and my cousin Rachel and her boyfriend Edward came over. We had a good time playing cards and the guys played some Gears of War 2.


We ended up staying up a bit too late though, so I'm feeling really tired.



I'm going to go get some more coffee and put Summer and Camryn down for a nap, they're getting really whiny. I hope you have a nice, relaxing Sunday!

Summer is 2!

Summer's 2nd birthday was August 27th. I cannot believe that my little baby will be in preschool next year. We had cake and ice cream on her actual birthday, and then the Saturday after we had family and friends over for an Elmo party. It went really well. I had even stayed up till 1AM the night before making Elmo cupcakes. They were...interesting. All the pictures of her party are on my parents' camera, but I have a few from her actual birthday.





This morning, as Summer was eating her banana and Camryn was whining for one, I asked Summer if she would share with Camryn and give her a bite. Her reply was, "No, she doesn't want one." Haha! My absolute favorite Summer-ism of the moment is that she calls me "babe". Joe calls me babe a lot and Summer has picked up on that. Yesterday evening, while we were sitting on the sidelines of my brother's soccer game, Summer picked up a leaf and held it out to me. "Hey babe, here you go." The soccer moms couldn't stop laughing.

Camryn is getting so steady on her feet! Just a few days ago she was very wobbly but yesterday she practically ran across the room. She is also getting her top two teeth in. She looks so amazingly different.



A whole box of Cheerios, on the floor. I'm guessing she had some help from another mischief maker who can reach boxes on counters, but I won't name names.

This month has been really interesting. Louisville was basically shut down for almost a week after a windstorm caused by Hurricane Ike blew through. Winds were around 75 mph and knocked down trees and power lines all over the place. Over half of Louisville was without power, including grocery stores and stoplights. It was chaos. They even called in the National Guard. We were completely without power for 2 days and then luckily our neighbor's son-in-law brought him a generator. He let us run a cord off of it so we were able to plug in our refrigerator and alternate between our phone chargers, the coffee maker, and the TV in the kitchen. With those things working, we were in good shape. We lived like that for a few more days and finally the power came back on, right after we had made our dinner on the grill. It was a crazy experience, but I don't think I would take it back. We got to see some great neighborly acts of kindness in our own neighborhood and across the city, and we really had a reality check in how much we take for granted.

Here's a video that I found on YouTube of the storm:



As crazy as this was, it is nothing compared to what Texas is dealing with, so for that we all feel very lucky.

I just heard Barney sing the "I love you" song, so I think my time is up.