Missed a Day

Sorry 'bout that, Mom. I'll make up for it with pictures tonight. That'll make it all worthwhile. :-)

I started to head to bed at about 11:00 Saturday night. As I walked through the kitchen I saw the birthday stuff sitting out and thought, "Aw, man!!!" I had forgotten to wrap the gifts and decorate the table. So I spent the next hour wrapping gifts, taping streamers, blowing up balloons, and then cleaning up kid stuff from the living room. I'd forgotten to have the kids clean up before bed and I didn't want anybody to have to be disciplined on their birthday so I just took care of it for the little brats. ;-)

Kate was thrilled to see the streamers and balloons when she woke up. I knew she'd appreciate it. :-) I had just the right amount of strawberries left over (from their birthday cake) to make strawberry muffins for with a streusel topping for breakfast. Yum. :-) That made some very happy birthday kids right off the bat. My Mom used to make homemade muffins every Sunday morning. It's such a nice memory. I wish I were more like her. Sadly for my kids, I'm not. Ha!

We got ready for church, Katie wearing her new dress from Grandma Vicki. Not a birthday present, a Christmas present that just arrived. :-) She LOVES it and is just so thrilled to have something new to wear. She was so tired of alternating between those two winter dresses of hers!

Sister Bailey taught Sunday School, Sister Connie led songs, then Sister Galaviz taught a CPMA lesson with lots of interesting thoughts about eagles renewing their strength. After service we went to use our coupons (that expired that very day) at IHOP, since that had been the birthday kids' restaurant of choice. We got there and they were PACKED. There were probably 30 people waiting to be seated and at least a 15 minutes wait. At IHOP!!! That's just nuts. The poor birthday kids reluctantly agreed to Taco Bell as Plan B, with the agreement that we'd do IHOP another day, coupon or no coupon. We ate our burritos and headed home for the birthday party.

Before we had left the house that morning (after the kids were already in the van) I had snuck Katie's red rose to the table with the rest of the gifts so it would be waiting for her when we got back. We'd been home for several minutes before she finally spotted it, but this was her reaction:

All she wanted for her birthday was a beautiful red rose and a pair of white dress gloves. She was sooooo happy to have received her very first rose. What a girly-girl. I don't understand her (ha!), but I do love her that way. And the rose is GORGEOUS--from a real flower shop, not Wal-Mart. Apparently there is a huge difference! Who knew?! I'll never settle for cheap flowers again. Ha!

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the kids with the party get-up.

We got out the computer and made a video call to Mom & Dad so they could "join" us for the party. Modern technology is amazing. Of course, it wasn't too amazing since the audio kept flipping out on us. We finally just called on the phone and turned the speaker phone on, but kept the video feed on too so they could still see what was happening. Here are the kids watching and listening to Grandma and Granddad sing Happy Birthday to them.
As much as I love having pictures, I'm really regretting that I didn't take video of some things instead. Particularly Joe lighting the candles. We put 10 candles on the cake for Katie and Joe wanted to light them. He got about 7 of them lit before the flame was getting too close to his fingers and he had to blow it out. Of course, he was facing the cake and blew out all of the candles he'd just lit as well as the match. That was quite funny, but not nearly as funny as when he did the exact same thing a second time. HA! I saw it coming, but didn't instruct him differently just because I wanted to watch and see if he really and truly would make the same mistake twice. I'm not sure it wouldn't have happened a third time, but he refused to light them again. Ha! Goofy kid.

We finally got all 10 candles lit, sang to Katie, pulled the candles out (pink and yellow) and put 9 blue and green ones in, then sang to Joe. Since Mom & Dad couldn't exactly join us for cake (!) we decided to wait on that and just go right to the presents. The kids get $25 from their Grandma Wanda each year, one gift from my folks, and one gift from us. This year James decided to get them three or four lesser gifts instead of one nice gift. They were so happy and so thankful for everything they got--it made it great fun for all of us.

First were the gifts from Grandma & Granddad: A new nightgown for Katie with a matching one for her doll, Esther, and a set of marbles with instructions and a mat for Joe. He had guessed a few days earlier (from shaking the package) that it was marbles and then felt horribly guilty about knowing ahead of time what his gift was. I had assured him that it was something else--marbles wouldn't come in a box shaped like that. He thought he had ruined his surprise by shaking the box, but due to his mother's wrong conclusion he was surprised after all. Ha!

Note: Mom, I think you forgot to put a snap at the back of Katie's nightgown--to close up the neck. I was going to put one on... but I packed up a few boxes today and all of my sewing stuff got packed away before I thought about the nightgown! Ha! I'll have to buy a snap and fix it. Katie LOVES the nightgown--and it really is sooooo cute and fits her just right. THANK YOU!!!

Joe had asked for an electric blanket (what a nerd! Ha!) and a rope for his birthday. After James made 8 stops (for real) and I had made as many phone calls, we finally determined that Albuquerque didn't have any electric blankets available anymore--at least not at a price we were willing to pay. Electric throws had gone on clearance at Target for $7 but we missed out. Anyway, no electric blanket, but he doesn't care. He is sooooo happy to have a rope. :-)
Katie got a new mouse for her computer. She had dropped hers several weeks ago and has been using just the touch pad when doing school since then. She's so relieved to have a mouse again--though she forgot to use it for most of the day today. ;-)
Next round of gifts: A battery charger for Katie (since she plays with her camera non-stop and is ALWAYS asking for new batteries) and a new helicopter for Joe since his last one broke way too soon. The boys have had a BLAST with those choppers--I heard they were flying them over the house today. They got Joe's stuck on the roof once or twice, but Sam used the rope to "lasso" it and pull it down. :-)
Their gifts from Sam: his flashlight for Katie and his hacky-sack for Joe. Sam had wrapped up several things and givent them to Katie and Joe already the day before their birthday, but these were two of his favorite things. :-)
I know this one is a little blurry, but I loved Katie's face when she opened up her white gloves. They are elbow length satin ones--better than she ever would have imagined. :-)
And Joe was equally as thrilled with his pack of 1,500 bb's. Now he doesn't have to spend any of his birthday money to buy some for himself.
Here's a picture of Katie and Esther in their new pj's from Grandma Vicki--and the white gloves, of course.
And the new dresses, too. :-)
We had great fun opening gifts, then hung up with Mom & Dad and dug into the cake. It is so good, but I think next time I'm going to try it in a bundt pan and then put a glaze on it instead of frosting. Yum. :-)

We let the birthday girl pick out a movie to watch that afternoon. We weren't scheduled to have church that night (the Clarksons are still away), but in the morning service one of the ladies suggested that we should and asked Brother Juan to preach (talk about short notice--ha!). After a nice, leisurely afternoon we headed back into town for service. I really felt the Lord, particularly in our worship time. I love to worship Him. :-) Brother Juan did a good job again, of course. He is such a blessing. So sincere and such a beautiful spirit.

After service we drove by IHOP and saw that they were practically empty (go figure) so we went ahead and let the kids have their birthday meal after all. The cook that night was celebrating his birthday was well. He came out to meet the birthday kids and wish them a happy birthday, too. We had a good time, then came home and let the kids watch Looney Toons for a little while before bed. They both said numerous times that it was their best birthday ever. :-)

Today is actually a lot more of a blur than yesterday was. I can't seem to remember much. I worked on Ladies' Retreat stuff this morning--got some great slides to show with devotion #2. Now I just need to get the devotion put together. Ha! I called and talked to the campground to ask a few questions (which reminds me--I've got an e-mail to write, pronto!) and am feeling a little more informed now. That's nice. :-) After devotions and school with the kids today I started PACKING!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!!! I haven't mentioned much on my blog because it seems like every time I talk about something on here it sort of jinxes everything and it doesn't pan out. HA! God has been soooooo good to us these past several months and I can look back and say that I'm truly thankful for all of the things that I never would have chosen (!) because I know God has used them to speak to my heart, to humble me, and to teach me some very valuable lessons that I pray will stick with me always. He is so good. And now it appears as if He has opened the door for our family to get to Alabama, at long last! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!! I've been soooooo excited about this! Our plan is to leave about a week from now. We will rent a truck and pack up all of James' office, the contents of the shed, and whatever else we can fit from the house that doesn't help to make it purty. In other words, we want to take everything from closets, cabinets and dressers, but leave all of the furniture and wall decor so it will still look nice and pretty and show-worthy here. We plan on coming back for the rest of our stuff whenever the house sells.

Of course, all of this is subject to change should we get a contract on the house in the next week. I am sooooo not going to jump to conclusions or make any assumptions, but Jason did call tonight and said that he took that young couple to look at 8 houses in Edgewood and ours is still by far their favorite. I think they've exhausted all of the possibilities (there aren't a lot of houses for sale in this area and I know this is where they want to live), so that puts us in a pretty good position. If they decide to make an offer it will probably be sometime this week. I'm very hopeful, but trying real hard to keep myself in check. Don't want to get all excited and then crash with disappointment if it doesn't work out. ;-)

That being said, it's been so confusing to try to figure out what to pack and how to pack. I need to pack things that can sit in storage until we get into a house of our own (whenever that may be); I need to pack other things that we'll need once we get to Alabama and live in the miracle house that God and some amazingly wonderful Church folks have provided for us (!); I need to keep out the things we'll need in the next few weeks until we get settled there; and I need to not pack whatever needs to stay here to keep the house looking good. Unless we get a contract; then I need to pack it all--but still in different categories to be kept in different places until different times. Ha! It's going to be a jumbled mess, but I don't care. We're going to Alabama and that just makes me altogether too happy to worry about the details. :-)

So today I packed up some Christmas dishes from the cabinets, some utility room stuff, and a few boxes from Katie's closet. It feels so good to finally be DOING something, even though I'm not sure how to go about it just yet. It's great. :-)

I guess that's about it. We're looking forward to a good, good week--getting better toward the weekend, we hope. We have some things we're hoping will fall into place for this weekend (having nothing to do with the house) and we will know Tuesday night if it really and truly will happen. One little phone call will make our day or devastate us. But no pressure, D. T. ;-)