Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Happy 12th Birthday to Jared!


Today is the day. We’ve ordered a big balloon bouquet that we’ll go pick up. We have decorations, presents and such. We plan to spend the day celebrating….wow…12 years. Seems like yesterday he was born in the hospital beside the park in Hardin, MT. He gave us quite a scare when he developed RSV and it was back to the hospital at 4 weeks old. Times does go fast. He is maturing into quite the young man. He loves to run with Jamin and has begun lifting weights (low pounds and well-supervised) with Josiah and Jamin. He loves the Lord. He’s a good kid/young man.

We’ll post pictures later….

Back on 7 January.

Wednesday went well as far as birthdays go. We have the week off of school; an extra celebratory bonus for Jared. {grin} Early in the a.m. Josiah drove to retrieve Jared’s balloons.



As Cy came in the back door, I called Jared and told him I wanted a 12 year old picture….it was funny that he was posing in front of the French doors leading to our library and Josiah and the balloons were in the background unbeknownst to him.


After finishing a couple of projects at home we headed for Kids Kingdom on the Concho River. This is the favorite park of the younger children and I had promised them last weekend when we were down there geocaching that I’d be sure to bring them back this week. We all went. Jamin took a book and found a secluded nook. Josiah went to the downtown library to return books for me and Jared watched the little ones. Have you noticed that 12 is a great age for sitters because they still like to PLAY??? When we walked up we saw a boy that reminded us of Craig, a friend from AK. This got me to wondering if school was out or if there were homeschoolers at the park. It turns out that there were two homeschooling families there. The moms popped over to the shade where I was encamped and I stayed and visited with them. They had babies nearly the same age as Stacia. In fact, one little girl is only 2 days older than Stacia. They had planned an informal park day for Thursday and invited us to attend. After speech, we did just that. The kids are excited that they may have made some new friends. Even the older boys were able to visit with a 17 yo who sort of “understands” them. Andrew’s father is retired military. He just finished seminary and has moved here to be the assistant pastor at a local church. They homeschool. God taught me a lesson on this one…I was stressed that my list of “projects” was being put off for park days….but a greater prayer for friends may have been answered…who would guess we’d find families at the park with children who range from newborn to out of the home – just like us????

The evening found us eating at Jared’s choice of restaurant :::drum roll::: International Buffet. We then went home for gifts and our family’s famous signature ice cream cake. Was there ever a family as sold on ice cream as this one???


Jared was excited to have received a paint gun (so he is no longer Cy’s target practice), paint gun “stuff”, a sling shot and a few other odds and ends.
I forgot the “pig hat” girls…but the pig will live in TX once again. {grin} I think he’ll live again AFTER my birthday. {smirk} Yes, I regretted the noise makers but at 8 for a dollar after New Years who could resist??? I did save them for the remaining 4 boys birthdays coming up. Finally Jared called ENOUGH PICTURES! {grin}


My Misadventure Last Night

Have you ever wished you could relive a moment in history? Have you ever wished you could go back and act differently? I had one of those moments last night (3 Jan). I was heading to Bible Study with JUST enough time to arrive at 6:15 as I’d agreed.

I was driving Mike’s Honda. I pulled off the loop and onto Christoval road. This road is a bit dark at dusk and the speed limit is 50 or 55 mph. A silver truck was nearing me and then…..I’m not sure what happened. It sounded like hundreds of rocks had been thrown at the wind shield. I was trying to process this (have I been shot?, what could I have hit that would throw that many rocks up – was it a dump truck that lost it’s load…no it was beside me not in front of me) and I glanced in my rear view mirror in time to see the car behind me do a u-turn and give chase to the pick up. At this point my conditioned flight response kicked in. I thought “get to the base so you don’t get mugged”. It was only later that Mike figured out what I should have immediately figured out. The passengers of the truck had thrown something at the Honda. The windshield is FULL of those dings with spider circles and pits all from one side to the other. He reminded me that the best course of action would have been to pull over and dial 911. I could only think “do I also give chase or run”? I chose to run. I did call the police (OK MIKE called them and put me on) and told them the story. They said I did well not to follow as there is no telling how those situations end up. They also said that if the second car turns in a report they will call me back to be a witness.

I’m praying future Bible Studies do not begin with this much excitement nor end as abruptly as mine did last night (Stacia calling me home). Oh and for those wondering, I’m not teaching this study. We are studying Breaking Free and there were 14 women present!!! YES….we’re off to a new start in the New Year!

3 January – PROJECTS

As previously noted we decided to delay the start of school until the second Monday in January. This is our typical start date as Jared’s birthday is 4 Jan. This year we are using this date to finish a few school projects as well as home projects.

Are you surprised to hear that I made a master list? The list has things from “polish term papers” to “play at the park”. I know….sad, sad, sad….but it isn’t that I’m an over the top list lover….it’s that my memory is going. I FORGET that I promised a play at the park if I don’t write it on a calendar or list somewhere. I’m making a deliberate effort to strengthen my memory this year. I’ve begun by working on memorizing Scriptures.

We had hoped to get one big project done a day…but we excelled on the 3rd. We began speech therapy (I’ll write some thoughts on that later); Josiah and Jamin cleaned and prepared the pop-up to go back into storage now that its stint as a guest bedroom is over; the older 3 boys moved a monster shelf out of the main garage area into the pantry and loaded it; Jared raked our yard; Arielle and Nolan helped with a VARIETY of household chores – most notably they sorted through Zander’s dresser in preparation of blessing another family; we went birthday shopping; we wrapped birthday gifts; I cooked dinner and headed for Bible study. Back at home Mike and I corrected rough drafts of research papers; studied (him for a sermon and me for my power-walk. {Grin}) And called it a long and profitable day at 11 p.m.

What did Zander and Stacia do during all this activity. Stacia played and Zander…continued to play with his favorite Christmas box. He told us all he was playing “Dog in the Box”.

This has proven Mike’s contention that no matter what toy you buy the kids will set the toy aside and play with the box. I suspect he’s making plans to reduce the Christmas gift giving budget for next year in keeping with this observation. {Grin}

STACIA RINGS IN THE NEW YEAR!


Stacia rang in the New Year with a few new tricks.

She woke up 1 Jan blowing raspberries. She would blow; look at my response and then laugh. This game has continued for three days now.

Stacia loves to roll. However, she wants to go places. She rolls to her stomach, pushes her head and chest up and looks around and then gets MAD. She is frustrated that she can do nothing else. Often she begins to fuss at this point. I thought it hilarious to walk into the living room one day and find her on her back with couch pillows on either side of her. An enterprising older brother had decided he’d keep her from rolling to her tummy and having to listen to the resulting frustration. Hmmm…parenting by straight jacket? {big grin}. We are all looking forward to Stacia being able to do something other than face plants on her tummy. On 1 Jan she rolled from her tummy to her BACK. Now she CAN roll and get places but she hasn’t quite figured that out yet. She always seems to be surprised to find herself looking up at the ceiling….but soon I suspect she’ll begin rolling across the living room. This calls to mind Arielle’s first Christmas: She couldn’t crawl but she would roll across the room to get into the gifts.

Stacia’s third trick manifested last night when I was at Bible study. She actually had this “trick” in months past. She switched to the arsenic hour – as our pediatrician calls the nighttime for colicky babies. She’s not done this for several weeks. She cried so long and hard that I was finally called home from Bible Study….not a good trick but a trick nonetheless.

An “almost new trick” is sitting. She leans way to the front so we aren’t counting this yet. We are in no hurry for this little girl to grow up. {grin}

Stacia Stats: slightly over 4 months old; approx 17 lbs; aka as “Sugah”, “Lady Bug” and “Sugah Bug”.