Other {August} moments...

It was a crazy busy month.  So many milestones.  

Justin moved out.

Arilee got her braces off, turned 16, and had her first half a dozen dates.

Ashlee broke her arm, turned 12, and is the proud owner of a frog. 

The girls have their own rooms now.

More on that last one later. 

In addition...

Ashlee and her dad had their last daddy/daughter date (for activity days).

It was a Hawaiian luau.  Daddy really dressed up for the part. 

They had a hula hooping contest - which daddy won. 

They also blew fire with powdered sugar. 

I'm told they rocked it.

Arilee still doesn't have her drivers license, but we are working on it.  

She is finally getting good at the driving part.  It's everything else she needs to work on.  

Still.  

I drove to St. Anthony to visit an old friend, Rena, at Baubles and Bits.  

She gave the girls free jewelry (because she is AWESOME). 

We found our way to the island at the St. Anthony Sand bar and I got brave

and let Arilee drive us home.  

She only almost killed us once.  

I told you... she's getting better.

I am not a pickle fan, but I have an abundance of cucumbers and the husband wanted to try making pickles, so I went with it.  They are actually kind of tasty.  

Good thing, since I have 14 quarts so far, with another batch waiting to be made.

Our cucumbers are HUGE and plentiful.  

I also canned 25 pints of beans and 8 pints of dilly beans.

My bestest, sweetest friend, Melanie, is turning 40 this week.  

And as a birthday present, she surprised herself with a positive pregnancy test. 

Her baby is 13.  Or was.  Her new baby will soon be born. 

So I made her up a cute little baby quilt to celebrate.  

This was a new pattern I found on pinterest.   

I loved it so much, I decided to make the girls quilts for their beds using the same pattern.  

More to come on that later.  

{Our first broken arm}

After Ashlee's first night of Young Womens, we were sitting around discussing how it went.  Suddenly, she jumped up off the couch to do a cartwheel, like she'd done a million times before.  This time she let out a huge scream followed by "I broke my arm", like she'd also done a million times before.  Only this time, I looked over and yep, she'd really broken her arm.  

I may have panicked. 

Luckily, her dad has the ability to remain calm and collected.  He scooped her up, and off we went to Madison Memorial Hospital.   We found it rather amusing when everyone kept referring to it as a "possible broken arm".  

Uh, right.  

She was SUCH a trooper!  She made a few faces and winced a few times, but never shed a single tear beyond the initial scream.  She suffered a green fracture of her right ulna which was bending the radius.  They had to put an IV in, give her a dose of Demoral and/or something else to aid with memory loss, bend it back into place (that was hard for this mama to watch) and then cast it.  While under the influence of drugs, she said some of the funniest things I've ever heard, all random.  (Italics indicate questions we asked her)

"This is my favorite part.  Goodnight.  Whoa, how did you guys get here?  Is Justin home?  What's so funny?  What is your cats name?  Toby.  What is your cats nickname?  Buttflake.  When I close my eyes, I see butterflies.  I never want this to wear off.  I love it.  I see a painting of a horse.  Tell us how you broke your arm.  I fell off a ladder.  Is slang a slang word?  I see a bottle of spray paint.  This cast is heavy.  It's like a thousand pounds of madness.  This feels awesome.  I don't recall them putting this on me.  I saw a picture in my head and it turned pink and it said something but I could read it and I was like, baby, baby baby, oh.  What the heck?  Those people are ugly.  When I close my eyes, there's a field with children frolicking.  You think it's a joke, well you're wrong.  I don't wanna relax, I wanna do cartwheels off the couch.  My blood is leaving.  Bye (waves).  (when they removed the IV and the tape) My arm hairs are gone.  They were good friends.  Bend your arm.  You want me to show my muscles, too?  Look at these guns.

We laughed and laughed.  Arilee laughed so hard we had to make her leave the room at times.  We got home that night a little after midnight.

She's been a trooper since, with only a few (or a lot) of moments of unbearableness.  We could definitely tell when it was time for more pain medication.   She likes to remind us often that she has a broken arm and can't do this or that, especially when it's something she doesn't want to do, which is pretty much all the time.  The rest of the time, she is her usual angelic self.

I'm a little worried about sending her to school, how she will get from class to class with her books, open her locker, carry her lunch tray, etc.  But, that's what mom's do.  Worry.   She'll be fine, I'm sure.

We're so proud of how well she's done.

{When does "mascara" become an adjective?}

When used to describe the girl.

Meet "Mascaralee" and her sister "Awesome".

{the one about my baby girl and the horse}

My baby girl.  

She is a stubborn one.

When she was a little girl, Grandpa decided it was time 

my kids learn to ride horses.  

He tooled them a cute little saddle 

and built an arena out back and everything.   

One day, this baby girl of mine was feeling 

particularly brave and well, 

I'm not exactly sure what happened since I wasn't there, 

but I seemed to recall it involved her arms in the air and 

knowing her,

lots of noise. 

  

I just remember the heart attack it nearly gave her grandpa when his horse 

tossed his four year old granddaughter to the ground.

Needless to say, 

I don't know that she's gotten on the horse since.

Not her choice. 

Grandpa's heart couldn't handle it.

So the other day, 

I asked her if I could take her picture.  

The light was perfect, I had some ideas in mind of what I wanted to do,

and her stubborn side kicked in, and well,

it didn't happen.  

It may have been a long night.

Just saying.

But, the next day,

she wasn't home from school five minutes when she said: 

"Mom, I'll let you take my picture today."

This time, I let her fix her own hair and pick out her own clothes.  

I didn't say a word.

I listened to all her suggestions about where to stand and how to pose, 

I mean, afterall, these is her 5th picture she is allowing me to hang on the wall, 

Why should I get a say in it? 

GEEZ! 

Except for the time I suggested she go up and pet old Joker, 

which is not the same horse that bucked her off,

but, there is a reason he's called "Joker", which is Latin for "royal pain in the butt".   

She had to draw the line somewhere. 

And she wasn't going anywhere near him.    

She did a pretty good job.

Lets just hope she approves and lets me hang one on the wall.

You never know with her.    

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

"G" is for Gorgeous and Groovy Growing Girls

Eleven pictures of the most Gorgeous and Groovy Girl a mom could ask for....

Eleven pictures because that's how many years she's been mine.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

ABC WEDNESDAY

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Logorrhoea 39

Last night, we watched Akeelah and the Bee. What a cute show that was! We were on the edge of our seat all night long. Who knew a spelling bee could be so... captivating. If you haven't seen it... watch it. You'll like it. I'm sure of it.

Akeelah taught me a new word. It's my new favorite word. We like it so much, we're considering changing Ishee's nickname to "Logorrhoea 39"... the 39 being for her current weight (yes, she is eight, and yes, I know how insanely skinny she is). Lucky for her, she thinks it's kind of cute.

So what does it mean?

Logorrhoea or logorrhea (Greek λογορροια, logorrhia, “word-flux”) is defined as an “excessive flow of words” and, when used medically, refers to incoherent talkativeness occurring in certain kinds of mental illness, such as mania. Logomania is the medical condition and mania with underlying symptom logorrhoea. The spoken form of logorrhoea (in the non-medical sense) is a kind of verbosity which uses superfluous (or fancy) words to disguise an otherwise useless message as useful or intellectual, and is commonly known as “verbal diarrhea” or “diarrhea of the mouth”.

I think I know a few people with logorrhoea.

The pink party brigade...

The baptism went well... she was a classic double dunker... she let go of her dad's arm and didn't bother to put her hand all the way under ... unless you ask my father in law, it was her knee. What does he know? He's old.
The party was a ... mess... I mean... success...

Three of our seven invitee's were able to make the party. Good number, it turns out! The four year old cousin next door wanted to come, but Ishee wasn't in the mood to have to re-light her candle again.

I let the middle child take over and they made foam door hangers and decorated their own treat bags as well as made a ginormous mess. One fantastic little girl said they had to clean up before moving on to the next project. I wanted to trade her in for a few of my kids, but she wouldn't go for it. The rest found cleaning up "boring" and thus... I have a mess of massive proportions.

I asked for it, I suppose.

They decorated their own cupcakes, and then I threw all the leftover frosting away after witnessing one catching one of the little girls licking off her knife and then going to the next can of frosting. I have my standards. Another little girl said she wanted to eat frosting until she threw up. I told her that was fine, just wait until you get home, okay?

She got some fabulous presents... like play makeup, and bubbles. (Isn't her hair fantastic?)

And we whacked the pinata, which broke quite early. Turns out one of those little girls has some brute force muscles! We played a little scavenger hunt game where you were to find all the items on your list out of the pinata goodies so everybody got some of the "non candy" items. One pesky little girl decided she didn't like that game, she wanted ALL the treats and no way no how was she going to share. She also wanted the broken pinata (which I told her she had to ask Ishee for and was horrified to find out Ishee wasn't sharing, nor was I going to make her). To top it all off, she wanted to call her mom and ask if she could stay all day. I took her home first.

There is definitely a reason I don't do parties for all their birthdays.

Ishee, on the other hand, had the TIME of her life! That's what it's all about.

It's all about the eight...

I can hardly believe how time flies... it seems just yesterday she was born. Oh wait, it was... only eight years ago yesterday.

I don't have an exciting birth story to tell like some people, her conception is much more exciting! Ha ha... not really... it was more of an act of God, as we (the husband anyway) was done having children and major precautions were being taken to avoid this sort of thing, when I ended up sicker than sick one day and it just wouldn't go away and SURPRISE... and we both scratched our head and said, hmmm... how'd that happen?

Worst pregnancy + easiest delivery = one ornery child! She's also the most fun, lovable, and entertaining child I've ever known who keeps us in stitches (and messes) all day long.

She got a new bike... (she thought it was going to be a new dresser, because I told her that her dad had to "put it together" first, I couldn't tell her he just had to take the training wheels off without giving it away , and she was shocked to see that it wasn't at all what she thought... where she came up with a new dresser is beyond me... LOL)
And her ears pierced... (she didn't even cry... though she was too embarassed to cry in public, and they had to do one ear at a time thanks to a teenager who decided to shoplift some earrings right before they got ready to do her ears).
Dinner at Craigo's pizza... (she insisted on having pepperoni, sausage and olives on hers and then wouldn't eat it once it came... little stink)
A bike ride around the lake... (she's hard to keep up with!)
And got to play on the toys...

She decorated her own cake... (chocolate with cream cheese frosting)
And got scrapbooking stuff, a billion stickers, and some Project Runway (her new favorite show) paper dolls...
Grandma is finally out and about, and her and grandpa stopped by for a quick visit... (in the pouring rain, what a trick it was trying to help mom back into the car without getting soaked!) And we sang Happy Birthday... (yes, we had to relight the candles for the cousin to blow them out again)...
She's my baby, the girl who gives me a kiss every time she walks past me, the one who my sisters refer to as "Klingon" because she is far from my side. Happy Birthday to my little sweetie sue!