My Birthday

My birthday was November 10. For those of you who didn't wish me a Happy Birthay, I'll forgive you this year, but now you know when it is, so mark it on your calendar for next year. This year, I had the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!! I have to give props to my WONDERFUL husband, Jeremy, for that!

It started out with the kids giving me my presents before they went to school. I got a fan for my laptop. I use my laptop alot and it gets really hot sitting on my lap. So, Jeremy bought me a fan that it can sit on. The fan is encased in something that kind of looks like a binder. This fan is very important because my computer had to get the hard drive replaced not too long ago and I think it was because my computer had gotten so hot. I also got chocolate covered pretzels (my favorite!) and a starbucks gift card (another favorite). I also got a Barlow Girl cd. It is their new one, love and war.

Then the rest of my WONDERFUL day started. When Jeremy came home from taking the kids to school, he brought me a cafe vanilla frappachino from Starbucks. YUUUUMMMYYY! Then I got to to get a pedicure. My very first pedicure. I am not much of a girly girl, but every once in a while I like to pretend I am. I never really had an interest or desire to get a pedicure until about a month or so ago. So, when Jeremy asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told him I wanted to go get a pedicure. I took my Starbucks cafe vanilla frappachino and Barlow Girls cd and drove to get my very first pedicure. If you have never had one, I will walk you through my experience. If you have had one, you can read about my experience anyway and wish it was you instead of me.

I walked in the door and the first thing I did was pick out the color I wanted. Then I sat down in the chair and the lady started to work on my feet. My feet soaked in warm water while I picked out what kind of design I wanted painted on my toenails. There were about 50 designs for me to choose from. I had narrowed it down to three. Then after much thought, finally came up with the one I chose. You will see a picture in a little while. The lady scrubbed on my feet and got alot of the dead skin off. I wear flip flops all the time, so you can imagine what my feet look like. I will not go in to detail, I will just let you use your imagination. I decided since I had never had a pedicure before, I would get what they called a deluxe pedicure. After the nice lady had finished scrubbing my feet and cutting my toenails, she wrapped hot towels around them. My feet got to enjoy this while she massaged and put oil and lotion on my lower legs. Let me tell you, it was very nice! After my feet were done in the hot towels, my toenails got painted. Here is what the finished product looked like.Yes, that is a small diamond in the center of the flower. I went all out!

After my pedicure, I came home. I only had a few minutes before I got to go to lunch. My two favorite restaurants in town are Fuji's Japanese Steakhouse and Olive Garden. My mom told me she and my grandma were going to take me out for lunch on my birthday and I got to pick where I wanted to go to eat. I had a hard time deciding. In my mind, I had two places to pick from. So, for lunch I got to eat at Fuji's Japanese Steakhouse. Sounds like a pretty good day, huh? Well, it's not over yet. It is only beginning. Remember, I said it was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!

After lunch, my wonderful husband had arranged for me to have a one hour massage. Sounds nice, huh? Let me tell you, it was WONDERFUL! One hour, relaxing, getting a massage, peace and quiet...ahhhhh! But wait, folks, that's not the end of my day...

Not only did I get presents, a pedicure, lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, and a one hour massage, I also got to go to dinner with my husband. Where did we go you might ask? The Olive Garden. Go me! I got to eat at BOTH of my favorite restaurants for my birthday. I did not have to choose between the two. WOO HOO! After dinner we went to watch a movie. Since it was my birthday, I got to choose the movie. I chose to see All About Steve. It has Sandra Bullock in it.

I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was funny. It is about a single woman (Sandra Bullock) who writes crossword puzzles for the newspaper and lives at home with her parents. Her mom sets her up on a blind date with a man named Steve. Sandra Bullocks' character loves Steve so much she becomes obsessed (in a comical way) with him. I will stop there, so as not to ruin anything in the movie for you in case you choose to watch it for yourself.

The day was all about me! It was so nice to be pampered for an entire day! It will take alot to top this year's birthday next year, Jeremy. But you have an entire year to work on it. I love you!

Play Faire Park

A few weeks ago on one of our Family Nights, we decided to play miniature golf. We went to Play Faire Park. On that particular night, it cost our family of six a grand total of $6. Yes, you read that right...$6. Of course, Rilian didn't golf and our children are all 5 years old and under, but it was only $6. Our children had never played miniature golf until that night. They had such a good time they have asked to go again.

Seven taking his first shot.

Finn taking his first shot.

Piper taking her first shot. Finn was trying to get it in the hole, while everyone stood and watched. Well, most everyone. It kinda looks like Seven was not really watching.

This is really how Seven played. It was more like he was playing pool, instead of golfing.
There was one hole with an "obstacle course" on it...or so Piper and Seven thought. They both like a challenge. Instead of going around, Piper went over and Seven went under.

Rilian with his cute smile. It kinda looks like he has a fauxhawk in this picture, but it's just part of the stroller.

The "obstacle course" also made a good spot for a family picture. I apologize for the darkness of the picture.

We had to teach the children to stay off the green while it was someone's turn. You can see Seven and Finn listened.

I think Piper got a little bored when it wasn't her turn. She is using the rail road tie as a balance beam while it is Seven's turn.

On this hole, you had to get your ball into the wheel in order to get it over to the hole. The children were watching and waiting for one of their balls to come out.

Then came the end of the game...the dreaded last hole, you know the one...the hole of no return. Piper thought she would play on that course while the rest of us were finishing up the one right before it. I warned her that if her ball went down the hole, it would be gone, she would not be able to get it. She did not heed my warning. She continued to play and what happened to her ball? It disappeared, down the hole. Piper was very upset that her ball was gone. So, being the good mother I am, I let her use my ball on that course and I didn't get to make the hole in one I would have made, had I used my ball and not let her use it ;)

Rilian is 9 months old!

Rilian turned 9 months old on November 2, 2009. He is starting to come alive. He is starting to show his personality more and more. This makes him more fun! He crawls, army crawls. He will get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. He takes one or two "steps" and then goes to the army crawl. He is going all over the house. You never know where you will find him. He says "mama". He doesn't say it in relation to me yet. He does say "bye bye", as well as wave bye bye. I was so surprised to find out he said it. We were leaving my mom's house one day and I heard a little voice saying "bye bye". I started looking at Piper, Finn, and Seven and thought to myself that the voice I was hearing was not theirs. I looked down at Rilian, (I was carrying him in his carseat) and saw that it was him saying "bye bye." Wow!

Just as I thought, Rilian was hard to keep on the dragon blanket. I gave him a toy and it helped him to be more willing to stay there. It is a toy microphone that is also a rattle. Now my big boy is just about as long as the dragon blanket.
I was getting a close-up of his face and he started to grab for the camera. I thought this was a really cute picture.

Rilian has a chubby face. Or at least it looks really chubby in this picture. I would have to say it is chubby in real life, too.
I was trying to take a picture of Rilian sitting up. In the first picture, Seven was being a little toot and put his hand in front of Rilian. In this picture, it looks like Seven is holding Rilian up. He isn't. He just had his hand there. I think he was trying to mess up the picture again.

My three sons...I like this picture because it shows off some of Seven's personality.

Here is another shot of my three sons. I think it is interesting that Rilian's skin is darker than Seven's. Rilian hasn't been out in the sun yet. Seven gets so dark in the summer. We shall see what happens this summer. I am excited for Rilian to be in the pool because he loves his bath so much!

Looking Past the Verse

On Sunday nights, we meet with the teens of the youth group. The first Sunday, we meet with Junior High. The second Sunday, we meet with the High School. And the third Sunday, both Junior High and High School meet together. Our church calls these huddles. This month, Jeremy talked about looking past the verses in the Bible. He challenged the teens to think about what the Bible characters felt like during their story and write a poem about it. Jeremy and I also took part in this activity and each wrote a poem. Take Adam and Eve for example. What thoughts and emotions were going through Eve's head as she realized she had disappointed God by eating the forbidden fruit. Did she feel sad? Did she feel guilty? What feelings would she have expressed if she could have confided in you? What about Adam? How did he feel when his wife did the one thing that God had asked them not to? What did he think when he realized both he and she were naked? There are all kinds of emotions and thoughts that Adam and Eve might have been feeling when Eve ate the apple. In the poems, we were to pretend like we did not know what happens at the end of the story. What if you were reading the story of Adam and Eve to someone who had never heard the story before? Would you read it exactly like it is or would you throw some emotion in it?

I wrote one poem at the Junior High huddle and one poem at the High School huddle. Here are my poems. The first one is about Noah and the flood. You can read about it starting in Genesis 6. The second poem is about Abraham and Isaac. This story can be found in Genesis 22:1-19.

Why me?

Why did He choose me?

I am 600 years old.

I don't know if I am that bold.

~

God said take two

of every living creature.

What am I to do?

Two of EVERY living creature?

~

Spiders, scorpions, birds that can fly.

Cows, horses, lions

and tigers and bears; oh my!

God must really have faith in me.

~

We must all be in this boat

called an ark.

I sure hope I build it well enough to float.

Rain, rain, rain.

~

It's raining,

it's pouring,

the old man

is snoring!

~

Yep, it's me.

The old man.

And it is He,

who chose me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, how can this be?

This is the worst news

I could have ever received!

Why is this happening to me?

~

My one and only son.

I only have one!

My beloved, my dear.

Oh, how I fear.

~

The past few days

have been the longest

days of my life.

But I must take it in strife.

~

God, do you really understand

what you are asking of me?

You truely, honestly want me

to take the life of my only son with my own hand?

~

How will I ever be able to live

with what you are asking me to do?

To kill, to murder, my one and only beloved son.

Lord, I put my trust in you.

~

Well, this is it.

The time has come.

Oh Lord, I feel so helpless.

Man, this is gonna make a big mess.

~

Son, I love you.

This is not what

I had planned to do.

Please, Lord, I beg of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To me, it wasn't that hard to do. I used to write poems in high school. You should try it sometime. I would like to see yours if you do. You can post them on my comment section or email me if you don't want to share them with others. Here is a link to Jeremy's blog www.baldgoat.tumblr.com so you can read his poem if you want to. He also put a few of the teens poems on his blog.

Thanks for Being Rude!

What is it about "I'm not interested" that sales men or sales women don't understand? Are they trained to not take that for an answer? Are they trained to ignore a person when they say "I'm not interested"? Why do they keep talking and keep pushing after a person politely responds with "I'm not interested"?

I have had several sales men and women come and knock on my door. I do not enjoy having visits from them. I am sure alot of them do not enjoy going door-to-door either. Why is it that they choose to come in the afternoon during naptime? Why is it that when people design a house, they put the children's rooms near the front door? Why is the master bedroom is always the room as far away from the front door as possible? I once had three sales men come knock on my door in a two week period, two of which were trying to sell me the same thing. Hello! Their company should keep better records. I am glad that the doorbell for my house does not work. I thought about fixing it until this happened.

One day, a man from TXU came by trying to get me to switch my electricity provider. I was trying to be polite and tell him that I was not interested. He pushed on and tried again. I told him I would have to talk to my husband, who wasn't home at the time. I thought he would take this as a hint...no...he didn't. He asked when would be a good time to come back that day. He said that today was the last day he would be in town before he had to head back to Houston. He asked if he could come back around 6pm or 7pm. I knew no one would be home that day at that time. So I told him that would be a good time. I bet he was surprised when he came knocking on my door and no one answered. Maybe he should have listened to me when I politely told him that I was not interested. It would have saved him a useless trip to my house.

This afternoon there was a knock on my door. It sounded like a little kid knocking. Much to my surprise, when I answered the door, there was a man standing there holding a binder. Hmmm...must be a sales man. The guy started out by asking about the truck in the driveway and saying he liked it. It was my husband's Toyota Tundra. I guess he was trying to make small talk before making his dreaded sales speech. He opened his binder and I immediately saw he was from TXU. This guy was going to try to get me to switch electric companies. Sorry mister...good luck with that. He starts out asking me if I knew about the new electric laws. I politely told him I was not interested. He asked, "You are not interested in the new laws?" I told him that I wasn't. He went on to say something else about electricity. I politely told him again that I am not interested. I kept politely telling him that I was not interested. But yet he continued to talk. I said, "I'm going to close the door now because you are not going to stop talking." As I closed the door, I heard him say, "Thanks for being rude." Umm, who is the rude one here? I told him several times, politely, that I am not interested. What else could I do to get him to get the point that I am not interested! How many times had I already told him? Plenty. He had the opportunity to end the conversation and walk away on good terms. But he kept on and on and on. If I really cared about what he had to say or sell, I would not have told him "I'm not interested."

What Happened to Thanksgiving?

There are several holidays in the year. January has New Year's Day. February has Valentine's Day. March has St. Patrick's Day. Then there is Easter. It falls in March or April. It just depends on the year. April has April Fool's Day. May has Mother's Day and Memorial Day. June has Father's Day. July has Independence Day, otherwise known as the Fouth of July. September has Labor Day. October has Halloween. November has Thanksgiving. December has Christmas. These are the main holidays that are observed.


I went to Target on November 2. That was just two days after Halloween and they already had up their Christmas decorations. Really? Yes! They did! Just after that I started noticing Christmas decorations going up EVERYWHERE!

Let's recall the holidays....New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, April Fool's Day, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Look at that again. The last few are Halloween, THEN Thanksgiving, THEN Christmas. What was that? There is another holiday between Halloween and Christmas? Yes, it is called THANKSGIVING. I don't expect people to decorate for Thanksgiving, but come on, let's not forget about it and put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving gets here! When the stores or anyone else goes from decorating for Halloween to then immediately decorating for Christmas, it is as if they have forgotten about Thanksgiving.

Is Thanksgiving not worthy of being recognized? What is Thanksgiving about? It is about being thankful. Most of us have at least one thing to be thankful for. Even if you don't have very much, or don't feel that you have a very good life, I bet you still have something you are thankful for. When you think about your life, remember that there is always someone who has it worse than you.

What is Christmas about? Christians put an emphasis on the birth of Jesus. The world puts an emphasis on wanting and getting, and sometimes giving. I want, I want, I want. It is like a little kid in a toy store.

What is this world coming to? Greed? Unthankfulness? It sure seems like that when the world jumps from Halloween to Christmas. Seeing all these Christmas decorations WAY before Christmas is almost turning me off to Christmas. I like Christmas, but really, Thanksgiving comes first. There is almost an entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is about two months between Halloween and Christmas. Come on people! What is the harm in waiting to decorate for Christmas? You can do it the very next day after Thanksgiving for all I care. Why must we skip holidays? If Thanksgiving were some insignificant holiday, it wouldn't really matter. But it is not an insignificant holiday.

The pilgrims set ground at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. Their first winter was devastating. But the harvest of 1621 was bountiful. It is believed that the pilgrims would not have survived their first year without the help of the natives. Thanksgiving did not originally start out as a holiday. When the pilgrims and Indians sat down for that first "thanksgiving" dinner, they were simply having a gathering. Thanksgiving can however, be traced back to 1863, when President Lincoln became the first president to proclaim Thanksgiving Day. Since then, the holiday has been a fixture of late November.

I would have to say the origins of Thanksgiving are something to be very thankful for. The pilgrims were very thankful to the native americans for helping them survive. I know I would be thankful to someone who helped to save my life.

If you are one of the guilty ones in decorating already for Christmas, I will forgive you this year. Just don't do it next year. If you are not one who celebrates Thanksgiving, which IS recognized as a holiday, I would suggest thinking about Thanksgiving and what it represents and what it could mean to you. You might decide it IS something you would like to celebrate. If not, so be it. Just please, please, please, don't decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving!

Fluffy

In Piper's class, they get colors everyday. The colors signify what kind of behavior she had for the day. Ms. Clonch, Piper's teacher, has a calender in each child's take-home folder and puts the color on that day for which kind of day the student had. Green means Excellent Day! Yellow means Reminder to Follow the Rules. Pink means 2 minutes time out. Blue means 5 minutes time out. Brown means a phone call home to your parents.

In September, Piper got one yellow day and the rest were green. She and her best friend were talking and goofing off in line and were reminded to be quiet and follow the rules. It was nearing the end of October and there were a few days left. Piper had gotten green for the whole month so far. We told Piper if she got green for the rest of the month, she could go to the store and pick out something. Right away, Piper decided she wanted to go to the pet store. We have a fish tank at home. Some of our fish have died and we also used to have a crab in the fish tank. It died, too. Because of this, Piper sometimes asks if we can get another fish or another crab. We haven't gotten another crab yet, because we need to close up part of the tank so it cannot escape. There is a hole in the lid near the filters. (The hole is supposed to be there.) We had a crab escape from there before, so until Jeremy closes the hole, we are not getting another crab.

Well, Friday, October 30th came and Piper had a whole month of green! So Jeremy took her to the pet store like she wanted. We thought she was going to pick out a fish or a crab. NO...the first thing she saw when she walked in the door were parakeets. She immediately decided she wanted a parakeet. Jeremy tried to persuade her to pick out a fish or a crab. Piper decided she wanted a chinchilla. Much to Piper's disappointment, chinchillas cost too much. Piper could not be persuaded to get a fish or a crab, so she picked out a white parakeet. The lady at the pet store asked if it was ok that the parakeet was a boy. Piper didn't care that he was a boy. She just wanted the white one. What did she name him? Fluffy. She's a 5 year old girl, what can you expect? The parakeet alone would not have been too bad, but you can't just buy a parakeet. You have to buy food, a cage, dishes, toys, treats, and so much more.

Here is Fluffy. He is what they call a Fancy Parakeet. I think he blinked in this picture, so his eyes are mostly closed. He is a sweet little bird. Parakeets have leg bands on to tell you where they were bred, who their breeder is, and when they were born. Fluffy was born in Texas. I am not sure if he was born in April or August. He hasn't let me look at his leg band that long yet.

So far in November, Piper has gotten all green. If she makes it to the end of the month with all green, we will have to put some stipulations on the special gift she can pick out. Who knows what we would end up with?