Billie's Slumber Party

Billie's slumber party was a success! She had so much fun. We had pizza for dinner, and the girls all got to decorate their own cupcakes (we gave them two but they were only allowed to eat one and then take the other home with them.) They also decorated canvas totes--too cute! I didn't get a picture of that because I was the only one here with them at that time, because Matt had gone out to get the pizza--and it was all I could do to organize and keep everything running smoothly by myself. I am definitely used to having only one very self sufficient daughter; nine of them just about broke me! HEHE! It was so much fun. I got to also learn so much about her friends, and that was huge and enlightening for me. They were all so good and so patient, too. It really was a great night. We rented the movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and they all watched it and then turned in for the night at around 11:15. We don't have the biggest house, so finding places for 9 little girls to sleep was somewhat of a challenge, but we managed. I moved our dining room table out and put down air mattresses for four of them in the "dining room." Then we put two of them on a pallet in Billies room and two more in the bunk beds. I hated to split them up, but I think they probably got more sleep with it being only 4 in each room instead of 8 (one girl didn't spend the night.) They woke up around 7.30, which I thought was very late for a slumber party, but what do I know? We had a big breakfast of eggs, sausage, biscuits and even munchkin donuts that Matt picked up for the girls. They played fun games that morning and then the parents started picking them up around 10. I can't believe she is old enough for a slumber party. She really enjoyed herself and I was so happy we could do that for her. She has been asking for one since Kindergarten but I have made her wait until she was old enough. I am so glad we did it. Next time I might make it a little smaller, just because it is hard to have that many in our small house, but it really worked out fine. No one fussed or complained about a single thing. They were all jut happy to be together. There were two little girls that "don't like each other" according to Billie, but even they were fine together. I have no complaints about the entire night. Except I was so TIRED the next day! Of course I wanted it all to be perfect so I had cleaned the house (because 9 year olds would probably notice, right?) and worked on "goodie bags" and the craft and cupcakes and all that stuff. But I am glad I did so much ahead of time, because it really helped the evening go smoothly.

Now to study. I have a big next few weeks at school; One paper, three exams and a speech coming up, too. It will all hit pretty close together so I am trying to get a jump start on it. The speech is informative, and of course I picked conjoined twins for my topic. I find myself thinking about that more than anything, and planning visual aides and even a sound bite or two. I am excited about creating awareness in such a young crowd. I had no idea that conjoined twins even happened before Joshua and Caleb. Of course I had heard of them at some point in my life, but I guess it is like anything else--something that happens very seldom and not to me or anyone I know. I like that I have the opportunity to share my experience and knowledge with people. Of course, I always love the opportunity to share Joshua and Caleb with any one that will listen! Wish me luck, I am nervous about keeping my emotions in check. But I really think I can, as long as I stick to the facts and not delve too much into the personal/emotional aspect of the story. Practice makes perfect, too, so I know if I say it again and again that will help me push past any emotions that are brought up. Have a good week everyone!

Flashback Friday--Happy Birthday Billie!

Billie 7 years old

Billie 7 months old--her first "finger food"- crackers. Nalla LOVED it!

Billie and Nalla, almost 5 years old.

Billie Easter - 5 Years old

Billie and her Daddy, 9 months old.

Billie is 9 years old! I can not believe it! Sorry I do not have any newborn pics of her on my computer, that was before I had a digital camera! We had a great birthday party Wednesday night at our house with her grandparents. I told her to pic her favorite meal and she chose Vegetable soup and corn bread! Now let me paint the picture for you from four years ago: Billie was 5 and we had Greg and Kellee and the girls over for dinner at our new condo. I had made a huge pot of vegetable soup and we all sat down at the dinner table to eat. Billie got big tears in her eyes as she looked at her bowl in front of her. She refused to even taste it. "It has tomatoes in it!" she screamed, as big huge tears streamed down her face. I told her to just try it and if she didn't like it she didn't have to eat it. She still refused and I sent her to bed, screaming the entire way. About ten minutes later, she could still be heard in hysterics from her room, so I went in there to try to calm her down. Nothing doing. She had set her mind that she was not going to eat the soup. I left her in there to calm down. Greg and Kellee and the girls finished and we visited a little while and then they left to go home. I brought Billie back out to the table, heated her bowl of soup up and we tried again. She was still absolutely beside herself upset. I told her it was good with cheese and crackers in it, and asked if she wanted to try it that way. She did not. We fought about it back and forth for another hour probably and I finally told her I had had enough and she would eat the soup and say "Yum! Yum!" after every bite. So she finally dug in, and with her face soaked with tears and red from the trauma of the night, she began to giggle. She cried and giggled and kept taking bites of the soup. She said she was giggling because it tasted good. She was so surprised that it tasted good, and she had been so afraid to try it. She was sad because she had wasted a night of playing with Courtney and Mackenzie, but she was so happy that the soup didn't kill her. Bless her heart. She is so strong willed. But I knew if she would only try it, that she would like it. I usually know exactly what she will and won't like, and I am usually right. She now trusts me most of the time and tries stuff when I tell her she will like it. She did finish that bowl of soup and after each bite she said "Yum! Yum!" and we both cried and giggled as she did it. We laugh about that story now. It was a very traumatic night for both of us. I probably was too hard on her and should have just let her go hungry, but I guess I am strong willed, too! I was so surprised when she chose vegetable soup for her birthday dinner. I offered to make absolutely anything she wanted, but that is what she wanted! So amazing, my little girl. I am so glad that traumatic night turned into something so positive. I definitely had guilt over that one for a while, bless her heart.

Tonight she is celebrating with her friends. We are having our first slumber party. Nine 9-yr-old girls in our tiny little condo! It should be interesting. I am a little nervous. I really didn't plan on having that many girls. Yes, we did invite 8 girls. But I asked all of my friends who have done this sort of thing before and they all said only about half come! Imagine my surprise when all 8 we invited RSVP'd! But Billie is so excited and it should be a wonderful experience for us all. Matt thinks I was nuts for inviting that many, but we are just going to pile them up in sleeping bags on the floor and everyone will be cozy and comfy! Besides, I learned a valuable lesson: Only invite the number your house can hold! Live and learn, right? I will let you know how it goes! Happy Birthday Billie, my sweet precious little girl!

Disney

I know, I have failed you the last couple weeks! I am so sorry. But Let me just tell you, we totally enjoyed every last second of our break. We were going non-stop, and somehow I managed to work, too. So this will update you about our Disney trip, and I will try to give you more details about the rest of our break and Christmas and New Year's, too, later over the coming days/weeks.

So, Billie and I went to Disney with Bill, Wanda, Angelique, Wes, Riley, Mallory, and all of the "Thomas family"(Wes's brothers, their wives and children and even some in-laws, too!) We had the most wonderful time, although we did miss Matt. We had 5 days at the parks, and we pretty much went from dusk till dawn, or dawn till midnight! Billie also formed a sweet relationship with our housekeeper at the hotel. Billie put Cody( her stuffed dog she sleeps with) and some other toys in the window to "decorate" for Christmas, as she had seen in some other windows in the resort. Our housekeeper later that day moved them and put them on the bed to play. Very cute. Billie loved it and wrote her a thank you note then next morning. That day when we got back, Cody and her other dolls were on the bed watching TV with the remote, along with a note back from Raquel. Billie was more than thrilled! So this went on each day, notes back and forth, too. On the last day we got to meet Raquel, as we were at the resort late that day since I had a dead battery in my car and AAA did not know how to get around Disney and could not find us! So Billie and Raquel talked and hugged and it was so sweet. Raquel said every day when she got to our room she had to think about what she would do with Billie's stuff! She enjoyed it, too. SO that night when we got back to our room, the lights were off, which was odd. I could see that there was "stuff" scattered about, but I didn't know exactly what. We turned the light on to find our room had been "rolled" or "TP'd" if you are from the north. The source was Cody, and there was a note from Raquel that said "Cody is so strong! He stole the toilet paper and pushed me out of the room! I will clean it up tomorrow!" I think Billie had almost as much fun with the interaction between her and Raquel as she did at Disney!

The week was perfect. We did all of the parks. Our favorite was Epcot and Animal Kingdom this time. Mt. Everest was AWESOME! That was our first time riding it, and we absolutely loved it. Billie also loved Soaring at Epcot, and the Kim Possible Mission that we all got to do. It was really fun. We had fun meals, too. We got to have breakfast and dinner with the Princess's. We had breakfast at the castle and dinner at the Floridian. The dinner included Lady Tremaine and the step sisters, Cinderella and Prince Charming. It was great! Lady Tremaine was hilarious! She was such a snot, and stayed in character even with the little kids. I think you can kind of see it from the picture of her. Riley got to dance with Cinderella and Emory with Prince Charming. We also went to the O'Hara for a Polynesian themed dinner. The food was amazing. My favorite food was probably at the Lady and the Tramp themed restaurant. It was so good. I had mushroom stuffed ravioli with spinach and Alfredo sauce. I think I could eat that every day! Good thing it isn't available, huh?

I am back in school, as is Billie. And I need to get to class, so I am going to upload some pics from Disney for you and will give you more details later. Love to all and Happy New Year!!

Flashback Friday

YEAH! It's Flashback Friday! This is the first day of school this year, Third grade! I know I promised pictures way back when, and then totally let you down, so here you go! Isn't she adorable? I know, I am biased, but COME ON--she is CUTE! She was so excited to wear a tie to school. It ended up getting on her nerves and she took it off by the end of the day. Third grade has been awesome so far, although there is a lot more drama this year. Girls are just drama-filled beings by nature, I guess, and it is amazing the change that occurred over the summer. Billie doesn't really instigate any of it, and it usually doesn't even involve her, she just gets caught up trying to make everyone happy and get along--smoothing things over between everyone. And a lot of the kids are "dating", as they call it. When we were kids it was "We are going together." I remember my mom asking me "Really? Where are you going?" I would get so mad! We don't allow Billie to have boyfriends or "date." And she says she doesn't want to. There is a boy she has a crush on, though. I don't think there is any way to stop that, or I would try! HEHE! It is so scary to be a parent of a girl, but she is such a good girl so that makes it easier. I just pray for her daily, and I pray for her future husband, too. I want the moon for her. The most important thing to me is her salvation, and I always ask God to help me lead her to Him. I want to teach her to lean on the Lord for everything. Unfortunately I have passed on to her my worrying nature. I hate that I have done that, it is one of my worst habits and I hate to plague her with that. But she is so sweet and loving, and she does love the Lord. She says the sweetest most heart felt prayers. It really touches my heart. She thinks of things so uniquely, so different than I do. She is so amazing, God is so good and has blessed me with a wonderful daughter. Have a great weekend all!!

Snow Day!

We got a snow day Saturday, it was so much fun! The snow was gone by 3 in the afternoon, except for our snowman, which is actually still on the front lawn, but only the very bottom section. He actually toppled over as soon as we came in to the house to get dried off and have some hot cocoa. Billie woke up at 6 AM to tell us it had snowed! We got up and started stringing popcorn and making Christmas ornaments for our tree. It snowed all morning long, and we finally went out to play at about 9 AM. We were out for about an hour, until we were sufficiently soaked and cold to the bone! It was a wonderful way to spend my birthday, though. That is the first time since I was a kid in Michigan that I have had snow for my birthday! You know you are in East Tennessee when building a snowman uses up all of your snow in your yard! I can't wait for more snow, they are teasing us with a small threat of snow this Saturday, so we will keep our fingers crossed! I have a final exam today, two tomorrow and one on Thursday. But on Friday I will post some pictures of our home-made tree decorations. We have had so much fun doing this tree this year, Billie keeps saying it is her best Christmas ever! We were forced to make decorations since ours are loaded up in the attic behind mounds of stuff and we can not get to them at all. I guess if we wanted to unload the attic, get the Christmas stuff out, then load the attic back we could, but that would take one whole day to do and I have no desire to spend a day doing that. We are still trying to sell the condo, so we are trying to keep it minimally decorated and make it look more spacious, thus all the stuff up in our attic. More later in the week!

Count Down to Disney

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We sure did. It was a wonderful 4 days off from work and school and we spent it with wonderful family and GREAT food! SO fun. Now Billie and I are counting down to DISNEY! We are so excited. We go in 15 DAYS! Whoohoo! Which also means I have to get ready for Christmas before then. Scary! But we are well on our way. Since we are doing Disney, we are cutting back on gifts so that helps. Billie is very specific in what she wants for Christmas, which also helps. She wants a frog, a real live, pet frog. She is all frogs all the time these days. We even got her a frog ornament for the tree for her ornament this year. I need to somehow put the year on it, so we will always remember the year she was obsessed with frogs. We still have our house on the market, but no luck selling yet. Since we were trying to make it look less like we were busting out at the seams and more roomy, we packed a lot of stuff up and put it in the attic, in front of all our Christmas decorations. I guess we were hopeful we would sell before Christmas. So we got a real tree, borrowed lights from Wanda and Billie and I are making handmade decorations for it. Any ideas you have for easy and fun ornaments will be greatly appreciated! I miss my ornaments and other pretty decorations, but I am OK with it. It will just make it more special next year when we finally get to use them again. I love decorating for Christmas, it is my favorite part about Christmas, and it is fun to try something new and do something different.

Billie is very busy with singing performances both with the school chorus and with church choir. She sang Sunday night for "Hanging of the Green." We are so blessed to have Bob Robinson at Central, the music is always outstanding and he lived up to his reputation Sunday night. I was so filled with the awe of what God did for us through the music and voices that Bob directed that night. It is always amazing to see the church lit up in candles and twinkling Christmas lights, poinsettias, greenery, ribbons and bows, but the real enjoyment is from the music. The hand bells were fantastic, the orchestra and the voices, too. Of course, Billie did a wonderful job. She always sings out and knows every word. She is blessed with a beautiful voice and a has a true gift. She loves to shine on stage, too! I am always so proud of her. She has a Christmas program at church next week, 3 different performances for the school chorus, and a piano recital all coming up! It will a busy two weeks, but fun for us all.

I have been filled with thoughts of what Mary must have felt like, so pregnant with her first child. Probably nervous of the impending birth, and then travelling so far and away from her mother who would have naturally helped her with the birth of her first child. I can't help but think of how terrifying that must have been. And how uncomfortable! Can you imagine being so close to your due date and having to walk and ride on a donkey for many miles, only to find yourself giving birth in a dark stable among the animals? Of course she didn't know at the time the pain and suffering her baby boy would endure to save our souls. I also think of what Jesus would have been like as a baby. It is so hard to imagine! I think of him as so perfect, but as a baby the only way he could communicate would have been to cry, so he had to cry sometimes. He had needs that had to be met, and Mary couldn't have read his mind. But I bet it was a sweet cry! You know, that quiet little precious sound babies make before they get really upset and really mad and really scream? I love to think about Jesus as a baby. I love what he did for me, but it makes me sad at the same time that he had to suffer at my expense, so I love to think of him as a baby - happy and perfect. Years away from the amazing sacrifice. I love to think of Mary then, too, before she knew what would happen to her precious first born. When she thought he would be a king and save her people, which is what he was and what he did, but in such a different way than she must have expected. I also wonder if she was shocked after having such a perfect baby by her other children's behavior and temperaments! I bet they seemed like a real challenge in comparison.

OK, that is my long winded rant for the day! It is fun to get those random thoughts out of my mind. Happy Wednesday to you all!

Michigan Update

So this is Matt and Brian this morning in Ann Arbor at 9 a.m. Matt said they stopped about 30minutes outside of Ann Arbor last night and got a hotel, barely because most were all filled up with Ohio State fans, and they got to the exit at 6.30 this morning and waited in traffic, yes traffic, to get into the parking area. They pulled in their spot at 8 o'clock this morning to set up for tailgating. They are cooking a fine breakfast of coffee, steak and eggs. I haven't heard back from them since this picture was made because they were busy trying to get their breakfast in before they headed to the stadium. The game starts at noon on ABC, Billie and I will be watching for the men in bowl hats! Everyone have a great Saturday. GO BLUE!