Happy Birthday Mom!

 Happy Birthday to my wonderful Mother!

Happy 70th Birthday to my mother and very best friend. 

7️⃣0️⃣🎂🎊

You live every day full of strength, joy, service, love, laughter, stories, faith, and purpose. 

✝️🥰📞🍳🧺🏃🏼‍♀️🥦🏈

You truly exemplify the fruits of the spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

💕🕊️💪🏻🧎🏼‍♀️🫖

You are my confidant, my cheerleader, my sounding board, my reality check, my prayer warrior, my call for help, my advice column, my safety net, my compass, and the secret ingredient to every recipe. Everything I am is from your loving guidance, patience, and direction. 

📣🙏🏻📞🧭💕

You are the best Grammie on the planet. Keep up all your healthy habits. You are so loved and still have so much to teach us. 

We can’t wait to see you in a few months. 

🌎🍎🏃🏼‍♀️⏳💕

Fun Times

 Brady's birthday was simple, but still lots of fun.  He's such a great little guy!

Best Cat!

 We have the best cat on the planet, and she turns 15 years old today!

Happy Birthday, Lex!

60th Birthday

 My sister would turn 60 years old today, which sounds very old to me... but then again, I turned 39 this year and we are 21 years apart.  Time sure marches on.

I googled "Things to do on your sister's 60th birthday".  Several ideas included tandem sky-diving, getting tattoos, a weekend getaway, a cruise, and a garden party or BBQ. All interesting ideas.

Here is a picture from her 30th birthday when her husband surprised her with a trip home to West Michigan where my parents hosted a big family birthday party.

I hope you're having a happy sixtieth birthday, Trace.

I miss you.

9 Years Old!

 

My favorite first-born daughter turns nine years old today!  Happy Birthday to my spunky, sassy, intelligent, mature little girl.

You have grown tremendously much this past year including trying new sports, facing your fears in order to try new adventures (water slides, roller coasters, and singing a solo in your school choir concert), and you really stepped out of your comfort zone when we moved to Rangely and you had to establish a completely new social network and circle of friends in our new town.  You handled everything with an amazing attitude.

You are so creative and intelligent, I do not understand how you think of the inventions you do, the business plans you have, and tackle the arts and crafts projects you do.  This year you have really come into your own as an artist and an individual.

You are an avid reader and bring a book almost every where you go.  You read incredibly quickly and you remember the story and can re-tell it very well.

You are a wonderful big sister to all your younger brothers and sisters.  Brady and Hunter really think they are little kings because of how much you care for them and spoil them.  Caroline and Lee Lee look up to you so much especially how hard you work, your grades, your style, and your creativity... and Howard thinks you're awesome, which is why you are his favorite person to annoy.

Happy Birthday, Beautiful 9-year-old!

We love you like crazy.

Long Story Short

 Yesterday we threw Tracey a surprise birthday party, and it was SO much fun and we had a great turnout, and she really was surprised, and I think a great time was had by all.  The location was SO much, and her best friend from Rifle and her family even came up for the party, and spent the night at our house afterwards.  Seriously, the best day of her life so far.

And here are a few pictures of the fun times...

And here is the only picture I have of the actual surprise when the door opened and 23 people yelled surprise.

Ticket to Pardise

 As a part of my birthday celebration, I took some time Saturday night to watch a movie I have wanted to see for a few months now -- Ticket to Paradise with Julia Roberts and George Clooney.  It looked like a funny romantic comedy, (which seems to be hard to come by these days).

It certainly was a cute, funny romantic comedy... but can I just say, movies are so different once you're a parent!!!!

This is about a divorced couple and their daughter graduates from school and then goes on a fun summer trip to Bali before beginning her job as a lawyer (they never talk about law school... so I'm not really sure what liberties were taken by the writers in terms of the reality of qualifications for becomming a lawyer... but I digress.

While she's on her fun summer trip, she meets a man in Bali, a seaweed farmer and she decides she is going to marry him (in four days time) and stay in Bali for the rest of her life.

The movie was funny... but so HORRIBLE!!!   This is any parent's nightmare no matter how many jokes you incorporate.

The kids and I watched Cool Runnings on my birthday, which if you remember is about the Jamaican Bobsled team who goes to the Olympics.  One of the bobsledders is very well-off and he decides not to tell his father that he is becoming a bobsledder and that he is going to the Olympics.  I found myself pausing the movie to explain to our children that they can always tell us anything I hope they would not lie to us if they were ever in a similar situation.

Oh goodness.

Movies are so much harder now that I'm a parent.

1000 Words

 1000 Words

Turning 39!

 Today I'm turning 39!

Good Advice

 I saw this post on facebook yesterday and thought is sounded like good advice worth sharing.