It's late at night....

...and I'm still up listening to Caroline and her friends giggle and laugh....but they are having such a good time! I'm going off to bed....

Today I made everyone breakfast, went to co-op, taught British Lit, taught Beginning ASL, helped in Chemistry class/lab, took Caroline and three of her friends to paint pottery and out to eat (late birthday celebration), came home and watched a movie with them, and now am definitely ready for a good night's sleep.  Hope they all go to bed and get a good night's sleep, too.

God is so good.  All day today I've been thinking about how blessed I am to have a Saviour!  And beyond that, to have a great husband and wonderful kids is just icing on the cake.

Edible flip-flops....

Here is the promised picture of Mary with her birthday cake. She would rather be wearing flip-flops than any other kind of footwear, so I made her a pair of flip-flops on the beach. The "sand" is graham cracker crumbs, and the straps are made from sour-fruit candy. The polka dots are giant sprinkles. Caroline painstakingly applied all the polka-dots. The cake went over really well, and tasted yummy, too--french vanilla flavor. Her birthday is now over for another year...

I Can't Believe It

My middle child, daughter Mary, turns eleven years old today. It amazes me that it has been that many years since Eric and I first held her in our arms. Then, she weighed 6 pounds and was about 19.5 inches long. Now, she's almost 5'1" and weighs about 86 pounds! In her short life she has survived a cerebral aneurysm repair, (no, it never burst, thank God!) lived in two states and for a few months in another country, and tolerated being the middle child quite admirably. She is very different from her older sister and younger brother in personality, but she's no wallflower. Mary impresses me with her ability to make friends easily and get along with almost everyone. She is kind, loving, and friendly. She really wows me when she gets up early, nearly every day, and gets most of her school work done before her siblings even start theirs. She is extremely self-motivated. She also reads her Bible every morning and every evening, and the fruit of this is evident in her life. She is striving to be more Christ-like each day. This is starting to sound like a college recommendation letter, and that was NOT my intent. I merely wanted to write about Mary today, telling anyone who reads this how very much I love her. I have been blessed beyond belief to have her as my daughter. Here are her last three birthday pictures. After her party on Saturday I'll post a picture of her with this year's cake.
Mary's birthday in 2005:

In 2006 celebrating her birthday at the Old English Tea Room with Caroline, Miranda, and Lindsay:

In 2007 with her Eleanor the Elephant cake:

Famous Birthdays

I know it may sound crazy to some people, but this whole week I've been waiting for something bad to happen. I posted about this last year. Some of the worst things have happened right around my birthday before, so it's nice to have a year when mid-April is peaceful. I also found out this year that while I share a birthday with Hitler, my husband shares his with Charles Manson. It's kind of fun to see what famous people share your birthday, even though it's utterly meaningless. For example, in addition to good-old-Adolf, I share a birthday with: Joey Lawrence, Carmen Electra, artist Joan Miro, Don Mattingly, and quite a few other Hollywood-types. My husband, in addition to Manson, shares his with Tonya Harding! He also gets a lot of "normal" famous people: Sammy Sosa, David Schwimmer, Nadia Comaneci, Al Michaels, Wallace Shawn, Grace Kelly, and "The Thinker" sculptor Auguste Rodin. On a side note: anyone who believes in astrology should spend some time looking at these birthday lists. The idea that all of the people born on a certain date share similar characteristics and fate would quicky be dispelled. For example, my father shares a birthday with the late Vladimir Lenin, my mother shares a birthday with the equally infamous Nikita Kruschev, and my mother-in-law shares a birthday with the hanged-for-war-crimes Saddam Hussein. Hmmmm.....I sense a communist/fascist/absolute dictator theme going on in my family....

So, although it really means nothing, it's kind of cool to see who might be having a birthday cake and hanging out with their friends and family on the same day as you. Even if their idea of hanging out with friends might be something crazy like this,or this. I, on the other hand, went out to dinner at a Moroccan restaurant with my husband on Thursday night, and will have a nice dinner with family tonight. Then, tomorrow, (my actual birthday, ta-dah!) I will go to church with my family and hear my husband preach. Now that's a real gift--to be in the house of the Lord with other believers, worshiping together and being taught from the Word. We've been invited to another family's house for lunch, so I won't have to cook, either. It all adds up to a fine day in my book.

P.S. Just got back from my in-laws' house, and it was actually a small surprise birthday party! I wasn't expecting it. My mother-and-father-in-law were there, as well as Eric's sister Esther and our brother-in-law Nate, and Teddy and baby John. Charlotte made delicious pot roast, potatoes, carrots, and a salad, and we had strawberry shortcake for dessert. I even got to open most of my birthday presents. It was a wonderful time.