Noah's New Desk

When we were back at Christmastime, Pete's mom told Noah that she and Papa wanted to give him a desk. They had one that belonged to Marc's dad (so, Noah's great-grandpa Trolinger).  He was SO excited and we talked about picking it up next time we were in town visiting them.  Well, we just got back from our trip to IN, which means, Noah has a new desk!

Sue and I recovered the chair, so it would match his room and got it all loaded before we left.  As soon as we got home, Noah was anxious for us to get it in his room.  We set it up in there and he started putting some of his treasures on it and in it.  But, before he did too much, he wanted to write a note to HIS grandkids, so one day they would find his note like he found a couple things of his great-grandpa's stuffed in the back of a drawer.

Livie was excited to see his new desk too, but definitely not as excited as Noah was.

I promised him we'd go to the store and get a few things to add to it, like a pencil holder and stuff, but for now, he's content with a lamp, his Ipod dock, and his treasures.  I actually think he's looking forward to having homework, so he can work at his new desk!  Thanks, Nana and Papa T!!!!

Palm Sunday

Yet another busy day at church as we get closer to Easter Sunday.  Today was Palm Sunday and we started it off with a really special time with our Sunday School kids, talking about the joy and promise of Jesus' resurrection.  It was a great message to share with them!

We had to head upstairs and join the adult choir, because the kids got to sing with them.  After a couple run-throughs, I had to hurry them out into the sanctuary to pass out the palm branches.  Thankfully we had a lot of kids, because the practice ran long and they only had about 6 minutes to do it!  I know why John wants the kids to pass them out.  They're just so cute!

After that 6 minutes ran out, we hurried them back into this space (some of the kids were passing palm branches out here already) and got them lined up to go into the sanctuary and perform their song.  Keeping them quiet for the 10 min it took to get through announcements was NOT EASY!  Thank goodness for my helper, Melissa, who was with me.

They did a wonderful job and sang their little hearts out.  They sounded great with the adult choir too, who were standing around the sanctuary, singing.  That's why they aren't in this picture with the kids.

After church we headed to the Medical Center for a quick look at Livie's finger.  At dinnertime last night, I started noticing Livie's pinky getting really red.  She said it hurt when I touched it.  Sure enough, she woke up this morning with a big bubble of pus forming around the nail.  An infected finger.  So, Pete dropped us off and the doctor told me that it needed to be lanced.  While we were there, we noticed a second finger was also turned red and getting infected.  Something she did yesterday at the Spa Party caused this infection, so that kind of sucked.  She cried when they gave her the numbing shot, of course, but after that she was a real trooper!  She even thought her new bandaged finger looked "cool".  They gave her a popsicle while the finger turned numb and then gave her that beanie baby puppy to make her happy too.  Add in a slushie on the way home and she was in pretty good spirits. :-)

Her 12th Birthday Party

What a fun (exhausting), wonderful (exhausting), loud (exhausting) day!! ;-)  Boy, do I need to give my mom some credit.  I had numerous sleepovers, a few slumber parties, and she never seemed to bat an eye.  I had 6 girls - 2 of which were my own! - for 7 hours and I am ready for bed!  Madie invited 4 friends to join us for her Spa Party.  She and I spent several days gathering fun things to make her party extra special.  She was so giddy about it, that she was pacing the house that last hour before they got there.  Thank goodness she had dance this morning to take her mind off of it for a while.  The girls started arriving at 2.

Before they came, Livie and Noah played on their DSs.  Yes, that's how Noah plays.  He left shortly after the girls came for some special Noah/Dad time aka shopping at Home Depot and MC Sports, before heading out for dinner...at McDonalds. ;-)  Livie happily joined her sister and her friends.

Madie got all of her stuff arranged on our buffet for the girls to use.  She made each of them a make-up bag (from Thirty-One) with chocolate-flavored lip balm and scented soap from our local homemade soap shop.  She gave them each a lip gloss, fingernail sticker covers, and pedicure toe things.  Oh, and a travel-sized lotion too.  She wanted to really take charge with this party and made sure she packed up all the bags, keeping in mind which scent or which flavor/color she was giving each girl.  It was really cute.

We took the wrapped off the water bottles and added some cute chevron duct tape to them to match her party colors and got snacks out on her desk for everyone.

She even decided she wanted them to make trail mix and picked out the different things she wanted them to have.  The girls were posing for me before they made their own trail mix concoction. :-)

I tried to take some of the pressure off Madie, so she could enjoy just being with the girls, but ever the hostess, she stayed busy trying to make sure all of them got to enjoy the different "stations", as she called them.  We set up pedicure stations in the living room and let them use her new Orbeez spa thing as well as a special sugar scrub that they used for both their hands and feet.

They even made oatmeal/yogurt facial masks and covered their eyes with cucumbers.  Oh my gosh, there was such a mess after this!!!  I am such a freak about how clean my house is too, so I tried not to go too crazy as I saw them walking around with yogurt and oatmeal dripping off their face onto my floor!!  Thank goodness only 2 girls decided to do it.

 Madie took to painting her friend Miranda's fingernails, while Livie decided to try her hand at painting her own toenails.  Boy, was she proud of herself too!  I tried to let Livie be a part of some of the things they were doing, but also made her spend time just with me, so the girls could have time together without the "little sister" getting in the way.

Again with the facial mask.  Such a mess, but they had SOOO much fun putting it on each other.  They were just laughing and laughing!

Madie picked out a Reeces pie (she did that last year too - remember Nana and Papa?) and we all sang Happy Birthday.  We opted for no presents again, but her friend Katie made her homemade cream puffs.  So sweet!

They all had pizza and looked through her new Tiger Beat magazines and talked about their favorite movie stars and singers.  Times haven't changed that much, since I was a kid.  We used to do the same thing!  Miranda had to go home at that point, because she was still recovering from getting her tonsils out on Wed.  No pizza for her.  The rest of them spent the rest of the night playing stories in the basement.  All I heard was lots of laughing and fun coming up from the basement.  She had the best time and, boy, was it fun for me as her mom to see this new 12 yr old of mine having such a great time with her friends.  I soooo remember being that age and what fun I had with MY friends at that age.  It was great to relive it through her. :-)  

Madie's 12!

 Today, my oldest turned 12!  Does that make me old?  Probably.  But, I feel like we're entering a new stage in her life and it's kind of fun to see her fully entering her 12th year and all that entails.

Her birthday started early in the morning today.  You'll notice we didn't decorate last night.  We decided to decorate tonight instead, because tomorrow is her birthday PARTY!  I hope to post about that tomorrow.  Anyway, she opened one of her presents before school this morning and she was really excited to see what was inside.  She got clothes!  And, now that she's 12, she's super-excited about clothes. :-)

Especially when one of the shirts has a puppy on it that looks like Tater. ;-)  And, please notice her awesome hat!  Livie nearly stole that from her and I know that will be battle between them, because Livie WILL try and steal it at some point.

I took this photo, so you could see that she also got a Tiger Beat magazine (and another one too called J14).  Yes, folks, Tiger Beat is still very much alive and the girls of this generation love it too.  Of course, instead of Michael J. Fox and Corey Haim, it has Justin Beiber and One Direction.  One Direction is like the Backstreet Boys and NKOTB of 2013.

Later today, once Pete got home, she got to open the rest of her presents.  She got an Ipod dock, just like Noah's, except it's silver, not black.  But, it also has the nature sounds and stuff that she wanted.

The boys I babysit were still here, when she opened her Skylanders present.  She really wanted a character named "Stelth Elf", so she was thrilled when she saw that she got it!

The last thing she got was a pedicure/spa thing.  I didn't take a photo of it, but you'll see her use it in tomorrow's pictures, I'm sure, because her party theme is a "Spa Party".  She's sooooo excited about it too! Praying it's a fun one for her and her friends!!  Back to this photo, I took a picture of it unwrapped, so you could see that her wrapping paper has the One Direction crew on it.  So funny!  After presents, we went out to eat at the Cracker Barrell (her choice) and went to the store to pick up a few more things for tomorrow's party.  They're going to make facials, so we needed bananas, oatmeal, yogurt, and honey.  Oh, and cucumbers, of course!  Really hoping it lives up to her expectations.  I expect a lot of giggling, lots of nail polish, and some jamming to the One Direction boys.

It's In The Mail!

After weeks and weeks.... and WEEKS, we finally mailed off the directory!  Now, this might not be a life-defining moment for you like it is for me, but with all that we went through to get this thing done and in the mail, I am pretty darn excited!!  This began way back in October when I decided that it would be a good idea to get a new book started.  In December we met with our rep, got all our materials and began, what I like to call, our "Directory Journey".  Our journey included weeks of sign-ups, phone calls, letters, emails, church announcements, snow storms, cancellations, re-bookings, and late nights.  Not to mention hours and hours of creating activity pages and rosters and things to go inside the directory.  Did we create the next new Pulitzer Prize-winning novel?  Of course not.  But, did we create a pretty cute directory?  I sure think so!  Basically all this boils down to is, we worked really hard on a project that took a lot of our time, effort, and energy and we're really proud that it's getting sent off to the company to review.  Hopefully they'll find very little (or even better  - nothing!) wrong with it and come June, we might have a hundred or more directories to pass out.   I am so proud of our team!

Loss and Grief

This morning, around 10am, I got a phone call from a friend who informed me that the school counselor at our school committed suicide last night.  It's hard to fully grasp that kind of information.  This is someone that my kids knew very well.  She was weekly or at least bi-monthly in each class in that building, talking to the kids about issues they faced.  Bullying and suicide was touched on in the fall.  Last week, she talked to each class about stress.  And, in the midst of helping others, she was unable to find help for herself.  There had been a knot in my chest for most of the day.  I was praying when the moments of quiet came up.  I wanted to be able to talk to my kids about what "suicide" meant.  What it means to ask for help.  And, I wanted to do this for 3 very different kids at very different ages.  The Jr. Highers were told today that she took her own life.  Noah and Livie were just told she died.  So, when Madie came out of school, we quietly talked for a minute about what she was told and then later, quietly went into her bedroom to discuss it more.  She had questions about why she would do that when she seemed so happy.  I told her we don't always know the reasons why.  It's hard to understand the pain that is inside a person, if they put on a happy face.  Because Livie wasn't told what she died from, I also pulled her aside during a quiet moment to talk to her.  I asked her if she knew what the word "suicide" meant.  We talked about what it means to be really, really sad.  And, how sometimes, people are so sad that they don't want to live their life anymore.  She really listened and asked questions when she had them, then she told me a little story.  She said that her teacher told them about a little boy whose grandpa had died.  He didn't cry at all until he was at school the next day and then he just started crying and crying.  Her teacher went up to him and asked what was wrong.  The little boy told her that he didn't get a chance to say goodbye before his grandpa died.  So, her teacher told him to make him a "goodbye card".  Livie said that is what she wants to do.  She said she didn't get a chance to say goodbye, so she's going to make her a goodbye card just that little boy did.  I thought that was a beautiful way for her grieve.  Noah's reaction was one of complete shock.  He knew she died, but when I told him she committed suicide, he just looked straight ahead with this stunned look on his face.  "She was a social worker.  Why would she DO that?!  She always told us not to bottle up our feelings and she did it herself".  We talked about it for quite a while and ended things with hugs and promises that we'd always talk to each other if we were sad.  I realized after speaking to each of my kids that they all process grief differently.  That, at different ages, they find different ways of grasping the ungraspable.  They were difficult discussions to have, but important ones to have and I feel I know my kids a little bit having shared that experience together.  This is just the beginning for them though.  They may find a way to move past the grief sooner rather than later, but there are many kids and teachers in the process of grief today and I ask for prayers for them as they find their way through the pain, the anger, and the sadness.