Kids These Days

Give them free reign with their birthday party 

and they make rainbow cupcake/cakes.

  

 

 Take a good look folks,

 as this is an original you won't see anywhere else. 

While waiting for a few guests to arrive Amy, Lani, and two friends dug through the dress-up clothes and went out in broad daylight dressed as a Mother (Amy), a Daughter (Lani), a Grandma in her nightgown,

and a high school graduate.

 

I don't know how to break it to them but Grandmas don't ride bikes in their nightgowns. Pajama pants maybe, but not nightgowns. 

 

They rollerbladed, 

Yes, I know this is blurry.

 Danced with the dog, 

Took silly pictures

And cool pictures. 

A good time was had by all 

and I'm thankful to be done with birthdays for awhile. 

The Most Popular Birthdate in America

Excerpts from a Yahoo online article today:

In the United States, the most popular birth date is Oct. 5, say online reports by a host of websites such as the factsite.com, 1800flowers.com, Wikipedia and even this report by a Washington NBC television affiliate. All are based on a single source, anybirthday.com, which claims to have searched a database of more than 135 million birth records.

In fact, says anybirthday.com, each year, an average of more than 12,500 babies are born on Oct. 5. As of 2001, they say, nearly a million Americans shared Oct. 5 as their birthday.

You might be thinking by now, "Ho Hum! So what?"
 

Well, it just so happens, that our very own Amy was born on the most popular birthdate in America. Amy's been having birthdays for 14 years now and I just learned this amazing bit of information. 

She entered our life on a peaceful autumn morning fifteen years ago. You can read about her Birth story here if you're interested. 

Amy over the years

3 years

5 years

6 years

7 years

9 years

Age 10 - She broke her wrist rollerblading

Age 13 at Andrew's wedding

14 years - At Horse Camp this past spring

Today, Oct 5 - A big 15 years old

She chose Fruit Loops (yuck!!!) for her birthday cereal and Keith took her out to lunch at an Italian restaurant. Christina baked her a Lemon Poppyseed Cake to take to Youth Group tonight. She's been chomping at the bit to get a Facebook account for the last two years which we let her do today. She's been on FB for eight hours and already has 50 friends.

Happy Birthday Amy

Hope you have a good 15th year.

P.S. The yahoo article said that nine out of 10 websites claimed Oct. 5 was the most popular birthdate. 

It also said this: "The study credited to Armitabh Chandra of Harvard, shows that not only is the most popular birth date in September, but the ten most popular birth dates are all in the month of September, with Sept. 16 being the actual most popular birthday in the U.S. based on a review of all births in the country between 1973 and 1999. According to the NYT report of Chandra's research, Oct. 5 ranks a paltry 79th in terms of most popular birthdays."

Choose what you want to believe. I'm voting for the 5th.  

So Not My Idea

There I was minding my own business listening to a friend share about the school her son would attend in the fall. Little did I know this innocent conversation would change my life.

Afterwards Anna (age 17), my quietest child, went online and looked up the school and asked if she could go there.

In the interest of having an open mind, I researched the school and agreed that yes, it was a great place. But I couldn't get past the word, "Boarding School."

Anna, my most easy-going child, was politely and respectfully persistent.

Anna has been homeschooled from the get go so I never had to do those tearful, heart-wrenching good-byes when children go off to kindergarten. With the oldest four graduated, my homeschool load had lightened substantially and it wasn't such a hard job anymore.

I said ,"No." If I didn't want to send her to a public school, why would I want to send her to boarding school? I half kiddingly growled at the friend who mentioned the school in the first place and told her, "Thanks a lot."

We visited the school last May and asked lots of questions and her Dad told her, "Yes." Aagh!!! I told him I wouldn't fight him on the issue but I wasn't happy about it.

On August 20, Anna, my cautious, timid child, began her semester at Conserve School in Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin.

I talked myself through the angst. Some parents have children serving their country in Afghanistan or Iraq. She's only two hours away.  Some parents have children in jail. Some parents don't know where their kids are. I really am blessed with a good kid who hasn't ever given me any trouble. With lots of prayer, comfort food, and phone calls, I could probably make it through a semester.

Conserve is a private semester High School, funded by an endowment from a deceased philanthropist.  The school focuses on environmental stewardship and hands-on outdoor study. It's located on a beautiful 1,200 acre piece of heaven in Northeast Wisconsin. The facilities are amazing and it truly is a great place to learn.

But I miss having her home.

I wondered how a sweet, quiet, shy, cautious, reserved person would do away from her big family for four months. She seems to be doing just fine.

 

 

 

 

 

We're all slightly jealous of the fun things she gets to do, but we've forgiven her for leaving us and look forward to her return. Five weeks down, nine more to go.

Saturday Scraps - Super Sisters

Have camera, have something to occupy an afternoon. 

There you have it. Cheap fun at its best. 

I'm linking up with Jennifer at Knees and Paws today for her meme Saturday Scraps.
Saturday Scraps is a blog hop to share scraps of life, memory or process.
It's a friendship quilt in the making.

Monday Mugs

I haven't done a Monday Mugs post for awhile now but this week's assignment is "Just one picture from last week."  Just one picture. I can do that. So without further ado, I present just one picture from last week. 

You might rightfully ask what this is. That, my friends, is a Tree Quilt, a project Anna did with a few classmates in her Earth Art class. I never would have thought to do that but I'm not artistic. I think it's cool but it seems like a lot of work just to have to leave it hanging it there.

You can check out other Monday Mugs at Oswald Cuties.

Anna's Turn

I shared last month that Keith had each of the girls write something about our trip to Ontonagon. This is what Anna (age 17) had to say:

Vacation felt wonderful after lifeguarding this summer at camp. Camp was amazing and I’m so glad that I went. It taught me many things, helped me grow in my walk with God, and I feel like it’s really helped me prepare for going away to school this fall.

Camp was also exhausting and I didn't have very much free time. It took a lot of physical, mental, and emotional energy. I wouldn’t trade my summer but after a lot of work, vacation felt priceless. 

I loved being able to stay up late and sleep in. I loved having time to read and to journal. 

I loved all of the lazy beach days and just being able to lay out and soak in the sun. I loved the calm, relaxed feeling of this vacation.

 

But one of the things I loved most of all was that it was just family. No running to people’s houses. No dropping off this person here or that person there. Just us staying at the same place, doing the same things, and enjoying each other.

I love my family and am blessed to have them. I can truly say that my sisters are some of my best friends. Sometimes they can really get on my nerves but who doesn’t get on somebody’s nerves at one point or another. It’s life and we always work through it.

I wouldn’t trade my family for the world and appreciate all the time and effort Mom and Dad have put into us. They’ve done great and I thank God that they’re my parents. And I also thank God for each and everyone of my sisters and for my one and only brother. I am blessed and I will miss my family this fall when I'm away at school. 

Other family members chimed in on this topic. Click on their name to read what they had to say. Erica, Angie, and Keith.

I'm Still Here

"Mom, your blog is out of date!" (Yes, I know. I've been busy)

"Mom, you haven't posted for awhile." (Guilty as charged)

"Mom, our ages aren't right."  (Do you really think people keep track of your ages? But if it makes you feel better, I'll fix it.)

"You're going to lose your followers." (I hope not. Good followers are hard to find. Do friends stop being friends just because you haven't talked in awhile?)

Every day I plan to write a post and before I know it the day has evaporated.

Tonight I laid in bed for two hours, tossing and turning, completely unable to fall asleep. So here I am in the middle of the night, blogging, of all things. So much has come at me our way the last few weeks that I don't have any profound or witty things to say. I'll share a little bit of the hamster wheel I've been on.

*Keith's Mom had surgery to remove a skin cancer spot on her leg.

* My parent's were both hospitalized for pneumonia. They're home now and doing better but this is the first time my Dad has been in the hospital in a long time. We don't live near Keith's Mom or my parents so we're not doing any of the after hospital care, but there's phone calls to be made and worrying to be done. Even though worrying is wrong I have a hard time not doing it.

*Our adopted college student returned. We're happy to have our Canadian back in town.

*I went canoeing on the Brule River with our Youth Group. Lots and lots of fun.

You can't see me because I'm taking the picture

*Christina and Kiah started nursing school. We thought they were going to kill each other the first two days and hoped it wouldn't be a long year. But they both calmed down and things are going much better. It's a hard program and we suspect they were taking out their nervousness on each other.

*Erica started her second year of college in her Occupational Therapy program. I'm thankful for a good affordable local technical college since we have a platoon of girls who will need to go.

*Anna broke my heart by leaving for a semester. Seriously, who goes to boarding school anymore? Do you know anyone who goes to boarding school besides the girls on The Parent Trap? Three weeks down, eleven more to go. I'll write more about this in a future post.

*With all the other girls doing their own school thing, Amy, Lani, and I have started another year of homeschooling. Three days down, 150 something more to go. So far, so good. Sure would make things easier if I could find the geography book. The older kids all liked geography so I'm pretty sure no one lost it on purpose.  Sigh! I am so not organized.

*I was foolishly deceived by all those wonderful do-it-yourself blogs that take yucky looking furniture and transform it into something seriously awesome. A month ago I started painting Amy and Lani's bunk beds. My beds did not turn out as well as the blog projects. My family is ready to commit me as I still don't have them done. Keith warned that he wants his side of the garage back.

We're going camping Sunday night. Since Keith is a pastor, camping on the weekends doesn't work for him. But come Sunday afternoon, we're out of here and headed to Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island for two days. Keith wouldn't camp if I didn't push the issue, but it's my birthday on Sunday so he's obligated to be nice to me.  I'm really hoping it doesn't rain. Who wants to sit inside a tent in the rain on their birthday?

It's now 4:30 am and I'm going to try sleeping again. Good morning, everyone.