Somehow I'm 41

Last year on the day I turned 40, my adored friend Sudi had a stroke and my sweet special needs cousin died unexpectedly in his sleep. It was a bad, bad day. This year, turning 41, my heart was overwhelmed with thankfulness for God's faithfulness in letting us keep our Sudi. Thankful that Duncan is healed and perfect now as well, though we long to see him. My birthday was full of simple blessings... Wrangling 2 year olds at BSF with Abby, being treated to lunch at Cafe Zupina with Khaysy, Elizabeth, Krissa and Callie, an avalanche of texts, calls and FB messages from all of you, the funniest (and true!) personalized gift from our awesome new neighbor Amie, flowers from Michael, a perfect dinner with my in-laws, and talking to Sudi. So thankful for simple blessings. They mean the most. It was a good day. Thank you to all of you who made sure of it.

I casually mentioned in front of AK at New Years that I needed to quit soda. Didn’t really mean it, but she has held me to it. Never say anything casually around Anna Kate!  Also, Anna Kate is hilarious. I asked her if she had seen what she wrote on my card somewhere, and she said “No, just the random thoughts in my head.”

I'm sad RT and Sudi are in Atlanta and not here with me, but didn’t stop me from getting to be part of Sudi’s new brain day celebration!  I even got a picture from Grandma Weeks.

Tidbits of January

You can try moving to Atlanta, but you can’t shake the Rogers! They’ve only been gone a couple weeks and we already can’t stand it. First I-75 reunion stop of many to see the Weeks!  We met up at a country buffet and had us a finger lickin' good time.  Miss them so much!! 

The new Rise of the Resistance ride opened in Hollywood Studios over the holidays.  There is such a frenzy over it that they won't even give you an opportunity to stand in line to ride it.  They distribute "boarding passes" at park opening, and they run out in the first five minutes.  The only way to ride is to arrive hours before opening, be one of the first in the park, and as soon as you're scanned into the park, hop on your app and reserve a boarding group.  This means getting up at 4:00 a.m.  This means this is a job for Jason Crosby.  Wesley knew he was his only hope!  As soon as we pulled into the driveway from our trek back to Florida from Tennessee, Michael hopped in his car and delivered Wesley to the Crosby's house. They got boarding group #82 and rode a few things and then took a nap in the car waiting for their summons.  They finally got to ride late in the afternoon.  Wesley said it was worth every minute of lost sleep.  Quite the memory for him.  He and Jacob had a good time.

Granddaddy beat us down to Florida.  He drove a trailer with the last of Mom's stuff.  He took us to lunch at Sonny's (except for Wes, who was still at Disney), we browsed the mall, and then I cooked dinner.  Wesley made it home in time for the Dairy Queen run. 

I park in the maintenance building parking lot at LCS after picking up my elementary kids while I wait for my middle school kids to get out.  We forgot to take Carigan's scooter out of the back of the van after we'd gone around Hollingsworth one night. She was thrilled to find it and went from dreading the 20-minute wait to loving it.  She told me to get my camera out and she fell as soon as I got it aimed... but she popped right up before I could snap it. Totally meant to do that.

Anna Kate is our family meal enforcer. She gets kind of bent out of shape when people just start grabbing food on their own. This past Saturday she made pancakes and asked for smoothies and omelettes and then ordered us all to the table. Then she spent the day at Quinn's house enjoying the unseasonably warm weather:

I've been busy running back and forth to the hospital checking on Jacquie.  She went to urgent care last week with abdominal pain and they told her to go to the ER.  The source of pain turned out to be just an ovarian cyst, but a CT scan revealed a tumor on her pancreas that was determined to be malignant.  So she had surgery this week to remove half her pancreas plus her spleen (just for kicks). We praise God for the incredible favor He showed Jacquie by allowing an undetectable condition (never symptomatic until it's to late) to be found as a result of unrelated pain. It's been a scary week, but God is so good!  The other three kids helped me deliver their card creations to Miss Jacquie after breakfast.  They asked if it was the hospital where they were born... So we took a trip over to the 4th floor of the old wing where they were all born. We missed the new Mercedes luxury baby birthing building (Carol Jenkins Barnett Pavilion For Women & Children) by just a few years.  All for kids were born down that hallway:

Our adopted church Grandma Ms. Betty is so sweet... she wrote all the kids' birthdays down and hasn't missed a single one.  She had gift in hand for Carigan on Sunday.  She sewed her a little Minnie Mouse bag and had some other treats. Carigan is excited to use it on the cruise!

Construction on the addition is finally moving along after months and months spent in permitting and finding and replacing various eras of plumbing under the old courtyard. They poured the foundation and I let the kids go out there with Sharpies. Tate had to imitate Wes by writing the year in Roman numerals. These are pics of the progress from the security cameras:

Now it's the kids' favorite place to play in the evenings. They go out there and whack tennis balls against the plywood. AK informed us that she no longer wants a theater room... She just wants to keep the indoor tennis court.

I always notice this old photo of Cambelle Hubbard at dance class.  I didn't even know she danced at Studio 1 Ballet when she was little!  But that's definitely her.  It's right behind the desk so it always catches my eye when I go to pay.  Carigan made the wall too, in the toy soldier photo below Cambelle.

Carigan's Giant China Panda Party

 

Carigan is a hardcore party planner.  For at least the past six months, she's asked me to snuggle with her at bedtime, pulled out a pencil and paper, and brainstormed birthday party themes.  Apparently the theme is all-important in 4th grade.  Llamas and cacti were off the list, as they have been claimed by other friends already for their upcoming parties. We threw around several ideas, but I wasn't sure how to make some of them happen.  I googled to see what kids movies were coming out soon, thinking we could go see a movie and work the theme around that.  We watched a trailer of the new live-action Mulan together, and we got to brainstorming on a China-themed party.  Carigan had already planned out every detail from the food to the decorations to the cake to the party favors when I discovered that Mulan isn't actually being released until March.  Oops.  Why in the world have they be showing previews for it since 2019 then?! Well, Mulan or no Mulan, Carigan was already emotionally invested into her China-themed party.  So I googled "Chinese children's movie" and found The Great Panda Adventure, a 90s Disney movie.  Carigan watched the trailer on YouTube and approved.  I ordered a used DVD of it on eBay, and China party was back on track!

She wanted to eat dinner at Panda Express, but I talked her into eating family style at Peking House at Southgate.  I thought it would be more authentic and a more China-ey atmosphere.  Maybe too authentic.  Most of the girls barely touched the food.  But it was a memory!  Selah, Evelyn, Alondra, Kerrigan, Carigan, Tate &  Amberly:

The fortune cookies and the sugar donuts were a hit though!  Tate has memorized his lucky numbers.  I think he's going to carry that fortune around for at least a few months.

I decorated her Panda cake!  I'm so proud!  We couldn't find any panda cake designs at any of the local bakeries, so I found this Pinteresty cake design and ordered Panda figurines on Amazon.  I ordered a plain white cake from Sam's, and decorated it with fresh rosemary, Pirouline cookies, and the panda figurines.  It's my one and only Pinterest success in life.  And I don't even have Pinterest. It made me proud that Carigan was so proud of my cake.

Very loud rendition of "You smell like a monkey"

Carigan and I had come up with the brilliant idea to try our hand at floating lanterns.  I ordered some on Amazon, and we set up Sharpies to write things on our lanterns before sending them up to Heaven.  Things went awry when Selah asked me what kind of things they should write.  I answered a prayer, a wish, or even a message to someone they love in Heaven.  Well, this immediately started the tears flowing from Selah, who lost her great grandfather a few months ago.  Amberly apparently is a sympathetic crier, and Kerrigan cries all the time for no reason whatsoever, so she didn't need more of a prompt than that.  The next thing you know, Selah, Amberly and Kerrigan are all boo-hooing. 

Meanwhile, Carigan & Alondra are all^^^ while Evelyn never even looked up from her artwork.  Girl is chill.  The crying was continuing to garnish too much attention, so I finally went from comforting to gentle encouragements to calm down, to "Okay, cut it out." 

Tate decorated his lantern with his favorite Bible story - Jonah.  His lantern read "Jonah did not only Just tell Ninava about God but he also told the saliors."

We didn't know if it would work, but it did!  A little scary how the huge flame bounces a few times on the road and sometimes the grass and makes you worry you're going to burn down the neighborhood.  But once they got off the ground, they floated up high and disappeared from sight.  It would have been nice if the wind had carried them over the lake, but instead it took them right over our roof and our neighbor's roof... nothing like crossing your fingers you don't burn down your 120 year old house!

Still so. many. tears. 

Amberly was enthralled by the swans... She was not afraid!  She kept touching them and I had to keep reprimanding, "Respect the swans, please!" Carigan was all over this.  You don't mess with her pet swans.

Carigan meticulously put together each goodie bag with the Chinese fans, Chinese coin purses, and Chinese candy we ordered on Amazon.  Daddy brought some of the candy back from China himself.

Lots of Panda-themed gifts, and a Caboodle from Selah. I got my purple Caboodle for my 12th birthday.  I brought it home last March when I went home to clean out my room. Carigan broke it within a couple months. Nothing survives her!  Sitting at breakfast at Fat Jack's the day before the party, Carigan begged me to see if I could order the movie Hollis Woods... some Hallmark movie they've been watching in their reading class that she thinks is just the greatest.  She comes home every day and tells me all about it.  Half of the girls are not in her reading class, and Carigan thought they just HAD to see it. I told her there was no time, but I pulled out my phone at the restaurant and Amazon had it for like $7 with next day shipping.  So despite the elaborate China-themed party, they settled down to watch Hollis Woods instead of The Great Panda Adventure, around which we orchestrated the whole party. 

I at least got them all in Carigan's room by midnight.  Evelyn was the only one asleep before I went to bed.  I have no idea how much they actually slept and I'm pretty sure it was almost none at all, but they weren't loud and I slept just fine.

They weren't up at the crack of dawn, but they didn't exactly sleep late either.  We did have time to watch the panda movie though.  And eat lost of donuts, brownie bites, and Nutella with a side of fruit.  Breakfast of champions. 

Kerrigan's long-awaited new puppies arrived yesterday!  It was kind of horrible timing since Kerrigan had to leave to go to the party.  Originally Heather had asked me to take Kerrigan from school so she wouldn't know, but I told Heather I was worried she'd hold that against us!  So she did go home from school and get to meet Annie and Gracie and play for a few hours before leaving for the party.  Carigan has been bound and determined to be the first friend to meet them, so I told Heather I'd bring Kerrigan home.  Amberly's dad met us there, so they both got to meet the puppies.   It was love at first sight!

So they were originally only supposed to get Annie, but then she started limping and after numerous vet consultations, was determined to have some sort of condition where her back leg slides out of joint.  It doesn't cause her pain, but she does limp (doesn't keep her from running a million miles an hour).  She may grow out of it or she may need surgery in the future. Since she's a purebred hypo allergenic dog that they had paid a bundle for, the breeder called with three options.  They could get their money back and not take Annie, they could get their money back and have Annie for free, or they could get Annie and pick out another dog.  Two for the price of one.  Heather went over all of it with me and told me she thought keeping Annie and being refunded was the perfect solution because she felt guilty for spending so much on a dog. The next day we got to lunch after Bible study with Abby, and she sits down and says she's getting two dogs.  I turned to her and said, "Wait, when did you change your mind?" And she replied, "While sitting in Bible study just now when Chris sent me a photo."  So they now have two puppies.  Gracie is a few weeks younger than Annie so she needed a couple weeks more training with the breeder before she could leave North Carolina with Annie. So it extended the wait.  They're finally here!!!

I knew Carigan would crash after the party... I just didn't know it would be where I couldn't find her.  She was finally located behind the couch when she started to snore a little. Meanwhile, the other kids had a big time coloring on the addition's new concrete foundation with Sharpies.