More Birthday Fun

Last week I shared with you that every year the first week of July is a week full of memories for me. But it's not only that, it is a week full of birthdays as well. This makes it a little stressful for me. I feel like I need to make each and every person in my family feel special on their birthday. Growing up there was always one person who made me feel special on my birthday and that was my mom. Even as I got older, if there is one person who remembers your birthday, it is the person who gave birth to you. Whether it was planning a birthday party, making a cake, bringing balloons to me at school for my 16th birthday or taking me for lunch during my lunch hour at work, she was always the one who remembered and did something for me.

While on July 8 we celebrate 3 birthdays at our house, we have one birthday before that. Brad celebrates his birthday on the 4th of July. He is not my child but I still like to do something for him and make him feel loved because he does so much for our family. Honestly, since the kids came around, he does kind of get left out on his birthday. I have to make 3 cakes a few days later so I don't generally feel like making him one. So I try to just make some good food for him. We celebrated his day by starting out with homemade cinnamon rolls. I also made some homemade ice cream sandwiches and we had a traditional 4th of July meal of Chicken dumplings. Honestly, we are so sick of hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, we opted for something a little different. We also spent a little time in the extreme heat by going to a local 4th of July parade in the middle of the afternoon. We will do anything for some free candy!

Then a few days later it was time to celebrate Alexandra, Amanda, and Joshua's Golden Birthday! We celebrated by having a big pool party with all their friends. We rented a bounce house, filled the pool with 27 kids, played some games, opened presents, and enjoyed some snacks and cupcakes.

We had sack races.

A water balloon toss which turned into a water balloon fight with all the extra water balloons. The kids all attacked my sister!

Delicious cupcakes!!!!!

If you know me, you know that I like order and not chaos. I have still to determine the best way to have present opening time with order and not chaos. If you have multiples and have figured it out, please let me know. I guess the chaos is way more fun for the kids and I don't want to be a joy killer. All the kids huddled around as close as they could to see what everyone got. It was definitely mass chaos and I gave up!

Our home has been invaded by Squinkies!

My three beautiful children are now 8 years old! It's been a lot of fun the past 8 years and I couldn't be more proud of them!

After all the kids left, we decided to continue the party so we could enjoy the day a little longer and of course the bounce house too. So, we invited family over and had some more fun. We were all really tired after 7 hours of partying!

Birthday Fun

Yesterday was Alexandra, Amanda, and Joshua's 8th Birthday! (Their Golden Birthday!)

On Saturday we had a big party with many of their friends over. Pictures will be coming soon. (I seem to be saying that a lot lately!)

Although I get a little sad that my children are growing up so fast, I love all the fun things we can do as they get older!

For Alex and Amanda's gift this year we had a girl outing. Tonight we went and got pedicures.

Then we headed over to the jewelry store so they could get their ears pierced.

And now they look even older!

Joshua is really into two things lately. He loves baseball and he loves learning about the states. This spring at school he was the first kid to make it through learning about each state. It was something that kids in his class could do in their spare time and on their own. He recently found the isle at the library with books about each state and has been busy reading about them.

When we went to a local market a few weeks ago he saw a wood worker that had made state plates. That is what he wanted for his birthday. So, he got the wood plate along with a new baseball bat.

We are very proud of all three of them and have really enjoyed watching them grow! We are excited to continue to watch them grow and see how God continues to shape their lives.

Baseball Season Is Over

Joshua's first season of Little League came to an end almost 2 weeks ago.

He really enjoyed his first year, did a great job and learned a lot. We were really proud of him and how well he did.

 

His favorite position to play was catcher.

Although pitching wasn't his favorite thing, he did a great job. At his age he was only allowed to pitch 20 pitches in one game, which usually ended up being about 4 batters. The last batter he pitched to this season, he had 3 pitches left for the 3rd out. He took full advantage of that and struck the batter out!

He often hit the ball off the pitcher and not the coach (if they had 4 balls they were not allowed to walk, a coach came in and pitched to them). He also had at least one hit, if not more almost every game.

They ended the season with a 6-6-2 record. And recieved 3rd place in the tournament.

Although we are glad it is done for now, we had a lot of fun watching him this year and can't wait for next year!

HE is Faithful Through It All

This week is always a week of memories for me. Some good, some bad.

As I sit in my house every evening listening to fireworks being blown off, (Yes, NW Indiana is like a war zone this time of year) I am reminded of 8 years ago, as I lay on the couch, as big as a house (me, not the couch) spending my last week on bedrest, waiting for my 3 babies to be born.

For those of you wanting a picture......sorry, you are not getting one today.

It's a reminder to me how faithful HE is.

When you are pregnant with triplets, it is obviously a high risk pregnancy. He brought me through with a pregnancy that didn't have any major complications. Yes, I spent a few weeks in the hospital and 5 weeks on the couch but He kept my babies safe. I delivered at 35 1/2 weeks and I gave birth to 3 healthy babies that came home 8 days later.

HE is good and I have been blessed!

This week is also a reminder of a week in my life that doesn't have the greatest memories.

This afternoon I will remember how 6 years ago my mom walked through my door for the last time. She had been searching everywhere for "crocs" that would fit Alex and Amanda's tiny feet and she had finally succeeded that day. She came in all excited and wanted to make sure that they fit them before she gave them to them for their 2nd birthday.

That afternoon she went home and life changed. She had a stroke but didn't realize that is what it was.

Tomorrow morning (4th of July) I will remember how she had planned for us all to go out to breakfast. As I showed up at Sheffield's, I found out that instead my Dad was taking her to the emergency room.

Tomorrow afternoon I will remember how I went to the ER to visit her. I sat in her room watching her nurse thinking how maybe I should go to school to become a nurse someday. Then the Dr. arrived and told us all that my mom had a stroke.

As he was talking, I became lightheaded and almost fainted. I then realized that nursing probably wasn't in my future.

I sat there with her as my Dad went home to get some of her things because she was going to be admitted.

That was the last day I talked to her that she was able to talk back.

On July 6, I will remember sitting in the waiting room as they performed Life-saving brain surgery on her. She made it through but was in a coma. We were hopeful as we waited for her to wake up. We were hopeful as we waited to find out what God's will was for her life.

Last week we were driving East on Rt30 at night past the hospital she was in. That hallway all lit up, that we walked every day to get to her ICU room, another reminder.

She never made it out of that coma.

But all of these reminders, as painful as they can be, are reminders of the great God that we serve and how HE has brought me through it all. He has brought me through it and has changed me. Definitely for the better.

I would like to end with one of my favorite Bible verses and one that I think is extremely comforting.

....in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.          

John 16:33

Finally - The Derby Pictures

After many hours of trying to figure out how to get pictures to post from Windows Live Writer into blogger, I have given up. Or at least I am taking an extended break and moving on with my life. That will teach me to try and make life a little simpler.

Since I'm a little wierd, I feel like I can't blog about everything that has been going on in June until I finally finish posting about what happened way back in the beginning of May.

For those of you who don't remember, I tried posting a bunch of pictures from the Derby at the Arlington Race Track that I went to for my friend Kelly's Bachlorette Party. The post showed up but none of my pictures did. So until I can figure out a way to get pictures on my blog without going through blogger and their issues of downloading pictures taking FOREVER, you will get less pictures and bad quality (of pictures that is, maybe writing too...you decide).

My first post gave you a lot of pictures. Here is the shortened version.

We had 10 women dressed up with fabulous hats, riding in an awesome limo, sipping champange, and heading to Arlington Race Track.

We had a great time eating, drinking and watching the races.

This is Kelly and I.

And here is Kelly a week later as a beautiful Bride.

 AHHHHH! Now I can move on and share what else we've been up to. You're sitting on the edge of your seat, aren't you? It's exciting stuff.

Someone Should Really Pay More Attention to the Kids

My Blogging Problems and the End of the School Year

Last week I tried showing you all the fun I had at the Derby in May but apparently none of my pictures decided to show up. They were there when I posted but gone after I posted. I've been having a few technical difficulties if you can't tell. I'll share a little of my dilemma and maybe someone out there has some advice for me. If you don't care about my dilemma (which I don't blame you) you can just skip the beginning of this post and move on a little further down.

Blogger is really slow at uploading pictures. So, when I post I try to only post a few pictures at a time otherwise it takes forever to upload. Even with a few pictures it can take me over a half an hour for one post. So, I decided to go my old route of posting my pictures to my blog from Picasa. Basically I send the pictures through Picasa to Blogger and then I can type my post through Blogger. Well, you can see how all that turned out last week. When I was posting my pictures looked horrible but you couldn't tell that because they decided to not show up at all. (If you are looking for the post, I removed it.)

It was then suggested to me by a friend to use Windows Live Writer. So I tried that out. Redid the whole post but when I was trying to post it from Windows Live Writer to my blog it gave me a 403 forbidden error. I've determined it is only when I post with pictures. If I send a post with just text it goes right through. I've spent hours trying to get it to work but it won't. I've enlisted a couple people to help but I haven't had any luck. The 2nd person is a computer expert but I haven't been able to connect with him by phone yet, so he might still be able to help me. If you have any knowledge on how to solve this problem, please......help a sister out!

So, until I get it fixed you won't get to see the Derby pictures or any other post that will contain a lot of pictures. I do have a lot of posts though that only need to contain a few pictures, so until then, that is what you will get.

It will just continue to be a source of frustration in my life, along with my pool that doesn't like me very much either.

Now on to the rest of my post.

(I couldn't think of a clever way to transition.)

The kids have been out of school now for 2 weeks. After a very busy May, I was looking forward to June and the kids being home. Relaxation. Staying home. Never leaving.

I've since determined that I think those days are over in my life. I remember the good ole days when the kids were little and I would have to leave the house midweek for groceries and I'd realize that I hadn't left the house since Sunday. I was looking forward to days that I never have to get in the car.

Yesterday was that day. I had nothing on the calendar that required me to leave the house, even though I had a couple errands I could have ran, I refused!

Now that the kids are getting older they have activities. Sports. We need to go to the Library. I have errands. Appointments.

So, if you are one of those mom's that feels stuck at home with little kids. All I have to say is "Enjoy!" Those days will be gone before you know it and you'll be wishing you could stay home!

With that I want to share a few pictures from the end of the school year.

Amanda, Alexandra, and Joshua all had to dress up as their favorite book character.

Amanda is Laura Ingalls. Alex is her sister Mary. Joshua is a baseball player (just in case you couldn't figure that one out.)

Isaac had Letter Character Dress-up day. He is Super Socks!

We got their report cards this week and I'm happy to say they all get to move up to the next grade. Actually they did very well this year and it's amazing how much they've learned. I'm proud of all 4 of them!