July 17

Goodbye Five!  Here's a picture of Faith before bed the night before her birthday.  This is one of the very last moments I saw my firstborn at five.  We stayed up late this night watching the American Girl movie "McKenna"

Good morning sweet six-year-old!  You'll notice two of my three children woke in my bed.  Typical.

The only thing Faith really wanted to do on her birthday was go see Brave.  Check! 

It was an early show!  It started at 10:50.

After the early movie, Faith wanted Subway for lunch:

And Orange Leaf for dessert:

Faith had asked for Kids Bop 19 and 22 for her birthday.  Our neighbors gave her 19 but 22 was not released until her birthday, so they gave her a gift card for 22.  I made sure we went to Target to pick up the other half of that present. 

Faith loves to pick out a Target cake on her birthday from their huge selection.  Last year she chose an octopus cake, this year sea creature cupcakes.

I do my best to not work on my kids birthdays.  My boss required me to work a half day on Faith's third, because I had the twins that year and he wasn't willing to give me another day off nor trade days, but other than that I've never worked on their birthdays - I spend the day with the birthday kid(s).  However, I have a few special clients that live nearby and one of them texted me on the night of the 16th requesting I give her cat a shot.  It wasn't a big deal and Faith LOVES their farm, so we stopped by to poke the cat.  These people have 13 hives, and one of Faith's favorite things about visiting this farm is they always, always, always give her honey sticks.  YUM!  It's a very favorite treat.

We were there for about 15 minutes before I explained that I had to rush this sweet child home to be with her father for 4:14, her birth minute.  Away we rushed!

Well, isn't that just life? 
The next three pictures were shot in rapid succession.

(Faith's holding the dolphin she picked out for her special birthday gift from Barnes and Noble.  She also chose an American Girl book on how to do doll hair.) 

Our last stop: the library!  Faith requested we visit the library for her birthday, so I put it on the list of things to do.

Once at home, she was given her gifts from the family.  Cawood gave her the DVD "My Babysitter's a Vampire," Eva a stuffed bear to color and DJ and I gave her an ice cream maker (along with some other stuff.) 

Faith opening the bear Eva chose for her:

Oh!  Nana gave Faith a scooter, but she has outgrown her helmet, so we gave her a new helmet too.

There she blows! 

 

Happy sixth, Faith! 

Coco Jones

Do you remember last January through March I served Faith's Daisy troop as Cookie Mom?  I started out super excited, but it turned into a nightmare pretty quickly. . . the girls were great, but those mothers - wow those mothers.  Anyway, we had ten selling girls and they sold 2,596 boxes of cookies.

Saturday was the reward concert for troops averaging 225 boxes per selling girl.  Coco Jones from Disney was at Connor Prairie and I have a handful of pictures to show you. 

Camdyn and Faith.  Camdyn is holding Faith's digital recorder; Faith has the whole concert recorded.  Silly girl!

Happy girl, pre-concert

Samantha, Destyne, and Faith prior to the concert starting

Stage 

I hoisted Faith up on my shoulders and wormed into that crowd so she could take this picture.  We then returned immediately to our seats in the grass.

I'd love to say the girls had a blast, but the truth of the matter is that they simply did not.  I'd like to blame that on the age of the girls, but really the older girls around us weren't having a good time either.  It just wasn't fun for the kids and I don't know why.  The organizers did everything right, and all the kids had an okay time, but nobody really seemed to have a super-excellent, fantabulous, stellar time.  The concert was an hour long and Faith was asking to leave half-way through. 

Bummer.  Win some, lose some. 

Faith's Sixth Birthday Party

Faith had a Coco Jones concert on Saturday and her birthday party on Sunday.  I'm going to blog about Sunday first, and then Saturday, because . . . well, that's the way I want to do it. 

This about sums it up.  It wasn't her best party.

Sweet Camdyn, one of Faith's best friends:

Mackenzie, looking a whole lot older than nine. 

The twins learned how to let balloons fly.  They made Grandpa and Ray blow up balloons on the back porch for a very long while yesterday afternoon.  They'd release and laugh as the balloons flew around the porch. 

Eva, with her pigtail blowing from the wind of her balloon:

Grandma:

Cooper:

Faith:

Bella, Ray and Eva:

DJ playing lifeguard:

Emma:

Faith.  I don't know what was wrong with her Sunday, but it wasn't a good show.

Aunt Barb gave her the Happy Napper she's been asking for for two-and-a-half-years.  Yes, you read that correctly: I did not buy her that silly pillow for 2 1/2 years.  When Aunt Barb asked for ideas, I suggested the Happy Napper, and here's the result. 

However, there were moments of the gift-opening ritual that didn't go well, not well at all.  I would chalk it up to Faith being a kid and kids being unpredictable.  However I had a talk with her a few days before the party explaining how to behave during gift-opening and she still was less than wonderful the entire time. 

 Moving on: Faith is grounded from her favorite TV stations (Disney and Nickelodeon) and she's grounded from birthday parties.  The birthday parties are still up for debate, as DJ thinks I'm overreacting but the TV is toast, gone, see-ya later alligator.  She learned the sassy behavior from the TV, so the TV's gotta go.

After the presents we did the cake thing, but Faith didn't want us to sing to her.  I asked Uncle Matt to cut the cake, which he did.   

Then Faith threw a fit because she wanted to blow out her candles. . . so she was given candles in a piece of cake.  And Uncle Matt sang. 

Jessy had to work at PetSmart Sunday during the party, but she stopped by afterwards to see Faith and give her a gift. 

Library Time

OK, so this is a little embarassing to admit, but before yesterday my twins had never seen the inside of a library.  If we wanted a book, we went to the bookstore.  Yuppers, that's the truth. 

Faith's been asking to go to the Danville Public Library.  Yesterday I took the kids to work with me for two appoitnments, and I had promised them that if they were good I'd take them to the park and then to the library.  They were HORRIBLE!  OK, they could have been worse. . . for the first appointment the twins were angels and stayed upstairs, Faith played quietly downstairs with the daughter of that client.  When all was said and done, the twins came downstairs to say goodbye.

Second client: I *COULD NOT* get those kids to leave us alone.  Thankfully, it was a client I've seen several times before and it was just two routine kitten exams (which is why the kids wouldn't leave us alone - kittens are cute!) 

Anyway, I did NOT take the kids to the park.  I couldn't possibly reward them for that behavior, so we went home after the appointment.  Three or four hours later, Faith was asking to go to the library, and I thought that I should not withhold library time as a punishment, so away we went. 

Good thing too, because Danville had a really nice library!  I wish I had visited it two years ago. 

Twins:

They even had little educational computer games for pre-schoolers!

And Eva on another:

How awesome!  I'll tell you what.  I've been thinking a lot about how to save time after the big job thing goes down (July 31 start date) and I've decided we're going to be a Costco family.  I have every intention of visiting Costco weekly after work (it's a 2 minute drive from my new work) and we're going to live on frozen Costco meals.  

But then I also got to thinking aboout homemade freezer meals, and at the library I found some books on freezer foods, so I'll see what happens with that too.  It'd be great to have a few trays of lasagna, chicken and noodles, etc in the freezer to just pop in the oven for an hour and have a home-made meal.  Anyway, the library was a treasure-trove of cookbooks, hundreds of them.  I have a little bit of a thing with cookbooks, so I was excited to find them.  These are the things I think about. 

F-A-I-T-H

Eva:  Cawood!  That's Faith's cup!

Cawood: No, it's my cup.

Me:  Buddy, that cup belongs to Faith.

Cawood:  No, it's my cup.  See? (points to each letter) F-A-I-T-H, that spells Cawood.

Negotiations

Last night (or was it two nights ago?) DJ convinced Eva to clean her room for a quarter.  That's typical around here, when the kids complete a chore, they are paid with a quarter.  Cawood and Faith would not clean their rooms, but Cawood said he would do his today.  When DJ arrived home from work tonight he and Cawood had this little conversation:

DJ: Did you clean your room?
Cawood: Not yet. 
Cathy: Good answer!  Go clean your room, buddy and Daddy will give you a quarter.
DJ: Yeah, I'll give you a quarter if you clean your room.
Cawood:  I need *two* quarters.
DJ: (Laughs) He's negotiating!
Cawood: I need two quarters to spend them at Wal-Mart.
DJ: OK, I'll tell you what.  If you clean your room and put all the books on the bookshelf in the loft, I'll give you two quarters. 

Good Night Sweet Children and A Scuzzy Pool

The girls chose to dress alike for bedtime last night, both in silky purple nightgowns made by Grandma.  Eva in Ariel, Faith in Tinkerbelle.  It was Faith's idea to take the picture, "Mommy!  Take a picture of us to show Grandma!" 

Meanwhile, Cawood was in his favorite (OK, they are my favorite) PJ's. 
The I (heart) Mom ones.  Ahhh. . .

*****

Ever since the Memorial day party the pool hasn't been very clear.  DJ's done everything he can think of to clear the water, but it just kept getting worse and worse.  With the 105 degree heat last week, the pool was HORRILBE!!! 

I bet that husband of mine has spent twelve hours in the position, total over the past few weeks.  He's forever tinkering with the pool, but nothing has helped. 

He finally broke down and called Barker's out to have it evaluated.  They couldn't find anything wrong with it either, and instead just did a very long backwash to clean the sandfilter.  DJ's wondering if pool is just too small for all the grubby kids and sunscreen we've forced upon it this season.  Add in the heat, and it's a murky mess.  Trouble is, we're having a pool party this Sunday for Faith's sixth and that darn pool needs to be sparkling.  He'll figure it out - he has to. 

There's A First Time For Everything

Why yes, I did take a picture of this first. Better yet, I'm sharing it with you:

Water Heater and a Cousin Day

Ah, you know how it goes. . . it's been decided that I should probably get a job to make a steady income while I continue to build IVA.  While IVA is growing every month, it's not growing fast enough to support the family.  I originally sent out two or three resumes in search of part-time or relief work.  Within 12 hours of one resume hitting a corporate inbox I had a response in my own inbox requesting a phone interview (when I learned I was wanted full-time, not part-time and at a hospital different from the one for which I had applied). . . then an in-person interview. . . then I was supposed to meet two more people.  Instead I was called Saturday evening and told that the company is drafting a contract and they'll have it to me early this week.  Geez.  That was kinda fast - about ten days from resume out to full-time contract in hand.

 

Anyway, I'm estimating I'll be working about 60-70 hours a week between the two clinics.  Obviously I'm kind of bummed out about that, but the kids and DJ are accepting of it.  In fact, when I explained to the kids that I won't be around very much but we'll have more money, they were 100% fine.  Cawood, without missing a beat, told me he wants a new ipod.  So we'll add that to the top of the list for Christmas. 

This also means that DJ will be taking over as primary caregiver - he'll be the one responsible for getting Faith to school, picking her up on sick days, taking pictures of everyday life, girl scouts, sports practices and games, feeding, etc, etc.

DJ had noticed on Friday that the "air conditioner" was leaking.  He had suspected that the AC was working overtime and just dripping water on the floor, but a few minutes after I was told I'd have a contract in hand this week, DJ figured out the water heater had busted out a seal and was irreparable.  He spent Saturday night mopping up water, and yesterday Mike Rediske came over and installed a new, bigger (85 gallon) water heater in our basement.  We're going to have three teenagers before this one is expected to go bad . . . we'll need the extra hot water.

That alone tells me it's true: God'll take care of you.  If that water heater had busted out a week earlier, it would have been a major source of stress in our home.  Since it happened when it did, we just fixed it and no worries.   

*****

Eva, last Monday, sat on the top step at our house just before I left for work and told me she didn't want Jessy to come that day.  She loves Jessy, don't get me wrong, but on that day she didn't want Jessy.  She didn't want me either.  When I asked her who she wanted, she answered (out of the blue and totally random) that she wanted Aunt Miki.  All week long, Eva continued to ask for Aunt Miki.

On Saturday night, when the whole job and water heater thing was going down in our home, Miki let me know that her car was acting irratically and she wasn't going to be able to visit her Mother in Terre Haute as she had planned.  We had 100 degree heat and a breakdown would be a very bad thing so Miki and the girls decided to stay home - which meant we were invited over for some cousin time Sunday.  I took a few pictures of the kids in Aunt Miki's pool. 

Cawood:

 I forgot floaties at home.  Mackenzie and Madeline are both competition swimmers now and floaties are absolutely not needed.  When Miki went off in search of an old pair of floaties from the girls younger years, Eva yelled after her that she wanted Strawberry Shortcake floaties.  I explained to Eva that she gets what she gets, but two minutes later Aunt Miki was back with a pair of Strawberry Shortcake floaties, still in the package.  She was a lucky little girl. 

Madeline (rear,) Mackenzie (front) and Faith (side):

Faith, Mackenzie, Madeline, sharing some cousin time.

Cawood: Watch this Mommy! (dunk!)

Cawood kept ripping off his floaties and trying to swim alone, so Aunt Miki got in with him. 

And a video of Aunt Miki and Cawood swimming together.  Aunt Miki was a little exasperated with Cawood after a few minutes because she was trying to get him to swim to her, but instead he'd fish off in another direction and make her chase him.  He doesn't do it in this video, but that kid is ready to S-W-I-M on his own.  I just wish he understood he's still a very weak swimmer.