Birthday Week & Sam's Final Visit

Ruthie with her new Island Princess costume.

Let's add a dog or two to the fray!

Grandma (Bob's mom) with Abby, Joanna, & Ruthie.

This was our crazy week of birthday celebrations. Ruthie turned 6 on the 1st, Abby turned 4 on the 4th, and Bob... let's just say that we will be decorating in black and noting that half century milestone this Sunday! His birthdate was actually the 2nd, but we decided to hold off until Sunday and share the day with some of our long-time friends - football & food! We have celebrated 30th, 40th, and 50th birthdays with them, and a couple are nearing that BIG 60! Lots of history! We have watched each others' kids grow up, and now we are seeing grandkids too. We are the only ones who decided to start over, and all of them have been wonderful with our new kids.

Anyway, back to the birthday week. Ruthie and Abby celebrated together on Monday night with Abby oblivious to the fact that her actual day would be on Thursday. The kids always get to pick their birthday dinner, and Ruthie chose chicken and rice, corn, cantaloupe, and strawberry cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Abby wanted rice and cake, so we had her wishes covered as well. Since Joanna was so new on the scene, we gave her a few presents this year. It was hard to think of giving gifts to both other girls and having her just sit and watch without understanding. Next year will be different, but for now, this seemed the way to do it. They got lots of Barbie things with all the little accessories. For those of you who have Barbies in your house, you know how well-packaged Mattel makes things. Every piece of clothing is either plastic stitched to the cardboard or wire-tied. Every doll has 5-8 wire-ties. With three little girls getting these things, you can't imagine the craziness. Bob & I decided that our goal was to figure out a way to make Christmas more tame. Neither one of us want to go through this again!

A neighbor couple, whom our daughters consider their third set of grandparents, brought over three new light-brite boards on Tuesday. Guess what we have in every corner of the house?! With darker carpets, those little pegs are going to be a problem on Saturday when the vacuum comes out. Mrs. S. picked out three different colors, but what she hadn't planned on was the bickering over who has more pegs. With individual containers on each board, how do these get mixed up? I guess this is just one of those great world mysteries that will probably never be solved in this lifetime - lol!

Now let's throw Sam into the mix. He showed up late Thursday night to drop off his car for 1-2 years. Ugh! Since we are already holding a boat in the fenced enclosure at the side of our house, Bob is searching for places to stash the car so that it does not have to sit in front of our house for however long. (Don't we sound like a neighbor you would love to live next to?) Sam will fly out of here VERY early on Sunday morning to head back to his military base in Arizona, where he will fly out Monday for Korea. Hopefully Kenzie will follow within the month. We're just becoming such an international jet-setting family! In the meantime, he has turned my living room into a disaster. He is sorting what to take and what to leave behind, and every chair is full, and there is currently no floor space showing. He is by far the messiest of my children (always has been), and I am desparately trying to hang on to my sanity. (It's only two days, Linda, you can do this!)

At this point, I will wish everyone a great weekend and begin the MONUMENTAL task of trying to get this house in shape for our last BIG BIRTHDAY BASH of October!