Mom's turn: Gifts from Afar

Today we worked hard on placing Mao in school. We visited two different area high schools and made progress; both said they would accept her it’s just a matter of preference. Now we are waiting to have her evaluated for placement with the ESL program and then she can start.

Then when we got home we got a very special surprise. Mao’s mother sent a host present for me and a birthday present for Christina...a fabulous mini-kaleidoscope phone charm,

a pink pencil, and a beautiful puzzle card. So of course we had to make her a thank you card :-D Mao enjoyed learning about our passion for scrapping and card making, too. She made her very own to send home. I’m sure her mother was happy to hear from her. Somehow they got mailed before I got pictures :-/

Birthday Blues

Our plans for Teeny’s birthday fell through…she’s been dreaming of skydiving for 11 years now, and we were going to do a 3 generation dive (Judy was flying in). TWO MONTHS AGO (I called last week to book the dives, what cruddy timing) the laws changed and you now have to be 18 to do a tandem dive. Disappointment of the 11 year plan crumbling doesn’t begin to describe her emotions for her sweet 16! And needless to say we had nothing else planned because that was going to be so expensive. So now we must rally and find other things to be happy about. Instead she got an aquarium, a new set of pajamas (Travis called it her “birthday suit”), a gold “Sweet 16” necklace charm & chain, and a new purple iPod nano. We also took her to the bank to open her own checking account, Starbucks for an afternoon snack after picking Trevor up to spend the afternoon with her, and then we all went to eat at LaShish, her choice for her birthday dinner. It was Mao's first time to eat Lebanese food, but she enjoyed the shrimp and gyros. GG came with us there as a surprise and Kazum (the owner) had a special birthday cheesecake waiting just for her!!I think we managed to regroup and have lots of fun anyway. Now if I can recover from the shock of having a 16 year old…

“Today was my birthday! I had a great b-day! We picked up my bf and hung out at my house for a while, and then we went out to eat. It was awesome. We went to eat at my favorite restaurant, Lashish, where they surprised me with a VERY cute birthday cake with a fairy on top. I got some awesome b-day presents including a beautiful sweet 16 golden necklace, a purple iPod, some cute pj’s, a fish tank, and some yummy dark chocolate! It was the best birthday I could wish for.”

Mom's Turn: Introducing Mao

SOOOO – we now have Mao, a foreign exchange student from Japan, living with us. It was a big surprise with unusual circumstances to get her in the middle of the year like this. She came to the USA in August and has been with a host family in Slidell. For various cultural and personality reasons it just didn’t work out and she needed to be moved rather quickly. Teeny’s old Japanese teacher remembered that I had been interested in hosting an exchange student several years ago, so she called and asked if we could take Mao in. I thought it would be a very unique opportunity and a blessing in disguise because we could give it a trial run for half a year instead. We are running into some problems with the Baton Rouge public schools…how perfect is that for a glitch! The private do, but they require acceptance at the beginning of the year. So we may simply be a means to an end holding her until Ann (the coordinator with the ASSE program) can find another host family outside of Baton Rouge with a school to accept her. Although, we all are working very hard to get it fixed because we would love for her to stay.

Real-Life Fairytale

Teeny has been dreaming about her first dance and last night she got her opportunity. She attended BRHS’s Winter Formal with her boyfriend. So I had my very own live fairytale princess at the end of the shopping/dressmaking/hair styling/and makeup drama week!! GIRLS! She couldn’t have looked more angelic when it was all said and done, though. How perfect is that for the very first try. And her boyfriend was quite dapper in his new tuxedo I might add.

Trevor

Of course I took at least a hundred pictures, but I'll only post a few :-D

"I had a lot of fun tonight. First, my boyfriend took me to eat at Bistro Byronz. That was nice since it was the first time other than a movie that we had gone out. I also had a cool time at the dance and he even danced with me! That was shocking :-D I saw a few of my soccer teammates and my friend Brenna was there, too.

Brenna

I was a little surprised that there was no decoration or anything, but I still had a nice time. The music was good; they had a D.J. hired from the station 94.1 and they played some of my favorite songs.

I also LOVED my dress. It was a vintage dress from the late 60’s or early 70’s that my grandma found and we had it altered to fit with a few changes to update it a touch. It was perfect when it was done!

My hair and shoes and nails were also great! My mom let me get my hair and nails done since I did not get a “new” dress (which I’m glad I didn’t anyway).

Mom called me "twinkle toes"

I spent many hours picking out the perfect hairdo and a pretty headband to go with it. I decided on a loose up-do like Taylor Swift had in one of her videos.And my hairdresser, Angela at Salon Boheme, did a GREAT job! It looked amazing and just like the style I picked out! I also spent a long time picking out shoes. We went to several different places and must have tried on a million pair, but we finally found my glass slipper at Dillard’s.

Daddy's girl - "thanks for making it all possible Daddy"

We thought we were going to go with silver shoes and accessories, but we ended up doing everything in a pale gold with pearl and rhinestone accents. They are about 4 inches, which my mom was a little concerned with because I am not that graceful. That put me over 6’ tall…good thing my boyfriend is tall too! My mom even let me borrow her diamond and pearl earrings and pearl bracelet! I felt like a princess…Thank you Mom & Dad."

Mom's turn: He smiles…SERIOUSLY!

What could possibly cause this much bliss…
This many smiles…
This much joy…A good ol’ belly rub!!!!!!

Mom's turn: Across the generations

We’ve been blessed so many ways this past year, but one in particular is by sharing with our ancestors. I’ve already mentioned that we inherited a piano from my MIL, but we also got a wonderful dining room suit with pieces from my mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law, and great-grandmother-in-law,

each seat was beautifully handstitched in a different floral pattern by Christina's great-great-grandmother as a gift. we are going to remove them from the chairs and frame them to hang as a collage on the far wall...a wonderful way to bring a bit of the garden inside year-round

a fabulous China set and a beautiful wing back chair from my great-grandmother-in-law,

i love to sit and knit in this chair knowing that Great-Great did the same thing all those years before me...

and several hand stitched quilts and knitted afghans from both great-grandmother-in-laws. We also used our Christmas money from my FIL to purchase curtains to finish up the room! I’m so excited – our house is starting to look like a home.

the finishing touch - my husband brought in some camellias from our garden to make the dinner table beautiful!

Mom's turn: Who Me???

Boy – someone’s got your number!! I’m really not sure what gave it away, either. Was it the cute pajamies, the sweet smile, the handsome bow, or all of the toys scatter around the house??? Whatever it was, one of my friend’s picked up on the secret of our household and got us this precious sign for Christmas!! The boys want to thank you from the tips of their noses to the bottom of their tails :-D

Sick Day

I spent the second part of my holiday break sick! It was terrible. I had my friend Brenna spend the night, and the next morning I woke up and couldn’t breath. My mom took me to the doctor as soon as they opened. They poked, jabbed, drew blood and took chest x-rays and finally came to the conclusion that I had the flu. NOT FUN! I had it for an entire week. It was hard to breath and my eyes ached, and I just felt extremely puny.

Although they didn’t give me a prescribed pill I took a lot of stuff to help me feel better. My mom got me 2 types of Theraflu, a pill and a hot drink mix, I took Advil every six hours, my regular vitamins plus a vitamin water, and hot mint tea. That's the miracle drink when I am sick. And thank the Lord I’m feeling great now!

Mom's turn: New Year's Traditions

So most regions have some sort of food traditions associated with New Year’s Day. In the South – it’s black-eyed peas and cabbage. We were lucky enough to have another fresh from the garden cabbage ready just in time for lunch!! :-D The other thing that seems to be more of a family tradition is enjoying a pickled peach for dessert! This must be genetic because everyone on my husband’s side of the family, including my DD, loves these things, but the rest of us that were married in think they are the nastiest thing in the world!!! To each their own.

Travis likes his cornbread smothered


Teeny prefers it on the side

fresh jar from Aunt Sherry's pantry

Mom's turn: Nutcracker

Travis picked up two very large bags of pecans when he went hunting for deer on his uncle’s farm this week. At least he came home with something ;-) However, today he has spent ALL day cracking and shelling them. What a chore! We ended up with five bags when he was finished. Thankfully my FIL had an actual nutcracker, not the little man either, that he let us borrow to make the job go faster…well, as fast as possible. Now we will have fresh pecans frozen for recipes all year long! I really want to try and make some candied pecans…but that would go against my low-carb training diet ::sigh:: What a dilemma :-D

Samson likes pecans, too!