My Baby is 8 Today!!

Time just seems to fly by.  I think it was just a moment ago that I looked at my Little One and she was just a baby.  Today she is somehow 8 years old.

I have the most amazing kid.  She is funny, and generous, and thoughtful, and analytical, and determined, and decisive, and special, and strong, and kind, and loving.

She's wonderful, and I'm so proud of the person she is becoming.

Today she had a party with 7 of her friends, some new from school and some that she has known for years.  It was fun to bring all these facets of her life together to celebrate her special day.

Here is where we started 8 years ago on her Birth Day.

And then she kept growing up...

Age 2

Age 1

Age 4

Age 3

Age 5

Age 6

Age 7

And today she had a blast at her 8th Birthday Party!

Pizza with Friends

The Dolphin pinata didn't stand a chance!

Making Dolphin Suncatchers

Blowing out the number 8!!

And leaving the blue behind

Great Friends!

Birthday Selfie!

Can't forget Dad!

Christmas Stunk - well... not all of it fortunately.

Yes, Christmas this year was definitely not what I was hoping for.  We had lots of great plans and fun activities planned and we missed out on most of it.

Friday night - exactly one week before Christmas Day - Jocelyn came down with the WORST stomach bug we have ever dealt with.  I mean WORST!!  It was 4 days before the vomiting stopped completely, and it was literally weeks before she fully recovered.

She missed cookie baking with friends, the last 3 days of fun activities at school before winter break, play dates - it was awful and so sad.  Pat and I were wrapping gifts at midnight the day before Christmas Eve.  Our cookies for Santa were generously given to us by a friend because I never got to do any baking.  And the reindeers peanut butter balls were made the day before Christmas Eve.

By Christmas Eve Jocelyn was feeling well enough to hook up Santa and the reindeer in our usual fashion, though she still wasn't up to eating anything, we made sure the reindeer had their night time snacks.

Christmas morning she enjoyed her gifts - thank you Santa for the Go-Go Puppy!  Legos are also very big this year!  (More on that in a minute!)

Christmas Day night we were packing for a trip to PA to visit Pat's family.  We really debated on whether we could make this trip, it had been such a rough week.  But we're so glad we did because it was really the highlight of our Christmas.  We had missed out on so much of the holidays, it was so nice to have family together baking cookies, and sharing meals and laughs.

Scott and Rachel were there from Indiana so we were all together for the first time in about a year and a half.  We were so thankful that the weather was good enough to travel and we were healthy enough, for the time being (little did we know), to make the trip.

There's a little story behind this picture.  Tiffany, Tina's daughter has a son and for Christmas he got a pop up tent.  There was no problem getting it to pop up, but getting it flat and small enough to put back in the bag, was a whole other story!  Scott, the PH.D. and Pat the engineer, took 1/2 hour to figure out how to do it.  We were all very supportive while we watched.  Tiffany said from now on she's shoving it behind the sofa.  I don't blame her!

So back to the Legos.  We mentioned to Grandma that Jocelyn is really into Legos right now and not surprising, Grandma had saved Pat and Scott's Legos all these years.  Out came a giant bin which included the parts to a castle that Pat took on the challenge of building.  Hours (and quite a few days) later...

So we got home from our trip, and literally, 36 hours later, Jocelyn woke up crying with a cold and sore throat.  New Year's Eve morning we were at the Dr's office getting a strep test, which turned out to be negative.  I would rather she has a cold than the stomach bug any day, but she was still miserable and the day before school started again we were debating on whether she was even going to make it back to school, but thankfully she did!

And now I am trying to recover from a sinus infection and bronchitis.  Never a dull moment.

So Happy New Year!  Here's to health, happiness, and peace in the world.  The world needs it so much right now.  2016 will bring much more excitement for us, so stay tuned!!

The Changing of the Rooms!

It's been a while since I've been around, but I have a really good excuse this time!  I've been very busy doing a little painting and wallpapering and moving of furniture and I'm so happy with how everything turned out.

When Jocelyn was first born, she was given the smallest kids bedroom which is a room just off the master that was perfect at the time for a baby.  She was close by and easy to get to, and she didn't take up much space!  As she has gotten older, the room has gotten so crowded and she has outgrown the space.

So it was time to rearrange.  Room A became room B.  Room B became room C and room C became room A.  You get the idea.

The first room needed to be repainted.  Here's what I started with.  And with a little help...












It became this.

And then the real fun began.  It was time to work on the room that would become Jocelyn's new room.  Here's what that one looked like to start.

We let Jocelyn decide what she wanted the room to look like.  Everything was her choice - paint colors, border, even the flowers.  First job was stripping the old border and painting the new mint green color.

And then the new flower border.  Very cute!!

And then the real challenge - hand painted flowers.

Someone was starting to get excited!!  Jocelyn's crib became a full sized bed and the mattresses were bigger than she imagined!

And finally it was time to move in!

Jocelyn finally got to sleep in her brand new big bed, in her newly decorated room just in time for Christmas!

Merry Christmas All!!

PS.  If you're wondering what has happened with the third room - nothing!  Two rooms was enough!

A Day at the Zoo

Last Friday Jocelyn had yet another day off from school so Pat took the day off and we headed to the Washington DC Zoo.  It was a beautiful day and lots of fun!

With her friends the Flamingos!!

What could be better than sitting in a Panda's lap?

 There wasn't much between us and these two guys except a pane of glass.  As we were watching them watching us, it begged the question - which of us is really in the zoo?

Can't pass up the carousel!!

September Adventures

With the beginning of the school year and the return of homework, ballet and girl scouts, our adventuring has slowed down quite a bit, but we've managed to worm in a few fun activities in the last few weeks.  It helps that the kids have had a day off of school once a week for the last 5 weeks!!  Finally this week is a full week - and hopefully the start of some routine.

On one of our days off, we headed to the butterfly gardens with our regular adventuring partners, Nicki and Colin.

Pat and I managed to get to the Renaissance Festival this year.  It was a gorgeous day and lots of fun.

Jocelyn and I went to a fall festival at the Days End Farm Horse Rescue.  This is a Horse Rescue farm that takes in abused and neglected horses, cares for them, and if possible finds them new homes.  Jocelyn had a great afternoon.  She got to play lots of games including her favorite the McD's Maze, made completely out of old Happy Meal Toys!  She made her own pony and then got to ride a real one.  And at the end of the afternoon she gave the charity money she had saved, to the farm.  I was so proud of her!

We also made it to the Sunflower fields again this year.  They rotate crops each year and this time the sunflowers were a smaller version that were just about our height!  A friend that came along with us, took some really fun photos of us with her fancy camera!

On one of Jocelyn's days off, we met Daddy for lunch.  Always fun!

One of  the historic places that we visited on our tours this summer was the Patapsco Female Institute.  In the 1800's it was a girls boarding school, and over the years it was also a hotel, hospital, and private home.  It came upon disrepair many years ago, but in 1965, the Friends of the Patapsco Female Institute took it over and eventually restored as much as they could.  It is now a historical place that does weddings and events.  

A couple weeks ago, they had a reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Friends of PFI and the 20th anniversary of the reopening of the park.  Since this was one of my favorite places on the tour, we went to the reception for another chance to visit the site.  

At the event was a girl scout troop that was dressed in period clothes that they made themselves!!  Very impressive.  Jocelyn loved the girls.  She had her picture taken with them and played badminton with them.

Now that the cooler weather is coming and school has been in session for almost two months, our adventuring may be forced to slow down, but you never know what else we might get ourselves into before the winter comes!