You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2008.
Avery had her second day at the Wayne County Fair today. She really likes the show where Farmer John and his farm dog, Smudge, show how they take care of farm animals like goats, cows and pigs. I had forgotten how smelly that area of the fair can be! None of the rides were operating (thank goodness!) and neither were most of the vendors. I wouldn’t have minded a funnel cake! I did get lucky in that the tractor that was carrying us on our hay ride, had benches to sit on instead of hay! Yeah for my allergies! Here are a few pictures: I especially like milking the plywood cow, and the giant pig with 13 babies! The lady and her son that we are sitting beside on the wagon are our across the street neighbors, Sandra and Aaron.
I had the best video to post tonight, but its not on my camera. I guess it didn’t get stored correctly and I’m soooo mad! We were all outside tonight after dinner enjoying the fall weather. We were watering bushes, playing with the dogs and watching the girls ride in the jeep, roller skate, and ride bikes. I knew I needed to get the camera when I saw Avery riding a scooter. She literally was riding the scooter correctly–down, not up, our driveway! She is so fearless! We have to be careful with her because she’ll try anything without putting on her helmet. She had already been roller skating and is able to ride her little bike up the big hill in our neighborhood. It was a great video. I got Avery on the scooter, Bailey watering bushes, Madi eating a popsicle and the dogs arguing over the ball. But, when I tried to load it, it was gone. Oh well, I’ll try another one tomorrow. We love to be outside when the weather is so nice. I’ll also have pictures of Avery at the fair tomorrow night. She went today with a friend while I stayed at school to teach 2 classes, but tomorrow we will both go.
After three girls and nearly five years, the two batteries we had for our Barbie Jeep died. So, we broke down and got another one. Avery is getting to be a pretty good driver. She never had to drive much because Madi always drove for her…just like Bailey would drive for Madi before she got too big. Julia only drove a little while because she was already in Kindergarten or First Grade when we got the jeep. Today, I noticed Avery driving to the edge of the driveway, stopping to look both ways, then driving out into the street, and turning to come down the ditch into our yard. That isn’t really anything new, Madi used to do it a lot. That’s actually way we had to order new tires for the jeep two years ago. They are just heavy plastic and cracked after so many times down the ditch. The thing Avery was doing that was different is that she was letting go of the steering wheel to hold her hands in the air (like she was on a roller coaster) as she went down the ditch. I watched her do it several times and when she saw me watching, she said, “I want this to be on your blog.” So, I ran in to get the camera. When I came back out, Madi had convinced Avery to let her drive because she likes to be on the blog too!
In other news, Thayer finally got a boy. Well, a boy dog anyway. We adopted Noche (pronounced No chee) last night. He is a black lab about 3 months old or so. He and his brother were found during the last hurricane a few weeks ago by a friend at church. Maizey is tolerating him pretty well as long as he doesn’t eat her food or get near her ball. We’re hoping Noche will breathe more life into 9 year old Maizey and that she will help train him. I couldn’t get a good picture of him because he is always moving! Here is Bailey with Noche. I cut off the top of her head and the bottom of him. But its the only picture I’ve gotten today where he didn’t move before the picture finished taking!
This is Noche and Maizey (notice Maizey has the ball in her mouth. She won’t put it down because she’s afraid he might get it!)
Tonight is not a typical night for the Stampers…YET! Madi and Bailey invited a friend each to sleep over and have been planning all of the evenings festivities since they got home from school. Julia has another middle school dance to attend so she is getting ready to go. Avery is right in the middle of everyone’s stuff and we keep hearing, “Mom! Avery’s bothering me.” So I guess this is good practice for how I imagine most of our Fridays will be like pretty soon. But, I don’t really mind having friends sleep over. I would rather be the house that kids hang out at than having to wonder where my girls are. I’ve got to get busy with supper so we can feed everyone before taking Julia to Norwayne. I wonder what time we’ll actually get to bed tonight?!?
Just a short post tonght…how is a preschool music teacher supposed to teach 5 classes tomorrow when she has no voice? It happens to me every year around this time. Thursday seems to be the day it happens because I am struggling by the end of school and then finish it off at Praise Team practice. Tonight was even worse because we had Spirit Night for Protestant Preschool at Chick-Fil-A right before practice. I had to stand with the cow (guess who was in the suit–here’s a hint: the girls had to watch Avery because her parents weren’t around…I was with the cow and the cow was…..) so I had to talk to just about every family that was there. The only child really afraid of the cow was mine–go figure. By the way, a cookies and cream milkshake seems to make a sore throat feel much better!
Well, I was beginning to think we couldn’t keep Cabbage Patch newborn dolls at our house. Avery lost her first one, Terri, who was replaced with Cari. Then, she got Kevin for Christmas so she would have a girl and a boy. Sometime around the spring/early summer, I realized we hadn’t seen Kevin in a while. But, she never played that much with him so I just assumed he was in a doll bed or under stuffed animals somewhere. Then, we lost Cari at the mall and had to replace her with Jaylyn because we couldn’t even find Kevin to console her with. Today, I was watering a few of the bushes in our back yard when I noticed something that at first was very horrifying. I saw little toes sticking out of the ground in my flower bed. It only took a quick second to realize they weren’t human toes, but Cabbage Patch toes. I laughed so hard trying to guess which doll it could be–Terri or Kevin. It was Kevin. I can only imagine that Avery left him outside near the swingset or on the table they use to climb into the trampoline and Maizey (our lab) found him and decided to bury him right near the house. After squirting him off with the hose, he is now in the washing machine. All of the mud came off of the cloth body and his clothes, but it seemed to be ground into the plastic head. We’ll see how clean he gets in just a few mintues. Avery was thrilled that he has been found!
One of my best friends from high school lost her husband today. She is 36, he was 45. They have small children. He had not been feeling well and had an appointment with a doctor for late afternoon. After lunch, he must have been feeling so unwell that my friend called 911. It was too late, he died from a massive heart attack. Now, there are children without a dad and a friend without her husband. My mom sent me an email just a little over an hour after he passed away. I can’t explain the utter shock and profound sadness I have been feeling all afternoon. I know people die everyday. Young people with children die everyday. But this is close to home. This is a friend who was in my wedding who now has to raise her children without her helper. I admit that since I heard the news, I have hugged my children tighter and thanked God for my wonderful husband. I have begged for peace for my friend and her family and I have begged God to spare me from the same fate. Please pray for Carrie. Her husband’s name was George. And please, don’t take your family for granted. Life is too short to do anything less than love, love, love those God chose to put in your family.
Well, I hesitate to say this because I’m afraid the bottom will fall out, but so far, our life hasn’t seemed to be too out of control. We have limited the girls activities a little more than last year, and we are reaping the benefits. They all have two activities: Julia is in piano and soccer, Bailey and Madi are in dance and piano. Avery isn’t doing anything yet, but asks to dance and play soccer. I may check into soccer for her in the spring. We have the morning and afternoon carpool worked out now with our neighbors and so far, so good. We have been in bed on time, lunches made, clothes laid out. I even got back to my walking today and I’m blogging right at bed time for the girls…meaning, I’m about to have FREE TIME! Tomorrow will be different because there is soccer practice and a Meet the Teacher night at the middle school, but I’ll worry about that tomorrow….
We just finished our 4th night with our new group. The first two nights were just for fellowship to get to know each other. The last two, we started with our Bible study and then ate supper together. We are doing the Andy Stanley study, “You’ve Got Style.” Its a great study about how not all Christians worship in the same style. We need to learn our style, cultivate it, and be sure not to judge others who worship differently than ourselves. I was convicted tonight that just because people don’t seem to be singing or getting into the worship songs, doesn’t mean they are connecting to God. Others in our group said they were convicted not to judge those who raise their hands and jump around during worship. Its a great study. We have had a great time talking around the dinner table the last few weeks too. We haven’t picked our community service project but we did decide to run a 5K race together in the spring. Those who don’t run are our cheerleaders. We also talked about setting up a system where one couple babysits for the group to have date nights and then switch off once or twice a month. I think a girls’ night out would be great too! We had a total of 12 adults and 13 kids tonight (and Jason and Heather’s oldest two weren’t here!). We’ve really enjoyed all three of our Life Groups. Its fun to see how different each group has been but how much we seem to love all the people in them.
Today was an interesting day. Julia had a friend sleep over last night and we had to get up about 8:30 to make breakfast because her friend had to leave by 9:15 for a soccer game. Julia ended up going with her to the game so we only had 3 girls. We had already planned to go to an open house at a new party place for kids, Coco Darlings. It is a girlie place where you can go for tea parties, princess parties, dress up parties, diva parties, etc. Madi saw the brochure and wanted to check it out so she could decide if that is what she wants to do for her birthday party (which isn’t until next August!). If you attended the open house, you could register for a free party, a free cake, and or a free costume. Also, you get 10% off your first party. But, before we went to the open house, I decided we had a wonderful morning to get a little yard work done. I had discovered when I was putting Julia’s soccer games on our calendar last night that we wouldn’t have a free Saturday until the middle of November after today. The landscaping in our yard was done three years ago this fall and was really pretty for the first two years. This year it got overgrown so we had to move a few bushes and trim all of them. It ended up taking way longer than I thought and I got totally filthy. Bailey saw me and said, “you’re not going to Coco Darlings like that are you?” So, after my shower, we went into town.
The place was really adorable. Its in an older house and all the walls are pink, purple or magenta and pink fake fur is everywhere! It has the pink Parisan vibe going and the girls loved it! Madi can’t wait to have her party there. Bailey really liked it too, but she had a big party this year and they only get big parties every other year, so she’ll just have a family party this February. I couldn’t hardly get Avery out of there. She tried on three or four outfits, made a magic wand, got her nails painted and sampled the cupcakes. They all got a goodie bag with candy bracelets and rings, stickers and a colored hair extension. Very chic!
After Coco, we got a few groceries and bought some mums, pansies and mulch to finish off our front yard re-do. It looks great but I am exhausted. I think an early bedtime is in order tonight!
