Happy Birthday! November 26, 2008

This is a bit delayed….I was in the process of writing this blog to my oldest when I had to go out of town for a family medical issue. Better late than never.

There is something special about hearing the heartbeat for the first time…the first kicks…the unknown of labor…and then hearing that awesome sound of the first cry.  Then you see her and fall madly in love….head over heels.  Looking back, we should have put more thought in to trying to have a baby.  We weren’t settled in our careers, we weren’t financially settled…all sorts of things we “weren’t”. But the time felt right and so we went for it.  When I was pregnant with Jackie, we didn’t find out what we were having…we wanted it to be a surprise.  Maybe I should be embarassed to admit this, but I didn’t want a girl. I wanted a boy.  I thought I was more suited for boys…I worked with them…I had always had more male friends than female…I enjoy sports and the occasional off color joke.  Besides…girls are too complicated. You want them to be strong but not too strong. You want girly, but not prissy….oh….too much!

And then the moment happened…after a relatively easy labor the midwife announced “It’s a boy!”.  Jason responded with an “Uhhh….look again”.  It was a girl.  We had a couple of names we were tossing around and once we met her, we knew….it would be Jacquelyn Marie. Named after both her grandmothers.

The last 10 years have been some of the most wonderful and yet hardest years of my life.  Jackie, you have brought so much joy to my life and I am so lucky God gave you to me.  You are an awesome and beautiful young lady.  Life’s not perfect…we have our moments. But you make the world….my world….a much better place.

Oh yeah…Halloween November 11, 2008

There are lots of times when I am doing my daily activities of keeping up with kids and a household that I think to myself “Oh, that would be a good blog”.  But then my brain goes blank when I sit down at the computer, when everyone is asleep, to actually write something.  I get frustrated, I get up from the computer, then when I am washing dishes or driving to the library, I remember a blog idea.  Sit down at the computer and promptly forget again. This has happened on more than one occasion.  And it frustrates me to no end.  Maybe God has been listening when I have prayed for patience. 

Now here I am, with Halloween come and gone and I have just remembered that I have not blogged about our fun night or posted any photos.  So here goes….

We decided to have a neighborhood potluck that night…we would all bring out our food, enjoy each other’s company, and then the kiddos off to gather treats while some folks stayed back to hand out candy.  It worked out well, we had some good food and even better company.

This year Jackie went as Princess Leia, Katey was Belle, and Izzy was Snow White.  Jackie was old enough this year to go off with her friends so we didn’t get many pictures of her. Jason took Katey and Izzy trick-or-treating (since he missed the fun last year) with a neighbor dad and his 3 kids.  Izzy learned really fast about getting candy from folks but was also amazed when she spotted other kids dressed as characters she knows. Jason said she stopped sidewalk traffic completely one time because she was squatted down checking out “Elmo” in a stroller.

Jackie didn’t get as much candy as she hoped for since she spent more time running around that getting candy, but Katey shared some with her.  Then Katey learned the art of negotiation when she and Jackie started trading candy. Katey somehow scored 4 Kit Kats and only gave Jackie 1 pack of peanut M&Ms.

Everyone had a good time and there was too much candy collected by all (which has been moved to the top of the fridge to keep certain 2 year olds out of it)!

This was pretty much all Jason saw of Katey with Sophie and Alex.