Flashing Back: Turning Ten

This week our church is doing Vacation Bible School "VBS". Therefore, we will be "flashing back" to some recent days in May of this year (2013), that I was unable to post about but that are totally post worthy -because our family will be taking full advantage of VBS!

My middle daughter Kiliegh turned ten years old May 20th of this year. Isn't she beautiful? Again I may be being a little biased but I am her mother... Anyway, almost everyone says she must look like her biological dad and she does but she looks my biological mom too. I used to think that she must have got that strawberry blond hair from her dad as well but now that Vada is here and with that same color of hair, ill take credit for that as well, thank you very much! My great grandmother was a red headed Irish woman with a temper to boot. Thank God Kiliegh didn't get the temper!

For Kiliegh's cake this year my husband, Justin, and I decided to do a iPhone cake. It was perfect since at ten years of age you get you first chance at having a phone in our house.

My husband left no detail of the iPhone out but I did forget to take a picture of the top of the phone.

If you look closely, you'll see that the phone says "Happy Birthday Kiliegh" and then the day and date of her actual birth date.  Due to the fact that Kiliegh was at her dad's this year for her birthday and with my mothers passing we celebrated Kiliegh's birthday a little later than expected.

I always make Justin serve the cake to the girls. He has to, he works to hard on the cakes not to!

After blowing out the candles and without Kiliegh noticing, Justin make a phone call and all of a sudden the actual cake starts vibrating as well as ringing!

That's right folks my husband is sexy, he can decorate cakes and he is clever! He made a special "compartment" for Kiliegh's iPhone in the cake!

Kiliegh had to dig in her cake for her birthday gift! Too funny!

Monday, May 20th, 2013 my sweet girl, Kiliegh turned ten! Wow, I am getting old!

Make-Your-Own Cupcake bar

 My husband's birthday was on the twelfth of November but he had to work so we were unable to really do anything to celebrate him so we held off until today. We asked one of our favorite family of friends over for dinner-- Grilled chicken, baked potatoes, steamed broccoli and salad. For desert I had set up a make-your-own cupcake bar. I baked dark chocolate fudge cake and had a small assortment of frosting and a great deal of different sprinkles to choose from. I have really enjoyed making fun cupcakes in the past like Vada's birthday cupcakes and the corn on the cob ones but since this was kind of a last minute thing I decided to not stress myself out with trying to do something like the what I have done in the past, those usually require a good deal of planning and time. Anyway, I think the make-your-own idea went over pretty smoothly. The kids enjoyed it at least and Justin and I just really enjoyed hanging out together and with our friends.

Family Camping

I have never felt like I belong anywhere (other than my with my family) as much as I do when I am at our church. That's why I was thrilled when I found out that they were doing a family camping trip on the same night as my thirty first birthday. With Justin at work I thought it was the perfect place to be to celebrate being blessed with another year. I decided to take V to Justin's parents house because I knew that the temperature was suppose to drop into the mid thirty's since she was already not feeling well I didn't want to make her feel worse by exposing her to really cold weather. I did miss Vada and Justin but at the same time I was also grateful for the "big girl" time that I had with Jasmine and Kiliegh. I can not remember the last time that the three of us did something together, especially something like this...

A Grand Little Get Away

Kiliegh's birthday is three days after Vada's heart surgery making celebrating it on the actual day some what difficult. With Justin's work schedule (M,T and Ffor one week then S, Su one week and then W, Th the next and every two weeks alternating from nights to days) and the girls visitations with their bio's the only time that we could all be together to celebrate her actual birthday was this last weekend. So we decided to go out of town  and to do something new. We didn't go far from home, but far enough to seem away from our everyday "norm".  We went to Dubuque Iowa, which is only about an hour and a half away.

Our destination was a place called Grand Harbor. Known for it's indoor water park and restaurant Tony Roma's it offered everything we needed to relax, have fun and celebrate Kiliegh turning 8.

We arrived at 1PM on Friday. After checking in we had a light lunch and then we headed straight to the pool.

Every hotel trip needs to have the beds inspected. The girls take pride in doing so.

Notice the french fry that Vada left on my shoulder. Often, I walk around with all kinds of things on one or both shoulders not noticing until later when I am home. I think its part of the criteria for being a mother.

The Family before heading to the pool

The water park area was an enclosed portion of the Hotel and very humid as well as very busy.After waiting about twenty minutes I decided that I didn't want to leave my camera in those conditions. Plus, I wanted to swim and not worry about leaving it unattended. This was the only picture that I was able to get.

Vada looks as if she is melting but really she is just a very tired girl.

We stayed all afternoon and until around 6 PM when we finally decided to get some dinner. After diner we were too tired to go back into the pool so we went up to our room. Jasmine had been to an over night skate party the night before and had slept very little. All of the running around and swimming had tired Kiliegh out completely and she had actually stated that she wanted to go to sleep. Justin had worked his normal 12 hour shift the day before and my nights are all screwed up with Miss V waking up two to there times to nurse and I think also because of her teeth. So, getting some much needed rest was welcomed by all.

Vada and I slept on the floor which was a B-A-D choice on my behalf. I hurt in the morning!

On Saturday we woke up, packed and then checked out of the hotel by 10 AM. We had decided to skip breakfast so we could get a head start on our day.Which later became a mistake, because we were all starving! Our next stop was at  The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquiarum. Which, by the way is right next door to the hotel.

Kiliegh was so excited to finally be able to see a real live seahorse.

My sweet husband..., wishing that he could catch one this big!

How could I refuse?

There were many different water exhibits.

They had these lily pads on an amphibian exhibit and look... a pretty little flower bloomed on this one.

There were caves to climb in, on and through.

There were two different gift shops which were all too fun to play in.

There was a lot of hands on things for the children and for the young at heart. Besides Jasmine who had gone with our church, it was a first time experience for us.It was nice to get away together. To not over think things, together. To play, laugh and enjoy each others company all together. In our family getting everyone together all at the same time is a difficult process, but one well worth the wait!