Parties, parties, parties

Wow, doesn't that title make it sound like we've really had a good time the past week and a half. I should have titled it "Parties, parties, parties, and misery." More on that later.

We kicked off the partying last Saturday by celebrating Elliott Hicks' 5th birthday. His birthday was the 2nd, but everyone knows that's a terrible time for a birthday so close to the holidays, so his party was a few weeks later. After that the kids and I headed to McDonough to spend some time with my folks and grandparents. That was part of the reason, anyway. The main reason was to pull off a birthday party for my mom. Her birthday was December 29th, which everyone knows is an even WORSE birthday than January 2nd. We were Jamesless, as he had a camp fair to attend in Greenville, SC.

Mom turned 60 this year, and she was a bit dissapointed that her family was too slack to do anything in celebration of this milestone. Actually we all worked behind her back to have this party. For the past weeks I've been rounding up addresses and e-mail addresses of her friends. Facebook is great, I was able to contact a bunch of her friends' kids who I grew up with and am now Facebook buddies with to get their parent's info. We held it at Strong Rock School and she didn't have a clue it was coming. There were about 75 people who came, and it was fun for me too since I hadn't seen most of them in 10 or more years. Unfortunately my camaera sat idle until the last half hour of the party because I got busy and forgot about taking pictures! Here are a few I got, mostly of family.

Here's Dad explaining to Mom how we arranged it all behind her back.

Me and my brother Jonathan, and parents, and Avery who was checking out a flower from the table centerpiece while Shannon protected us all with his sword.

My sister-in-law Lisa, Jonathan, Jordan my niece, and my folks. Apparently Avery had somewhere he needed to go.

Nanny, Mom, and Mom's brothers Uncle Don and Uncle Ned.

My mom's friend Peggy made the birthday cake. There were two other sections but by the time I remembered I had a camera we had already eaten two of them!

It was a fun day and we enjoyed pulling a surprise on Mom. Too bad for her she didn't know about it. She wore very uncomfortable shoes to church that morning and spent her entire party in stocking feet.

Awhile back we spent the day at Strong Rock School promoting camp, and I meant to post more about it there for anyone who's interested. I took pictures that day, so I'll post them somewhere toward the end.

I spent until Tuesday at my folks' house, visiting with family and taking a mini-shopping trip to Target and Ross' ALONE. I don't think I've ever been into Ross' without kids, so I've never been able to browse properly. I ended up with a pair of Levi jeans for $8.99! That's my kind of (cheap, thrifty, miserly) bargain! They also had several pairs of Sketchers shoes for 1/3 of their usual price but they were all about 1/2 size off of what I wear one way or the other. Rats. I'll be back. Some year.

I stayed at Mom and Dad's through Tuesday, intending to take the kids to Imagine It, the childrens' museum in Atlanta we have a membership to Tuesday morning. Monday night Elizabeth came down with a fever and a good case of the grumpies. By Tuesday it was worse, so instead of playing all morning and heading home during nap time, we instead headed to Gainesville for a 2:00 (during naptime) appointment. They coudln't find anything wrong right off but her fever was 102.6 by then, so they did bloodwork and such. By 4:00 (time to get up from naps) we were finally on our way home...with no answers and a prescription for Omnicef in case it was a urinary tract infection. I called for results the next day and they didn't have them, and told me to call back the next day. Meanwhile my not quite 8 month old baby has a high fever off and on and is miserable. (Hence the "Misery" part of what should have been this post's title.) Having had three very healthy children and this being her first fever, my thoughts of course run to things as drastic as a serious infection coursing through her entire body, or leukemia, or something. Every mom's reaction. Right...? Anyway, we trekked back to the doctor's office on Thursday and he finally found what appeared to be a very red throat, and said it's probably either strep or a virus of some kind, but we'd keep her on the antibiotic just in case. Tonight I found on her a pretty good rash, which indicates strep (come to find out...I didn't know that until recently). So, I guess that was it! Today she's feeling much better and has been fever free for a day. Yay, not leukemia.

In the midst of all of that fun, James had a birthday on Thursday. He's now 35, the age which I remember just a decade ago thinking sounded O-L-D. Guess what- it's not! We had our Thursday night dinner at Ryan and Stefanie Pitts' house, and it also happened to be Ryan's birthday. Ryan is always James' first pick when it comes to hunting buddies, and they've also been to Brazil on mission trips a few times together.

So here's what a cake looks like when you have exactly 10 minutes to assemble it because you've had an unscheduled second visit to the doctor's office for the week, and your day didn't go at all as planned. Tilt your head to the left and it looks pretty straight. Good thing it tasted better than it looked.

The combined windbag power of a 35 and a 34 year old man blew some of the almonds right off the top of the cake and into the floor. And then, as if by magic, some of the white candles re-lit. That was Stefanie's idea.

A few more Thursday nighters. Keith, Anne, Alex Anne, and Meg Jennings, and a random Knott boy, Trey. He has attached himself to Anne lately. He knows she needed a boy too.

Stefanie Pitts, lady of the house. (The only lady...they have three boys!) Elizabeth took a good, feverful nap in her arms.

Let's see, what else have we done this week? The usual stuff- school with Amelia, working on the ever present, constantly growing Mount Laundry, gymnastics, church, did I mention laundry? There are times I imagine closing my eyes, waving my hand over the clutter in a room, saying, "Be Gone!" and poofing it away. I haven't got that to work yet.

Shannon is doing pretty well now that I've started (nearly) daily reading lessons with him. He can put words together and sound them out, using the letters he's learned so far. He's interested in learning letter sounds and names, and has surprised me with how well he can do it, in spite of the fact that he bounces as he learns.

Avery is picking up a lot too, just by being around it, I guess. He's learned most of his colors and shapes, and can tell the difference between some letters and numbers. He's forever surprising me with the things he says and thoughts he has, for a 2 year 4 month old. The other day he was playing with some plastic critters and put a bunch of them in a bowl. He says, "They're swimming," then marches a dinosaur over and into the bowl and says, "The dinosaur's gonna eat the kids!"

Here he is scribbling on the chalkboard set. He said, "I drew a triangle!"

Okay, so you have to look hard to find it, but it's right there in the middle. See?

The kids are getting old enough now that we have great car conversations. Shannon in particular asks all kinds of questions. For instance, "Mom, why do fireworks have "work" in their name?" Because they had to work hard to get them put together? Maybe? Today we drove out to check on a horse I didn't see right away in the pasture, and they wanted to know why. I said, "She isn't with the herd, so I need to make sure she's okay." So that sparked a conversation about what a herd is, and what can be in a herd. I had explained that some types of animals live in groups so they can keep each other safe. Amelia asked if the plants she saw growing close together were a herd. Shannon said, "Oh, like birds." "No, that's a flock." It's getting more confusing. He then insisted that butterflies could be a herd. Then wouldn't you know we passed a group of about six cyclists on Highway 129 just after that....so that was obviously a herd of bicycles, to their thinking. Amelia was starting to catch on, then got silly talking about a herd of ballerinas. I like how the conversation ended though, with them deciding that even though people didn't go in herds, Daddy kept us safe. :)

We had big fun at the grocery store, as the older two wanted to take a dollar each of their own money to spend. Ingles has a dollar section, so after much agonizing Amelia walked away with an imitation Barbie (Farbie?) and Shannon chose a motorcycle. Here's what the packaging on the motorcycle reads:

21 Century New Edition Simulating The True Styles and Making Carefully
SPORT'S
Totally New To Come Into The Market!
- Handsome appearance, various styles to have both the quality of tenacity
- To be highly praised and appreciated by the consuming public
- We continuously offer the latest thing lowest price

But here's the shocker....it says right on the box that it's MADE IN CHINA! Who would have guessed? You'd think with all the millions of dollars we send to stimulate the Chinese economy that some of these companies could afford to hire a translator position so they wouldn't have to rely on crappy Chinese to English translating software!

I also got to give a horseback riding lesson this week. Rebecca, our office manager at camp, has a niece who is interested in horses but hasn't had the chance to be around them. Her family (Rebecca's brother and sister-in-law) are making a couple of months stop in Gainesville (from Oregon) to live with her mom while en route to the mission field overseas.

Here's Bliss with Taffy. She was a terrific student, fearless, and a sweetheart as well. One more birthday I've yet to mention- on January 25th, Taffy turned 34! Looks pretty good to be the equivalent of 102 in people years, doesn't she? Taffy has great genes.

And here are a few random shots of the school.

Strong Rock Camp was started by James and I and my parents in 2005, after beginning construction in 2001. Strong Rock School was founded two years later by my dad and his two brothers. That's where the connection is, the school and camp are completely independent of one another. The school is in Locust Grove, GA, near McDonough where my family lives. It opened in 2007 with nearly 400 students, K-10th grade, and this year is up to 750 K-11th. The goal is eventually to have around 1200 students with separate buildings for elementary, middle, and high school. It is an amazing vision for a Christian private school, with everything a public school could offer by way of sports, band, and the usual things people don't want their kids to miss out on by attending a Christian school. The leadership is amazing. A lot of it is made up of Christian teachers who had been in public schools for 15 or more years and were tired of the public school scene.

A shot of the courtyard from the cafeteria.

Another shot of the courtyard.

This verse is over the door in the main hallway. It pretty much sums up what the school is all about. Check out www.strongrockchristianschool.com for more information. (When I have time and it's not so late I'm going to learn how to link stuff so you can just click on that address and not have to type it in yourself. Can't be that hard, can it...? (Says the one who can't even remember what she had for dinner last night.)

Alright, this has now officially been a post o' random stuff. I shall now say goodnight. But not before I show you one of my favorite things about Elizabeth.

Her hair! I love this hairdo. Nearly 8 months later I'm still trying to get over the fact that a Himstedt baby has hair. I love it!