I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it a million more times before my time is done…it is hard for me to think of my Lexer as anything other than my pig-tailed, sweet, first niece.

And then she goes and turns 13 today.

I’m still mystified, how does this happen?

We love you, Lexer and wish you the best day (and whole year!) ever. Sending you love, hugs and kisses.

(And to Meesh and DJ – Good luck with your first foray into the teenage world…hopefully you can pave a nice smooth road for the rest of us!)

Happy Birthday, Roo!

Love,
Aunt Bean, Uncle Jamie, Emma Grace & Addie Rose

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I’m also saying special thanks today on the 10th anniversary of September 11th. I am so grateful to be here to watch my girls and all my nieces and nephews grow like little weeds. And I am thankful to all of those who continue to fight and those that have lost their lives fighting to keep my family free and safe. We won’t forget.

Dear Addison Rose,

You are six.

You are a fabulous first grader.
You have crossed over to the “big kid side” where you now have to use BOTH hands to show your age.
You are funny…your quick wit and humor entertains us each and every day.
You are fearless and brave…never letting anyone tell you that you can’t do something.
You are smart and talented…even when you don’t practice or keep at something, your natural ability to learn and do so many new things is surprising.
You are strong…(sometimes strong-willed and stubborn) but I have no doubt that someday this will serve you well.
You are beautiful…inside and out your light and caring, sweet nature always shines through.
You are the best example that God really does have a plan for everyone…for our family was truly completed when he gave you to us.
You are still my baby even though…you are now six.

Happy Birthday sweet Addikins.
I love you,
Mommy

Look how you’ve grown!
Just born!
1st Birthday
2nd Birthday
3rd Birthday
4th Birthday
5th Birthday

I am fully aware that I left you hanging for Crafty Tuesday. Again, not because we are not doing anything crafty, I am just not together enough to get it photo’d and blogged. It always seems that the work/projects/craziness all come raining down at once. I can go for weeks without really needing to do “work” for anyone, and then all of my clients contact me literally the same morning.

Unfortunately, the rainstorm also coincided with the first week back to school, so I’m still reeling just a little bit.

So a little vent/update. Or…how about a “Love Thursday” bullet list, since it is almost Thursday and I’m trying to find the silver lining on the dark cloud over here?

Things I am loving today:

• Being dangerously close to my breaking point, putting the girls to bed without books because they are beyond exhausted, and then working downstairs and listening to Addie sing herself to sleep. That girl.
• The fact that the girls are still happy to be sharing a room and bunkbeds, and Emma even let Addie borrow some of her jammies tonight.
• Facetime with Daddy when he is away.

(sorry, a post with nothing but crappy iphone photos again!)

• Daddy coming home today.
• Daddy promising to be “on kid duty” this weekend. (How heavenly does that sound right about now?)
• A surprise (or two!) in the garden when I tried to wrangle the overgrown vines this afternoon.

• Addie’s excited squeals when I showed her our garden surprise!
• Lentil salad. I’ve eaten it every day this week for lunch. So easy, so delicious, and not half bad for you either.

• Two little girls who notice when I don’t put notes in their lunchboxes, and ask that I make sure I remember to.

• Daddy coming home.

(Yes, it deserves two bullets on our Thursday Love list.)

Happy Thursday.

I think it has been very hard to get back into the swing of things this week. Besides the fact that re-entry into reality after a trip is always hard for me, we were thrown a complete curve ball while we were on vacation as well.

One of my very best friends in high school passed away while we were in Orlando. He was only 38 years old. I cannot even begin to explain the emotions I felt as I heard about the complications from (what should have been) a very routine surgery, and the agony of waiting for the final call. I’m still having difficulty putting it all into words, which as most of you know, isn’t usually a problem for me.

Thankfully we were already cramming a few days on to the end of our trip to stop in Michigan. This allowed J. and I a chance to join in the memorial with some of our high school friends, and gave us an opportunity to remember and share stories about our dear friend. I thought that the evening was very cathartic and I actually was feeling better – a little bit less in shock.

But now we are home. I’ve since dug out old photos, scrapbooks and yearbooks and now – I’m sad all over again. He was so incredibly smart. He was everyone’s friend. He was one of the kindest, most caring guys I have ever met. He always had a smile, hug and word of encouragement for everyone in his path. And now I’m angry with myself for not trying to make time to see him when he was in LA a few months ago. I’m mad that the hospital could be so inept and careless. And I’m furious that he was taken from us so soon. He was really so special.

And the worst part? I mean besides the fact that he is no longer here, the worst part was talking with his mom. Now that I’m a mother, I cannot for the life of me understand how someone “goes on” after something like this. How you lose a child and continue on in this life without them? My heart breaks for her.

So two things. Now I’m determined to tell my friends and family every chance I get how much they mean to me. I know it is always said, “Don’t take life for granted – you never know what tomorrow might bring,” but there is nothing like a wake-up call like this to remind you.

And also, I admired Michael for figuring out what he believed in, what was best for him and his world, and for choosing to live his life to the fullest. He didn’t live the way he was “expected” to, and he didn’t act how someone wanted him to act. I’m figuring out how I can do this in my own life. See, even though he isn’t here with us, I’m still learning from him.

I miss you, Mikey. Rest in peace.

(Mikey and I worked on the local newspaper together and apparently we always had cameras up to our faces – we have VERY few good pics of us back then. Hmmm…still sounds a bit familiar. At least the digital age has brought us a little better photo quality!)

We most definitely need a vacation from our vacation, we are a little bit exhausted over here.

I have a ton of photos to get up and even more stories that I’d love to tell, but let’s be honest here, it probably isn’t going to happen – at least not any time in the near future.

As you probably noticed, there wasn’t a lot of blogging happening around here while we were on vacation. I did however do a little bit of photo blogging using Instagram. But, if you aren’t following me or a friend on facebook then you wouldn’t have known that now would you? Maybe I’ll try to get my stream of pics up here later, then again…maybe not.

All that I know is there are a few things that I really need to do this week, and who knows…they probably might not get done either. I just need a few days to recover and get my head back in the game. We will see you back here soon….or maybe we won’t?

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life. Eighteen years. EIGHTEEN amazing years.
Every day I feel so very lucky to share this crazy life with you.
Thank you for being my rock and at the same time a soft place to land each night.
Thank you for working so hard to provide for our family
and playing just as hard to make everything seem more fun.
Thank you for letting me cry til all my tears are gone and making me laugh so hard that I end up crying.
You are the best husband, father and friend and I’m so happy you are mine.
I can’t wait for the next eighteen.

All my love, all my life.
xoxo

It has bloomed.

And, to Addie’s great gasps of joy, one of her other little sunflowers showed up too.

She is thrilled because all of Emma’s friends are coming over to her garden for their book club this afternoon, and now she has beautiful blooms to share with them.

While we were waiting for our flowers to bloom we spent hours playing with…wait for it…empty boxes. Yes, cardboard boxes.

You know – whatever keeps them happy – and gives me photo opportunities like this.

And then…just to blow their little minds, we finally were able to get bunkbeds this weekend. And whenever I couldn’t find them on the patio in the boxes, I just had to look up in the top bunk. I am not sure what the allure is, but hours, HOURS have been spent hanging out on the top bunk. Just look how many monkeys were (NOT) jumping on the bed. (And try to not look at how badly our trim needs to be painted. Ugh. Dingy-ness. Add it to the to-do list)

All of this (kinda, somewhat) free entertainment is mighty handy since I just realized that we leave one week for our big trip, and we are taking Audrey to Disney for her birthday tomorrow, we leave for the weekend on Friday, and essentially have Monday and Tuesday to get all our world in order. Yikes.

What is not to love about these beautiful peonies?

More things I am loving this gorgeous Friday…

* My garden buddy. Specifically hearing “let’s grow these kind of flowers in our yard, Mommy,” (the peonies from above) from the appropriately named Addie Rose.  Or better yet, hearing her plan to sell Daddy on “getting rid of all the grass in the backyard and just making ONE.BIG.GARDEN!” I can’t wait to hear how that little plan plays out. And in a close third place, hearing the girls discuss the properties of an eggplant. “Do you think eggplant is a root plant, Mama?” Em asked me at lunch today. I told her it wasn’t and Addie chimed in with “but it is PURPLE, Emma! Mama! We should grow an eggplant, too, don’t you think?”

* Swim team for everyone. Although it has meant two hours on the bleachers at the pool each afternoon this week, we have had some happy, healthy little girls who have slept like logs.

* Girly girls. I love that my sweet girls not only notice, but stop to admire, my freshly-painted toes.

* Two ballerinas. We have not one, but TWO, ballerinas in the end-of-year recital this weekend, so you can imagine that the excitement level is pretty high around here.

* A Blossoming friendship. They are not perfect and we have had our share of bickering this week, but those two girly, ballerina girls of ours are becoming very sweet friends. I walked them into tennis camp on Monday and after I signed them in and gave last minute goodbyes, I watched them turn around and you could almost see the panic when the both realized they were faced with a whole group of kids they did not know. Almost at the same exact moment. they both reached out and grabbed the others’ hand and walked on the court together. That, my friends, was one of my proudest moments as a mom. If I can continue to cultivate that friendship and help them to see that as long as they have their sister, they always have a best friend, then I think I will have succeeded as a parent of two girls.

* The weekend. It is Friday – the start of a (hopefully) long and fun-filled few days where we get to honor and show our favorite guys how much they mean to us. Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads in our life! We love you all.

Today we have a little inspiration for your crafty area, courtesy of my parents.

The other day Emma and Addie were trying to talk us into letting them get bunkbeds and share a room and I asked them “But what would we do with the extra bedroom?”

Um…hold the horse. I think the “extra bedroom” is sounding like it needs to become Momma’s craftroom! I could turn my corner into an entire ROOM. Yes. Looking for bunkbeds tomorrow.

I’ll just show you the corner of the basement that we all care about (although the entire basement got a redo and it looks amazing!), the corner that is now being called “Cheryl’s Cove.”

Here is before:

(Actually it is cleaned up a little bit…because that used to be a wall of stuff – I didn’t even know there were shelves over there!)

And here is after:

How much crafting could you get done in a space like that?? I love all of the space, the tables….and the organization. *Swoon*

Another look:

(Yes…those are all STAMP SETS stacked up over there!)

And the board Dad made her for her inspirations:

Also a good crafty project for all of you so inclined.

Tell me this doesn’t make you want to go knock down some walls and get your craftroom on?

Thanks Dad for sharing your hard work with us – and now we expect even greater creations from you, Mom!  (Just kidding…your cards are pretty fantastic already!)

Happy Tuesday – I’m off to actually finish some birthday presents that I can post next week, after all of our birthday-ing is done. Also on the list this week…Addie’s garden! I’ve been promising pics and the ones I took two weeks ago horribly misrepresent her little plot of earth since the plants have nearly doubled in size since then. The sunflower is nearly as big as her, so I’ll take some new pics tomorrow. AND….I promised at some point pics of the new bedroom, too. I took some, but it is really not very finished. I’ll get the work-in-progress pics up this week, too. Stay tuned….

I’m trying to be excited, but I can’t get past the fact that after tomorrow I’m going to have a FIRST and THIRD grader.

I simply can’t believe it.