Thankful Tuesday

1. I am so thankful our house is off the market. While I was mowing the lawn yesterday I took the sign out of the yard and left it on the porch for the realtor, who picked the sign and lock box up today. I enjoyed starting to put our house back to normal in some senses - putting some family photos back up on the walls, putting photo magnets back on the refrigerator, hanging our pocket calendar, etc. It is such a relief to know we will be living here at least one more year, and because I am determined to find a way to earn some money, I am assuming we will be living here for at least several more years. I wanted this shift to be evident when I look around the house so yesterday I broke down almost all the boxes I had saved in the basement (to use when moving) and took those and other packing supplies I had been saving (such as plastic bags) to the recycling center yesterday morning. I also donated a few things to their thrift store - three lamps I had been saving in the basement "in case we needed them in our next house". I had four lamps in the basement. I held on to one of them and donated the other three. I want to get OUT of the mindset that I have been in the past almost 8 years of thinking this is just a temporary house for us. I want to assume we will be living here for years to come. The biggest downside to this being where we live for a long time is Paul's commute. I have consoled myself with the reminders that #1 Paul doesn't mind a longer commute nearly as much as I do and #2 had he never pursued his Ph.D, he would have a very short commute to work right now. We moved to this house just for his benefit, and moving here involved a large financial investment. Of course on a day like today where Paul left for work at 3:30am and didn't get home until 6:45pm, a shorter commute would certainly be helpful.

2. On Saturday night after we tucked Ian and Oliver into their beds, Paul noticed two large rainbows across from our house. By the time I grabbed the camera one of the rainbows had faded, but I did get pictures of both ends of one of the rainbows. Rainbows are SO beautiful. What a creative God we serve!

3. Ian scored 11 goals on Saturday morning! Unfortunately he didn't play very well in last night's game. He seemed to be in another world, but he has shown remarkable improvements over the past year, and I look forward to seeing how he'll do when he is promoted to a U8 team in August.

4. It was rather cold on Sunday, but it was much nicer out yesterday. I took advantage of the pretty day by mowing the lawn and cutting down most of a tree that had been growing into our shed. Now that we know we are staying here I also want to do some work on the outside as well including planting strawberry plants, blueberry bushes, hosta plants, etc. In hindsight I should have done so years ago, but better late than never in terms of finally putting down some literal roots here. I also contacted a friend about helping me remove one of the two apple trees, and I am going to do some touch up painting on the shed. Paul is going to borrow his dad's truck to help haul away the tree branches I have cut down.

5. Paul helped me out this past weekend and got on our huge ladder to clean the chandelier in the foyer and the window that is way up high. Cathedral ceilings might be pretty, but they make it very, very difficult to clean!

6. Yesterday we cleaned out some stuff from Nadia's room. Some was taken to the donation center and the rest was put in the basement just until we finish painting her room. She picked a light purple paint yesterday morning. Well she would have picked a dark purple, but I steered her toward a lighter shade. Ironically her very first bedroom (that she was only in for 3 months before we moved here) had light purple walls (lighter than the shade she picked) and darker purple carpet. Her room in this house has been pink. We liked the color from the beginning, but even when we moved in it really needed some spackling and a fresh coat of paint, and that is even more true eight years later. I spackled the room yesterday, and Paul helped with sanding it last night. I painted half of the room today and plan to finish it tomorrow. Nadia is sleeping in a sleeping  bag in Oliver's room tonight. I am not doing anything in our room or Oliver's room, but I am also planning to make some changes in Ian's room in June. For the last 6 1/2 years the room has had light green walls (which is perfect because green is his favorite color) and a transportation theme in terms of the bedding, bookshelf, wall decor, valences, hamper, trash can, etc. The thing is Ian hasn't really been into cars or trains, etc. I decided it was time to do a makeover on his room. I was thinking of going with a Star Wars theme, but I decided to ask him, and he surprised me by saying he wanted Mario. I told him we weren't going to be changing it again any time soon so he needed to be sure he would like a Mario theme for say at least 7 years. He assured me he would. The upside of this choice is that it means I can keep some of the transportation themed stuff (such as the wallpaper border) because I picked a Mario kart comforter which features cars. I ordered the items yesterday and am going to give them to him next month. Since his birthday is so close to Christmas, we decided to try giving him the gifts from us at his half-birthday this year (the cake, balloons, birthday donuts and gifts from other relatives would still be on his actual birthday in December). I ordered a Mario sheet set, comforter, and curtains.


7. It's exciting to think about what we might do around the house. We need to be very careful how much we spend until I start making some money, but we can do a little before then. Painting isn't expensive so that is where I am starting. After that it will be a harder choice - which comes first replacing the refrigerator or new flooring in the kitchen, etc.

8. Last Tuesday we had an enjoyable field trip at Reptiland, and today we had another great trip. Today we went first to see a one hour theatrical production about Robin Hood. You

can see from two of the pics in this post that Nadia volunteered to participate in the play (during the archery contest she was introduced as Lady Nadia). Then we went on a boat tour of Penn's Cave.

9. Last Thursday Nadia spent the day with Grandma. Grandma treated her to lunch at Pizza Hut and took her shopping. Since Nadia was having a special day, I tried to make the day special for the boys by driving them to Lewisburg to go to the library, two playgrounds we hadn't been to in many months, and to Panera for dinner (thanks to a gift card). I love their strawberry salad, and I had a coupon for a free dessert so the three of us shared a cinnamon roll. Yum!

10. Paul's parents came up to watch the soccer games on Saturday and spent some time at our house after that. They always love to see their grandparents!

11. When I called recently they told me there wouldn't be any tennis lessons this summer, but that was incorrect information as I was given as they have now posted sign-ups for tennis lessons. Nadia and Ian will have them this summer. Yay! It will be Ian's first time and Nadia's second.

Staying put

Paul recently told me what his salary will be at his new job that he started last week so I have been able to start doing more work with the budget. My calculations lead me to believe we can afford to stay here about 18 more months because of what we have in our savings account at the moment plus what we will add to that over the next 3 months while Paul is earning FT income from both Bucknell and KCI. Lately I had been wrestling between two "evils" - living in the house we looked at a couple of weeks ago (which had some serious drawbacks) OR me having a job I didn't really enjoy (such as proofreading dissertations) just to make some money. Every job I've had from middle school through the age of 40 I enjoyed - babysitting, working at a department store, teaching, being a principal, and being a professor. It was hard to think of possibly having a job JUST to make money whether I enjoyed it or not, especially when any of the jobs we thought of would involve a big pay decrease from what I was making previously. In the end I decided that being required to make some money would be better than living in that house. The job I would most like to have is teaching as an adjunct (either on-line or face to face). I'd love to supervise student teachers again, for example. Probably teaching 2 classes a year would be enough to make up the financial gap. Right now that's not a possibility, but I have about 11 months to have a firm plan in place for making some money (possibly could do tutoring or something like that which would be far more enjoyable than proofreading).

If I can't find a way to make some money, then next April we'll put our house back on the market, but if I do find a way to cover the gap between Paul's income and our expenses, then we'd like to stay in this house until we can afford a house in the Danville/Elysburg area, which is where we'd both like to live because it would cut Paul's commute in half (his commute is one hour each way right now) and also put us close to the church I'd most like to attend and yet wouldn't mean we couldn't do any of the activities the kids do right now (but I'd get to resume ladies Bible study and handbells and I really miss both of those). The houses in those towns are more expensive than where we live right now so that will only happen if I start making a fair amount of money.

I contacted the realtor today and she said she'll be by tomorrow or Tuesday to remove the sign and the lock box. What a relief. I also contacted our mortgage broker to ask about refinancing the house as we've been paying too high of an interest rate the past 8 years and we want to refinance so that almost all of it would be from retirement loans instead of a mortgage, and we want the whole thing paid off by 2026. We've never refinanced before. This means I can put things back up around the house that I had taken down in our efforts to "stage" it for showings. Since we *might* be living here for many more years (if we can make enough to afford this house but not enough to move to Danville), we also are going to slowly start doing some projects around the house. I think the ones for 2016 are going to be to replace the flooring in the kitchen and half bathroom, repaint a few rooms (Nadia wants hers to be light purple), and get a new refrigerator before ours totally dies (it's 20 years old). We've never bought a refrigerator before. If we move next year, we'll be taking this new one with us! Next year I think we'll replace the flooring in the family room. It hasn't totally sunk in yet, but I know I am going to feel a BIG sense of relief to realize we now know where we are living for the next year. Yay!

Steel City

 As I was looking at the post I wrote about our summer plans, I noticed that there was at least one special thing planned for every week except the week of Memorial Day. I wanted to go to Pittsburgh at some point, and I think that will be the week we will take a two day trip there. Because of our ASTC membership, we can get into the Carnegie Science Center and Children's Museum of Pittsburgh for free. Last year we planned to visit Idlewild for the first time, but ended up going to Dutch Wonderland instead. I found a good deal on tickets for June 3 so if the weather looks good for that day, we will go to Idlewild amusement park. I figured we would leave early in the morning on the 2nd and visit the two museums and also go up the Duquense incline and then spend one night at a hotel, visit Idlewild on Friday, and get back home late that night. We live a little farther from Pittsburgh than we do from Philadelphia. There are many other things we could do in Pittsburgh like the zoo, but this seems good for our first trip out there. I assumed I would be taking the kids by myself, but Paul wants to join us (as he has never visited Pittsburgh), and then we also invited Paul's parents. The deal I found for the amusement park was that we will pay a flat rate for a van loan (up to 8 people) so that part of the trip won't cost any more by having 7 people in our van instead of just 4.


Today's excitement was that Ian scored 11 goals! His previous record was 6 goals. Today he sat out one of the quarters, which made the total even more impressive because the time he scored 6 he played the whole game. He had 5 goals in the first quarter. His team dominated the other team. Several of his teammates scored 1-3 goals each. No one on the other team scored any goals. Paul's parents were able to see him score all those goals today.


I also added one more special event to next week's schedule. After we see the Robin Hood production we will be going on a boat ride through Penn's Cave. It will be their first time seeing stalactites and stalagmites. Paul wanted to join us for that also, but he's not on summer break. I have been to other caves (like Luray Caverns and Carlsbad Caverns), but I haven't been to this one (near Penn State). We are looking forward to all our summer adventures!

3 soccer players!

Oliver misses the official cut-off for playing soccer this fall by 6 days, but it turns out that cut-off is somewhat flexible. I emailed someone to ask #1 if we could get a refund if we ended up moving prior to the fall season and #2 if Oliver needed to wait until he was 5 to start playing soccer because his birth date is August 7. I was relieved to find out we could get a refund if we move and surprised that they said Oliver could start playing in the fall. So this evening I paid $115 for the 3 kids to play soccer next year. I'll also need to buy Oliver a soccer uniform at some point. Oliver will be playing U6, Ian will be playing U8, and Nadia will be playing U10. Oliver's team will be the only co-ed team, and Nadia will have a goalie for the first time. Ian has three U6 games left, and Nadia has two U8 games left this spring. I volunteered to be an assistant coach for Oliver's team. I have no experience with playing soccer, but I know Paul won't be able to help as he has the past two years, and I figured that Nadia and Ian could behave themselves during Oliver's practice whereas I certainly couldn't leave Oliver unsupervised if I was helping with one of their teams. Now to hope that the three kids won't have ever have three games at the same time on three different fields as we only have two drivers! The other two were very clueless during their first seasons but definitely showed improvement over the first year. We shall see how Oliver does! My baby is growing up.

Nadia's soccer practices are already done for this season. Her coach cancelled tonight's practice and next Monday's practice. Nadia could have attended both of those (she was there tonight because Ian still had practice), but she can't attend the team's last practice next Wednesday due to a dress rehearsal at church for the musical. I am not sure how many more practices Ian will have because his game that got snowed out was rescheduled for early June (whereas Nadia's team already made that game up so May 21 will be her last game). Now that Paul is working at Kennedy Concrete it is now my job to take them to soccer practice. On Monday I forgot to bring a chair, but I remembered to do that tonight.

Dinosaurs, snakes, and a dragon, oh my!

We live very close to a zoo called Reptiland, which as the name implies features reptiles - a wide variety of tortoises, snakes, frogs, etc. along with a few other animals like emus. We first visited it six years ago, and we returned there in 2011 and 2012, but we didn't go the past three years which meant today was Oliver's first visit as I was pregnant with him the last time we went. A few things had changed since we were there last including a new building featuring a komodo dragon, the butterfly exhibit was changed to a parakeet one, and they built a large outdoor exhibit featuring life-size animatronic recreations of a variety of dinosaurs. Oliver was not a fan of the "Dinosaurs come to life" exhibit. He thought they were very scary. Nadia really loved feeding the parakeets. Nadia and Ian enjoyed going around the main building and assigning names to each frog, snake, chameleon, tortoise, etc. The weather wasn't very nice today. It was much colder and rainier, but I knew most of the exhibits were inside so we went ahead with our plan. Many school groups were getting on their buses when we arrived, but while we were there the only others in attendance were other homeschoolers or parents of very young children. We spent 2 1/2 hours at Reptiland, and it was definitely more meaningful to the kids than it was when we went in 2010-12. They certainly got a lot more out of the show put on by a zookeeper this time (she featured a few different lizards and snakes).

We dropped the price of our house by $10K a month ago in the hopes that would help us sell the house. Thus far it hasn't helped. The house was shown 3 times last month, which was the first we had shown it since December. We had turned down one showing in February when Oliver was in the hospital and also turned down a few when we took a two week break from showings in March while I was interviewing with Lock Haven. It has now been 3 weeks since our house has been shown, and at least two of the showings last month were from requests in March (during our hiatus and before we lowered the price).I studied the comparative properties last week, and I think our house is priced a little lower than it could be when compared to others on the market so we are not inclined to lower it any further. It has been on the market for six months now, and it doesn't feel like it's going to sell any time soon although I know that April through August is typically the busy season for the real estate market so we will wait at least 3 more months before taking it off the market. It is so hard to make plans when you don't know where you will be living. It is time to register the kids for soccer in the fall, but I am not 100% sure we'll be living here in the fall. Living in a state of limbo can be very frustrating, but there is nothing we can do about it. Time will tell. I do greatly prefer our current house to the one we are considering buying, but financially it is better if we move sooner rather than later (although emotionally I'd rather stay here as long as possible). 

 I'd appreciate continued prayer for my mom as she deals with the side effects of her 5th round of chemo. They are going to check to see if she needs a blood transfusion or iv fluids tomorrow. Also, her beloved cat, Patches, passed away last night. My cat, Snowflake, who died many years ago was Patches' older brother (they looked very similar). Patches lived by far the longest life of any cat my parents ever had - she turned 22 years old in March. It is an adjustment for my brother and parents as they get used to life without Patches. She was a wonderful companion for my mom. It will see strange not to see her sitting on the loveseat rocker in the family room the next time I go down to visit. Oliver couldn't understand what I was trying to explain to him, but Nadia and Ian understand that they won't be seeing Patches again.

Summer Break

Friday was the last day of Kindergarten for Ian and 2nd grade for Nadia. The one exception would be that they each have a short list of spelling words they need to master before we consider spelling to be done for the year. Ironically one of Ian's words that he has left is "problem." LOL! That wasn't noticeable on Saturday or Sunday, except for the fact the kids started working on completing their summer check list of activities (which includes things like doing math flashcards 50 times this summer, practicing the piano, etc.). Today was the first day that it really hit us that we are now in summer mode. Oliver and Ian have been getting up earlier just as the sun has been rising earlier in the morning. Paul got up earlier than usual to start his first full week at Kennedy Concrete, but since he didn't need to take a shower before going to work (as he gets really dirty working there), it was easy for me to fall back asleep after he left. The kids played in the morning inside and then outside while I mowed the lawn, and after lunch they each completed a couple of activities from their chart (Nadia worked on keyboarding for 15 minutes as one of her activities for example). If they want to play on the iPad or use the Wii they have to complete at least two activities. Ian read me a chapter of his book and did some math flashcards. We will still be going on field trips during the summer. Tomorrow we are going to Reptiland!

Our school calendar was based on Paul's school calendar the past two years. That won't be the case any more. Most of the past 13 years we have gone on vacation in May, but that is also a thing of the past because May is part of their busy season at the company. We probably won't be able to afford a vacation this year, but in the future if we are able to afford one, we will likely go in September or something like that. Usually I have been really excited about the beginning of Paul's summer break, but he doesn't actually get a summer break this year so I actually found myself feeling sad about the semester ending last week. He gave his final exam on Thursday so all he needs to do at this point is finish grading the exams and turn in his keys, and he is done being a professor at Bucknell University. I am glad we read the Chronicles of Narnia series last summer because Paul really enjoyed those, and he won't be hearing any of the future chapter books I read during meal times. I had to take into account the fact I'll be on my own this summer when making plans. Paul used to help with things like taking Nadia to her theatre practice half of the time or taking the kids to see a $1 movie at 10:00 am some weeks, etc. I had to make plans knowing there will only be one driver available (me) so I cannot make plans that involve the kids being in different places at the same time as I could in the past. He will be taking a day off here and there to join us at the amusement parks.

Even though it will be the first summer without a vacation in 8 years, I have planned a lot of fun activities for the summer. I had hoped to sign Nadia and Ian up for tennis lessons, but thus far it doesn't look like they will be offered. I am going to sign Nadia up for a week of diving lessons (taught by diving coach from Susquehanna University). We had planned to go to Knoebels on June 15 or 16, but that had to be scratched as I ended up signing up Nadia and Ian for horseback riding camp that week. I'm hoping we can make it to Knoebels in October (or maybe this Saturday) instead. Here are some of the highlights by week (and I am not listing the weekly activities like gym class, soccer games, or church activities). I think we're going to have a fun summer that includes a wide variety of activities in addition to lots of time to play at home, in the backyard, and at playgrounds.


May 9-14: Reptiland

16-21: Robin Hood play, Penn's Cave, and an Art Day with about 70 other homeschoolers

23-28: Homeschool picnic and Hershey Park

30 - June 4: Carnegie Science Center, Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, Duquense Incline, Idlewild, Home Depot, Campfire songs at Children's Museum

June 6-11: tennis lessons for Ian and Nadia

13-17: Nadia and Ian at Horseback riding camp (9-3 for 5 days), swimming lessons for Nadia, Kids Olympics, and a fireman's parade

19-25: Summerfest at a state park, VBS, and Nadia and Ian at an art camp 3 hours a day for 5 days

27- July 2: Six Flags (in MD), Archaeology Day at the children's museum, Home Depot workshop, and Nadia starts her A Little Mermaid Jr rehearsals (she's going to be a firefly)

July 4-9: parade, fireworks

10-16: VBS, Little Mermaid performances, Star Wars Day at the Children's Museum, take Nadia to summer camp, Ian at Good News Camp (M-F)

17-23: Nadia at camp all week, boys have VBS and swimming lessons, Lycoming County Fair

25-30: See a movie at the theater, DelGrosso's amusement park, Acorn Family Festival, baseball/ softball clinic for Nadia and Ian

August 1-6: Home Depot workshop, Touch a Truck at the Children's Museum, National Night Out, diving lessons for Nadia

7-13: See Peter Pan, Jr, all three kids sing in the summer musical, DelGrosso's amusement park, Nadia and Ian at a Good News day camp (M-F)

15-20: diving lessons for Nadia (one hour a day for 4 days)

Mother's Day weekend

 For a period of more than 10 years I was not a fan of Mother's Day. Not that I didn't love my mom and want to honor her, but I kept wondering for the first several years "Am I ever going to get married?" (a prerequisite to becoming a mom) and then for the first six years of marriage "Am I ever going to become a mom?". What felt like my first Mother's Day was the one in 2008 when I could feel Nadia kicking my ribs. Since I lost my first baby in 2005 I had technically been a mother for 3 years at that point, but it didn't feel real until 2008. That Mother's Day in 2008 was a little surprising for me because I thought Paul would do something to make it a special day for me, but upon discussion after the fact I found out that he didn't think I was a mother yet because I hadn't given birth. The last eight years Mother's Day has been SO much better because my arms are no longer empty. I am eternally grateful for the three miracles which the Lord has given to our family. Yes, there are still moments when I long to give birth one more time, but most of the time I have come to terms with the fact that our family is complete.

I thought that Mother's Day would immediately become this really happy day for me, but my association with it has still been tinged with the grief from the past. This prompts me to spend time every May praying earnestly for those single women who long to be married and have children and for those married women struggling with infertility and longing to become a mom. Although the pain of infertility has been replaced with the joy of mothering three precious gifts from God, I have not forgotten what it feels like to be waiting and wondering if that day will ever come. There were several moments in church today when I found myself inwardly cringing at how other women might be feeling. For example, when the choir met for prayer prior to the first worship service, the music pastor asked all the mothers to come in the middle and then the men were to gather around and place hands on us and pray for us. I know there are women in the choir who aren't mothers, and I cringed as they were lumped in with the men. If this had happened during my years of struggling to conceive or adopt, I can guarantee tears would have been flowing down my cheeks.

Also, I began to realize that Paul associated Mother's Day with a day he would give his mother a card and gift and didn't think of it as a special day for me (and it's true I am not his mom), and since our kids are still young, that usually meant nothing really happened out of the ordinary on Mother's Day. This was also due in part to the fact that we were usually on vacation over Mother's Day weekend, which meant Paul was even less likely to run to the store and buy a card. I thought when he saw all that I did for him for Father's Day it would give him ideas for how to celebrate Mother's Day (having the kids make cards for him, preparing him a special breakfast and dinner, giving him a gift, etc.), but that didn't happen.

So this year I decided to be very direct. I remember last year asking for him to have the kids make me cards for my birthday, but it didn't happen. Most years I asked him to have the kids make me cards for Valentine's Day (and I would help them make him cards), but I was in Maryland this year on Valentine's Day. I didn't get cards from the kids for my birthday this year (hopefully soon they'll be old enough to do this on their own without needing Daddy to help) so I decided to be very specific and yesterday asked that the cards be made today and gave specific time frames when it could be accomplished. Nadia and I did some yard sale shopping yesterday morning and during that time he helped Oliver and Ian each make me a card. Then later in the day I printed out some questionnaires  (similar to ones I had the kids complete for several years in a row for him for Father's Day) to have them complete for Grandma (Paul's mom) and myself. He worked with Nadia on her cards while I gave the boys a bath. I absolutely love the cards and questionnaires that they completed. I will save these for years to come, and I'm hoping this can become an annual tradition.

He asked me this year if I wanted a gift. I appreciated that offer, but since money is tight (as we have no idea when we will be able to sell our house and our house does not match up with the salary of his new job that he is starting tomorrow), I didn't want him to spend any money on me. I said what I wanted was to be able to shop at the mall by myself. It has been many months since I experienced that luxury. I love my children to pieces, but I find taking the three of them into JcPenney to be a downright stressful experience. I went to the mall armed with five coupons and found some great bargains - some Christmas gifts for nephews, clothes for Ian (and Oliver in the future), and two pair of earrings for myself ($9 total for the two pairs). I hadn't bought myself any new earrings for several years, so that was a fun splurge. I almost ended my shopping excursion with an ice cream treat from Dairy Queen, but as I realized one treat costs more than a gallon of ice cream from the grocery store, I opted to go home and bake a batch of lemon bars instead (yum!). While the kids and I were in Sunday School this morning, Paul made a trip to CVS and bought cards for his mother and myself and also bought me some candy.

Although it was chilly during the beginning of Ian's 11:00 am soccer game yesterday, the weather did turn pretty during his game for the first time in 10 days (we were beginning to forget what the sun or a blue sky looked like), and so I went for a 4 mile run (first in 10 days) after we got home from the soccer games, which also felt wonderful. The weather was pretty again today, but due to our busy schedule I didn't have time for a run today. I don't think I'll be able to run tomorrow, but I do plan to mow the lawn tomorrow while Paul is at work.

At one point I planned to go down to Maryland this weekend to be with my mom, but those plans changed. Part of me still wishes I had gone down to help make the day special for her, but maybe the next time I go her immune system will be strong enough that I can bring my kids with me. She had her 5th (of 6) chemo treatments this past Wednesday. The end of chemo is in sight. Whew. Thus far she still does not qualify for surgery (the fluid being drained from below her lung is still malignant for one thing), but we are still praying for that miracle. It certainly wasn't the most pleasant Mother's Day for her as she has been struggling with nausea the past few days. Ironically, Oliver threw up all over the place when we were less than five minutes from home this evening. Thankfully a lot of it went into a trash can I handed him after he started vomiting. This is the reality of being a mom (or dad). There are many really awesome moments like reading to your kids, hugs, kisses, roller coaster rides, etc., and then there are some really icky moments like cleaning up vomit.

Since I didn't go to Maryland today, we went down to Aunt Millie's bakery after church. Oliver fell asleep in the van on the way down. I woke him up around 2;00 to go in to have dinner. Paul's parents, Aunt Marlene from California (whom we hadn't seen in 3.5 years), Gram, Paul's brother, sister-in-law, Brandi (niece), Chris (her boyfriend), Autumn, and James (Brandi's kids) were all there. After we ate, Millie had 20 cupcakes for the five kids to decorate with icing and sprinkles galore. They had a blast decorating and then eating some of the cupcakes. Every day I get to spend with my three children is a gift from God.  I do not take for granted the privilege of being a mom. Thank you, Lord!