The Big ONE

The family gathered yesterday to celebrate Isaac's first birthday.  We've had a full year of joy with this  boy who is easy-going and appropriately named as he laughs easily.  

We didn't want to take away from Isaac, but his party was the best opportunity we've had to finally give Dad his birthday gift. It took some time to get Dad's birthday gift ready.  We had the pictures made (see this post -1st Cousins) after his birthday and then had to wait on the prints and wait for a time when everyone would be there.  I think he really liked it, and I think he was surprised despite the fact that we actually posted a couple of those pictures on social media and didn't block him from seeing them.

Nothing says "Happy Birthday" like a haircut.  Our family is so weird.  Tiffany cuts our hair, and she often spends the greater portion of family parties doing it since it is hard to get together with her.

Isaac was really good for his haircut.  He squirmed but never cried.  We were surprised, but Tiffany said that's normal for his age.  She said they usually start crying at Ira's age (2 years), but Ira loves having his hair cut, so no tears from him either.

lemonade cake - yum

I am not sure why the icing looks yellow in the picture.

Isaac enjoyed his cake though I wish Danielle and her mom had waited to serve the guests so that they could enjoy this birthday moment with him.  I am thankful for the technology that allowed Jonathan and me both to record video of it for them.  Isaac was quite nonchalant about the whole thing -such a laid back kid, but I did learn yesterday that he won't let his big brother run all over him.  He will defend himself.

Isaac does not look like my side of the family.  I think he looks like his maternal grandma.  Regan and Ira both have some similarities to my side of the family.  Regan definitely has her momma's eyes, but she resembles Jonathan too.  Ira looks so much like my dad and Jonathan that when we post pictures of him on Facebook, Facebook's face recognition always tries to tag my dad.  It will be so fun to watch these three grow up and see how much Regan ends up looking like her mom and Ira like his dad and then Isaac who looks like his grandma.

His big gift will be a lifesaver for his parents I think. There is something to do on every side for every kid.

Somebody got out the water hose (actually I think it was Regan).  The parents were inside, and I wasn't telling - well, at least not until the kids were soaked.  This boy loves the water, and he has his many tantrums daily, but he makes me want a two-year-old in my house again.  

It was a wonderful party as always.  Happy Birthday, Isaac!  We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with this crew.

A Rivalry settled - Brothers in Faith

Since the football season began, tonight's game has been on the minds of the parents.  Coming into the game, two undefeated teams faced off.  At stake was the district championship and home field advantage for the playoffs.  New this year, the rivalry added a trophy to the mix.  Calling this game the Brothers in Faith game, the winning team would house the trophy.  To add more pressure, we came into the game ranked below our opponent and knowing that while both teams are in the top four for our division in the state, only one will advance to the state playoffs.

Our opponent started strong, and the score went back and forth until we scored two touchdowns in the second quarter and went into half-time with a 20-14 lead.  In the second half of play, our lead increased to 27-16 where it remained until the last 35 seconds of the game when our opponent scored a TD.  We held on to our three point lead until the end.  What a sigh of relief!  An amazing night for football.

I could not give Zach the 18th birthday I had hoped to.  He received a couple of t-shirts and a hat, but I don't think it mattered.  He enjoyed a celebration with friends at a local sports restaurant, and his buddies covered his meal.  Then, he played a fabulous game that ended in a solid and much hoped-for victory.  He has been so happy over the last few days.

Zach's smallest fan came prepared to cheer the team to a win.  She loved clapping and ringing the CAL bell, but she was mesmerized by the band's halftime show.

Regan, Jonathan, and Zach.  You wouldn't guess it by looking at him now, but Jonathan was a kicker for his high school football team.

This is how Julia dresses for a football game.  Can we say fashionista?

Zach got his hands on that trophy in the locker room.  You can see that he just came out of a battle.


Our regular season district play ended tonight.  We have one more game against a team outside of our district before the playoffs start.  This season is flying. We will meet tonight's opponent again in the playoffs.  We are so hoping for a bid for the state championship.  It's a good year to be a Centurion!

This mom is happy, happy, happy!

Flashback Friday

Andy and I celebrate 20 years of marriage this month.

Here I am with my brothers on my wedding day.

Ira

I have only seen his eyes open in pictures.

Ira! Ira! Ira!  a champion already

Does he have Jonathan's temper too?  We already know that Regan does.

I just had to share the hospital pictures.  I mean, can you get enough baby pictures?

I can't resist sharing these pictures

Yes, we all look this good just minutes before leaving for the hospital to birth a baby.  I just love this picture of the proud papa and his little glowworm looking at each other.

All dressed for her homecoming in the same dress her mom wore home from the hospital.

Regan and Uncle Josh

Of course I stole all of these from Facebook :)

6 pounds, 4 ounces of joy

Regan Elizabeth arrived today weighing 6 pounds, 4 ounces.  She is 18 inches long, alert, and beautiful. Regan and Danielle both decided to be stubborn resulting in a c-section intervention.

These were taken through the glass at the nursery.  I hope to make it back to the hospital for better pictures today.  For the 15 minutes or so that I spent at the hospital elbowing my way past Regan's grandmas and an array of aunts and uncles, Regan looked around.  She never slept.  She only cried when the nurse picked her up so that I could get a better picture.  It didn't work :)  If I could read her mind, I would think that she is saying to herself, "where am I, and what happened to my world!?"

My baby brother is a dad!  Congratulations Jonathan and Danielle!  We love this stubborn stinker already!

Leaves, a tree, and back to decisions

After the devastating news that hit last Thursday, I pretty much came home and went to bed.  As tired as I was, I thought I would sleep the afternoon away, but that did not happen as I was too upset.  Mom talked with the doctor and learned that the cancer has spread to the area outside her liver and to her colon.  She resumes chemo on Tuesday, and apparently there has been some good results with this chemo, so we continue to hope and pray.  Our hope is not in chemo or surgery but in Christ.  I know that my mom is in a win-win situation.  She can recover and spend more time with us or go explore her mansion, physically hug Jesus, reunite with relatives missed and live where it is said that one day in the courts is better than a thousand elsewhere (not necessarily in that order).  This, however, is not a win-win situation for me.

On Friday I gave my two weeks notice to my part-time employer.  Much like the decision to seek and subsequently take this job weighed on my mind, my decision to leave is constantly on my mind.  I resigned because this is retail, and it is a small enough store that often only two people are scheduled.  Given that set-up, I feel like I can't leave on a moment's notice, and I feel like I need to be able to do that.  However, the discount is nice, and if we can ever pull enough money together to replace some furniture that is in bad need of replacement (ie. the kitchen table and chairs since we can't all six sit at the table at this time), the discount combined with the sale prices could make some very nice furniture affordable.  The people I work with there are super, and the kicker is that I received my first school paycheck yesterday.  I could not determine my pay last year when I was trying to work with the school on Julia's tuition.  School pay is a complicated thing.  I knew there was a possibility that my pay would drop, and it did.  Therefore, I am not sure I can afford to leave this job.  My kids are bothered by this set-up, and much as I like the job, it has been difficult to run the household with this added responsibility.  My manager has offered to keep me on if I will work one shift a week.  I am in a quandary about what to do.

Saturday found us in a different sort of mess.  Savannah has a leaf project due on the 14th. She needs to find and identify 40 leaves for this project.  We joined a few of her friends and a couple of moms at a local cemetery to collect the leaves.  This cemetery marks many of their trees, so we were able to collect 40 leaves and now she faces the task of compiling this project and finding the scientific names.  I am grateful to the security guard who granted us permission to pick the leaves off of the trees as we could not find any on the ground.  Why would this project be given at this time of year with the specification that the kids could not pick the leaves? I never complain about school projects, but I may do that on this one.

I had never been to this cemetery and plan to take Wyatt and Julia back to feed the ducks, a childhood pastime that they missed because my grandmother was no longer able to do this by the time they joined the family.  I also want to explore this very old, serene, and beautiful cemetery.  I came home to a lovely surprise.  My original intention before I became distracted by school projects and life was to paint a small area off of the kitchen on Saturday.  It was a much needed task.  I worked on prepping the walls on Friday evening, and returned from the cemetery on Saturday to find that Andy had completed the first coat.  The walls improved immensely with just that one coat of paint.  Andy hates the color on the kitchen walls (a Dijon mustard yellow), so he quickly pointed out that the contrast made the kitchen walls look awful.  Guess what is prepped and ready for paint today:)

We are in the process of fixing things like our broken closet doors and painting walls in desparate need.  Unfortunately, we are also tearing things up as we go.  When I was putting on the second coat of paint, Zach walked under the area where I was working, and paint dripped on his shirt.  Without realizing it was there, he promptly sat on my favorite couch.  Andy replaced our broken closet doors last night, but he slammed the trunk down on his GPS when trying to load up everything for Savannah's field hockey game yesterday.  (sigh) I, for one, am beyond tired of this recession.

Julia had a family tree project due on Monday...as if there was not enough going on here without school projects.  She used the pictures at the end of this post.


Today I have a special plan for Wyatt.  I am struggling to afford this, but Wyatt is kind of the left out kid right now.  We are going on a family outing to see a cave (something he has wanted to do all summer). He has been fascinated with rocks and crystals lately, and there is a place where he can "pan" for cool rocks at this particular cave.  I would wait to do this, but this is the last weekend that this place is open for the season.  He is one pumped little guy!

The following pictures are from Julia's family tree project:

Andy's side of the family

This picture of Andy's parents is quite old.

This picture of Andy's sister Pam with her husband Mike is also quite old.

Page is Pam's and Mike's daughter.

Mitchell is Pam's and Mike's son.

Andy's sister Dianna with her boys, Alex and Ben.

My parents and my sister Tiffany with her husband Tony and their boys, Austin and Logan.

Tara and Jonathan

Tessa and Joshua

For our family we used the blog home page picture.

Memories of one year ago today

http://lifewiththepages.blogspot.com/2009/07/jonathan-and-danielle-marry-july-12.html

One year ago today my brother got married.  I have linked the two posts I did about that day, and the picture above is Jonathan with Danielle today. Baby Regan is due to join us all in September.

http://lifewiththepages.blogspot.com/2009/07/it-appears-this-is-goodbye.html

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday began with the search for Easter baskets.  Zach wasn't as into it, but the kids need his help figuring out  the clues. He remembered from last year.

Because

 Savannah had been sick all day Saturday, we attended church Sunday afternoon.We then headed to my parent's house. I had made an emergency run for eggs to stuff and candy earlier in the day.  I wasn't alone.  Apparently, my sisters had already prepared for this, so the kids ended up hunting for 104 eggs total.  As usual there was the one we simply could not find, but Tessa was determined and eventually it turned up.Of course we had some egg coloring too.  Wyatt is now well-supplied with his beloved hard boiled eggs.  This part of the day was not as popular as usual, so several eggs remained boring white.

We wrapped up the day with a family prayer time.  My brother goes to my parent's house almost every week night and leads prayer for whoever is there. He has done this for several months. When the whole family gathers, we all do this.  We pray in order from youngest to oldest, and I always get grief for being older than Andy.  My brother Jonathan and his wife Danielle are expecting their first child and finding that they don't agree on any names.  I prayed that they would find a name they both love.  My sister thought it was funny that I would pray for this, but names are important.  Of course, we all pray for a miracle for my mom.   

a side note - I am trying the new formatting on Blogger--it is both good and frustrating.  I like being able to move the pictures around but am still figuring out how to get them exactly where I want them, and I am mising spell check and my spelling is less than stellar.