A Birthday To Remember

it started with a girl's night out with my cousins friday night. it was a lot of fun but as usual i ate way too much and stayed out way too late- but that's what life is really about, isn't it??

love these girls....don't know where i'd be without them.



moving on to saturday....feeling very tired and a bit sick from the night before, we loaded up the kids and dropped them off at grandma's so dave and i could help deliver some food baskets to some families downtown that my mom knew.

the image of the man who answered my knock at the first door will forever be burned into my mind. a very large black man in a very small pair of boxers. only the boxers.
it took me a minute to remember to say something and then he welcomed us in. dave (aka "big dog") and i were in and out with boxes and the guy never bothered to put any more clothing on.
and he has me calling dave "big dog" now too.
oh, and my mom.....she's "cool as hell"- but i think she'd wash my mouth out with soap if i tried to call her that one.

then that night we had dinner at my sister's with kaitlyn and jordan during which tekoa pooped her pants- i have no idea why. she tried to take them off and left us with a disgusting mess to clean up. so frustrating.
other than that we had a great time. we baked cookies and played games. and once again stayed out late.

and then we were woken up at 5:55am with a call from my mom telling us that chad and julie's baby had been born. so exciting. i could not fall back to sleep. so fun that we share a birthday.
i did doze again for a little while, and then was once again woken up- this time by tekoa bringing us a plate of leftover ravioli to our bed. she apparently had been scaling the shelves of our fridge. she plopped it down on our bed and said, "i have a present for you!!!!"
thanks, ko. and thanks for later "cleaning wren's crib" with febreeze.

we told the kids it was mommy's birthday and tyden said, "YES!!! then it's only 5 more days til CHRISTMAS!!!!" thanks, buddy.

after church and cleaning and baking we loaded up the kids and took them to my mom's so we could go see the new baby. it worked out well, because we were having a big herman family christmas at their house (well, in the barn) later in the evening.

so dave and i got to the hospital and made our way down the long tile hallway leading into the main building. we were holding hands and walking together.....deep in conversation i'm sure.....
yep, walking and talking....and the next thing i knew i was down.
i stepped on my heel wrong- they were rather tall- and somehow sort of landed on my knees. since we were still holding hands i tried to just pick myself right back up but fell again onto my butt. happy birthday to me.
yes, there were witnesses....yes, they were asking if i was okay....yes, i was a little embarrassed- but not nearly as embarrassed as dave was. and i just couldn't stop laughing about the whole thing.

we did finally make it to the baby. so cute. and so little. and so not good for me.
i think i will always wish it was me. for as long as i'm alive.

but here she is- miss livie grace.








all plump and sweet and soft and beautiful.


and then it was back to reality. upon entering the barn for the christmas party, my sister tells me that somehow tekoa has burnt her hair. no one knows how it happened, but her hair had a big dark orange crispy mass on the back. amy combed it out as best she could with her fingers with hair breaking off and falling out all the while.
for some reason i handled it very well. it didn't even bother me that much. i think i was just really tired. it doesn't look that bad anymore, it's just a bit frizzy and a little thinner.
her hair was so super fine that i decided a bit of damage just might help her ponytails stay in better.
i think what happened was that she leaned against a heater. her hair had hairspray in it from that morning and it just sort of melted.
only tekoa.

after all the festivities/chaos or whatever it is you want to call a family christmas, we headed home with big plans to have some alone time to celebrate my birthday- but in the end we were just too worn out.

but don't worry- tonight we have 2 uncles stepping in to watch the 3 oldest so dave and wren and i can have a nice quiet dinner somewhere and do some shopping (NOT christmas shopping!)
it should be great. and as long as the house is still standing when we get back- and everyone still has most their hair- we'll be happy.






thanks for carrying the bowl of dip into the house for me, tekoa.












MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

.....here's to hoping the rest is a bit more restful and uneventful.
(but i know it's not very likely!!)