Happy Birthday Annika!

My sister is 34 today! I got this recording of her daughter, Sonna, singing the birthday song. And actually, I just caught the tail end. The song had been going on for quite some time!

We decided to throw a birthday party while I was out there, so I asked Mara (4 1/2) what we should get her mom. She was quick with her answer, "Gum!" So I took just her to Walgreens to pick out the perfect gum. She commented, "Mom likes minty, but I don't, so we should get this kind!" and held up a Bubbalicious four pack. And so that's what we got.

We had a tea party for lunch to celebrate her birthday and used cookie cutters to cut all of our food into fun shapes. We drank tea that Mara had picked out because it was called "Orange Tea" and the girls were terribly disappointed that it was not actually all that orange in color.

So Happy Birthday Annika, the best big sister a little sister could ever hope for. I am so glad Mara and Sonna have a sister!!! That's the best gift of all!

have you ever had this epiphany?

I got up this morning at 4:30 to catch my flight from Montana back to Nebraska. It was cloudy, and I couldn't see the mountains. It was getting a bit lighter as we were about to take off, but it looked like it would be a pretty gloomy day.

As our plane took off, we broke through those clouds and came up on top looking down at perfect carebear clouds. And there, I could see the sun rising. It was stunningly beautiful. I thought, I have to remember that the sun is shining this gloriously whether I can see it (on a lovely, no clouds, sunny day) or not (cloudy, overcast, all-I-want-to-do-is-stay-in-bed sort of day).

back from vacation...

Today I left these lovely ladies in Montana, and flew home to the love of my life. It's a good thing I love Rory so much, because leaving these girls was really hard. Mara pointed out many times during my four days there, "I am growing bigger because...my legs are way longer" or "because I can see out my window better in my carseat!"

I soaked up the Flathead Valley, soaked in every moment of sister time, and laughed hard with her strong, opinionated, hysterical girls. Jedd was in Minnesota for most of the time, so it really just was a good ol' girls get together. We built forts, played with glitter glue, played lots of candy land and did a 64 piece strawberry shortcake puzzle close to 64 times, watched little orphan Annie, went out for hot chocolate, played at the park, celebrated Annika's birthday a bit early with a tea party and hung out on a beautiful dock on Flathead Lake.

The good news? Only 49 days until I see these guys again at Christmas!!!

Off to Montana!!!

So, this is pretty sneaky, but the last few days were posts that I wrote on Wednesday night and post-dated. I feel so blog savvy! And this post is also being written on Wednesday night. I stocked up on blog posts because I am actually in Texas right now at a Lutheran Outdoor Ministry conference. The weather has been lovely (forecasted 73 degrees) and I'm sure I've made some good friends by now.

But today I am flying from Houston to Denver to Kalispell, Montana where I will be greeted by my sister for some quality sister time. I miss this woman so much and hate the fact that we live so far away from each other. So here's to some good laughs in the days ahead. Here's a laugh to get us started. Annika really knew how to work a perm...and a matching sweat suit...and a 10 speed.

I've been looking on a lot of craft websites lately for projects to do for our Women's Craft Night at camp as well as good projects for our adults with special needs. In the process, I have found many a project that overwhelms me with delight. The following are from a site called craftster, and I can't get enough. Be sure to check it out, because the pictures here are just a smidgen of the cool stuff this woman made. Can you imagine how fun it would be to play with all of this food?!!