Party fun

I just had to share. My eldest had a birthday in May. I've been debating about whether or not to put some photo's up from party. The party was so much fun though, that I just had to post a few. We hired a nature person to come to the house and educate everyone on nature and the "nuisance" animals that one might find in their neighborhood. It was great. The kids played games, observed a live opossum, tarantula, bats, and a snake. I think the adults had as much fun as the kids, which is always great! I love putting together birthday party's. It seems a birthday is really a time for celebrations. It's a celebration of life, love, and how far one has come. Birthdays are also a great excuse to load up on my 2 favorite foods, Cake and Icecream! In my opinion cake and icecream can be the only food groups. I just love birthdays party's, can you tell?The only problem I find with birthdays is the family is so large that we are up to almost 40 people by just inviting them! It is easy to blow a budget on food alone for those eating machines! :)


P.s I also have some prayer requests. We have has several family members have surgeries related to cancer recently. One member is still in the hospital because they haven't any white blood cells!
We have a friend who has had some complications with a transplant organ and would appreciate prayer for them.
And lastly my other half has, in the last month, found out that he has a vocal nodule that will need to be surgically removed! We've been told that he will have to be silent for 10days following surgery, then on day 11 he can speak for 5minutes every hour, the next day it will be 10minutes every hour, so on and so forth. It will take about a month or so to get back to normal for speech and even longer for singing. Really crazy...
We appreciate all your prayers on behalf of ourselves and others.
Thanks!

I love Christmas and family. I love the shopping, giving gifts, decorating, and having family stay with me. It's nice, even when it isn't. Thankfully there weren't any real dramatic episodes to report this holiday season. I enjoyed my house guests. I enjoyed visiting all types of family. I just hated having to observe some of my family. Let me explain. Christmas eve eve was nice, until I got into a heated discussion about Brittany Spears with my sister. BRITTANY SPEARS?! Who argues about Brittany Spears?! We do. I didn't realize until much later that my critic of Brittany's mothering skills was, in a way, a critic of my sister's mothering skills. So I fought with myself over my feelings of guilt over inadvertently dissing my sister, but not really feeling all that guilty about it.
Then there was Christmas. Christmas was wonderful, it really was. We finished it off by visiting my Dad and stepmom's house. It seemed like a perfect way to end the evening, and it almost was, except for the fact that my dad is an alcoholic. Some people don't think this is a problem because he is not a mean alcoholic. I, however, find his alcoholism to be a problem, because it isn't good for his body or our conversations. My dad talks forever about the same subjects over and over again when he is drunk and you can't get away. All I can think of during our conversations is how sad his state is, how much I know he doesn't want to be this way, how awkward this all is, and how can I get out of here! I know all I can do for him is pray. Nothing more. Sometimes I worry about he and my sister. My grandma tells me not to. She says I've always tried to save people and that I can't save anyone who doesn't want to be saved. She's right. So when I worry about them, I get into some major prayer. It really is all I can do.
So, with this you are probably saying, 'this doesn't sound like a wonderful Christmas.' It was because I was able to spend a good amount of time with all of my family. Everyone enjoyed their gifts, I enjoyed mine. This holiday also opened my eyes even more to my sister and my dad and sisters problems and helped me to resolve to pray for them more. I also hope the conversations my sister and I had will bring about some epiphany for her. I know it did for me.