sorta random (but some of it goes together) stuff on a Thursday

Goodness, life is moving swiftly.

Saturday, as you prob'ly guessed, we celebrated Lily's 7th birthday,

which was actually Sunday,

but we were leaving the house at 8:30 am, with no clue what time we might get home.

It was a princess theme this year.

(not that we normally do themes - but she requested first, Cinderella shoes.

Then later, she suggested to Tyler that a Cinderella dress might be nice, too. 

And then I heard her say something about having a princess birthday this year...)

So anyways.

She got the shoes.

And the dress.

And the other dress (the servant one) which she will let Lexi wear, if she begs enough.

You'd probably be surprised to know

that

I

did not 

make either.

Something about that little plastic brooch picture of Cinderella on the bodice,

sort of confirmed 'it's a Cinderella dress'.

Plus, Tyler sweetly told me he'd rather me spend my sewing time quilting,

instead of stressing over making a costume.

I would have argued with him, 

but I'd made Lily a purple princess dress for Christmas,

(which is when she got that fancy tiara)

and I spent $30 just on the fabric,

so I was pretty sure buying one for $34

was a bargain.

Oh ~ here's a little funny about the tiara:

For several weeks after Christmas,

every time we left the house

she'd say something about hoping we didn't get robbed.

She was just sure 

that the first thing the bad guys would take

would be her tiara

Back to the weekend.

Sunday,

we left at,

well, not quite 8:30,

 more like 8:40 

and then we ran into a little trouble called a leaky gas can,

but we finally arrived in Rogers at just under a half hour late

at 10:20 something.

We  were joining one of my brothers

and one of my sisters,

and their loves,

and our boy

to give my mom and stepdad their Christmas gift.

A day of labour.

They had a tree that was leaning.

So for Christmas, we pitched in and gave them money to go towards cutting it down,

plus

we gave them a work day.

We got sooo much done!

My Mom and Daddy raised them some hard workers.

Come to think of it,

my kids' Momma and Daddy

raised them some hard workers, too,

'cause ya'll,

those kids worked hard!

And they loved (almost) every minute of it.

I was (and am) so proud of them!

I skipped my exercise Saturday,

on account of all the work I'd be doing on Sunday.

Speaking of exercise,

my sister, Lish  told me about a site, Fitness Blender, that has lots of workout videos.

Yesterday, she, TJ, and I all did the same video;

she'd texted it to me

and I texted it to T.

It was intense.

I liked it!

And it was fun,

knowing that we were all going to do the same workout on the same day.

Separate, but together. (sort of...)

I haven't seen our tiny feisty white hen in a few days,

and we haven't gotten any white eggs this week.

I'm a little worried something got her.

But - that's happened before, and she's turned up,

so I'm hoping she is okay this time, too.

She's not much to look at, but man, I like her!

Testing is tomorrow.

I always have to buy new calculators for testing.

And pencils.

Where do they go??

The dogs eat the pencils,

but what about the calculators?!

This is Josiah's first year to test.

I've really downplayed the whole thing, so as not to cause him any undue anxiety.

I hope that was the right call.

And isn't that pretty much how all of motherhood is?

Hoping that you made the right call....

Speaking of testing,

Jeremiah and Josiah are black-belt testing Saturday!

I'm trying not to be nervous about that.

Brandon has midterms (his 1st of 7)

but I'm not so nervous about his.

I'll leave you with this:

My mom had given us some bags of shelled 'raw Spanish peanuts'.

Lily ate a few 

then said, "Mmmm. Tastes just like peanuts, 

only  more Spanishy."

(hehe)