Seven!

Seven years ago my baby was born! Hard to believe it's been seven years and that she is still the baby. She is everything I ever wanted in a girl - I think I said that in my last post about her reading but it's true. She's kind and sensitive and she just has a joy about life. She also has a passion for animals. At Christmas she asked for a puppy. She wrote letters to Santa asking for a puppy. In fact at school she wrote a letter and whoever the genius was that wrote back to her focused on her request for a puppy. Seriously, who does that? She cried when she did not get a puppy for Christmas. So, February rolls around and what do you think this little girl wanted for her birthday? A puppy of course. I have spent the last two weeks looking in the newspaper and on craigslist in search of a puppy. Checking the lists of the dogs at the shelters. I have really no desire to spend 100's of dollars on a puppy. I also was picky about the age. I didn't really want a brand new puppy but I didn't want a DOG either. So yesterday we went to the animal fair. What better place to find a puppy than to go to 1 place where all of the rescues/shelters bring their dogs. We wandered around and didn't see anything. Too big, too old, too mean looking, not what I was looking for. Then we spotted him. A small black dog. The rest is history. He is 8months old and a chihuahua/jack russell mix. So far he's been absolutely wonderful. And my 7 year old is having the best birthday ever - and now she isn't the baby anymore.

Bragging!

I'm not big on bragging normally. In fact I come from a family that just doesn't do it very well. This comes from both sides actually - I married in to a family that takes pride in one another's accomplishments but they just don't brag about them. When we have family reunions with my husbands extended family we usually spend one night all hanging out in one big room and everyone updates on what is happening in their lives. Stew's dad is the oldest so he ALWAYS goes first. He gives a very matter of fact update on each of his children and grandchildren. It then moves on down the line, there are 8 siblings, and as it goes the accomplishments become BIGGER and BETTER. We often sit and think - well so and so has a 4.0 too and so and so conducted the Utah Symphony but it just doesn't occur to us to BRAG like that. And it does feel like bragging. In my opinion a family update is "Stew and his family live in Tucson- we're so happy to have them back from England." Not "Stew spent 4 years saving the world, his children are all merit scholars and his wife just wrote her first novel." Even though sometimes I think we should get a rebuttal at the end of the reunions so we can add all the things we didn't THINK to brag about being the first in line.

Well, anyways - the whole point of this post is so that I CAN brag! Yep, it is my blog and I'm going to do it. I have to say I love my boys they are fantastic and they are both very smart. Their interests and abilities are sometimes different than mine but this is to be expected as they are 1/2 of someone whose interests and abilities are also very different than mine. So this brings me to the girl. I really WANTED a girl and I am so absolutely thrilled how similar her interests are to mine. She is just so sweet and she loves school. Absolutely loves it. However, the thing that I LOVE that she loves the most is reading. I love to read, I have always loved to read. I can remember learning how to read and then that was it I was off. Jordan is the exact same way. She will be 7 next week and she is in 1st grade. She was retested for her reading level this week and her ability is 5.0. This means she is on a 5th grade reading level!! I absolutely am thrilled - there is nothing I DID to make her a good reader - she just IS. And I'm going to brag about it!

The Proposal

Over at Amazed she's having a little contest to gear up for Valentines day I would guess. I figured I would play along and tell about how I got engaged.

Of course when I met Stew I was not at all interested but those things change. We dated a while. We talked about marriage and we talked about rings. I told him exactly what I did NOT want and some of the things that I did want, being very materialistic obviously at 19. So, while at Rick's when a girl would get engaged she would announce it to her friends/dorm roommates through something called a candle lighting. We would all sit in the dorm lounge and pass a lit candle around the room. Everyone would say something to the lucky girl - without knowing who it was. When the candle would come to the newly engaged girl she would blow it out. So one evening my roommates and I all attended a candle lighting. The candle went around the room and when it came to me I leaned to my roommate Shelley and informed her that if Stew asked I wanted a ring JUST like the one on the candle. The candle was passed and it continued around the circle again. Strangely nobody was blowing it out. As the candle reached me for the 2nd time Shelley leaned over and whispered - blow out the candle. I was shocked. The door opened and Stew walked in and YES I blew out the candle.

Of course - I do enjoy another proposal story. A friend of ours took his girlfriend hiking up a mountain and when they reached a nice area they stopped and had a picnic. He then pulled out 2 ring boxes and asked her to choose one. When she picked he promptly threw the other box over a cliff. As she opened the EMPTY box and started freaking out he then pulled a 3rd box out of his other pocket. He's pretty lucky she didn't throw HIM over the cliff if you ask me - but it makes for a great story!