July Party People

we were mega party people through the month of July.  not only celebrating America's birthday - but also by attending celebrations throughout the month with our family and friends.

first up was Mallory and Hunter's birthday party.  'Mawee', my sweet honey godchild, turned 3 this past month and her brother 'baby unter' had his first birthday.  I drove the kids out to do a mini pre-party since we were double booked that day with celebrations.  Stef and I are both cousins and friends -all through growing up, I used to spend 2 weeks every summer living at her family's house in northern PA - so to see our kids all huddled together (and all blonde!) makes both of us smile.

our 4 kids, and all blondes!

Hunter with the hip check

bouncing birthday kids

unhappy Gemmi, sweet Hunter

 After a sufficient amount of sugar from cookies and gift bag items, we hopped back in the car to drive through naptime to a barbecue/sprinkle for Katie's baby boy on the way, a mere two and half hours in the direction of home.  Luckily for me, the kids slept almost the whole way and I got to listen to whatever music I pleased on my little roadtrip.

The barbecue sprinkle was quaint and relaxed which was perfect for my glowingly beautiful, albeit very pregnant, best friend on a warm July evening.  We had good food and great company to help get ready for the baby boy soon to arrive (update:  he since has and we are all in love with him).

the barbecue sprinkle spread

wishes for the baby boy

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two rotten, although adorable kids.  

Nana and her baby

The following week, fiiiiinally after much planning, prepping, working, and organizing - we celebrated the grand opening of Brandon's new store.  Armed with papparazzi style cameras, my in laws, b's grandma and his aunt, Kate and her big belly, three squirmy kids, and a slightly teary-eyed me - all stood in the sun that morning to beam as Brandon's hard work had paid off with the ribbon cutting of the new store in his district.  We are lucky to have him as our daddy.

grand opening decor!

his entourage

opening ceremony

handsome and hard working?!  how'd i swing that one?

hooray!

To wrap up our July, we spent the last weekend celebrating with my extended family on my maternal grandma's side for our annual reunion.  My grandma (mom's mom) was 1 of 14 kids.  yes, you read that correctly, and every year we have an annual reunion to keep us all together.  (in other news:  my paternal grandfather was 1 of 21 (!!), my paternal grandmother was 1 of 8, and my maternal grandfather 1 of 3.  i've got family in heaps).

greyson playing with his cousins during the kids' games

my lucky kids with their beautiful aunts

Grey feeding the ducks with his Chum

Booboo participating in the home run derby!

Grey and his cousin Landon with a balloon sword battle

the cowboy/superhero/singer ready for the parade

Greyson & Mallory all suited up for the kids' parade

parade time!

my mumma and I ready to help the kids in the parade

honestly.

the grandmas and their girls.  Mimi & Mallory and Abba & Gemma

both kids fell asleep through dinner.  

...and we're still missing 2 more Kevins from this picture!!  We've got an abundance of men named Kevin in my family

the talent show:  Sister Act - my great aunts rocking it to MJ

reunion tradition:  the 'money tree'

talent show: 'the girls from Texas' my cousins, Mel, Myla and Kiera

talent show:  the Troy boys & Mom, hah.  cousins Leigh, Duncan, and Dean

talent show: cousins Melissa and Lilee (with guitar) while Greyson river dances (?) in the forefront, hah

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the Adams family (missing Ryan)

Team Studer

We laughed, cheered, celebrated, and hugged our way through July.  All those parties seemed to only speed up our July at a frightening pace.  How in the world is it August already?

the 'ole 5 year plan

So, I kind of feel like 5 years is the common number that people use when they make goals for their life.  Like in five years, I hope to be blah blah blah.  And I'm all about making goals and lists, um, seriously.  But randomly I re-discovered this little creative book (MemoRANDOM: A Journal for Lists, Memories, and Miscellany ) that I got as a gift for helping my friend with her wedding (thank you, Tare!  I'm still loving it 2 years later!) and I got to a page that said,

"Think of who you were five years ago.  Now, describe five* things that have happened to you in the past five years that your self from five years ago would be shocked to find out."

*Like I was going to ever stick to only five, let's get real here.

I didn't think it was that big of a deal until I started listing some stuff out.  Seriously, I dare you to start this - you will be amazed at how much can change in five years.  In retrospect, five years ago seems like a minute - but when you start really digging it all out - it's incredible to find how much is different from where you started and where you'd thought/hoped you'd be in five years.  Some 'shocking' details were funny, others were proud, and some were goals not yet met.  It was an awesome glimpse back in how much has changed in only five years.

So, let's get to it - five years ago, I was finishing up my last year teaching in Brooklyn, NY and getting ready to move in with Brandon into a teeny tiny little town in rural PA and super excited about planning our wedding for the following year.

And since then, my sweet little darling Tabitha at 24,you will be astonished to know that your life 5 years in the future have included the following "shocking" details:

• you have a tv in your bedroom
• you have two dogs and two cats
• Brandon's pet fish are still alive (?!?!!)
• you are a mumma twice over
• you cut all your hair off, like all of it, to pixie.  and love it.
• you've been to Thailand, Hawaii, and Jamaica
• you've moved back to your home town.  and love it.
• you started writing a blog
• your blog has been visited over 1.6 million times  (thank you, readers!)
• your reading is contained mostly to blogs and online articles, you hardly read actual books anymore
• you drink coffee now...everyday
• after all that planning, you couldn't wait for your wedding reception to end so you could just be alone with B
• you've learned to vacuum with one hand and shield yourself from a toddler's flying styrofoam sword with the other
• you  have an iphone.  and love it.
• you can change a baby's diaper in the dark
• you're tv viewing is mostly limited to NatGeo, Discovery Planet, Disney Junior, and Animal Planet
• you turned on the "cool" radio station the other day and literally thought, "Ugh, noise" and turned it off
• you are still not back in the classroom
• you do things as a mother that you swore you'd never do - it is much different than you thought it was (both harder and better)

In five years from now, I think/hope my life will include some of these details - 

• we will have added to our human family by 2 
• we will NOT have moved again
• we will have traveled to Europe 
• we will still be doing 12 months of kindness
• i will be working with kids again
• my kids will be bilingual
• b and i will have renewed our vows
• i will be a published writer 

There's that perfect quote for this from the movie American Beauty, the narrator says - "...its a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself.."  So, let's see what we can do to shake things up, Tabitha at 34 of the future.  I know you'll try your best - I trust you to make the next 5 years happy and interesting.  Good luck - see you in five.

June 2012 Kindness: donation to the local humane society

We let June get away from us before we completed our 12 months of Kindness commitment - so the kids and I made up for it in July.  We made a donation of goods to the local Humane Society and stopped to visit with the puppies & kitties there too.  If you are interested in making donations to your local humane society (or other local animal shelters) make sure to check their website (or call them) for their wish/need list before making your donation purchases.  When I checked the website for our center - we used their list to help guide my next grocery run.

After a quick run to the grocery store to pick up some of the items on their wish list, the kids and I headed up with donations in hand.  Grey was proud to carry in the paper towels (almost as big as him, hah!)  We brought two bags of kitten food since they said that was an urgent need.  The staff at the front desk were so happy to receive our donations and even more delighted to get them from my two little angel-faced munchkins.  

..and when they said the kitten food was urgent - they were not kidding.  There must have been 20-25 kittens waiting to be adopted - not including the other fully grown cats.  We have 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 4 fish and I was almost half tempted into just adopting one (or some!) of those sweet baby kittens.   

We've rescued 3 of our 4 mammal pets, so it is important to us to give back to organizations that take care of animals that would otherwise be in a bad way.  Visiting the humane society only further cements my belief that a neuter/spay law should be in place nationwide.  Our family does our part in making sure all our animals are neutered/spayed... because there is nothing sadder than seeing unwanted kitties/puppies reaching their paws out of cages.  (actually, the only thing sadder than that is seeing them hungry and homeless). [steps down from my soapbox.]

On the way home from our drop off, Grey and I talked about why the puppies and kitties live there (at the Humane Society).  I told him they live there because 'they don't have mummas and daddies yet, but they are waiting for them to come pick them up.'  That we gave them 'some surprises to help them while they wait for their families.'  He seemed to understand that in his little 2 year old brain.  Then he said, "Bully and Tricky-Icky have families.  We are family."  yep, they are.

This month, since the kids weren't only able to be involved in the picking up and delivering of our kindness - but it was something little kids like (animals), it was a really good reminder to me why we commit to our 12 months of kindness.  We want giving to be how our kids; how our family, grows up.  We want our kids to think that making donations of time or goods, or sometimes money alone is the 'normal' thing.  

We want our family to not only know, but live the phrase, 'Because I have been given much, I too must give.'

(quotation from Grace Noll Crowell's poem 'Because of Thy Great Bounty')