2007 Recap

I have my cousin Staci to thank for this blog (congrats on your upcoming family addition)! In our Christmas card this year she provided me with her family site, I found it amazing so I just had to create one myself!!!


2007 was an amazing year. We celebrated Melanie's 4th birthday in March and Anna's 6th in May. Anna has lost 7 teeth and is working on her 8th! Melanie was bumped up to the last pre-K class before heading to kindergarten this year. The summer was filled with loads of field trips and fun. Anna began 1st grade; hard to believe she is that old already!!! Time sure does fly. This fall both girls were involved in soccer - Melanie's first season, Anna's 6th! Melanie's team, The Sassy Cats, went undefeated - yea!!! While Anna's, The Celina Belles, lost only one - yea!

Anna also began her faith formation classes which are held each Sunday morning (95% attendance required) so that she can make first communion this year!!! Again, it is so hard to believe that she is this old already!!!

2007 was filled with many notable occassions...

My mom and husband, Ted, moved from Colorado back to Louisiana at the beginning of 2007 and had a lovely home built in Benton on Cypress Lake. We visited over the summer and when we first arrived all of my cousins (on my mom's side) were at the house. It was nice to visit and catch up with everyone. The next day we took the girls fishing. Bob and Ted were still baiting their hooks when Anna dropped her line in and realized that she'd already caught a fish!!! That was really awesome. The sad part was, my mom, Melanie and I left to pick up my Mammy who came out for a visit when I got a picture message on my cell phone, it was Anna holding her line with the fish on the end of it!!!

My sister-in-law, Colleen, decided to rope me into a fitness boot camp in May. I was hesitant since the class was an hour long, 5 days a week, for four weeks, beginning each morning at 5 AM, but decided to be her boot camp buddy anyway!!! It wasn't easy, but it was extremely fulfilling. I throughly enjoyed it and would love to do it again.

I attended my first ever college football game, which just so happened to be in Seattle (a desitination I've desired to travel to), Buckeyes vs. Huskies. It was a thrilling game as we were just a few rows from the field! As you might see by the pictures on this blog, we are huge Buckeye fans and our girls (including my nieces Kaitlyn and Taylor) are little Buc fans! And now they're playing for the title (again)! Go Bucs!!! My apologies to all of you LSU fans, but it is THE BUCKEYE NATION!!!

My father and I reconciled our relationship in June - it has been a true blessing to have him back in my life, as well as my siblings, Chris and Beka. I am so thankful. Chris has enlisted in the Marines and will be shipping off to boot camp in February! While I am worried and will consistently pray for him, I am proud of him at the same time. Hoo Ha!!! Beka is expecting her first child, a daughter to be named Savanna Lynn, at the beginning of February and is engaged to her long time boyfriend Phil. Tragically, he lost his mother this past fall and in her honor their daughter will be named after her in part (Lynn). I pray that Beka has an easy delivery and that Savanna is chubby, happy and healthy!!!

On a tragic note, my cousin Jason and his wife, Chavis, lost their sweet baby girl this past year. As my heart goes out to them, I could not imagine having to endure the pain of losing a child, I pray that they are blessed with another, not to replace, but to aide in their healing. In loving memory of Carmen Rae Speight.

This fall we discovered that Anna needs a lot of dental work... Unfortunately, her jaw line isn't large enough to accomodate all of the permanent teeth she keeps getting, so in a couple of weeks she is going to be fitted for a spacer that she will have to wear for about 6-8 months, then be fitted for a retainer which she will wear for about another 6 months in preparation for braces once all of her permanent teeth are in - yea! I feel so bad for her as the spacer is one that requires a key to be turned to adjust her jaw line - ouch!!!

We decided to have professional family pictures taken just before Christmas this year... Usually, we take them in the comforts of our own home, but decided that we deserved a break from the frustration associated with it all. To our surprise, Melanie was a ham! This was her first encounter at a professional studio where she wasn't crying hysterically. There were shots of each girl individually and I couldn't belive how old Anna looks. There was a pose where she was sitting on her bottom, knees to her chest, it just made me go, OMG, that's my baby?!?!?! Looking at their picture together, back to back, there is little height difference between the two of them.

Bob is once more the Assistant Director of Basketball in our city's recreational sports league and is again coaching 4th-5th grade boys basketball. His team went undefeated the last two seasons and won the championship game both years. While the draft rules were changed this year, leaving Bob with only a couple of returning players, I have every confidence that he will lead them to victory once more. Wish them luck their first game is this Saturday at 6 PM!!!

Anna has become even more insistant that she wants to be a doctor when she gets older, more recently a surgeon. During our Thanksgiving festivities we were playing a game, Catch Phrase (an awesome game if you've not heard of it). Basically, you have a word on the screen that you have to get your teammates to guess without using the word or anything rhyming. Anna was sitting with my mom, while I was attempting to have them say "fingers", Anna bursts out "phlanges" (for those of you who don't know, those are the bones in our hands). Her intelligence continues to amaze me. Her Grammie and Poppy got her a 3D human body puzzle with flash cards and a real stethoscope for Christmas, which she absolutely loves. She's been playing with it, putting it all together, and playing doctor with her stethoscope, pretending that she is performing surgery on her daddy! Our dear Melanie, when asked some time ago what she wanted to do when she gets older to make money, responded with "get married" - LOL!!! More recently, Melanie has stated that she wants to be a dentist when she grows up. Whew, looks like Bob and I will be working until we're 80 with these two and their college funds!!!

Kids say the darnedest things...
I happened to be out shopping with my mother-in-law and the girls. As we passed the lingerie section at Kohl's and a content shopper, Melanie looks up at me and seriously asks "Mommy, are you going to buy me some boobs?", I just about died as the lady we passed busted out laughing!
Later that day, she was on a roll, a young man was shopping near us with his girlfriend at Linens and Things, with his rather large mid section protruding from his t-shirt, when my oh-so-polite daughter decided to point and say quite loudly "Mommy, he's fat". OMG! Immediately, I had to go into disiplinary mode, but just could not believe her mouth that day!!!
Recently, Anna has become very lax in keeping her room nice and tidy... We consistently get on her about "everything has a place". Both Bob and I are slightly OCD when it comes to being tidy (which is the complete opposite of me as a teenager, but that is besides the point :-) One day, I told her that I was tired of "looking at her room in such a mess" to which she replied "well, don't look at it then"!!! While I tried to contain my laughter, I couldn't help but realize where she inherited her sass and tried to explain why it is that everything has a place - OMG, she's me all over again - scary!!!

I hope that "things will be great in '08"! Until I post again, good luck in your endeavors and God bless!!!