Happy 5th Birthday, My Sweet Little Sunshine!

Wow! I can't belive my baby is five years old already! As I wrote that sentence, tears sprang to my eyes.

Little Sunshine...you are just that! A ray of sunshine, a bright spot in my day...everyday. Always good for a gutt-laugh, a "Good morning", a sweet kiss on the lips, a little hand-holding, some snuggle time, butterfly kisses, and an "I love my momma", you are truly one of a kind.

You are such a character and such a delight. You make me laugh all the time. You make your siblings laugh, too! You're full of compliments and have the best manners in the family. You love your friends and you love to share. KitKat is your very best friend and I LOVE to listen to the two of you play. Bless your sweet heart, I love it when you play Tray and Gabriella. Of course you are always Troy. I love to hear your voice go deep when you say, "Gabriella". You make me giggle.

You wake up happy and are good to go. In fact, you are just always good to go. You are my little sidekick, especially lately since your older siblings are in school. I have LOVED having you to myself. And I'm pretty sure you like it, too! I've always considered you to be "a daddy's girl", but lately you seem to be becoming a mommy's girl! Lucky me!!

You're a little daredevil! You love to ride wrecklessly fast on your bike. In fact, you say that your bike is "hyper!" I asked you, "What does that mean?" You replied, "It likes to go fast!." And so do you. I love to see you give me a thumb's up (go faster!) when you are behind the sea-do on the Screamer. I said, "Sunshine, when you get older I'm afraid you are going to race the boys when you get a car." You said, "And I'm gonna win!"

You are not at all shy. You're very sociable and very well-mannered. I think your teachers are lucky to have you. I know I am!!

You make me so proud and so very very happy. You're awesome, little girl. Your little eyes twinkle when you tilt your head and smile your sweet smile. I love your smiles ...they're so sincere and warm.

Even your breath is sweet! I could eat you up. I tell you that all the time. You tell me you're gonna eat me up first!

You have the cutest "little" fanny. It's actually not little...baby got back! I love to pinch it!

As sweet as you are, you aren't afraid to make your argument. I have an extra refrigerator full of juice boxes that I give the older three kids each day in their lunchboxes. During the first week that they returned to school, you asked me every day for a juice box, I replied, "Those are just for the older kids to take in their lunchboxes." Finally, after about the fifth day in a row of hearing that response from me, you let me have it! "It's not fair that they get to have a juice box everyday and I NEVER get to have one!" And you know what...you were right! So now I give you one everyday and you just smile at me like I gave you a Polly Pocket!

And girlfriend...you can sing! You love music. You know just about every country song by heart. I love to hear you belt out some Sugarland. You asked me to put "Big Green Tractor" on my iPod. You're too cute.

And Sunshine, you have a heart the size of Texas. You cry real tears when one of your siblings gets hurt or gets in trouble. You cried with KitKAt the bight before school started because you knew she didn't want to ride that school bus. You tried hard to coax her. "Do it for me!", you told her.

I love you, love you, love you. You are "all that and a bag of chips!"

XO to you my precious little girl, my sweet Sunshine, the apple of my eye.

Shew!

I sent my Li'l Man back to school this morning. He had been fever free for two whole days and said he felt fine. I checked on him this afternoon and he looked GREAT! His teacher told me that she was so proud of him because he made a 100 on his spelling test and a 100 on his subject/predicate test, despite the fact that he hadn't been in school all week.

So this afternoon after school, all of the neighborhood kids were playing in our yard. AAA and I ran errands (because it's Sunshine's b'day tomorrow and we needed to buy her Zoo Zoo the hamster, which is sold out everywhere!) and returned around 4:45. I had to be somewhere at 5:00, so I was only home long enough to make a tomato sandwich. However, I noticed that I didn't see L'il Man. I didn't think much of it really. There were several kids on the swings and I assumed he was either in the fort or the playhouse. However, I casually asked M, "Where's L'il Man?" He said, "I don't know. Now that you mention it, I haven't seen him in awhile. " Since we just had our cable installed this week, I checked the TV room. No L'il Man. Then I checked the computer room. No sign of him. By now I was starting to hit panic but I wasn't letting it be known. A thousand things raced through my mind. I yelled out into the backyard and told all of the kids to "Find Lil Man!" M and I both yelled for him, inside and outside. All of the neighbors were at our house, so I knew he wouldn't be at their houses. Nevertheless, I sent AAA to all of the neighbors. At this point, I can tell that even M has hit the panic button, but he still didn't want me to know how concerned he was since I have a tendency to LOSE IT when I panic.

M ran upstairs to check the bathroom. I'm sure he was thinking the same thing I was - that maybe, just maybe, he was in the bathroom with the door shut and the fan on and couldn't hear us call his name. I heard his footsteps walk away from the bathroom and my heart sank. Then I heard him yell, "I found him. He's asleep on the hardwood floor in his bedroom." I was so relieved. But confused, as well. I woke him up and put him in his bed. (Meanwhile, all of the neighbors are still looking for him). He was burning up! I asked him, "Buddy, did you mean to come upstairs and fall asleep on the floor?" He just replied, "I didn't feel good." God love him.

I love that little fella! He's so precious! He'd be mad at me for telling y'all that he's "precious." He'd say, "No I'm not!" "Precious" must be insulting to a 7 year old boy. But I'm telling you... he. is. precious.

Go hug your precious little boys really tight!

Night Night!

Beat!

I was hoping to have something to blog about, but my brain is too tired and my body is even more tired than my brain. So I'll be interested to see what I blog about. :)

Why am I so tired, you ask? Well...I've had a seven year old boy at home all week with a fever and a broken arm. Actually, let me re-state that. This seven year old little boy runs a fever each morning before school, then I give him 2 teaspoons of Ibuprofen and he never runs a fever again. And I'm beginning to wonder if Ibuprofen is laced with some sort of hyper-active drug in it. Because not only does this seven year old broken -armed boy not run a fever for the rest of the day, but he is so hyper that I think I want to pluck my left eye out. Hyper and goofy. I can only laugh for so long. He starts off funny but after the tenth time of him showing me how to "do the sprinkler" (dance) with a broken arm, it's just not that funny already. But that doesn't keep him from laughing! Which actually does make me laugh. But only because I'm easily entertained since I've been confined to my home for several days in a row!

M has been off all week, so in an effort to show him what I do all day when he's not here (ha!) , I kick it up a notch so he'll be impressed by my wifely and motherly duties. I hope he's impressed because I'm worn out. (No...not those wifely duties! This is a family-friendly blog!)

A few weeks ago, AAA mentioned to him that we were going to paint her bedroom. I heard him say something like, "There are too many other things we need to do around here, I don't think we'll be painting your room." But today he and Sunshine left early in the morning to go see M's parents. And I had a plan. In fact, I already had the paint mixed (yesterday) and ready to go. So at 7:23 when M and Sunshine pulled out of the drive, I poured the paint into the liner and got busy. I'm talking real busy! I didn't know I could paint so fast! I took lots of short cuts. I didn't even have time to locate a screwdriver to remove the outlet covers and light switch plates. I grabbed a butter knife and went to work (that is SO "my mom")! I didn't use a ladder either. I stood on the dresser, the bed, and her hope chest. No drop cloth. Just a roller, a paint brush, and some paint. And it looks pretty good, too. No spills, no drips, no splatters. I'll post a picture in the next day or two. I still have to sew a dust ruffle and pillows for her bed. I have the fabric, but no real plan yet.


Well...that's way more than I planned to share. I hope I didn't put you to sleep. I feel like I should buy you a T-shirt, "I logged on to Tiffany's blog and all I got was this lousy post!"

Hope you have a great weekend. Y'all ready for some football?!?

(I just can't bring myself to write "War Eagle!")

Cool House!!

I've been dying to get to Birmingham so that I could take pictures of my sister's house and share them with you. It is finally nearing completion and definitely picture-worthy! The entire interior of the house is painted white. Her "style" is a mix of antiques and modern and they really "pop" against their white background. Hope you enjoy the tour as much as I did!!

When you walk in her front door, this console is directly to your left.

Straight ahead (directly in front of the front door) is this antique mirror. BUT GUESS WHAT! It's actually a door to the powder room! Rather than opening the front door and being greeted by the door to the bathroom, she had the door transformed into a mirror! How cool is that?!?

And directly to your right when you enter her home, is this beautiful sitting/dining room. The round table in the center has 6 (I think leaves) in it and expands the length of the room. So when she entertains, she can transform the room into a dining room.

Here's a close-up of the antique screen.

In one corner:

On one wall (sorry about the glare!)

This little "breezeway" leads from the foyer area to .....

...this gorgeous little area on your left:

Directly across from that sitting area is her kitchen table nook:

Both ends of this nook have these framed prints:

And here's a glimpse of her all-white kitchen:

This is my favorite view!!

They had this pool table in their old house. But it was dark and shiny. So she had the pool table bleached and had the green felt replaced with taupe felt. Isn't it amazing??

A close-up of the chandelier hanging above the pool table: (And notice the painted beams)

A random corner:

A close up of the painting above her fireplace. She LOVES her angel!

Cool stuff on her shelves (the shelves are backed with velvet)

This little area leads to the door to the courtyard:

The courtyard is currently under construction (I'll post pics when it's completed!), but here is a shot of her angels statue:

Isn't she lovely?

And her little boy says, "Thanks for looking!"

Holley, it looks wonderful...congratulations!!