Crochet Me Crazy

Happy birthday to my amazing, beautiful, smart, kind, loving, capable and responsible daughter! She turns 17 today! I thank God every day for her and my heart is filled with gratitude to God for letting me be her mother. If God would have given me a check list to check off of what I would want my daughter to be like, I would have checked off exactly who the person Alison is.

We had a little get-together last night to celebrate and let her open her presents.





Today, we are taking Alison and some of her friends to Holiday in the Park in San Antonio. We woke up to rain this morning! Hopefully it will slack off and not ruin our outing.

We had Alison's belated birthday party yesterday. We grilled fajitas for lunch and then had cake. Alison had a bunch of messy games planned. But the most priceless one was when the kid's wrapped "Mr. Stables" and Jeff in toilet paper!

We had to tape cut up bananas back together and see who had the neatest one....Alison and Morgan won that contest.


They had to crack eggs into a cup their partner was holding in their mouths...They had to find a piece of bubble gum in a plate of whipped cream.




They had to shoot whipped cream off their partners nose with a water gun...


Okay, now that all the festivities, holidays and stock show are over....time to get back to "normal"...whatever that is...life this week. Dance and school start back up....

Just back last night from a whirlwind trip to Austin for Alison's birthday! We started of the day Friday with her customary "birthday bacon".

She opened her presents and as much as she hated to leave her new keyboard...

we hit the road!

We ate at her favorite restaurant


Then we headed to the Trail of Lights where we were herded like cattle through the mile long trail. It was unbelievable the amount of people....
We took a bus shuttle over to the lights. While we were riding on the bus, Jeff got up and announced that it was his daughter's 16th birthday and asked everyone to help us sing Happy Birthday to her. Alison sat there blushing while a whole bus load of strangers sung Happy Birthday to her! :)





We went home and had birthday cake and stayed up WAY too late!



The next morning we got up and went shopping at thrift stores. We made a pretty good haul at the thrift stores. The big deal was Alison trying to get the courage up to get her ears pierced! We made it through that and then went to eat with our friends before hitting the road to come back home again.

Here is Alison's birthday gift from Morgan....

at our house this weekend! Alison had a ton of games planned and they were busy with that most of the day....balloons, shaving cream, water, flour...a real mess! At least it was a beautiful day for being outside today! We made a campfire in the yard and we sat outside and roasted marshmallows and hot dogs last night. It was a fun and successful party!







This morning they got up for their surprise! HORSEBACK RIDING!! They went up the mountain and had a little pic-nic. Alison has been waiting a long time to get the chance to ride "Magic". He's a well-trained horse that she'll be able to do all kinds of things on. She's excited because Mrs. Grain said that she can start riding him.






We had a bit of trauma this morning! Grace's foot broke off! It wasn't a pretty site but in reality, it wasn't that bad. It was worse for me than it was for her I think. We bandaged it up for now. I may call the vet and see what they say about bandaging. I don't want to interfere with her natural ability to heal. They seem to be pretty good at that. The wildlife place told us they sometimes even self amputate, they have a strong resistance to infection and are very resilient. I have learned that to be true! I guess was God's design to help them survive in the wild. Bless her heart...she's been through a lot. Yesterday, when we came back from a ride on the 4-wheeler, she was out of her fence standing in our yard! Apparently, something scared her and she jumped it! I brought her the leaves I had picked for her and she followed me back in. We haven't heard back from the Wildlife Rescue place. People are now telling me we should just keep her until she's grown and then release her. They say once she's full size there aren't really any predators (mountain lions but we rarely have those) and that she'll be like a cat that leaves but comes back to eat. We might do that but we're going to have to fence the whole yard if we do. Her space is not big enough. Anyway...we'll just have to see.

My special, sweet, sensitive, beautiful,loving daughter turned 14 years old yesterday. I thank God often for the blessing he bestowed on our lives and hearts through Alison. In the darkest of times, she always brings a bright spot because of her sweet, gentle and caring spirit. She's an amazing girl and nothing short of a gift of God...sometimes I call her my "salve" because her sweetness really has a way of soothing in difficult times.

Okay...so now that I've been all sappy...we planned a little party for Alison last night. Alison worked very hard planning and found a bunch of games to play she looked up on the internet. I had her make her list of supplies she would need for the games. Alison invited 3 girls from dance and instead of having a slumber party, we just were going to have a "late" party over in the community room at the RV park. I couldn't figure out what kind of food I was going to have without spending a fortune...then, I remember Jeff had bought several large bags of fajitas meat when it was on sale at HEB for $1.00/lb. It was in the freezer so we decided to invite several of the eldery couples in the RV park over to eat fajitas with us, have cake and sing Happy Birthday to Alison. The party didn't go too smoothly though. One girl couldn't come because she was sick. The other girl came but had to leave early and the other girl didn't show up until almost 10:00 pm. So we spent the first party of the party trying to hold off on some of the games until the 2nd girl got there. Then, we found out the 1st girl was leaving early with only 45 minutes notice so we tried to hurry up and do as much as we could before she was picked up. Then, the other girl showed up as the 1st girl was leaving. We were pretty much wrapping it up by then. We told her we were pretty much finished but we could do smores. So we did that. We didn't really get to do all the thing s we had planned at the party. Alison was pretty disappointed but she handled it well. It was still a good day all in all. We stayed up late watching a movie with Alison after everyone was gone and I was so tired today.

We had a great time at Alison's birthday party last night. Alison's friends brought her some very thoughtful gifts that she really loved.

I thought it was so sweet that Michael used his Wal-Mart gift cards he still had left over from last year's Christmas to buy Alison a sweater. Alison really loved it and I got these sweet pictures of her running to hug him...



Neighbor's dropped by to wish her a happy birthday and bring her treats.




Cake...



Pinata Time...




And the funny part...we had Michael wear this shirt covered with candy and they had to catch him to grab the candy off of it. It was a little tiring but at least they burned some of that cake energy off!



To finish the night off, fun was had by all on the Christmas light ride! Everyone snuggled up in their blankets, sand Christmas Carols and chowed down on pink heart-shaped rice crispy treats, Ms. Joy's cookies, and hot chocolate. Alison and Michael are wearing their Santa hats that I made for them.




Now, I'm off to cut my husband's hair to get him looking "spiffy" for his job interview this week!

The things I go through to save a buck....









Making the Butterflies





This pinata cost me $1 to make (the cost of the streamers) which was the only thing I didn't have on hand. If I hadn't already gotten rid of everything I own practically because I thought I was moving, I wouldn't have had to buy those either.

Tomorrow, its make the cake in my neighbor's heart shaped cake pans and make the pink rice crispy treats. Saturday, we'll decorate the house and put lights on the trailer for the hay ride and the party's on Saturday night!

My mama turned 81 today. We brought her a balloon and some candy bars. We finally got to make her a little bit happy with a root beer and hot fudge sundae from McDonald's. She ate pretty much the whole sundae and really enjoyed it. Another sad visit to see my mama.



We got a little smile out of her...