One of Liberty’s friends invited our family to a masquerade ball for her Sweet 16 birthday party!

I received a confirmation phone call this morning from the hospital where our C-section will be done.  They scheduled all the details with me, and after I got off the phone, I sent the following email to Jeremy.


Hi, Daddy!

Your daughter is scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday,
June 5th at 7:30 am.  We are required to be at the hospital at 5:30
in the morning because there are insane people in this world. 

I am not allowed to eat that morning, so I will be extremely mad at you
if you get something amazing to eat.  Plan to suffer with a bowl of
plain oatmeal.

I'm totally kidding.  A granola bar would also be acceptable.

I love you!
Missy


Then I waited in anticipation of whatever hilarious response he would send back detailing all of his scrumptious breakfast plans for that morning.


Missy,

YAY!!!!!!

I look forward to it!  HAPPY US!!!!

Love, Jeremy


Either he was afraid that assuming I was joking would do to him what assuming usually does to people, or he is so excited about the baby that my joke was secondary in his thought processes. 

Maybe both?

What's on my iPod?  Ha!  I laugh in the face of this question for day 14 of the March Challenge.  I laugh because ...

Uh, just a second.

I interrupt today's regularly scheduled March Challenge post to tell you about something quite fun and wonderful that has been happening around our house the past four days.  On the evening of March 10th, I sat in my favorite ugly upholstered rocking chair reading random blog posts while the girls played happily together on the living room floor and daddy dozed on the couch.  I clicked a link here and a link there, and somehow I ended up reading this post on a blog I'd never visited before.

Now, you should know that we enjoy silly fun and lots of mischief at our house, and only a few short hours before stumbling onto Michele's blog, I had googled phrases like St. Patrick's Day fun for preschoolers.  I was looking specifically for stories about leprechauns that I could read to them, but did you know that most leprechaun stories on the internet are not interesting enough for kids or are not at the preschool/kindergarten age level?  I learned that.  I especially learned, do not go to YouTube and type in the word leprechaun.  At least, don't do it when your children are looking over your shoulder.

So, I sat in my favorite ugly upholstered rocking chair reading this post, and my six-year-old, Liberty Grace, happened to walk past my chair.  She glanced at the pictures on the computer screen, and she exclaimed, "MOMMY!  WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?  WILL YOU READ IT TO ME?!"  "Sure," I complied, and four-year-old Mercy Jane jumped up from the floor to join us at the computer.  I scrolled back to the beginning and read the post to them.  They laughed and giggled the entire way through, then they asked me to read it again.  I backed up and read it again.  And again.  And again.  After the fourth time, I told them no more.  It was time for them to go back to playing. 

They happily jumped down from the arms of the rocking chair where they had been perched and immediately began gathering leprechaun-catching supplies:  a plastic fork, a few bowls, some legos, assorted lengths of yarn, bait, etc.  I listened in amusement while they brainstormed the best ways to set up a leprechaun trap, and I silently acknowledged my own approval of the influence Michele's blog post had had on their creativity and logic.

Here is what they came up with.

The notes say, "Use the rope to pull yourselves to the bowls," and "Use this rope.  There is a surprise inside the bowls for you."  (Or something like that.) 



The first bowl contained a few fun objects for the leprechauns to enjoy, then a tight rope led the leprechauns to a second bowl where a Dove milk chocolate piece enticed them.  The chocolate had been a reward for some good work Liberty had done earlier that day, but she wanted to put it in the bowl as bait.



It was all fun and games until time for bed.  That's when Liberty informed Mercy of what would happen in the morning.  "The traps will catch the leprechauns, and they will leave a present behind so they can escape," she whispered in her sister's ear so the leprechauns would not hear that there were traps about. 

Uh-oh!  I thought to myself.  I don't have ANYTHING that can be used as a leprechaun treat!

The next morning, both girls woke up early and ran to the trap.  Nothing had changed.  What had gone wrong?  I told them maybe the leprechauns weren't here yet, or maybe they hadn't noticed the traps.  But Liberty knew that could not be possible.  She searched the house looking for leprechaun mischief.  And she found it: a small pile of paper scraps left on the kitchen counter that had not been there the night before.  It must be the work of those tricky leprechauns!

Then she and Mercy discussed in whispers how they could possibly trick the leprechauns into falling for their trap.  They decided to add a third sticky note with a smiley face on it from Mercy.  That should show that there was nothing nefarious about these innocent-looking legos, strings, and bowls!

Liberty then begged me to read leprechaun stories to them from the computer, so I turned to trusty old Google and searched.  This time I found a couple suitable stories.  The girls enjoyed them, but Liberty insisted, "No, Mommy!  Read the one about the kids and the traps!  Please, read the one about the kids and the traps!  You know, the REAL story!"  So I headed back to Michele's blog post and read it to them again.  This time, I discovered that Michele had written three ebooks designed for the iPad about the adventures their family has had with their leprechaun encounters.

Any of you who know me will realize that I never - no, not ever - pay one single cent for ebooks or apps on my PC or iPhone.  There are so many to be had for free.  But this was different.  These stories were special, both to me and to my children.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker for a good mischief story.  Besides, I loved how engaged my children had become in building traps and looking for mischief.  I headed straight for iTunes on my computer and downloaded those three ebooks.  After all, they were only $0.99 each.  It was $3.00 well spent I decided.

Liberty and Mercy hovered expectantly over the computer while the books downloaded.  "Is it almost finished, Mom?"  I had trouble updating my account information because it had been a long time since I'd used iTunes, and we'd changed our computer operating system in the meantime.  I even had to call Apple's helpdesk to figure out how to make some of the necessary adjustments.  Mercy lost interest in the process, but Liberty couldn't take her eyes off the screen.  "Now, Mommy?  Are the leprechaun stories almost ready now?" 

"Pretty soon, honey."

Then I realized I had to update my entire computer system in order to for iTunes to process my order.  Three hours, the computer told me it would take.  So I nudged Liberty off my lap, and we started working on other tasks around the house while the computer updated.  Later that afternoon, we met back at the screen to read the stories.  That is when I realized, the ebooks had only been designed for the iPad.  Not for my computer.  Not even for my iPhone.  And we don't own an iPad.  My heart sank as I turned to Liberty's eager face and tried to explain to her that the stories weren't working. 

In the meantime, Michele had sent me an email reply to one of the complimentary comments I had left on her blog.  I had told her how her stories had so engaged Liberty and Mercy, and that I had decided to purchase them.  (The stories, that is, I had not decided to purchase my daughters.)  Michele had written back to thank me for my purchase.  When I read her emailed response, I decided to take a long shot, and I told her what had happened to us.  It was totally my fault.  I had read the part that said the ebooks were for the iPad, but I hadn't believed they would really be only for the iPad.  I wondered if maybe she had another format that she could email me?  Or a link that I could download for my computer or iPhone? 

This wonderful mom wrote back to me that she couldn't stand to hear of a disappointed child, and so she would snail mail me hard copies of the stories.  Really?  I couldn't believe it!  I sent her my address and thanked her, but later I wondered would she really do it?  How much would it cost her to mail those books?  I started feeling badly, wondering if I ought to offer to pay shipping costs.

During my lunch break on Monday, I made a quick stop at the Dollar Store to pick up leprechaun gifts, and I hid the bag of fun under the driver's seat when I picked the girls up from school.  The two of them were so excited, they talked of nothing but leprechauns all the way home, and that afternoon, I had to stop them from building fifty more traps around the house.  I hadn't bought THAT many gifts!

Tuesday morning, the girls raced to the trap to see what had been caught.  The legos had been used; the ropes had been pulled; the bait items had disappeared from the bowls, and two shamrock beaded necklaces sat in their place!  Oh the squealing!  Oh the delight!  Liberty and Mercy hugged each other and jumped up and down.  The leprechauns had really come!!!

I had to stop them from starting new traps right away, and I promised them they could work on them after school that day.  Wednesday morning's traps caught a green, squishy, light-up, bunny rabbit type thing.  The girls thought those might be leprechaun pets, and they proudly took them to school to show their classmates.  Thursday morning, Liberty and Mercy discovered crazily-shaped, green-glittery sunglasses in the new traps they had built on Wednesday.



But Thursday afternoon brought the best surprise of all.  Around six p.m., our doorbell rang.  Our neighbor from down the street handed me a package and told me that it had my address on it, but it had been delivered to her mailbox by mistake.  I took the package in puzzlement and checked the return address.

Oh!!!

OH!!!

"GIRLS!"  I shouted, "IT'S HERE!!!"  Jeremy and the girls came running.  "What's here?"  They wanted to know.

"IT'S HERE!  OUR BOOKS ARE HERE!!!!"

I still could not believe the generosity of this lady I have never met.  And she must have paid extra to have it shipped so quickly.

Of course, I had not told the girls about the possibility of any books being sent to us.  I didn't want to disappoint them if it never happened.  And let me tell you, if *I* had been the one responsible for sending something in the mail...well, we all know my mailing reputation.  (Which reminds me, I still need to mail our Christmas letters out.  Oops.)

I ripped the package open and showed them the cover of one of the books. 



Both girls squealed as they recognized their new friends, Isabella and Luca.  Jeremy stood there puzzled.  Then the four of us cuddled together on the couch to read our new favorite stories.

Michele, if you are reading this post (and I think you are because I plan to send you a link when I'm finished typing it), THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!  You made two little girls extremely happy today, and I know these books will get read at our house over and over and over and over.  I hope this post causes everybody to purchase your wonderful stories and start new St. Patrick's Day traditions like we have.

And everybody else, if you are even the slightest bit intrigued AND you have an iPad, please go to iTunes and search for the author name Aucello to find the three ebooks and all the fun stories.  If you do that, I'd love to hear what your kids thought of the leprechauns and the traps.

But a word of advice: go to the Dollar Store BEFORE you read these books to your children!

(And, Michele, did I mention thank you?  Because seriously, THANK YOU!)

Suppose you are pregnant.  What a fun surprise!  How would you tell your friends and family?  How would you tell your husband? 

Those of you who are lucky enough to own a blog could simply announce it in a post:  I am pregnant. 

There, that got the job done.

But how boring is that?  (I mean, other than the news itself, of course.)  No, Post Announcing will never do.

Facebook makes it easier, because then you can quietly post a photo of your home pregnancy test and wait for the reactions.

Possibly a better way to get the word out is to change your profile picture to your baby's ultrasound picture.  That way, if anyone misses the original posting, four months later when they finally notice your tiny profile pic while scrolling through their news feed, they'll quickly jerk the scrolling to a stop, crawl back up the page and squint at it for a bit.  What is that?  Then they'll click on your name to enlarge the photo to confirm, yes, that really is an ultrasound picture.  (Good thing the ultrasound technician thought to label it "baby.")  Then they'll wonder, "How long that has been there without my noticing?  Will I look like a terrible friend if I congratulate her now after that picture has been there for who knows how long?"  You may cause a slight panic attack in your more prone-to-worrying friends, but hey, at least you'll get the word out, right?

******************************
When I found out I was pregnant with Liberty almost seven years ago during an annual doctor's check-up, I was flabbergasted to say the least.  Later that afternoon at work, I couldn't keep it secret, and I told everybody in my department and a few people I passed in the hallways.  I felt a little bad that I wasn't telling Jeremy or my family first.  After all, Jeremy had a lot to do with it and would have a lot more to do because of it, but I just couldn't keep the news to myself.  I ended up leaving work slightly earlier than usual so I could prepare for the big reveal.

First I stopped off at a Hallmark store (because really, if Hallmark can't figure out how to say it, it doesn't need to be said, right?)  I found the perfect card with a picture of an adorable teddy bear on the front.  The inside said, "Congratulations!  I heard a little someone new is headed your way."  I signed it "Surprise!  Missy" and tucked it back into it's envelope.  While I was in the store, I noticed a little Willow Tree figurine of a father bent over a newborn in his lap.  It called to me.  When I purchased it, the cashier put it into a box labeled "New Dad."  Oh yeah, that's perfect, I thought!

Next I stopped off at the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for Jeremy's favorite meal -- I have no memory of what that was anymore -- and I drove home to cook.  When Jeremy walked in the door of our apartment, his plate was already set and the card and statue strategically placed nearby.  "Hello!"  I greeted him with a kiss, helped him take his coat off, and invited him to sit down.  He thought all this strange, so he hesitated, standing behind his chair.  "What's going on?" he asked suspiciously. 

"What do you mean?" I innocently inquired.

"You're acting funny.  What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on.  Just sit down, and I'll serve your food."

He glanced down at his plate and noticed the statue.  He stared at it for thirty seconds.  Then he regarded me for a few more seconds.  "Are you pregnant?"

"What?  Why do you ask that?"

He pointed at the statue sitting on the table.

******************************
When I found out I was pregnant with Mercy, I planned to come up with some spectacular way of telling Jeremy, but it turned out that I was mad at him for something when he came home, and so after a few lines of opening conversation I snarled, "You'd better get your act together, because you're a dad again!"

"What?" he snapped back at me.  "Are you trying to tell me you're pregnant?"

"Yes I am!" I retorted, "So you'd better straighten up!"

I don't actually recommend this way of telling your husband.  It did not seem to garner excitement or a sense of anticipation when I tried it out, but you may have better luck with it.

*******************************
Last month, Jeremy was due back from a business trip, and I sat on the couch trying to think of something unique and inexpensive that would give him the clue when he arrived home.  That's when that scene from Lady and the Tramp popped into my mind where Jim Dear is handing out cigars to everyone to announce his baby.   That's it! 

I ran downstairs to Jeremy's cute boxes stash.  (Jeremy has a thing about boxes.  If the box is smaller than a certain size, he has a hard time throwing it away because it's just too cute.  So, his cute boxes have been banished to his otherwise spotless office where they are stacked neatly in one corner of the room.)  I found the perfect box -- a cell phone box with a lid that flipped open from the side like a cigar box.  I took it upstairs and grabbed a sheet of construction paper to cut into long rectangles and roll into cigars.  Then I wrote "It's a boy!  Or maybe it's a girl!" on tiny strips of paper and tied them to the cigars with blue and pink yarn.  That should do the job, I decided. 

And it did.

I entered my house late that night, smiling to myself over silliness shared with girlfriends during our Girls Night Out.  Jeremy switched on his bedside lamp, and instead of the easy smile and the inquisitive, "How was your night?" that I expected from him, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.  "Missy, I got a phone call tonight."  The tone in his voice alerted me, and the smile remnants left my face.

I hesitated, not wanting to know the answer, then asked anyway, "What do you mean?"

A flurry of phone calls later, plans made and unmade and remade, last minute errands run, I stood contemplating our suitcases.  Funeral clothes?  It seemed horrible to think about packing funeral clothes when no one had died.  My grandpa had just had emergency surgery, and my cousin was in Intensive Care on life support and in a coma - doctors saying no brain activity, but packing funeral clothes felt like declaring there was no hope.  There's ALWAYS hope! I argued to myself.  Then I sighed and acknowledged what seemed inevitable.  I folded a black skirt and a black blouse covered in lime green bubbles.  It felt too frivolous - the blouse, but all my black dresses were date night dresses, definitely not funeral dresses.

When I die, I expect people to wear party clothes.  No black, blah, boring at my funeral, please.  No depressing, drab.  Celebrate!  I've had a wonderful life, and I'm going to have an even "wonderfuller" after-this-life!  (Revelation 21:3&4)  But I didn't know what Chad would prefer at his funeral, or Grandpa at his, if that were to happen.  The reports I had been getting from my family said that Grandpa hadn't eaten anything since his surgery several days ago, and he was losing weight quickly.

I stared at the suitcases.  In a small fit of defiance, I refused to pack dresses for the girls that had any touch of black.  It seemed symbolic - to me, anyway.  Lively, colorful dresses for the next generation of our family showing that we're not beaten.  We're not done.  Maybe I was over-thinking the whole thing, but in my head...  well, you get what you pay for, I guess.

(I don't even charge a penny.)

Long drive.  Dropping things off.  Directions to the hospital from my mom.

A sign taped to the door jam at Grandpa's hospital room said, "Family, do not wake Dad if he is sleeping.  He needs his rest."  We tip-toed in.  Well, as tip-toey as six people including two rambunctious little girls can get on standard hospital tiles.  My dad sat on the porta-toilet next to Grandpa's bed working on a cross-word puzzle and joking with Grandpa who looked up at us strangely when we came in.  "Surprise!" I said happily, and the answering look on his face fit the occasion perfectly.  We all grinned at him.  Liberty and Mercy rushed to his bed, eager to bestow the cards they had been working on during most of our trip.  He was just as upbeat and complimentary as always, telling the girls they were amazing artists and if they kept working at it, they could do anything they wanted in life.  Other than seeming more frail than I remembered (which was to be expected since he'd just had surgery), I didn't see much to be worried about.


Since I'd heard about his refusal to eat, I asked what he'd been served that day.  "Is the hospital food any good, Grandpa?"  He had not eaten any, so he couldn't tell me.  A lukewarm rootbeer sat on his table, very close to full.  Our visit was short.  Less than ten minutes later, Grandpa told us he was worn out and needed to sleep. 

Driving to the next hospital.  ICU waiting room filled with family upon family upon family - all mine!  Little nieces and nephews met for the first time and jumped all over each other.  Cousins caught up on each others' adult lives.  Aunts and Uncles doled out hugs and "You look good"s, and "What a nice family you have"s. 

Grandma's been dead for sixteen years, but I still missed her presence in that waiting room.  Echoes of her smart-alecky comments and riddles and colloquialisms ricocheted in my brain as I looked at the faces of the people I love most in this world.  The one about the chickens kept toying with my memory, half hidden in the folds of my brain.  I turned to Aunt Nannette to see if she could remember it for me, but all I could remember to describe it to her was that it was about chickens, so I gave up.

Then it was our turn to see Chad.  Gloves on.  Tip-toeing into the quiet, beep-filled ICU chamber beyond the extra wide double-doors.

He didn't look like Chad.  The drawings taped to the wall from his four year old and two year old encouraged his coma-closed eyes to Come home soon, Daddy, and forced me to look away from them.  My cousin Michelle, Chad's wife, smiled as she looked up.  "Chad!  You have visitors!  Missy and Jeremy drove here all the way from Indiana to see you."  She nodded to me as she stepped away from the space next to Chad's bed and whispered, "He should be able to hear you and feel your touch."  I took her place by the bed.  Jeremy stayed outside the alcove where, barring an emergency, he would be less likely to see blood or bodily fluids that might cause him to pass out. 

I watched as a machine nearby took the blood from Chad's body and cleaned the infection out of it before piping it back in through clear tubes.  "Hi, Chad!"  I smiled at him and touched his arm.  "This is Missy."  Our one-sided conversation covered many topics as I meandered through the obscure thoughts poking here and there in my brain.  Finally, I mentioned the fact that our two girls were having a great time playing with his two kids in the waiting room.  When I left it, the four of them were pretending to be bunnies hopping all over the place, and I tried to describe the scene to him with the four kids hopping into each other in all their cuteness.  Suddenly, Chad's body flinched, and his chest began spasming.  Alarms went off on several machines, and Michelle stepped in to firmly tell him, "Stop biting down on that tube, Chad.  Calm down."  A nurse appeared and began working efficiently.  I stepped out of the way.

Jeremy whispered to me, "He reacted when you told him about his kids.  I could see the numbers on the monitor increasing when you first mentioned their names.  He definitely heard and understood you!"

Someone else got a turn after ours, and they came back with a report that he had reacted when his feet were touched!  The mood in the waiting room lifted slightly, but hope stayed out of reach.  His organs were not capable of functioning on their own.

Late that evening when poor Mercy was just too tired to take any more, we left the hospital, and I wondered how Michelle and Chad's kids were able to endure day after day of the waiting room.  All four of us crashed hard that night, then woke up early the next morning to have breakfast with Grandpa (my dad) and the girls' cousins Roman and Destiny.  Grandma and the rest of my brothers and sisters were still sleeping, except Hannah who had to work.  I still hadn't gotten to see any of my siblings but Faith who had gone to the hospital with us the night before. 

One by one, brothers and sisters began arriving in the living room, first Zach with a good, long, bone-crushing hug.  Oh, how I've missed him!  Then Pete with his awesome pink haircut.  (Suzy, you did a great job on it!)  Then Faith, brushing her wet hair.  Finally, Hannah came down after taking a shower to wash off her work.  We sat in the living room and talked and laughed together.  Then we moved to the dining room to play games.  It felt so good to be together again, and it felt even better watching my daughters roll in the dirt with their cousins and climb trees and make forts and pick apples with Hero Zach who was earning Uncle-Chuck-points.

I took some time that day to walk all over every square inch of my grandpa's property and relive memories so rich and vivid that it almost felt like they were happening again right there.  Splashing and jumping in the pool with cousins.  Begging Grandma to get in the water with her red and white gingham bathing suit.  Concocting some kind of funky sandwich with which to trick Grandpa, and then disappointed, watching him eat every bite of it with no reaction, then peeling into gales of laughter when he said with a straight face, "Tastes like you used Grey Poop-On."  Smelling the garage where we used to change into our bathing suits, and where Russell hid in the deep-freeze one time during our massive hide-and-seek game at midnight.  Standing in the bathroom remembering the time when I panicked because I couldn't get my wet suit off in time to sit on the toilet.  Walking the brick patio and remembering the rows of picnic tables filled with family, and the fire-pit that night after dark where Grandpa and Dad and all the Uncles made the best hotdogs and marshmallows I've ever tasted.  Marveling that the furniture I remember from when I was a baby is still the furniture Grandpa uses to this day.  Giggling as I inspected the gleaming wooden floors and the rides we used to take on Uncle Chuck's feet to "mop" the floors.  Gazing at the shelves and shelves of Grandma's salt and pepper shakers and remembering how I used to sit at the dining room table during breakfast time and stare at those shakers, imagining stories about the people-shaped ones.  And OH THE DELIGHT the day that Grandma let me PLAY with them if I promised, no, PROMISED to play carefully and not break any.  The fear of Grandma entered my heart so thoroughly that to this day, I am afraid to touch her salt and pepper shakers.  But oh how I love them.  And her.

I miss my grandma very much.  Oh, Grandma!

Picking the fruit from the little fruit trees, and helping Grandpa in the garden on that hot, muggy day when the corn stalks were higher than my head and still green and the air was thick with the sweet scent of ripening corn.  Mmmm.  That smell even in Indiana always takes me back to that steamy day in Grandpa's garden when my tee-shirt threatened to suffocate me, and the humidity tried to choke me.  I was up entirely too early that morning for a summer vacation, let me tell you, and Grandma decided I needed to be outside rather than reading on the couch.  That was the summer that I met Katie who lived in the house that butted up to the back edge of Grandpa's property.  Katie was somehow a distant relative on my Mom's side of the family.  I think she might have been a cousin of my cousin.  She had straight, white-blond hair and bright blue eyes, and she could swim like no one I've ever seen.  I remember some grown up telling me that Katie was a fish, and for the rest of that summer I wondered...

My memories turned to include some of my mom's side of the family because all of our Illinois visits were intertwined with both families.  I remembered the night that Grandpa Z came into the pool room to use the extra bathroom, and all us cousins were standing around playing pool.  We decided to trick him and tell him that someone was in the bathroom.  We could tell that he had to go badly, otherwise he would have waited his turn for the bathroom in the house.  He changed direction to go to another stall, and we told him that one was occupied too.  "Well, who's in there?" he growled at us.  "Uh, PJ," we answered (we didn't have anyone named PJ in our family).  He grinned at us and then slammed the stall door open shouting in a silly accent, "PJ!  Get out of the bathroom!"  For some reason that cracked all us cousins up, and for the rest of the night we told each other, "PJ!  Get out of the bathroom!"

That night, my brothers and sisters and I camped out in Grandpa K's backyard in a tent, and we told stories about PJ and his imaginary family.  Those pretend family members have been part of my brothers' and sisters's growing up years ever since, and even nowadays we occasionally refer to PJ or his family.  While I walked Grandpa K's property, I stood in the spot where the tent had been pitched, and I relived that night lying on my back on top of my sleeping bag because it was so warm and telling stories to my brothers and sisters and giggling and giggling and giggling.  I remembered the epic Cousin Hide-And-Seek game when the cousins from my mom's side of the family came over to Grandpa K's house and the cousins from my dad's side of the family all played Hide and Seek late into the night together.  Oh the wonder!  I think my Aunt Penny came to visit with my mom that night, and those two sisters always talk into the wee hours of the morning together.

As I'm typing this, memories are flooding so quickly that I cannot record them all.  That metal and vinyl forest green step-stool/chair that has been in the kitchen ever since I can remember was still there this weekend.  I laughed out loud when I saw it.  And speaking of laughing out loud, Grandpa has taped five fly-swatters together so that the swatting parts are all side-by-side.  He says it's so he doesn't miss the fly.  I sat on the couch and immediately wanted to stand because underneath the cushion Grandpa has nailed a wide, flat board in place to keep you from falling into the hollow couch.  Apparently, the innards of the couch fell apart years ago.  Every plastic butter tub that he has ever owned is still in the fridge and still in use.  Black magic markers proclaim what's inside the dish.  Only, "applesauce" is crossed out and "flour" is crossed out and "green beans" is crossed out and "mashed taters" is crossed out and "sugar" is crossed out and "black eyed peas" is crossed out until you really have no idea what is inside the tub.  You have to open every one in the fridge to find the food you're hoping for.

While we were there, I noticed a small piece of wood about three inches long and maybe a square inch thick.  I picked it up off the floor and said, "I wonder what this goes to."  Jeremy smirked.  "With Grandpa, you never know.  It might be part of the dishwasher, or the vacuum cleaner, or the air conditioner.  It could have been holding the wall up, and now the house is going to come crashing down on us.  It could be..."  By this time we were both laughing so hard he couldn't continue.  I promise you, Grandpa could have gotten credit for bazillions of inventions if only someone had been there to record what he had done to get things running again.  Gray duct tape, hangers, wood and aluminum foil.  That's about all anyone needs if Grandpa's nearby.

My heart swelled up with joy when Liberty walked through her great-grandpa's dining room and noticed that every step caused the canning jars full of food to jiggle on the shelf and make music.  I used to walk extra hard in the dining room just to hear the jars clank together, and watching my daughter get the same amount of joy out of the same action made me happier than I can describe to you.  Another thing that filled my heart with happiness was watching Liberty and Mercy play with Roman and Destiny at their own Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Watching them climb trees and pick apples and made mud-balls out of themselves, and knowing all along that they are creating the same memories that I have stored up inside of happy childhood days spent at Grandpa and Grandma's with the cousins is beyond incredible to me. 

How did I get so blessed?

Mercy's third birthday was this past Monday, and we celebrated on Saturday with a few of her friends. I made a Chocolate Zucchini Cake that tasted incredible (if I do say so myself), but I made the mistake of letting Jeremy know it contained zucchini...before he tasted it. In fact, I was crunched for time, and so I did something even worse. I asked him to shred the zucchini for the cake. At first he refused on the grounds that vegetables do NOT belong in desserts, and he was just looking out for the taste-buds of our guests and for my reputation as a cook. When he realized that the zucchini was not going to be an optional part of the birthday, he reluctantly began shredding, but took every opportunity while he worked to point out the many reasons why this was a bad decision. When he finished the shredding process, he attempted to convince me that he could not figure out how to measure three cups of shredded zucchini in a glass measuring cup, and I almost fell for it...until I remembered that he is a Quality Engineer, and has been minutely trained in the fine art of measuring things. When I pointed that fact out to him, he caved in, and I even detected a tiny grin lingering at the corner of his lips.

Mmhm.

You can imagine his horror when he watched me pour applesauce into the cake as well.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup all natural unsweetened applesauce
3 cups grated zucchini
1 & 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add the eggs, oil and applesauce, mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips and the zucchini until they are evenly distributed. (I pushed them in with a spoon and then used the beaters on them to distribute...none of this delicate folding stuff for me!) Pour mixture into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. (I found out the hard way that the chocolate chips prevent a clean knife, so don't judge the doneness completely by that method.) Cool cake completely before frosting with your favorite frosting. (We didn't use a frosting at all. The cake was that moist and delicious!)



Mercy enjoyed her cake and her friends, but life has been completely different now that she is three years old. For starters, I'm holding her to her promise that she would start pottying in the big toilet rather than in her diaper when she turned three years old. She tried to talk me out of it, but I reminded her that she made a promise, and so she's decided to honor her word. However, she has no compunction about having a bowel movement in her big girl panties. Sigh. We're still working on that. I knew I should have gotten her promise in writing.

My favorite after-effect of the birthday is that now every sentence ends with "because I'm three years old now." For example, "Mommy, I saw a bird sitting on top of that house because I'm three years old now." "Mommy, I can have a piece of candy after I eat my lunch because I'm three years old now." "Mommy, I don't have to go to bed. I can cuddle with Daddy and give him hugs instead because I'm three years old now."

My least favorite after-effect is Mercy's sudden observation skills. She notices all the things that she used to be oblivious to, like the hiding spot for my stash of chocolate chips or the two big bumps under my shirt (my breasts). "Mommy, what do you have under your shirt? Why is your tummy bumpy on the top?" She is also noticing everyone else's bodies. At Walmart today, she announced loudly, "Mommy, that lady has a BIG tummy and a BIG bottom and BIG legs." Then she added happily, "Like YOU, Mommy!"

At first, I cringed for the sake of the BIG lady behind me, but when she finished I cringed for myself. I slowly turned around expecting to see a HUGE woman, knowing from Mercy's tone of voice that the woman must weigh 7,000 pounds, but the only woman behind me seemed reasonably fit. I searched some more, and finally realized that Mercy was trying to tell me that the lady behind me was GROWN-UP (big)...like me. Mercy was trying to tell me that the lady had a nicely-curved chest area (big), a nicely rounded bottom (big) and tall legs (big).

We obviously need to work on expanding Mercy's vocabulary...or, maybe not! Can you just imagine what she would yell out in the store if I told her what the correct anatomical term is for those two big bumps at the top of my tummy?

I've got a little extra time before bed tonight, and I decided I'd better keep my posting promise. (If I don't, I'll certainly hear about it from my mommy). :-)

(Do you know how happy that makes me?)

We've had a jam-packed weekend celebrating Independence Day! On Friday, our whole family changed the brake pads on Winny. Jeremy jacked the van up and loosened the lug nuts on the two front tires. Liberty and Mercy finished unscrewing the nuts for him and then decided to pretend the nuts were treasure, and they began hiding them in various places around the garage. I read the owner's manual step-by-step to Jeremy as he took the brakes apart and replaced the pads. Then the girls had to find all ten lug nuts and helped screw them back into place on the tires, and we all cleaned up the driveway together. Afterwards, our neighbors down the street set off a whole bunch of fireworks in the road, and we sat on the tailgate of Tiny Tim to enjoy the show.

Saturday was a day of pure bliss. With absolutely nothing planned to do, we really enjoyed the lackadaisical day. We ate a scrumptious brunch at Cracker Barrel and took leftovers home for supper. We skipped through a Walmart grocery shopping trip. We took a nap -- all of us! Everyone in our family including me! And all day, I kept checking my phone to see if my opponent, TTHWiggles, had taken his turn on Words With Friends, our Scrabble game, so that I could take my turn, but he must have taken the weekend off as well. I hope he had a great Fourth.

On Sunday after church, we headed over to our friends' house for lunch and water fights and snacking and games and more snacking and laughing and more games and supper and fireworks and talking late, late into the night. We didn't get back home until 1:30ish in the morning. Mercy fell asleep at our friends' house around 10 pm, but Liberty stayed awake the entire time, right up until she was tucked into her bed at home.

Today, we all slept in until 10 am! I don't think that has happened since Liberty was born almost five years ago! I woke up automatically at 7:15, but immediately reminded myself it was a holiday and fell back asleep. Then I woke at 8:30, and got up to check on the girls. They were sound asleep, so I stumbled back to my bed and snuggled next to Jeremy. Finally, at 10, Mercy woke up and asked for breakfast. We all slowly arrived in the kitchen for breakfast, then Jeremy fertilized the yard (can you believe it? we really have tiny blades of grass poking timidly up in the sunshine!), Liberty straightened the girls' bedroom, Mercy straightened the toy room, and I organized my Sunday School materials. Around four pm, we walked down to our neighbors' house for another party filled with food, food, food and lots of fun people AND DEVILED EGGS! The girls squealed with their friends in the backyard while the adults ate and talked and laughed together.

We had planned to stay until dusk to enjoy some fireworks together, but the previous late night crept up on our family, and we decided to walk home earlier. We walked slowly, enjoying the sunset and the comfortable temperatures, and by the time we reached our yard, our next door neighbors were setting off the beginning of their fireworks stash. Now, everyone knows that you cannot just walk away from a wonderful light show in progress. So we stopped and joined them. The girls loved being allowed to light a few bottle rockets and dash away as fast as they could run. They also enjoyed those little popper things that you throw down at the sidewalk and watch them quickly flash and pop. I thought they would like the actual shoot-up-into-the-sky-and-explode fireworks, but Liberty declared, "Mom, that wasn't a very pretty one," after each explosion. The favorites of the night were the "fire fountains."

After all the pyrotechnics were spent, we said our goodbyes and finished our short walk home. Jeremy and I tucked the girls into their beds and briefly considered falling into bed ourselves, but Jeremy had left his Starcraft game from earlier in the middle of a mission, and he wanted to finish it before bed, so he headed downstairs. I considered the peaceful, empty house and our wonderful, friend-filled weekend and decided I'd better blog it for my momma before I forgot the details.

I sincerely hope your weekend was as lovely and laughter-filled as ours!

I would like to announce that we have a very special guest with us! Ladies and gentlemen, my mother is FINALLY reading my blog! Make sure you all leave a comment to welcome her!

After almost five years of "Hey, Mom, I have a blog!" "Mom, did you read my blog?" "Why don't you go read my blog, Mom?" she is finally reading it! Her friends have been reading for years now (hi, Sue! *waves*), but not my mom. It was about a year or so ago that I resigned myself to the fact that my mother would never read, and I stopped asking. (She keeps saying she is too busy to log onto the computer, and considering the fact that she has a V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W dial-up connection, I really can't say that I blame her.) In fact, I think it was shortly after my week-long visit at my parents' white farmhouse in Illinois two years ago (wherein I attempted to blog from that same dial-up) that I gave up asking her to read. Oh, the torture of waiting for a web browser to load. I didn't want to inflict that kind of pain on my very own mother.

But now she's inflicting it on herself! Hooray! :-)

I love you, Mom!

It all started one day a few months ago when she had nothing better to do. She decided to read, and she got hooked. What can I say? I'm very addictive. Now, she checks frequently, and if I haven't posted often enough she calls me to complain -- in a nice way, of course. "Missy, I checked your blog, and I can't find any new blog posts. Are you still writing?"

So I've made an executive decision. I'm going to post more often. Did you read that, Mom? It's just for you! Don't you feel special now?

And, since you haven't been reading all along, and you don't know how to go back to read from the beginning, I'm going to link to a few posts that I know you will enjoy. (Just click on the tan words below called a link, read the post that it takes you to, then click the "back" arrow button on the top left corner of your screen to get back to this post. Repeat for each link below.)

I'm Thankful

Playing Dream House

Drinking Sophistication

Confessions Of A Former Teenager

One of Those Days

What A Day

There, Mom, that should keep you busy until I write my next post!

Whew, I am worn. flat. out.

Liberty and Mercy had a couple friends over today from about 1:00 pm to 8:30 pm, and the running and shrieking and jumping and hugging and sobbing and laughing and chocolating (it starts early) and just all around silliness was a sight to behold! The muscles on my face even now, an hour later, feel strange if they aren't smiling widely. Those four girls together were hysterical!

The non-stop action, hilarity, craziness and just plain fun reminded me of my childhood, and I'm missing my brothers and sisters badly right now. Memories of our own unique brand of nonsense games are flooding my heart and causing chuckles. What a wonderful life I've had! :-)

The other night, Jeremy and I sat at our dining room table bent over individual Bible Study books. The large, old-world looking clock on the wall ticked loudly in the after-bedtime silence while we flipped pages in our Bibles and filled in answers on our worksheets. Finally, Jeremy announced, "Let's stop here for the night and discuss what we each put in our blanks."

I leaned back in my chair and stretched the muscles in my back that had been leaning forward too long. "Okay, what did you put for question one?"

He frowned, "Question one was complicated."

"Complicated?" I looked back at the question printed in my workbook. On a scale of one to ten with ten being high, rate yourself on the way you love others. "How is that complicated? You get to pick the answer, and since it's based on your opinion, you can't get it wrong!"

"They didn't give you enough information to make a good judgement," he explained. "For example, are they asking how well do I love others right now? How well I loved others in the past? How well I'm going to love others? How well do I wish I loved others?"

I glanced at the text again in puzzlement. "The verb tense implies your current love for others."

"Okay. Let's say that's what they want," he agreed, "Then they didn't describe by what standard I am measuring my love for others."

I nodded, understanding his lack of measure. "I just used my own measure. How well I think I love others by my own standard of love," I said.

"Yes, then there's the complication of what your standard of love has been influenced by," he pointed out. "If your father beat you every day, and you say 'Since I haven't beaten anyone today I must be ultra-loving,' then your standard would be different than if you got a sucker every day from your dad, and you said, 'Since I haven't given anyone a sucker today, I must be filled with hate.'"

I had to absorb his illustrations before answering, "Ah, but you see, I HAVE beaten someone today! I beat you at Sudoku! HA!" I paused trying to remember what his exact wording had been. "Wait, does that mean that I'm ultra-loving or filled with hate?"

"It means you were LUCKY!" he replied, "and I was going really slowly when I was playing anyway."

"Mmm-hmm," I winked at him, "your usual pace."

"I'm like Dash - I move so quickly that others perceive me as going slowly," he grinned at me and went back to our original discussion. "Just like the question in the book doesn't specify whether I should rate myself on how others perceive what I perceive to be loving actions."

"Huh?"

"I might tell you not to do something because I love you, and I know that what you're choosing to do will most likely have a bad outcome, but you might perceive my instructions as un-loving because I don't want you to enjoy life."

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Jeremy! You are making this way too complicated! The sentence says RATE YOURSELF. That would be YOUR PERCEPTION."

He re-read the sentence in his workbook. "Okay..."

I waited for his next complication, but one didn't come. "So? Do you have a number picked?"

"I'm calculating."

"Calculating?"

"Yes, averaging my loving level over my lifetime."

"Oh my goodness! You're not serious."

He looked up at me like I was strange. "Yes. How did you come up with your number?"

"Uh, I read the question, and the first number that seemed logical to me, I put down on the paper. And THEN (you won't believe this)," I teased him, "I moved on!"

He shook his head, resigned to my haphazard way of doing things, and continued calculating.

We did finally make it to a few of the other questions with very similar discussions on each one. In fact, on question three which gave a Scripture passage to refer to and asked How did Jesus say we are to love? the convoluted discussion pathways we meandered upon lead us to the end times among other things. By this time, we had moved to the living room to be more comfortable, and as I rocked gently back in my ugly upholstered rocking chair listening to the man I love wax eloquent, I had to smile to myself. His discussion included examples from science about how the atomic structure is formed; it included life examples about people in our past; it included illustrations about building a house, and as I mentioned before, the discussion had now been brought into the "end times" arena.

He paused, "What are you smiling about? Did I say something funny?"

"No," I answered simply. "I'm just amazed at the way your brain works."

He looked suspicious. "What do you mean?"

"Well," I hesitated, searching for a good illustration, and then it hit me. "My brain is like a toy choo-choo-train. The engine hooks to the next car in line, and the next car in line, and the next car in line. My thoughts all follow the same path. I'm very simple-minded.



If I walk to the fridge and see that we are out of eggs, my engine starts puffing, and pretty soon all the cars are clacking along until the caboose gets to the grocery list where it writes EGGS. Finished."

He was staring at me with wrinkled eyebrows and a slightly open mouth.

"Your brain, on the other hand, is like a tinker toy," I continued.



"You start out with this central wheel we're out of eggs and suddenly little sticks start branching off of that wheel in all directions. One stick thinks eggs are full of protein; one stick thinks eggs cost $2.89; one stick thinks we bought this carton on March 22nd; one stick thinks eggs come from chickens; one stick thinks I wonder what the difference is between white and brown eggs? Then each of those sticks gets a wheel of its own added to it, and your brain branches off onto five different platforms of thought all at once.

The first stick eggs are full of protein reaches a wheel protein is good for my family, and sticks begin to branch off of that. 1. I have two girls growing who need protein. 2. I'm cutting back, so I could do without extra protein. 3. I wonder how protein affects Liberty's hearing? 4. Pro-teen. Protein must be extra good for teenagers. Hardy-har!

The second of the original sticks eggs cost $2.89 reaches a wheel what could I buy instead of eggs for the same price? 1. A gallon of gas 2. A kilowatt of electricity 3. A bag of ice melt (and so on).

The third original stick we bought this carton on March 22nd reaches a wheel..."

He was looking at me really strangely now.

"Anyway, you get the idea. After all those thoughts are done branching and platforming and branching and platforming and branching inside, you pool all of the information you have gathered and use that to make a decision: to purchase another carton of eggs or not. If you choose to purchase, you then walk over to the list and write Eggs. I'm just impressed with all the extra stuff your brain does as compared to mine, that's all." I shrugged.

"That's all," he muttered sarcastically.

I made a face at him.

"Okay, what did you write for question three?" he wanted to know.

"Love like Jesus does," I read to him from my workbook.

He did a double-take. "WHAT? That's it?"

I laughed aloud. "Yes. That's it."

"But... Well, how did you come up with that?" and he began to list all the ways that God wants us to love.

I interrupted, "That exact phrase was in the Scripture reference we read. I just copied it right out of the Bible.

"Yeah, I saw it in the verse, but that's so simple."

Yep. Just like my brain, apparently!

My previous post plopped you smack dab into the center of a story and quickly yanked you back up from it before you learned the ending. I'm here to remedy that -- Missy to the rescue!

THE PROLOGUE

This year we decided to have a real party for Liberty's fourth birthday. Normally, we just have a cake and family hang-out time, but Liberty has figured out what a birthday party is, and she's been begging for one ever since Mercy's birthday in July. Since I'm not a big party planner, we decided to invite a few friends to play with us at the park.

After searching the calendar for an appropriate date, we finally realized the only day that would work for us was a Sunday which happened to be Liberty's actual birthday. In order to make that arrangement work for everyone involved, we would have to take a picnic lunch to the park after morning church, so my easy, no-work party quickly expanded to feed the party-ers and their families.

On Monday, I read through the lesson plan for my four and five year old Sunday School class, and noted a few random craft supplies that I would need. I planned to shop for them and the party items on Friday.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the supply lists in my head played themselves repeatedly until I could have recited them in my sleep. I was so worried that I would forget something.

On Thursday I thought it was Friday, so the girls and I shopped at the Dollar Store for everything we would need for the party: pretty paper plates, napkins, party hats, and a package of squirty toys to hand out as party favors. The helium balloons (two matching princess ones so that Liberty and Mercy could not argue over who was holding whose) and the chocolate cupcakes had to wait until late Saturday so they would still be in good condition for the party.

On Friday, I reviewed again the lesson plan for my four and five year old Sunday School class, and realized that I had not purchased those craft items when I shopped for the party supplies. "Oh well," I told myself. "I'll just have to pick them up when I buy the helium balloons on Saturday."

On Saturday, we all woke bright and early and finished up various family errands before heading to the zoo for Jeremy's company picnic. What a gorgeous, crisp, sunny day, it turned out to be. We thoroughly enjoyed our stroll through the zoo paths, and Liberty cracked us up by whipping out her notebook and pen at every exhibit. She told us she was taking notes about the animals. I have a few pictures that I wanted to add to this post, but I cannot find my camera, of course.

When the zoo day was over, we ate a wonderful supper at a restaurant and then toyed with the idea of returning to our small, dark, smelly apartment. I'm sure you don't need to be told what we decided. Jeremy pointed the van towards a furniture store, and we spent a few hours dreaming about how we would decorate our new home. We finally arrived back at the apartment around nine pm.

After Jeremy and I undressed, dressed, read to and tucked the children into bed, I whipped up the batter for the chocolate cupcakes. I put the first batch into the oven and stepped back to take stock of what still needed to be done. Finish baking, finish shopping, pack the party supplies into the van, prepare the craft project for my Sunday School class and review my lesson a final time.

That's when my brain hit the panic button.

Jeremy offered to finish baking and cooling the cupcakes while I went shopping. As I made a list of items to buy at Walmart since the Dollar Store had closed at eight pm, Jeremy made requests: "Will you buy a box of chocolate pudding while you're at the store, please?" "Did you know we are out of Aquafina? You should pick some water bottles up, too." "Mmm, I could really go for one of those spicy chimichangas they keep in the section near the pizzas."

I remember hearing his requests; I remember responding to his requests; I remember thinking specifically about walking back to the pizza section to pick up one of his requests, but when I arrived back at home, I had not purchased any of the items he had asked for. In fact, I did not even realize that I'd forgotten until he said, "Where's the pudding?" as he helped me unpack the grocery bags.

I looked at him blankly, "What pudding?"

"The pudding I asked for before you left."

"Oh," I stared at the bags, "Uh, I don't think I bought any."

"That's okay; I didn't really need to eat that anyway, but where's my chimichanga?"

"Your chimichanga?" I repeated. Then I remembered his requests. "Oh no! Jeremy, I didn't buy any of the things you asked for, not the pudding or the chimichanga or the water. I completely forgot about them. I'm so sorry!"

He looked at me strangely, "Why not?"

"I don't know! I didn't even think about them." I looked at my list to see if I could figure out what had gone wrong. "Oh my goodness, I didn't even write them down. Look!"

"So I don't even get a can of Pepsi?" he said sadly.

"A can of Pepsi? You never asked for a can of Pepsi."

"Yes, I did."

"Well, even if you had, I probably wouldn't have remembered."

"That's true," oddly enough, it sounded as though this logic cheered him up.

I surveyed the finished cupcakes sitting on the stove top. They had turned out perfectly. Then I stared at the items arrayed before me. Paper plates, napkins, toys, craft supplies, balloons, presents that still needed to be wrapped, my lesson book, my Bible, Chadder - our class puppet, diapers that needed to go into the diaper bag...and something inside me broke. I think it was my brain. I started walking in circles. First I walked to the bedroom to get my Sunday School bag. Then I realized I had not prepared the craft, so I stopped and walked back to the kitchen to get the poster board. As I walked into the kitchen, I passed the diapers that needed to be put into the diaper bag, so stopped and walked back to the bedroom to get the diaper bag. Halfway down the hall, I started thinking about what else should go into the diaper bag, and I realized that the chocolate cupcakes would be messy and diaper wipes would be the perfect solution to all that mess, so I turned around to find the diaper wipes.

Are you getting the picture?

This went on for several minutes, until Jeremy stopped me to ask what in the world was wrong. When I was unable to get my thoughts into a complete sentence to tell him my trouble, he decided it was time for us to go to bed, after all it was close to midnight, and we could finish everything in the morning. Of course, I refused to go to bed with so much left undone, so he went to bed without me, and I walked in circles for another hour.

That's when I decided to sit at the computer and blog because blogging usually calms me down and helps my brain get back into a straight line.

I could tell while I typed that it wasn't going to work for me that time, so after posting, I went to bed where I thought and thought and thought about all the things that I needed to finish before church the next day. I think I fell asleep around four in the morning.


THE EPILOGUE

The following morning, Jeremy very thoughtfully decided to let me sleep in. He got the girls ready for church and woke me up to tell me that he was taking them in, and he would be back for me shortly.

I jumped out of bed, and cried out to God for HELP; I knew if I tried to hop right in where I left off last night, I would end up running in circles again. God prompted me to take some slow time to sit at the table and make a list of what needed to be done. Surprisingly enough, after reading my list, I realized there really wasn't a lot of work to do. Just some organization. I prioritized and set to work.

Jeremy returned with breakfast from a drive-thru and made me stop to eat it while he read my list. Then he picked an item and got to work on it. We quickly formed an assembly line: when I finished something, he would pack it up and walk it to the van.

We got to church ahead of schedule, and I had everything I needed for a smooth lesson time with my kids.

Afterwards, we drove to the park, and our efficient teamwork continued. Jeremy wrangled the kids while I set the table and prepared our supplies. At one point, I looked up and saw Jeremy climbing up the monkey bars to the platform about 20 feet in the air. He slid down the slide with Mercy in his lap and climbed back up again. Later, he set all the little girls giggling by wearing two party hats, one on each ear. What a wonderful man I married!

I declared the party to be a success even though I forgot to bring any cups, and even though I packed my camera and then couldn't find it. (I still can't find it.) Liberty turned four = success. Liberty and her friends had fun = success.

Really, what more could you ask from a birthday party? (Besides pictures.)