Category Archives: Amanda

Halloween… Lily style

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Lily and Kendall both LOVE to dress up! The can spend hours at a time changing and playing dress up. Thanks to a wonderful couple at church, we have probably close to 15 outfits not counting various shoes and accessories.

Lily is have a blast this year because she was given 3 chance to dress up and “go out in public.” Wednesday night, the kids club had a Princess and Pirate party. Lily chose to go as “Sleeping Beauty.” Tonight the initial plan was to go with our friends to a Halloween carnival and then to several “Trunk or treats” but both Zach and Kendall were sick. We decide with the cooler weather it would be best to keep them at home tonight so that we could possible enjoy the church event. But our friends took Haley and Lily with them. Lily was a Barbie cheerleader tonight and return with a bucket of candy.

I have personally never been a fan of Halloween and until the past couple of years just avoid the whole thing. But Matt enjoys making costumes as well as apply just the right make up so he likes to have several people to work on. Lily and Kendall both like nothing better so Halloween is now a fun time just because we get to all dress up. This year our church is have a “family” costume contest and we are going as The Wizard of OZ. Amanda is Dorthy, Kendall is Toto, Zach is the Tin Man, Haley is the Scarecrow, Lily is the “cotton candy” good witch Glenda, Matt is the “wizard behind the curtain’ and I am the yellow brick road. I hope to get a couple of awesome pictures to post.

Happy Birthday to my Firstborn

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Happy 19th birthday to Amanda..the first born…the sissy. Yesterday, Sunday we went to Olive Garden with some friends to celebrate Amanda’s birthday. It was actually a fun time for all of us to be together and talk and laugh. I always get nervous when we attempt to go out to eat because it can turn very ugly if the little are not exactly right. Last night, Kendall managed to dump a bowl of salad on the floor but that was the majority of the mess.

Lily decided this morning to ask Amanda if she wanted a “store cake” or a “Lily cake” of course Amanda decided on the Lily cake. So Matt and Lily made the cake while I was at work. I got home in time to frost the cake and then Lily decorated the cake. It was awesome.

This has been a long hard year on Amanda and I am praying that brighter days are ahead as she grows into the Woman I have been praying for all these years! Happy Birthday AMANDA and remember we all LOVE YOU!

Random Beach Thoughts

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Waiting on 3 small children to fall asleep twice a day at around 1.5 hours each time eats up an ENTIRE day at the beach over the week of vacation.

Said children are so tired by 5:30pm it is torture to keep them awake till 6:30 when the above torture begins..yes we have tried putting them straight to bed and that did not work either.

We have been able to “enjoy” the sunrise all 4 days of our vacation due to the above mention children and their sleeping habits.

Lily enjoyed her first ever game of bowling today with a “winning” score of 137 including 3 separate strikes. She did use both gutter guards and a ball ramp.

Amanda is the worsest bowler in the house only because I “took one for the team” and did not bowl. Haley came in second behind Lily with 3 strikes as well and Matt was third with only 1 strike and several gutter balls.

Zach and Kendall both enjoyed the aquarium this morning much more than I had hoped.

Kendall was afraid to touch anything (shoe crabs, string rays and the costume Shark).

Lily impressed us all and asked to go and visit with the costume Shark, she earned a tattoo for this request.

It is possible to entertain 4 children at the beach without any toys for almost 2 hours. In fact we have enjoyed this time for the past 2 days.

And to finish out the 10 random beach thoughts….I can say without a doubt the Krispy Kreme donuts are far better than Dunkin Dounuts!

Lily’s Beach Adventure

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Monday morning was really the first time that we had planned to spend time at the ocean. We did go out on Sunday evening after we arrived but only for about an hour. So Monday, I was very pleased with how smoothly things were going. I had packed a lunch for everyone, we remembered Zach’s pacifier and the plan was to spend ¾ of the day sitting on the beach. I asked Amanda and Haley to watch the little girls while Matt and I set up Zach’s little tent. They all headed to the ocean with out a second thought. About 3 minutes later Amanda and Kendall came back to get the sand toys. I didn’t give it a second thought because I assumed Lily was with Haley. After walking half way back to the beach, Amanda turned and asked where Lily was. I was still thinking with Haley until we spotted Haley in the water. Amanda and I both start looking for Lily as did Haley when I got her out. Amanda actually went to the lifeguard. Lily was no where to be found. I had walk between the 3 closest lifeguard stands without locating her. The lifeguard sent out a page down the beach including what suit she was wearing. Amanda was extremely panicked at this point. As I was walking down the beach looking for her I could barely scan ahead of me because of people asking if they could help look. The lifeguard told me that “in the case of small children they usually follow the current.” I disagreed but just kept walking. The lifeguard then sent a little cart so we could drive and look for her. As I got in the cart, the call came in that she had been found. Where? 4 lifeguard stands in the opposite direction from the current. So what happened?

According to Lily she was following Amanda but “she would not hold my hand.” I pieced together that Lily poor eyesight combined with the fact we had just gotten to the beach and she had not gotten familiar with it or with what everyone was wearing, Lily started following someone else down the beach by mistake. The whole ordeal lasted no longer than 10 minutes but was enough to scare us and for us to not let anyone out of sight again! The rest of the day was almost perfect, we spent 4 hours on the beach!

Update

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I am going to use this post as a short catch up list and also some explanations for the future as to the events that have been happening the past week.

First I will not be posting a Monday Menu this week as we will be consuming left-overs and several other meals that have been offered and planned for us.

Last Tuesday night around 11:15pm, I received a call that Amanda and Remington had been involved in an accident. I rushed to the scene. At around 2:00am, Remington was pronounced dead. I am not including any other details at this time due to how this is currently a very sorrowful time and I am also afraid that anything I post could be taken out of context and used in a hurtful manner. When I first started this blog, one of the things I did not think I would have a problem with is total and complete openess. I still do not have a problem with this and but I do have to show discretion to also protect my family. I may at some point in the future include more details of this awful night but they would not add anything to this post.

Over the past 5 days several things have stood out in my mind:
1. My strength and faith remain in the personal relationship I have with Jesus Christ. Without this, I could not have survived any of this.

2. I am blessed with not only an awesome extended family but also an awesome church family. They have picked us up and carried us in loving arms over the past days.

3. The media as a whole are solely concerned with ratings and getting people to watch. Out of the 4 organizations that I have had to talk with last week, only one was human enough to not only honor our wishes but also to remember that we are grieving and not attempt to “imply” anything to make the story more interesting.

4. The kindness of strangers still exists and in my own mind outweighs the evil mentioned above and the evil that is lurking in alot of our society.

5. Life will never again be the same for anyone in this house but not all changes are bad.

6. God is in control………