The Daisy turns 10. Her birth story.

My Daisy turned 10 Feb. 21. It's hard to believe I have a 10 year old and I know it'll feel like tomorrow that I'll be saying I can't believe I have a 20 year old or a 30 year old.
The day before she was born, I had gone to work with labor pains and everyone asking me what it was like and I said not bad and they were saying,"So suck it up already." and I'm going: I'm not complaining! I'm at work! Every other woman would already be at the hospital begging for an epidural already. Sheesh.
That night, I walked two miles around the Mall of Georgia, stopping every so often to kind of groan, really not knowing at that time I was in active labor. So I waked at 1 that morning and was terribly sick and it went on like that for several hours until I finally realized,"Hey, I might be in labor." I started a warm bath, which woke my husband, who came in and asked me what was wrong. I gave him that I-would-like-to-kill-you look.
We called the midwife and I labored on the floor of the bathroom, whining that I wanted to go to the hospital until I heard my midwife's car in the driveway. Then I knew I needed to put on my big girl panties and get down to birthing a baby.
So, at 7:50 a.m. on her due date, The Daisy arrived at home, weighing 8 lbs. 8 oz., and came out waving. My newspaper, for whom I was the business editor, did a story on the state of homebirth in Georgia so she was in the papers straightaway. It was quite the controversial story!

Here we are 10 years later ... I gave her a Harry Potter pop-up book. I think it was a hit. The Boo helped make her birthday cake. She loved the sketch pad The Boo gave her. She laughed at the card I found. Some months ago, we got a library book called "Chicken Butt" in which the kid pesters his dad,"You know what?" "What?" "Chicken butt!" So this is what the kids do to me All The Time. And guess what kind of birthday card I found for her? Happy birthday, my baby girl.

My living room turns into a fort

I knew something was up when the neighbor kid came in my bedroom and took out one of my chairs. And then a blanket disappeared off my bed. In fact, all the blankets disappeared from everywhere in the house.
And this is where they turned up!
I told the kids they looked like prairie dogs poking their heads out. And do you know they even SLEPT in there?!
It stayed like that for days until I couldn't stand looking at it anymore and was tired of looking for a blanket or for the chair I throw my clothes on in the bedroom.

Field trip: Western North Carolina Nature Center

This is one of our favorite places in Asheville, N.C. Once I went here for a drum-making class and the wolves howled during part of it. It was SO cool.
So the kids and I stopped in on our way back home from South Carolina as a leg stretcher.
And it was again the wolves that were the most intriguing. At first, they were laying about in the sun then they got up and moved around, nuzzled each other, exhibited wolf behavior.It was our best part of the day.
All of the snakes in the reptile house were very active. The Boo watches a rat snake getting water:Usually bears are out but we couldn't find them. It was actually a little cold for most of the animals so we hung around the farm area - you know, like we can't do this at home.

Homeschool valentine party

Fabulous homeschooling mom and friend Jeanette organized this homeschool valentine party. She issued that all cards needed to be handmade and personalized! We worked on them early in the week so we'd be ready.
After watching a Charlie Brown valentine movie, the kids decorated their boxes to receive cards. Now look at this one! And then cards were distributed: Everyone's was overflowing and everybody left happy! (Moms too!)

Another reader?

While The Daisy was at her homeschool testing last week, The Boo and I hung around the bookstore to play with the train set. He pulled out a couple of Transformer books and thumbed through them. This is what The Daisy used to do and pretended to read them. I'm hoping he loves reading as much as she does.

Two Ladies and a Cake

My friend Donna has a friend who has opened this cupcake business. We stopped in after galivanting all around Saturday and this is what her friend made us!

Horses from The Daisy's perspective

Here are some pictures from The Daisy when we visited the babies at Shadwell Stable in Camden last week:
This is Kalila, a 2 year old colt:
Me messing with him:
The Boo hiding from Kalila behind a tree with Julie babysitting (or she was hiding too, I'm not sure):
The Daisy got a cute picture here:
She liked this colt:
I think this one is Splasha:
Splasha messing with the high-falutin' salt lick all the Shadwell babies get