Josie Turns Eight

Our happy, sweet caboose turned 8 years old during the wee hours of Tuesday morning! This milestone feels as momentous as when we used the last diaper! Josie was very, very excited Monday night. She sweetly batted her eyes asking me to heart attack her door before I went to bed. What mother could resist the eye batting of an 8 year old? Not this one. Josie had a normalish day with school et al. Amelia picked up some Jimmy John’s for lunch during her lunch period. She got an extra few minutes out of school to have a picnic in my computer lab. That was fun! Josie requested bean burritos and red rice for dinner. Dinner was quite late because I needed to help Justin pick up a rental car to use for a week. While dinner was instapotting I made a white cake with blue frosting for her favorite dessert! She wanted the Heeler family on top of her cake, because Bluey is amazing. The Ostlers came over to share in cake and ice cream and the present fiesta. Josie acted surprised, which was cute and silly, since she chose and wrapped the gifts. Our cute little nugget was just glowing with joy all day. Her favorite gift was a “keytar” and Bluey’s Beach house. 

Thursday was the new parent MCO meeting. I gave a short presentation on MCO attire and how the attire checks work. The parent of the young lady whose dress I “hemmed” and scorched with my iron finally requested to see me. I lost the paper that had the girl’s contact info during the craziness of the concert. Mom was very upset I ruined the dress with the iron, I let her vent, no good would come from giving me two cents…like the fact that mom had taped the hem up over a foot inside the dress, ironed it. She would’ve had to purchase a new dress due to the iron hem tape she used. I did feel bad the young lady was uncomfortable with the attention and attempted fixes at the concert. Live and learn. I’m working with central toward a good solution. 

Friday night she wanted to eat her special birthday dinner at a “buff-buff-buff-buffet.” Sometimes she barks like a dog saying buff-buff, so when Amelia told her about Golden Corral with endless offerings, ice cream, chocolate fountain, and cotton candy Josie was sold. She was goofy all day over the prospect of going to dinner with just Dad and Mom. One of her birthday gifts was a wearable hoodie blanket with the same pattern blanket Sara got her two years ago. She is thrilled with the enormous article of clothing. Josie ate a shrimp (le gasp), 3-4 pieces of fried chicken and a slice of pizza before she got two dishes of ice cream, cotton candy, and a cup of gummy bears. 

Josie’s pet adoption party was on Saturday from 2-4 pm at our home. Josie invited 8 friends to her 8th birthday party (Melody, Malaya, Chloe, Aliyah, Savannah, Aria, Sawyer, and Haylee). I made leashes using nylon webbing, split rings, and lobster clasps earlier in the week. Amelia was such a big help. We all pitched in to clean the house upstairs and down before 12:30 pm. Amelia made pet baskets with an animal, fleece blanket, ball, frisbee, party blower, punch balloon, and Scooby Snacks. As each girl arrived Amelia handed out fake money, the girls chose a pet basket, chose a leash, ribbon for a collar, filled out an adoption paper, then filtered into the dining room area. Amelia and I glued the collars together with the ribbon of choice while the girls went outside to play. Next up the girls made name tags on shrink dink sheets! We attached those to the collars. Amelia then conducted an animal training session using Fergus as an example. She would show off a trick, then the girls had to mirror the actions and use a Scooby treat as a reward. That was magical. By then we had time for Josie’s doughnut tower then opening gifts! The party was chaos but really fun and easy. 

The rest of the week was quite low key, the party consumed most of my energy. I finished editing Josie’s birthday Baptism photos on Saturday night. Hooray! Evelyn was not feeling well at all for most of the week. Josie and Evelyn stayed home Monday, Evelyn with a nasty cough and fever and Josie throwing up. Evelyn stayed home through Friday morning sick with the cough. It was intense! I stayed home on Wednesday just to give Evelyn some support at home. She was very sad on Tuesday with only Sara for company. I went to work early in order to get a sub plan written out. I worked on a bulletin board project cutting out Yeti characters for most of the day. I took breaks to snuggle the kids (Everett stayed home with a tummy bug), make food, and work on laundry.