Remembering Our Girlie's Past Birthdays

Another birthday is coming up, and I just wanted to take the time to reminisce for my own sake. I cannot believe I became a mother to this sweet girl nearly 5 years ago! I am so blessed to have her in my life. She is full of love for people and animals. She works hard at whatever she's learning, be it gymnastics, art, or our homeschool poems and songs. She enjoys playing board games, dolls, dress up, gymnastics, playing with friends, and being read to or "reading" books. Really stories of any kind! She enjoys being helpful around the house and with the cats. She also gets frustrated with the cats like she would if she had younger siblings. She likes being outside whether it's on nature walks, playing in the yard, swinging, playing with friends, helping me in the garden, riding her balance bike, or even just lying in the grass looking at the clouds. She's super independent while she also loves snuggling up with me or her dad. 

"Birth" day!!

1 year old

2 years old

3 years old

4 years old

Jak is Six

Our Jak is six years old! He's still young at heart though. He still gets into stuff and loves a good snuggle. He's even snuggled me while I was holding Girlie, just because he needed snuggles at that very moment. He still loves to play with curly fries (twisted pipe cleaners) and fishing pole types of toys. He's such a good cat. He's had a difficult year with losing Albert and then adding a baby to the mix. Here are a few pictures I've taken over the year. Enjoy!

Close up

Jak needs attention.

Jak snuggling while I feed the baby.

Jak helps with the groceries.

Jak looking cute.

Jak stuck in the laundry hamper.

Jak surveying the kitchen from a bowl.

Reagan and Jak

Sun bathing

hidden kitty

new nap spot

under the crib

Jak is always getting into whatever he may find in the kitchen sink!

Jak is watching the birds while I blog.

The Twelve Years of Benny

(In the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas")
On the first year of Benny, my true pup came to me two days after Christmas Eve...
Before he came to live with us, I remember the four of us, my dad & two sisters, riding in the car talking about what to name him. We were thinking of gator names, of course, and Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (aka Florida Field, The Swamp) was bantered about. My sister, Erin, said we could shorten it to Benny, and his name was decided.
I was home for the holidays from my freshman year at the University of Florida. My dad drove some distance to pick him up from a Humane Society in West Virginia on December 26, 1999.
That first day, I stayed home with him and Dallas, our first cairn terrier. He was about a year old. He had no tail, which is very odd for a cairn terrier. He hid a lot; he pooped a lot; and he didn't say anything for days. When he finally did talk, he sounded like a tortured bird.
A couple of days later, he experienced his first Florida Gator football game, a bowl game no less, with the Barry family. He was sitting on the couch next to me. We all jumped up shouting about one play or another, as is customary. Well, we scared the poor little pup and he snapped at my hand, which scared me, though it didn't hurt. I think he ran and hid at least until halftime, when I had the first chance to coax him out of hiding. Even though I was the first one he "bit," he and I bonded pretty tightly while I was home from school. We continued to bond each visit home after that. When I had my first apartment in Memphis, he came to live with me. We've been inseparable ever since.

Spring 2000

Benny and Robert, Fall 2000

Benny at 13 years old

Robert Turns Thirty

Robert's thirtieth birthday was in October. I had spent the weekend in the Nashville area and drove home on his birthday. We celebrated that night with a dinner at Chili's, and I gave him his birthday gifts: a Titan's T-shirt and car decal that I picked up while in Nashville and tickets to see Bill Cosby the following weekend. His mom and brother came to visit, and his sister hosted a family gather in honor of his birthday, complete with a yummy chili bar. It was delicious! Our nephews even helped her to decorate his cake. We had a great time eating and visiting with everyone. Then, the following night, we totally enjoyed laughing along with Bill Cosby. It was a fun show.

Jak is Five!

Jak's New Nap Spot

I've fallen a bit behind in my bloggety blog posting. Jak, our "littlest one," turned five years old this August. He is both the youngest and smallest of our three "furry kids." He loves mischief and getting away with mischief by being cute. He is also fond of heights and can often be found napping on the highest shelf of any room. He has found a new higher nap spot in the kitchen, since I unpacked his napping boxes. He also loves to play-especially with "curly fries" made by curling pipe cleaners and throwing them across the room for him to fetch. I think he's also a bit of a psychologist: he enjoys avidly watching his human parents swing the fishing pole style toys around in all directions trying to fling them in the most enticing way to encourage Jak to play rather than just watch as we make fools of ourselves. It seems like he is gathering data for his two research projects: how long these humans will fling around a cat toy, and how exactly each cat toy functions. He is also a sweet little kitty who loves to snuggle.

Baby Jak

Jak's Fifth Birthday

Amberly Turns Thirty

Time and Tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty. ~Robert Frost

            I wasn’t totally thrilled with the idea of turning thirty at first, but it began to grow on me. Maybe now that I’m married and own a home, I feel more ready to be thirty. I feel more like myself, like I’m on my life’s path. It took a couple of painful years of the Saturn return to get me on my path, but here I am and it feels great! Someone very dear to me recently told me that, “thirty is when a woman comes into her own.” I can definitely related to that sentiment!

            My sister-in-law invited me to go to the beach with her and her three sons (my new nephews) for four days before my birthday. It was such a renewing way to ease myself into my thirtieth year. I’ve always been a fish out of water, but it’s been years since I went to the beach. Being in the water and under the sun was so soothing. I also learned the lesson that the concept, “all things in moderation,” truly means ALL things in moderation-including the sun! So I entered my thirtieth year with a reminder from the folly of my youth to reapply sunscreen. I also discovered sunburns don’t heal as quickly as they did when I was 19. Ah…the great lessons life has in store for us. Despite the sunburn, the trip was great. I enjoyed spending time with my sister-in-law and nephews, and had plenty of time to read the day I was stuck inside, in bed, healing from too much sun, not enough reapplication of sunscreen.

            We returned home just in time for my birthday, literally. We hit loads of traffic on the way back, so it was after 11pm when we arrived home. Robert and I spent the following day in typical Amberly birthday style. We tried out the Flying Biscuit for the first time and loved it! We did the traditional trip to the bookstore and Italian food for dinner. We also watched P.S. I Love You as a tribute to my love of all things Ireland. It’s a good movie, but I definitely recommend the book by Cecilia Ahern, which is very different from the movie. The whole book is set in Ireland, and it tells an interesting, moving story.

            The following week, we celebrated my birthday with family at my sister- and brother-in-law’s house. We grilled out, visited, and had cake with a candle worthy of a thirty-year-old.

Many Milestones and a Misplaced Camera

We have moved into our first house in a different state, Robert has a new job, Albert has turned 5, I have turned 30, and I could not find my in order camera to document any of this bloggety blog worthy news! I just found it this weekend in the glove box of my car, Regina. Now, I am ready to get back to blogging!

 

 

Our First House!

Our New Home

We are very excited to be first-time homeowners. We have a two-story, colonial style house in a wonderfully fun neighborhood. This weekend, we finally bought a lawnmower and cut the weeds. Our yard will definitely be an ongoing project for us, which is exciting. Robert wants a lawn to take pride in that is good for football playing. I take after my father and really just need to garden. In the dead of winter, it is easy to find me gardening inside with indoor plants. Now, we have almost an acre of land to cultivate to our hearts’ content.

View with the new basketball net

Shortly after we moved in the house, I ordered a beautiful peacock feather door button. Robert also bought and hung a new basketball net and raised the goal to the appropriate height. The new doorbell and basketball net add a bit of character and shine to the house, don’t you think?

New Doorbell Button

Albert’s Fifth Birthday

            My first little kitty turned five years old on April 6^th. He is no longer the little ginger fuzz ball I adopted so many moons ago. He is a long cat with an even longer tail. He is a big kitty who can jump from the (indoor) second floor balcony to the landing and from the third step from the top all the way down into the foyer. However, just because he is older and longer does not mean that he is going to put himself in danger. Therefore, each Monday when the garbage truck and the recycling truck pass by the house, you can rest assured that Albert will be hidden underneath the bedspread in the master bedroom, safe from all scary trucks. The same is true when we dare to vacuum in the house. Really, under the bedspread is just safer. We gave him some new foam bouncy balls as his birthday present. They are his absolute favorite toys, and he is good at catching those things! Sometimes, he will even bring them back for a couple more tosses. 

Baby Albert

Our 5-year-old Alby Cat

Blogging Resolution

            Now that I have my camera, I resolve to post more often here to keep everyone updated. My current goal is to post twice a week. Upcoming posts will include my birthday; wedding pictures, poems, and vows; more pictures of our new home; and, as promised in the first post, personality profiles of Benny and The Cats! You stay tuned and I’ll keep posting.