My 18th Birthday

Yes, I'm an adult now. :) And my friends and family made it one of the best birthdays ever.

8 am: Open cards and laugh at pictures and read long letters

My mom wrote me a letter while she was pregnant with me and waited until Tuesday to give it to me. I loved it. :)

 9:15: Willa and I drove over to the Lovetts (Emma was already there via the snazzy Golf Cart service available in our neighborhood. ;) where there were balloons all over the floor in honor of my birthday.
[Several families in our church get together for co-op type classes on Tuesdays] Pastor Lovett gave a splendid lecture on the Trinity, then 10 of us gave speeches. Kaliste for lunch had prepared yummy food for everyone as a surprise! There was even a cake. And everyone sang a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday to You- WHOO" for me.

2:00 pm: After an easy writing class, Daniel helped us transport 40 chairs to our house.

3:00: I drove Emma across the yard to the compost pile.

5:00: I got a birthday call from my Bestie in the North. '

6:30: 35-ish people arrived at our house.

 Last minute food prep.

 Welcome!

 Did I mention PapPap and Mema were in town? Well, they were! It was great to have them here for my birthday.

 We'll take any excuse to fellowship.

 Homegrown Sweet Potatoes!

 "Barefoot in the kitchen/ singing her favorite song"

 These pictures are from Camille. Thanks again!

Kaliste gave me a card that everyone had signed- So awesome!

 Thanks again, Kaliste. :)

 Some balloons made it over from the Lovetts and kept the kids entertained. :)

 Isn't he adorable?!? That's his "big smile"- crinkly nose and all!

If possible, please ignore the awful clashiness of the two prints in the above picture. It disturbs me, too.

 "You see that knot up there? Doesn't it look like a '96 Chevy Tahoe with a 5.7 engine that did some wheelies in the mud?"

"No, that is SO a turkey."

*in unison* "Oh, wait, that's just a t-post"

You can see why its hard to follow their conversations sometimes.

 It was a very nice evening.

 Joshua. What a cutie!

 9:00 pm: We fried ice cream. And ate it. Two helpings each. It. Was. Good.

11:30 pm: The Adams head home after a photoshoot and some Hoedown Throwdown. :)

Thanks everyone for helping me celebrate my birthday so well! It was very memorable -looooved singing hymns with y'all after family worship. I smile just thinking about it. :)

Fellowship. Rocks.

We looove hanging out with everyone all day Sunday. It is the greatest thing ever to just spend time together. Camille has done a great job the last three weeks capturing the times of rest and is allowing me to share them with you.

Discussions are such fun. Mr. Draper always has great input. :)

The chairs shuffled to the side after worship, we pull out the couches and talk.

This little guy always has the cutest things to say. :)

Walks to the construction site have become a weekly endeavor, so we get our exercise after the filling lunch. :)

Golf carts rock. (And, yeah, Caleb does, too, I guess)

So do homemade denim skirts. And friends. And an amazing view. All the pictures up to this point have been from the Sunday we got home from the North. Did I post about that? Oh, I guess not. :P Anyway, there is now a house on top of that black slab- quite amazing progress.

Now these pictures are from the week before that.

This time we were at the Stouffers after church.

Talking- about Star Trek probably.

Wittle boy blue with the serious chin.

Game, anyone?

How about a game of soccer?

Or a turn with the little ones?

Usually, yes! But on this particular day, there were some of us who opted for the "stay on the couch and don't move a muscle" option. Why?

Because we had been in the trenches all week. Notice the tar still on Daniel's arm.

I wore long sleeves on purpose. ;)

Not exaggerating- the four of us (and someone sleeping on the couch) sat in the living room and just talked (about trucks, of course...) for 45 minutes or more because we were too tired to get up. :)

 The dads, meanwhile, were in the kitchen talking about their favorite skiing spots.

And then decided that skiing related enough to unicycling that we needed to all try out our unicycle.

 Some thought the idea hilarious, while others weren't sure. :)
Of course Pastor Lovett was the first to try it out, but there's no picture...

It provided much entertainment. :)

 All the guys had to try it out... and then...

 watched.... with great anticipation....

As I "showed them how its done"...

 Yeah, I wasn't much better, despite having had some practice on it...

 I was in a skirt, though. ;)

Having survived that with some dignity, we retired to the living room for more rest.

Alright, and two more pictures- this time from the Lord's day before yesterday. :)

 Silly pictures...

...and then story time after a hilarious game of pingpong with a lady from New Zealand. Never a dull moment 'round here! I just love this picture.

In Which Olivia Becomes a Man

This is Bruce writing. Thought I'd share a moment from the week that warmed my heart. I don't know why this touched me so, but I was proud to see my daughter, whom I have taught and nurtured over the years to use her amazing critical thinking capacities to tackle a tough kitchen conundrum.

The mixer broke down, and has been out of commission a couple weeks or months. We have not replaced it because we pretty much replace them once a year. Today's WalMart gadgets cannot keep up with the abuse the Howards throw at them. We need to buy a 'mondo' mixer at this point.

Anyway, what was Olivia to do? She had to mix the biscuits or cookies (I forget) and doing it by hand has become rather tiresome.

So Olivia applied her brain and solved the problem like I would have. With a power tool and duct tape.

It worked. It even has two gears and variable speed trigger.

I'm thinking of using Gorilla Glue to attach the whisk to a chuck to avoid the need of the duct tape each time. What do you think?

A Family Update

I used to list our family one by one and say what is going on with them. I haven't done a post like that  in a while, so I believe I shall now.

(Life is exhausting.)

Father and Mother are enjoying life's adventures. Daddy's health was poor for several months, but now he's doing much better. God had been good in allowing him to get his work done. He keeps us laughing constantly and is in the midst of scheming about a landscaping project right now. He's also Craigslist-shopping for some kind of large farm equipment... like a backhoe or tractor or something. Oh, and a new car for us. (Ours only has heat after you've been driving for 3 hours!)

Mommy has been a great teacher this school year. She's introduced us to new recipes, made trips to the laundromat (washer's broke!), kept the house clean, majorly multitasked while we were all working outside,  has been teaching a writing class, done loads of research on loads of subjects and is staying cheerful through it all! She has some organization projects up her sleeve- like conquering our monster of a basement and planning for Christmas decorations!

I (Olivia) have been enjoying every part of this never-ending busyness. I've been sewing (obbbviously...), cooking, and doing school. This is my senior year, so the urgency of getting my studies done has been setting in. :) I'm also so close to getting the SLR I've been saving for!

 Emma is a darling as always. Her cheerful, never-failing, Christ-glorifying countenance keeps the whole family going. Her singing skills have been getting better and better as she belts hymns out while she's doing dishes. Seth and Elsia are spoiled by her story-telling hobby. She started highschool this year, so her school load is also taking up most of her time. She's dreaming of a dairy cow and is the caretaker of the cat and dog.

Willa loves to write. She's been writing on average half an hour a day for many, many months and has a natural gift for it. I'll try to get her permission to post some of her writings here- they are excellent! She takes care of Josiah the most out of all of us and always does it cheerfully. Right now she's dealing with a bout of poison ivy that's lasting longer than it should. She's our resident cookie-dough maker and fixes breakfast every morning. 

Seth is growing so fast! He's LOVING his first year of school. I was given a picture the other day that had numbers and letters written all over it with "Seth" signed in the corner.  He's a fantastic story teller. My favorite sight these days is to see him come bounding out of his room on a horse, with a bow and arrow slung around him, either a viking or cowboy hat on his head, singing "dun dun dunnn! da da da dadadada!" to his own theme music. He usually rides from his room straight out the front door to the deck. :)

(Photo credits to Elsie ;)

It seems that Elsia couldn't get any cuter if she tried. We love her curly locks and sweet smile. She says the funniest things. In one of their daily discussions on important matters, Emma was trying to explain to Elsia that there was a time when she didn't exist.  Emma: "There was a time when you weren't anywhere."
Seth: "She was in heaven!"
Emma: "No, she wasn't anywhere!"
Elsia: "Was I dead?"
Emma: "No, you have to be alive before you can be dead, and you weren't alive yet"
Elsia: "I was hiding." *little nod*
Emma: "No, you weren't anywhere"
Elsia: "I was hiding behind the calendar!"

We're pretty sure Elsie eats the most of anyone in our family. Last night at dinner she ate a bowl of soup, 3 pieces of corn bread, a grilled cheese, and several tablespoons of sour cream. :P She also loves to eat hard boiled eggs. ;)

This cutey pie is getting so big! Can you believe its less than a month before he's a YEAR old?? We squeeze him dozens of times a day and ask him if its possible. He's a walking maniac now and doesn't like to be held for long if there's something of interest to walk to! He says "Da!" whenever he sees Tinkerbell or another dog. His head's shaping up beautifully under his helmet and hopefully he only has a few more weeks till he no longer can be called "Captain Blue Helmet!" Keeping things out of his mouth is a 24/7 job.

God is good to us. We're all learning and growing in grace (hopefully!) and taking things one day at a time. We recently returned from a trip up north, so hopefully some pictures will be posted within a few weeks. ;)