Sweet Caroline

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAROLINE!

It's so hard to believe you are EIGHT today! We have been so very blessed to have you as our daughter! You have been a ray of sunshine for our family ~ a well of sweet water that bubbles up with your constant laughter and smiles. It has been so amazing over these last 8 years to watch your personality grow and develop... to see you become this incredibly sensitive and caring little person. We thank God daily that we have been allowed to be your parents and are so eager to see where and how God continues to use you...

"For I know the plans I have for you,"

declares the LORD,

"Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.

Plans to give you hope and a future.

Then you will call upon me

and come and pray to me,

and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me

when you seek me with all your heart.

I will be found by you,"

declares the LORD...

~Jeremiah 29:11-14

... Our prayer for you is that you will ALWAYS seek the LORD with your whole heart ~ He will listen to you and will be found by you. You will be so amazed at where HE resides ~ and I believe you will find that it is in the not so random circumstances of life that HE chooses to speak to you the loudest.

We love you so very much!
~ Love, Mommy and Daddy

Thankful

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

(picture will be added later... I only took one, and it's a funny one of my Dad and the delicious turkey he made!)  UPDATE:  There's the picture!!

(shocking) My year to work Thanksgiving. So the first thing I'm thankful for, of course, is my job. Next would be my parents who cooked dinner for me!!! THANK YOU! I'd hate to have had to miss out on turkey and YANKEE STUFFING. Mmmmmm.

We went over to my parents to celebrate late this afternoon. They had some fun friends over who all brought stuff to eat (Mmmmmm... are you seeing a pattern here?) and we brought the entertainment. Kids. And tupperware. Hey, LEFTOVERS! We even got to do the traditional go-around-the-table-and-say-what-you-are-thankful-for. With rules, of course... like duh, you aren't allowed to say God or your Family. But we said those things, anyways. In case you are wondering what I'm REALLY thankful for, then you can read ALL the posts I have posted... starting with February 12th. It will take a while. I believe it SHOULD take a while to sort through all the things one is thankful for. And that, familythatI'mthankfulfor, is the extent of my Thanksgiving wisdom for the day.

Oh, and Carly REALLY DID lose a tooth this morning. (Notice her WISDOM to Ryan last night on the "and I quote" section... regarding letting the Tooth Fairy know she had a birthday coming up) And after losing her tooth, she promptly LOST her lost tooth. And came to me crying HYSTERICALLY about it... "I can NOT believe this has happened again!" to which I told her, "well, honey, you know you can always just leave the Tooth Fairy a note, she doesn't mind your notes" (nor do her millions of blog readers!) to which Super Quick Carly replied, "I know. I already wrote it". HA! Get ready. It's a great one. I will be posting it for your complete ENTERTAINMENT very soon... we have more pressing matters coming first, however!

Lastly. To my sister Tracy. I did not call you today on purpose. I could not handle you talking about your dinner rolls or your pumpkin muffins or coffee. I will call you tomorrow when I have a better handle on my jealousy issue.

... having said that, Happy Thanksgiving!

Build-A-Bear

For Carly's Birthday (which is on Friday!) she wanted a trip to the Build-A-Bear Workshop... and I took her EARLY because her birthday falls on Black Friday this year. I am not nuts. I don't enjoy going to the mall on a GOOD day, much less on the Friday after Thanksgiving. As you will see, she loved EVERY minute of it. And hasn't put her "bears" down yet!

Quick Side Note: Carly came up with her outfit on her own... jewelry included. She got lots of compliments on her necklace (Are you loving that, Mom??!!)!

Carly had to wait in line to "stuff" her "Bears". At BAB, they call ALL the animals "bears". Yes, I actually heard the salesperson telling someone on the phone this information. Apparently, the woman on the other side of the phone line was arguing with her that a cat was not actually a bear. Not kidding.

Carly's new friend, the Bear Stuffer.

Here she is making her Wishes on their hearts... The girl asked if Carly wanted to do the whole HEART CEREMONY. Ha. She had to ask? Really? Little Miss was about wetting her pants to do "the Ceremony". I mean, really... she has had her wishes picked out for 2 weeks.

Washing the bears up...

This would be Ginger, sporting her RAYS gear.

Dressing the kitty...

(Love the pose?) and this would be Sugar... who's wedding dress looks suspiciously like Aunt Renae's! And yes, I did encourage my daughter to choose the $3.50 satin panties for her kitty. Hey, a girl needs to have a COMPLETE outfit, right?! And yes, the bears undies cost more than mine. Nice.

Last step... creating their birth certificates.

Busch Gardens... with Eli McGregor

We are already "Off School" for Thanksgiving Break, and spent the First Official Day at Busch Gardens! We took Eli with us, since he's FREE and well, we wanted to spend some time with him... There are MANY pictures here, but all are pretty fun, so ~ Enjoy Eli's Day of being a McGregor, you know, McGREGOR STYLE!!

I know, I know... boring-going-into-the-park-picture... some of these are for his mother... she likes DETAILS about what her kid does without her.

If you are a McGregor who is too short to ride rollercoasters (tragic, I know!) then you spend the time your DAD/Uncle is riding them with the McGregor who ISN'T too short... trying on things in the gift shop.

Yeah, he'd rather have Carly try them on FOR him...

... also while waiting patiently, you get to see the World Famous Clydesdale Horses.

... and, your Mom/Aunt will take you to see some Educational things, such as a replica of King Tut's tomb. Creepy.

... and his mummy.

Right about HERE is where we SHOULD have realized Eli ONLY wanted to be in his stroller...

We TRIED to get him to ride Montu... lucky for him, he's TOO SHORT. Seriously, Eli! If you are going to be a McGregor, you have to ride rollercoasters!

Side Show... for my sister! (Laurie, if you Right Click, you can make that your wallpaper for your desktop! HA! You are WELCOME!)

FUN ANIMAL MOMENT #1: Took this picture THROUGH the glass of the giant fish tank... but aren't the babies cute!??! And their very protective Mama is yelling at the roller coasters... HA!

Eli checking out the turtles in the underground fish tank...

... so Uncle Ryan decided he needed to GET OUT of the stroller to see them better... it might not look like it, but Eli is YELLING at Ryan here. What can I say, the boy loves his stroller! And perhaps he watched Jaws with his Dad and the great wall of fish swimming towards him freaked him out. I'm just saying...

"Save me, Uncle Ryan!!!"

Umm, is it just me, or does my son look EXCEPTIONALLY huge LEANING down to see under the water line? How did this happen?!?!

The Lazy Lions.

FUN ANIMAL MOMENT #2: The giraffes. These 2 were running ALL OVER together! Just running side by side, like running buddies! So fun to watch. So graceful. Click on that picture and check out the one on the right's front leg so high in the air. We counted at least 13 giraffes on the "Serengeti Plain" today...

Cousins are good for showing you what's for sale... Eli loved this puppet. Of course!

FUN ANIMAL MOMENT #3: The sea otters. See that one there, CLICK on the picture. He was carrying shells in his paw. And he dropped them once, and scrambled like a nut to get them back in his paw before his "friends" stole them! AND, he was running on the land part of their display, WITH THEM IN HIS PAW. So very funny to us! Also funny was

FUN ANIMAL MOMENT #4: The zoo keepers walked past their tank and the 4 otters went BONKERS trying to get to them and swam all around the tank following them! Then another group of zoo keepers came out, and they did the same thing! I'm wearing khaki clothes next time I go!

Eli got to watch the TALL ENOUGH McGregor's ride a rollercoaster... that's Carly and Ben in the front, with Ryan right behind them!

Heading out to McDonald's... this cracked me up!!!

He wasn't very happy with me for breaking his french fry in half (hey, I thought he'd like one for each hand!!!) and spent about 10 minutes trying to put it back together!!!

Seriously, Uncle Ryan... I'm not ready to be a McGregor ~ you people are CRAZY!!!

Bragging Rights

I'm pleased to pass on the results of another successful Swim Meet... with the McGregor's! This morning's took place in St. Petersburg.

CARLY

25Y backstroke: previous official time 35.97

today 30.50

25Y butterfly: no previous time

today 33.98

50Y freestyle: previous official time 50.98

today 55something...

(I was writing their times on a paper napkin and my mom.... hi mom, thanks to you and dad for coming today!... said, "you are going to lose that, you better write them on a real piece of paper" and well, of course, I still have the napkin, and can't find the paper anywhere, which is where I was writing the times at the end. Ugh)

Sweet girl was so happy to be spending the morning with her buddies and a little hot cocoa! She was totally THRILLED to have cut over 5 seconds off her backstroke, thought she was pretty clever, she did!

BEN

50Y butterfly: previous official time 49.24

today 46.42 THIS IS A "B cut time"!!!

100Y freestyle: no previous time

today 1:20.06 THIS IS A "B cut time"!!!

and is actually 0.07 seconds from a BB cut time!

50Y freestyle: previous time 31.89

today 33.07

(The picture cracks me up, Ben wearing a swim cap and his winter coat!)

If you remember, Ben has had a really hard time with the butterfly and getting disqualified, so we were SO HAPPY for him to be doing it so well he even got his cut time in! (Read here for a Refresher Course about the motivational cut times). The 100YFree was really just an idea the coach had for Ben to lock in a time, so he went into it thinking that was all he was doing and supposedly "Taking it easy", although, I doubt that was the case! We couldn't believe that right off the block (so to speak!) he rocked a B time!

Also, we went into today hoping and praying that he would get his 50Free time down (as you recall, this is the race he qualified for Junior Olympics with, but will Age Up 6 days before and won't be able to compete), but instead of that, he smoked 2 different races! It is fun when you can SEE in the end that your plan wasn't nearly as good as God's plan... and not a bit random, mind you!

This last part is for my sister... When we got back to our car, there was a wedding going on RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT!! HA! yes, you would be proud, Tracy, we stopped and watched for a while... until we realized that these poor people were getting married outside the AQUATICS center, during a swim meet, where you could very CLEARLY hear parents screaming for their children! AGGGGHHHH!! Before the bride could notice my children were all wet, we got them in the car, snapped a picture, and took off... photo for you, Tracy!

BACK TO MORE APPROPRIATE MATTERS....

Yesterday, I decided that a word has been left out of Philippians 4:13.

Really.

No, really... that's the word. REALLY. There are about 3 places that would be perfectly appropriate for it to be. I tend to be somewhat skeptical, so this one is DEFINITELY for the skeptics! REALLY!

** photo's are from my cell phone... forgot the memory card for my camera! GRRrrrrrr!

Family Night.... with Star Trek

If you are my niece Amanda, then you are WELL AWARE that the new Star Trek movie came out on DVD (BluRay!) on Tuesday. Of course, we couldn't watch it until I was not working, so that brought us to Thursday!! We were fortunate enough to have a few EXTRA family members over for our family fun night... Eli's mama and dad had an appointment, and we were happy to "babysit"... here he is having some banana while Uncle Ryan looks stuff up on the computer...

While they were waiting on my famous homemade pizza's to be done (my blog, they are famous!), Ben showed Papoo his new book on 100 Wonders of the World. I think he was impressed to hear that Papoo has actually seen most of them! I did think it was kind of funny that just about the only one he HADN'T seen, is in Israel... you know, where he LIVES 1/2 of the year! HA!

Tiny pizza for the little one!

Yes, Rochel... I did cut it up for him after taking the picture. Seriously, he stared at me like, "What am I supposed to do with this? I'm a BABY you know!!!!"

Might be incriminating myself with this picture and Eli might not come back, but if you are going to be here on Family Movie night, then it includes eating homemade pizza in the Living Room, watching a movie! He loved the flick, by the way.... who wouldn't? We all said several times that we wished Amanda was with us! She LOVES this movie!

And I will leave you with one last picture...

Little Miss showing off her prizes from Read-A-Thon! No trophies were given out this year, but she was quite pleased with her gift cards and ribbon!

... not so RANDOM forgiveness

If you are have spent ANY time "here" then you are aware of my fascination with things that are NOT so random. I really do seek them out, and make myself pay attention when they occur. For crying out loud, I changed the name of my blog BECAUSE of it... ha!

*warning... This is ANOTHER "running" story.... and yes, I STILL just stop while "running". I've decided to just embrace it.*

Anyways, another such incident (you know, RANDOM) occurred this week. It made me smile for a good 43 minutes, so I feel the need to share. Plus, I have decided to give up scrapbooking all together, and am just going to get my blog printed at the end of the year. This is something I don't want to forget. This story, not getting my blog printed.

It starts with me running. "Running". It has become a little more than exercise these days, and certainly more of an exercise in focussing on the fact that I CAN run. I know many people that are too sick to leave their home, let alone Run for Fun. Believe me, I am grateful, even when I am contemplating calling Ryan on my cell phone and begging him to come and get me!

ANYWAYS, I decided on Friday, that I would listen to a SERMON while I was out. I'll be honest, Ryan had put it on my ipod for me a good month ago... it was from a Sunday when I was working, and our church is kind enough to send us CD's of the sermon's since Ryan misses 1/2 of them each week doing the Children's program. Turns out, it was from September 13th.

This is the passage...

2 Corinthians 2:5-11 and it's about forgiveness... Which I immediately said to myself, "I don't have anyone to forgive..." and when our pastor, Lou, brought up the fact that YOU might be the one who caused something that needs to be forgiven, I decided that probably didn't apply either. HA! At least nothing came to mind... *Lets just say, if that's not true, feel free to leave a comment... I changed them to be moderated first, so I will call you, THEN delete your comment!!!*

So, I believe you get the picture that I am assuming this sermon "doesn't apply" but I figured, Lou's funny, I'll listen anyways. Plus, REALLY tired of my music.

At the start of the sermon, Lou prays this prayer...

"... You have ordained all the words that appear in scripture. But also by your Providence, within history, within time, You have allowed us as a congregation to be in THIS book, at THIS time, and in THESE verses on THIS day... and we are going to assume, Lord, that that is not an accident, but that you have something for us..." of course my ears perked up, he's speaking my language. I did chuckle a little, since I wasn't hearing it live.

It was a great sermon with some fun Beatles references (told you Lou is entertaining!)... then he brought up the fact that "sometimes we need to forgive that person who said those things that were so hurtful..." and how we hold onto our anger... "You know when you are driving in your car alone, and all of a sudden you are having imaginary conversations with someone who's not even there, and you're getting angrier and angrier while driving, and they aren't even THERE!" I nearly tripped. Seriously.

See, this week, someone I LOVE said something that hurt my feelings and rather than just blow it off as them having a bad day (I mean, Ryan DID point out to me that people don't usually TRY to hurt your feelings!!) I really struggled with it all week. I let it make me madder and madder... and it was just so stupid (me being that hurt, not them actually saying what they said...).

It occurred to me I needed to forgive, and probably ask for some forgiveness, too. Then I just couldn't stop thinking about that beginning prayer. How Lou said that God's providence brought this passage to us on this day, which was originally September 13th. I think he should have added in "and on November 13th when Jennifer gets around to listening, that's Your plan, too...". I just love the fact that God uses people to bring to us exactly what we need, when we need it, and usually without them realizing it. It just wasn't RANDOM that "I decided" to listen to that sermon on Friday morning. I love moments when I can see clearly. And nearly trip. Ironic!

... now, if we could just get Lou over for a little Beatles RockBand!