Happy Birthday, Melanie!!

Seems I like to do things in two's...half of my kids birthday's are only days apart. Beth and Melanie are the 15th & 18th of Jan, Kim & Emily are the 6th & 9th of March, Shawn & Ben are the 21st & 23rd of September. Seems we have crammed all of our birthdays in 8 months instead of spreading them out through out the whole year. We have absolutely no birthdays in May, June, July, & Aug! I guess it's a nice break and a chance to gear up for Christmas!


Anyway...Melanie turned 19 on Sunday!


I decided to help with the paper route as a present for her. So I got up at 1:45am and headed to the depot with them. We folded & loaded their 500 papers by 4:30 and they were off delivering. She came home in time to attend church. Right after church we did our Visiting Teaching. They made us partners, we love it!! She gave a great lesson.


We ate her special dinner of potatoes and rolls. Then let her open her present, we got her a nice digital camera. We also did her cake, she picked a yummy Costco cake! Dad is good to help them figure out how to use their electronics and get the software on the computer so they can do stuff with the picture they take. We were a little worried about this camera, it seemed to take blurry pictures. (The next day, Doug realized it was blurry because they had not taken the protective strip off the screen!! So glad that was such an easy fix!!)

Then she went off to bed, at around 2:30pm! (No, she didn't sleep on the couch, she was playing while she was waiting for us to open her present.) She slept until it was time for papers again! Part of me was sad that she had to sleep away her birthday, but then part of me was glad she could sleep. She actually did the paper routes and went back to bed on Monday morning and slept some more. She was feeling pretty rested and good that afternoon!!

I sure have been missing her since she started doing papers. She has been our Mommy #2 for some time now. She is so busy with both jobs and trying to catch up on her sleep in between that she hasn't been around as much. I guess I better get used to it, since being 19 she won't be around forever!!

I just wanted her to know how much I appreciate her willingness to help out when ever she can, and sometimes when she can't. She's a hard worker and genuinely cares about her family and shows it.


We love you, Sweetie!!