12 and 24

Madison and I both celebrated our birthdays in December.  She turned twelve ( a very highly anticipated birthday because she gets to join the Young Women's group in our church and she is old enough to babysit.)

A few days before her birthday, a group of silly, loud, giggling teenage girls knocked on our door and welcomed her to Young Women's with a big plate of cookies.  She did not stop smiling for the rest of the night.  Later I was asked by one of their leaders if the girls bothered Madison. Are you kidding me?  She loved every second of it. Like I said, so excited.  And I am so excited for her too.

I have to admit though that I'm a little conflicted because I think she's growing up too fast. These next few years are so fun and exciting, and I'm excited for her, but it's already going by way too fast, and I am wondering what ever happened to my little girl, and who let her grow up?  Not me.   And besides, shopping for presents has gotten hard!  It used to be that if it was pink, she'd love it, and the hard part was not buying everything.  This year we ended up having a girls night out including going to the mall and letting her pick out her presents.  Kinda lame, but she did love it. 

My bff Jamie was able to fly down and some time with us over my birthday.  I turned 24. For the 12th time. (or is it 13?) Seeing as I gave my birthday to Madison and I get to stay 24 forever and all.  (unfortunately mother nature doesn't seem to be aware of this plan) Anyway, Jamie came down.  We've been friends longer than we haven't.  Since jr. high.  I think I was 14 when I met her. 

Anyway, I didn't think I'd get her down her after the last time.  Germs and kids are two things on her list of "things to avoid" so, when she came down and we all got sick, it was pretty much her worst nightmare.  I got strep, and tried to pretend I was fine, even though I was shivering and had a fever, and needed to see a doctor, but wanted to go shopping instead, and cause I wanted her to have a good time, but ended up at the doctor anyway, cause if there is anyone who can see right through me it's her, (although I was doing a lousy job of being "fine".)  And then John got the flu so bad he ended up in the ER cause he was so dehydrated so Jamie had to watch my two little kids who happened to have colds and snotty runny noses that she had to wipe while I took John to the hospital...

Anyways, she was pretty traumatized by the whole incident. I think it took me a whole decade to talk her into coming down again.  This time I made sure everyone was taking their Vitamin C, and we all stayed healthy.

And speaking of really awesome friends, I got to go out to lunch several times over the course of the week with some other girls I love a whole lot.

We let Maddie pick out the birthday cake, I was gonna make her one, like I plan on every year, but I get busy, and John seems to have issues with me making my own birthday cake, so we bought one, and truthfully, this place makes the best cakes so no complaints here.

Unfortunately December was too crazy of a month to throw Maddie a birthday party. I was gonna try and fit it in, but I couldn't.   12  is a pretty big deal, so sometime in January we plan on it.  (is that lame to have a party 6 weeks after your actual birthday?) Stay tuned for that (hopefully awesome) installment in the coming weeks.