I found a great blog for you to check out:

http://twosheepgreetings.blogspot.com/

Friday night was the night of my daughter's 16th birthday party. She won't turn 16 until the 19th of this month, but her birthday falls during our winter break and many people go out of town for the week. So we planned the party a little early.

I was a little apprehensive about how things would go. She invited over 30 teenagers and I was afraid I'd spend my entire evening making sure they were all behaving themselves. Only about 20 showed up and there was no trouble out of any of them.

They played Guitar Hero World Tour, talked, roasted hot dogs and made smores over the bonfire outside, talked, ate cookie cake, talked, played "Red Rover, Red Rover", talked, and just had fun hanging out together.

I am proud of the choices she's made in her friendships. She's a great girl!

Today is the 19th of January. That means I've taken 19 pictures and have 347 to go. I really hope I can keep this up for the entire year. Over the years I have started numerous journals and diaries, but always end up giving up on them after a few weeks. The beauty of Project 365 is that I just have to snap a picture and write a few sentences. My fear is that I'll run out of 'new' things to take pictures of!

So far I'm doing great, though.

Project 365

I'm among the thousands of people who spent hours on the internet trying to order a Becky Higgins Project 365 kit from Creative Keepsakes. What a crazy way to start the new year! But I love the idea of taking a photo each day to document our lives during 2009, so I have begun the process. Now, if I happen to get a kit, I'll put the photos in there. Otherwise, I'll be figuring out another way to put this project together. Since the book is designed to be done by week, Becky suggested we begin on Sunday, Dec 28th. I usually think of my week as Monday through Sunday, so I began on December 29th.

So far I have taken these photos:
Dec 29: Zane and a friend playing at our house
Dec 30: Catherine at the periodontist for her pre-implant consultation
Dec 31: a sculpture at the airport when I picked Jay up
Jan 1: the boys just after midnight
Jan 2: Papa John's pizza box - our Friday night treat

Since I have a new camera (Canon 50D), I'm looking forward to this daily challenge. Just getting the camera out and using it on a daily basis will help me learn it's functions and become more familiar with it!

My baby was so handsome Friday night! He was the homecoming representative for his class. The class representatives were chosen a few weeks ago, and we started looking for a suit.

My first idea was to have him wear Zane's suit from cotillion, because they can share a lot of clothes, but it was waaay too big on him. When I checked out the stores, they had nothing but slacks and shirts...no suits. Next stop was online shopping. I found a black suit at Kohl's, but didn't know what size to buy, so I ordered two sizes. The smaller of the two fit perfectly.

After talking to the girl's parents, we found that her dress was a royal blue, so I wanted to get him a tie that matched. While in Walmart one day, I was cutting through the boy's department to get him some new white undershirts, and saw the perfect tie. I never would have looked at Walmart, but was glad to have that taken care of!

Friday afternoon, Jay came up to the school and helped Kent get dressed. While I was working after school, they went over to the theater room and had pictures taken. Later, I was able to get some shots of Kent and Hannah with my camera. They looked so cute together!

It's hard to believe he'll be eleven in just a few weeks. But he's still my baby!

Contentment.

That's what I'm feeling today. I'm content with who I am, who my children are, and where we are as a family.

I'm content with my job. I have a great class and have spent the afternoon looking for some fun activities for them.

Being content is a great feeling!

It's official. I now have TWO teenagers. Zane's 13th birthday was yesterday, and I only have two more years before Kent reaches his teens.

Being the mother of teens is actually more fun than I ever imagined. They finally "get" my sad attempts at humor.

Last weekend, Catherine and I went to a bridal shower. I promise that I did read the directions, and saw what town it was in. However, I didn't realize exactly how far away the location was. The directions said to turn right on XXX street, and go to the four-way stop. It did not say that the four-way stop was 10 miles down the road!

I started telling Catherine that it appeared we would be in Savannah before the day was over. She started giggling. Then, when we finally find the next turn, we start passing a lot of single-wide trailer houses. I told her that if I saw a boy playing a banjo on the front porch, we were turning around. Poor Catherine! She actually understood what I was saying, and I thought I was going to have to pull over for her to use the bathroom in the bushes! It's so much fun when she likes being with me!

Zane has a great sense of humor. Daddy and Betty gave him a birthday card that said, "Since you're so terrific, we dug down deep in our pockets so we could get you a really special birthday gift...and here's what we came up with!" It had a big wad of lint taped inside. He said it's the best card he's ever received. I think he liked the card better than the money they added to it!

Kent is my buddy. He loves hanging out with me, and he's had an opportunity to spend some extra time with me this past week. We've been coming home, putting on pajamas, and laying on my bed to do his homework. I've found that if he and I get away from everyone else, he works much better. I can read a novel while he works, and still be right there to help if he needs me.

It's times like these that I just love being a mother!

I found the answer to who I should vote for in November.