Happy Birthday, Laurel

Today is my sister, Laurel's, birthday.  She is a tiny bit over 2 years younger than me but for most of the years I've known her that hasn't mattered at all.  (It does seem like there were a couple of years in our teens when we didn't have much in common but that was a short time a long time ago.)

In honor of her birthday, I thought I'd share a few things that not everybody might know about her.

And we'll start with the very early years.  She's always been blond but when she was really little, she was a real towhead.  Here she is with our little brother whose birthday is also today and who was born exactly a year after Laurel.

There were two girls and two boys in our family and Laurel and I were almost inseparable during our growing up years.

We grew up on a farm and spent all our leisure and work times together.  We shared responsibility for breakfasts, helping with supper, cleaning up after, feeding the rabbits, and weeding the garden.  We shared hours playing with the kittens and lambs, riding our horse, playing baseball in the orchard, and walking down the field road.

She always carried her babies like this:  (She's 7 months pregnant here)

We spent the most time together as our kids were growing up.  In fact, we used to take turns cleaning our houses.  It was so much more fun with two doing the work instead of one.

 

 She's a mover and a shaker.  She stayed with us a short time a few years ago and we finally got the wallpaper taken down in our hall and living room.  We also re-designed one of our ponds and probably did lots of other little projects that don't come to mind right now.

She bought a house all by herself, improved it (a lot!), and now rents it out.

She has three beautiful daughters and two handsome sons.

 

She's a baby and little kid magnet.  They all seem to fall in love with her at first sight.  (Even my little namesake.)

She's fun-loving.

 

But quiet and un-assuming.

Her legs and hand were once featured on a billboard on I-94.

She's married to a wonderful man who shares her love for almost everything including travel.

She and I took an overnight trip to Missouri and returned on a bus a couple of days late.

And we took a trip to North Dakota and returned on a bus a couple of days late.

We shared an apartment, rode the South Shore together every morning and every night when we both worked in Chicago, dated and later married two guys who worked on the South Shore, and shared every secret, confidence, joy, and pain that two sisters could share.

And most importantly, she's a wonderful person who would do anything for anybody.  She's never one to let grass grow under her feet and has always striven to improve herself and help those around her improve as well.   She's an excellent landscaper, decorator, and even a great golfer.  For all these things, I should be a little jealous, but I'm not.  I know I'm the lucky one.  She's my sister.

So, happy birthday, Laurel.  I hope it's awesome!!!

Amy Lynn - Through The Years

On this date in 1971 at Holloman AFB near Alamogordo, New Mexico, we were blessed with our second baby, a girl.  My dreams of having two little girls close together had just come true and I was over the moon with happiness.

For Amy's birthday today, I'm posting pictures taken every few years throughout her life.

Here she is being greeted by her sister and new best friend forever, Lori.  It's a friendship that's endured for over 40 years now.

 She was an adorable toddler and if I could find the picture of her at this age sneaking a taste of her birthday cake when she thought no one was looking, I'd post it here.  I thought two things at that time - she was too cute to get mad at and she was definitely a child of my heart.

As an infant, Amy smiled early and often and as these pictures will show, she's been smiling every since.

Here she is with her grandparents when she was 8 years old.

And with her cousins and her closest sister when she was eleven.

In junior high and high school she was a cheerleader and a great one at that.

And here she is a few years later when she was in the wedding of a good friend.

Not too long after that she danced at the brother's wedding.

And one of my favorite pictures of her when she was about 27 was with the first, most important love of her life, her daughter Amber.

And periodically after that.

But there are so many more important things about Amy that don't come out in periodic pictures and they are about Amy and her loves.

She loves her first daughter who has turned out to be a loving and true friend.

 She loves her family because she is first and foremost a family girl.

She loves all three of her grandbabies and she loves that she's such a young grandma!

 Jack

 Dane

 Aubrey

She loves her sisters.


And, in fact, all her siblings.


She adores her nieces and nephews and you can count on her to be the first one to interact with them.  It's truly amazing how they all respond.


And she loves camping, fishing, and all other outdoor activities.
 

 All in all, Amy's a wonderful person.

You can always count on her to help and she's one of the hardest workers you could ever hope to have at your side.

She's loyal and sweet and would rather run from an argument than win one.

We're so blessed to have her in our family and I miss having her nearby every single day.

So Happy Birthday, Amy.  Here's hoping it's the best one ever but only half as good as the many, many more to come!

Happy Birthday, Amy

I wrote a post about Amy last year a few days after her birthday. In it I described what a sweet, fun, loving girl she's always been. This year's Amy post is going to be an interview AND it's going to be on time - in other words totally different from last year's post. And, as always, each question will be accompanied by pictures that may or may not have anything at all to do with the question.

According to a lot of people (although I know better), this is the big one. How do you feel about turning 40? I feel a little sad to be leaving my thirties and I'm not really freaking out about turning 40, but I do suddenly feel like I'm almost 50.

Do you have any special plans for your birthday? I know that Amber is coming over with the kids to spend the day here so that will be fun. Other than that I don't have any plans.

Do you have birthday wishes? Maybe a special wish list or something special to do to celebrate? I really don't have any birthday wishes or anything specific I'd like to do. I get to be home all day, there aren't any baseball or softball games and I think that's pretty cool. I get to relax!
Does turning 40 inspire you to set new goals or make a bucket list of some kind? Well, I've never really been the kind of person to make a list of goals or have any kind of bucket list, and I guess turning 40 hasn't changed that because I still don't want to! LOL Sometimes I think I should make a list of goals, and then I try to think of some, and can't think of anything so I don't make one.

I know you were laid off from your teacher's aide job due to Michigan's huge education budget cuts. Do you think you'll go back to that field when there's work available again? I think I probably will. I'm going to go to a couple of different districts and get on a sub list to start out, and hopefully I'll stay pretty busy doing that. Sometimes I think it would be cool to find something different, but there aren't many jobs that let you only work when your kids are at school.

Are there other fields that interest you? Not really, I'm pretty boring. I like doing clerical work so I think when I sign up for the sub list again, I'm going to sub for secretaries, too.

What have you done this summer that you're especially happy about? So far I'm happy that we have been on our first camping trip. I really love that my family came to spend Jeremy's birthday with us and I really hope that everyone is coming up for the day on our next camping trip. I can't even describe how much I loved that!

What are your plans for the rest of the summer? We have two more camping trips planned; and the kids are going on vacation with their dad, so it seems that I'll be camping, coming home, cleaning up from one trip, getting ready for the next, and then camping again. It really keeps me busy. Also, I'm looking forward to everyone maybe coming out again when Dan and Teresa and the kids visit.

I know you've recently lost a significant amount of weight and started exercising regularly. There's no doubt that you feel better physically but do you think it also affects your mental state? Absolutely! There's no doubt. I think it affects everything I do. I feel happier, I have a lot more motivation and I actually don't HATE pictures of myself. I think it's going to help when I get back to work too.

How do you like being a grandmother to almost three at your tender age? I LOVE being a grandma right now. It is awesome and I wouldn't have it any other way!

When you were twenty, could you have foreseen yourself where you are now? Hmmmm, I don't think I thought much about where I'd be when I was 40, but I think if I had, this is right were I would have wanted to be - married to a wonderful man, living the kind of life that I'm happy living, having Jeremy and Jenna so happy and active, and being close to Amber & Chris and my grandkids. What more could I want??

And how do you envision yourself at sixty? I think we'll be in a house by a lake and we'll be surrounded by tons of grandkids and everyone will come out to visit all the time and I'll cook and bake and be a very content woman.

What else might others find interesting about you? Nothing, because there really isn't anything very interesting about me. You've covered it all.

I really enjoyed Amy's answers to my interview questions - except for the last one. There's so much interesting about her - she's a lot of fun - party with her sometime and you'll see. She's great at Rock Band and fishing and kids. I can't think of a niece or nephew that she's not special to. She's the first one to pitch in when you need a helping hand. And she's a loving, generous daughter, mother, grandmother, sister, wife, and friend.

So here's wishing you the happiest of birthdays, Amy; and hoping that all your wishes come true!