Saturday, July 27, 2013

Amara Our Little Ladybug!

Amara was born in July just like her mama, her bop, her great grandma Maye, her great great Grandmother McComas and a few other relatives.  We have lots of July birthdays in the family.  She was almost born on my mother's birthday, just a couple of days before.  My mother did not get to meet Amara but I can tell you she would have love, love, loved this little Ladybug!  That we started calling her Ladybug when she was no bigger than a minute is ironic because there is no other symbol that fits her better.  She lights up a room when she comes in and she flits from one place to another.  She's never still and very seldom is she quiet.



She is tiny in many ways, but she is taller than 85% of the other kids her age.  You never know what she is going to say.  She loves roll play.  She is always the mother.  She likes to pretend she is talking on a cell phone, wonder who she has seen doing that.   She loves her purses.  Of course she used to go into my bedroom and pick the biggest, heaviest purse she could find and drag it out.  Now she has her own purses.  He Bop spoils her rotten.  He has even bought her, her own purple coach purse.  She is quite the little diva.

Amara 2 years old

He favorite activity to do is go with her mom and I to get our nails done.  She sits up there big as everything and puts her feet in the whirlpool, picks out a color and of course she wants flowers on her toes or poke a dots.  Then she isn't satisfied unless she gets her fingers done too.  She is very much a Girly, Girl like her mom.

Amara 2.5 years old


He favorite color is PINK.  She also likes purple, and orange and anything that sparkles.  She does not like to wear pants at all, she should have been born in the 50's when that's all we were allowed to wear.  She loves to wear dresses and the fuller the skirt the better and please put something that sparkles on it.  She also loves the tutu's.  She also likes to wear flip flops but if you can put a little glitter and heel on them that makes them better.  She talked her Bop into dress shoes with a small heel when she was 3.  He absolutely CAN NOT tell her no.

Amara 3 years old


Everywhere we go she is twirling around.  I'm sure that the adjectives I have used to describe Amara is the same ones others would use to describe their 5 year old girl too, but I have to tell you that we think this little girl is pretty special.  I just could not imagine our lives without her in them.  Oh, by the way, she hears everything and forget nothing.  I mean it.....she does not forget anything no matter how long it has been.  Well, except if you have told her to do something she does not want to.

Amara 4 years old


She loves to help clean, feed Tino, cook.  She really is quite a little helper.  She loves to dust....I hate to dust.  She also loves to help fold clothes and never complains when I ask her to take Tino out.  She likes to clean in the bathroom when you have not ask her to, so if she gets to quiet you better check to see where and what she is doing.



She likes anything princess.  She watches all the Princess movies, but then she also likes movies like Up and Despicable Me.  She can entertain herself most of the time, but she can also talk you into playing with her if you are not on guard.  Her favorite place to sit is on top of her Bop, Grand pa.





She has a personality like no other.  The expressions on her face are priceless.  She charms those around her to get her way.  She can get JJ to do anything for her.  When we went to White Water last week she had complete strangers carrying her tube to the top of the slide for her.  I wish mother could have met her.  When she smiles I see my mother smiling back at me.  She definitely got my mother's smile.



Well I guess this a pretty good description of our little lady bug.  She starts Kindergarten in a week and I'm pretty sure she's going to flit right in to that classroom and keep her teacher on her toes.



Love you Amara!

Amara's 5th Birthday!




Friday, July 26, 2013

Life's A Dance: Amanda....Light of our Life!

Life's A Dance: Amanda....Light of our Life!: Oh my, where do I even begin to describe my baby.  She is one in a million is an understatement.  If you take Mike and I's families and ...

Amanda....Light of our Life!

Oh my, where do I even begin to describe my baby.  She is one in a million is an understatement.  If you take Mike and I's families and melt them together, you get Amanda.  We always laughed and said that she was born with her hands on her hips giving everyone in the house orders.  You see she was born on a Sunday in the hot summer of July 1981.  Mike and I were pretty sure that we wanted to have three children, but we really didn't have the third one planned to come only 16 months after her sister.  As my husband would say, God has a sense of humor.  He knew we needed Amanda to make our family complete.

Amanda as a Senior in high school.


Amanda was always competitive.....she wants to be the best at whatever she does.  She might get that from her dad.  If you have ever played volley ball with him, you know this.  She will work her hardest so that she can be better than everyone else, no matter what it is.  She wants to be a better cook than me, she wants to win at any game she plays, she wants to make highest grade in the class, even today she is one of the youngest supervisors in her area, maybe even the youngest.

She has a heart as big as Texas.  She has always been for the underdog.  She is always wanting to help others.  She worked hard to help those who have problems.  She read books about kids with cancer when she was in school.  She wanted to counsel kids who have terminal illnesses.  It was really no surprise when she majored in Sociology in college.  Now she is a supervisor in DHS and works with Family Services.  Most people think she is tough, but on the inside she is about as soft as they come.  She might be more like her dad than me.  She gets that toughness from him and the bleeding heart from me.

She loves to have fun.  This probably comes from my mother.  Amanda spent lots of time with my mom when she was little.  Mom would let Amanda have friends over to spend the night and they would cook, build houses with quilts in the living room and they even talked her in to buying hair color at Wal-Mart and the girls colored each others hair.  I think they were about 12 or so.  Mom even took her on some bus trips with her.  They made plans to go to Disney World one summer and the two of them were kind enough to allow Krista and I to tag along.  We had a good time.

She is very much an individualist too.  This was easy to see by the sports she chose to participate in.  Her favorite sport turned out to be tennis.  She also played golf, basketball, and softball....but tennis was her love.  I think it was because she could do her own thing and the final responsibility ended up on her.  She did play doubles some, but she liked playing singles the most.  She was also yearbook editor, President of her class several years, top candy sales person in 4-H, officer in many different clubs.  She was a natural leader, or boss.  She gets that from her dad too.  As I write this maybe she IS more like her dad than me.

The trait that she possesses that is most like me is her tender heart.  Because she puts on a persona of being tough, most people don't realize that you can hurt her feelings.  She will be upset for a while and then she gets over it and is always willing to forgive.  Everyone thought she was a Tom Boy, but in truth she is our Girly, Girl.  She has always loved to dress up, put on makeup and wear high heels and fancy dresses, oh yes and have long painted fingernails.

I thank God often because he gave us Amanda.  She has always kept our lives lively.  She is beautiful inside and out.  Gotta Love Her!!!!!

Amanda with her children on Easter 2013.