HAPPY NEW YEAR!! :-)

I know it's the 5th of April!

I've been kinda busy.

One would think that someone that's been as busy as I SAY I've been, would have more to blog about. Well, I DO have a lot to blog about!

Ok, a "lot" is kind of a stretch! :-)

Here's the thing. I think I have a lot to blog about. But once I come up for air sit down, I come to the conclusion that I'm basically, a pretty boring run of the mill person. What I mean is, I just don't think people wanna read about this AWESOME sale I found at JoAnns or Hobby Lobby. Or how the copier wasn't working AGAIN at Jayla's school. OR...how I made this really yucky delicious dinner for my family.

Know what I mean?

But for the record, I DO find really good sales at those places :-).  And the copier probably wasn't working at the school..at which time I showed amazing self control by not cussing that thing straight out in front of God and all the little chirens bursting into tears.

However, since I have ya'lls undivided attention....
chirp
chirp
chirp
I do wanna bend your ear for a second. (what exactly does that mean? I may need to look that up) ANYHOO...

I have a situation...well, really, my daughter, Jayla has a situation.

First of all, what do you notice that's kinda odd in this photo? Other than the crazy dance that Jayla is doing!

Do you remember that movie, Single White Female? Or what about, Roommate?

Ok, well due to Jayla only being in the 4th grade, it's not QUITE as bad as the psycho girl portrayed in the aforementioned flicks. But if this isn't nipped in bud with the quickness...I see a sequel in this kids future.

I'm just sayin...

Here's the thing. My daughter is very blessed to have many friends...in may different areas of her 10 year old life. She's got her soccer teammates, "personal life/family" friends, and of course her school friends. So the chick is not lacking in BFF's. Fortunately for her, she doesn't have to do much, if anything, for people to want to kick it with her.

NOTE: I'm not saying any of this about my daughters friendships because I'm her mother and I think she's the awesomest a good kid. Simply pointing out the obvious as it's been pointed out to me by others.

NOW, this kid in her class...let's call her...um, Shirley :-)...you know, to protect the innocent. Shirley has been around for a couple years. However, this is the first year she has been in Jayla's class.

A little bit of background on Shirley. Last school year she told Jayla... and I quote, "Jayla, I don't want to sound mean. BUT, your mom is kinda fat!". OK...this about tore Jayla completely outta her frame! She was SO upset and cried about this child talkin about her momma for months a couple days. She even said she hopes she's NEVER in her class because she would be angry with her the WHOLE YEAR!

Well, I guess that was short lived. Cuz now they are in the same class and are "friends".

So, back to the here & now. Shirley is very obviously dealing with some identity/insecurity issues. She follows Jayla EVERYWHERE. And is constantly pulling on her and wanting to hold her hand as they walk down the hallway. Jayla, being the kid that doesn't ever want to hurt anyones feelings, just deals with it. But you can tell that it is workin her nerves kinda bothering her.

In the above picture, they were at the 4th/5th grade dance. And that dang child was panting like a puppy behind Jayla the entire night. I happened to be a chaperone at the dance...:-D...so I could see on Jayla's face that she was NOT feeling it. As you can see in the above picture, Shirley is tapping Jayla on her shoulder as she's dancing! REALLY??

Here again in these pictures, she gotta be right there, all up in my girls grill! And do you see that sparkly hat Shirley has on? She told us that she went and got that before the dance because Jayla has one! Seriously? (ok, ok...I know they made more than one!)

Pretty peculiar, don't you think?

Threw this one in just cuz she looks cute :-).

At one point at the dance, Jayla had to escape go to the bathroom. So while she was gone, Shirley comes to me in a panic...with the McCaulley Caulkin hands to her face and everything, saying, "Oh Mrs. Bibbs! I'm worried SICK! I don't know where in the world Jayla could be! I can't find her ANYWHERE!". I told her that if I'm not worried, she shouldn't be. Jayla is fine, she's just hiding from you taking a break.

There are even times I will go to the school and Jayla's class is at breakfast lunch (they eat at 10:30A.M.!) And who's sitting right there? Yup! It's Shirley!  She'll sometimes tell me, "I'm not sure what's going on with Jayla today...she's not really eating her lunch!" Or she'll say, "Don't worry, I've been watching her, she's been eating today!"  

Don't get me wrong, I think it's kinda sweet that Shirley is so protective of Jayla. But why does she have to smother her with that protectiveness? It has been brought to my attention that Shirley doesn't really have many friends. And that she just wants to do everything she can to keep Jayla as a friend.

I will admit, Jayla has handled the situation pretty well though. One day she took Shirley in the girls bathroom and hemmed her up told her that she WANTS to be her friend. But that she has other friends too. She also said that they are "too big/old" to be holding hands in the hallways. Jayla says that Shirley cried and stormed away. But Jayla didn't go after her and let her "deal". Of course, they were friendly again later in the day....and the stalking has started up again!

SO...I said all this to ask, if this were happening to your child, how would you handle it? Is this just a GIRL thing? Would you intervene on your childs behalf? Or would you just let them work it out? I'm torn...

What's been happenin???

Wow, has it truly been over a month since I posted on my blog? I'm such a slacker!

But those of you who know me and have followed my blog for a while/more than a year, know that this is crazy busy time for us.

Ok, who am I kidding? It's a crazy time for EVERYONE!  So with that in mind...I'm off the hook! :-)

Alright, since my last confession posting, a lot has happened. Why don't you sit a spell, grab a sip of something and read on.

You may remember in this post, I told you about a little "run in" I had with a box cutter? Well, I'm all healed up now. Went and got my stitches out after 10 days and a few hours later, the cut started to separate again. REALLY??? All is well now...other than a little tenderness now and again.

Jayla had her first sleepover this year. In the past, EVERYONE that she invites to her parties attends. That's not such a bad problem to have :-).  So with that in mind, we decided not to invite the normal 14 - 16 guests. Just my luck all of them will come and I'll have to stay sober entertain them all...by myself!!

So we only invited 8 friends. And of those 8, 7 showed up and one couldn't spend the night. Not too bad! They had a blast.

I made them an ice cream cake using  ice cream sandwiches, chocolate pudding mix, Oreos & Cool Whip.
YUMMY!!

Chocolate Fondue with marshmallows, pretzel sticks, pound cake,
and Rice Crispy Treats.

And of course a marshmallow eating contest!!

Then there's the dressing up for the fashion show.

Next, popcorn, crafts and a movie or 2.

And finally, at midnight...Zzzzzzz!! ;)

And in the morning, pancakes!!

Also for Jayla's 10th birthday, our awesome photographer friends did a photo shoot of her.

~~DRESSY~~

~~CASUAL~~

~~SOCCER~~

Forgot to give the photo overload warning :-).  But I mean, look at her! She's so stinkin cute and photogenical (it is SO a word!)  that I had a hard time choosing.

Anyhoo, I now have some new pics from Christmas...which is not surprising since I've been trying to do this post since the 21st, I think.
NOTE: My hubby has been on vacation since 12/15. He goes back to work on 1/3. And when he's home, he spends a lot of his time on his computer saving the world gaming. And when he's gaming, anything I do on my computer that entails anything other than simply READING slows his computer down *insert rolling eyes here*. SO...that's why it has taken me so dang long to do this post.

But being that I have shown you just about every picture that has been taken from the past couple of months in this one post...I will hold off on the Christmas ones. Not to mention, I'm tired of typing :-).

I'll holla....

My special birthday gift

Check out this sweet birthday card that Jayla gave me today.

I just love that little girl!

OUCH!!!

That's what I get!

I was working on yet another project for Jayla's new bedroom. And I almost sliced the tip of my ring finger off!

$25 co-pay, 30+ minutes of holding my hand over my heart/head, a V.E.R.Y painful numbing shot, 6 hairy stitches and a tetnus shot later...I'm all fixed up.

I neglected to take a picture of my injury...simply because I don't do too well blood & guts kinda stuff. Not to mention, I was too busy laughing at  consoling  Jayla because my injury was SO gross to her that it made her throw up!

Anyway, I'm all good now.

...and so is Jayla! ;-)

Pro in the making

Check out my girl....

I just LOVE the determination on her face. She simply LOVES playing soccer. And it's such a joy to watch her play. What skills!!!

It's happening....

Is this really happening to me??

AGAIN?!?

Some of you may remember this cute little kid....

Well, she ain't so "little" anymore! I mean, she's still physically little...she is only 9 you know! But my goodness she's growing up SOO fast!

I took her to get her hair done last week. And she BEGGED me to let her wear her hair down...like her "not brown" friends! LOL

Believe me when I tell you that I tried...with all my might, to not give in.

Just look how stinkin happy and cute she looks!!

I want so badly for her to stay that sweet, young, innocent little girl. I mean, she IS still all these things. But the "young" part is slowly creeping away from us.

Anyway, I'm gonna get all sappy if I continue with this post. sniff, sniff....

But I will say this, it is quite the adventure this time. Sadly, I don't really remember this part when my oldest was younger. I'm sure it has a little to do with my working full time and partially due to the fact she didn't want much to do with me/us most of the time. It was like she went to bed one night, woke up, came out of her room and she was a double "D" young lady! I just don't remember her "maturing".

Now that I'm home with Jayla and spending a ton of time with her, I'm seeing her turn into that beautiful little lady. She'll be 10 years old in about 2 months! Again I say...sniff, sniff!

I kinda wish it was ok to share a cute little conversation Jayla and I had here on my blog. But it's just not appropriate. However, I will say, that I'm thrilled that she's comfy enough to come to ME with her questions, as goofy as they may be :-).

I love this kid....

(sorry for the blurry picture. But it's still pretty cool. By the way...that's Jayla in the red & black...LOL! And coach daddy in the background, in the blue shirt.)

Remembering....

Do you remember where you were when you heard the tragic news?

Take your seats everyone...school is back in session!

Here we go again!

Summer is OVA! And class is in session.

Our Jayla is SO excited to be a 4th grader! In fact, on the first day of school, when I picked her up, she said, "Mom, I had the BEST first day of school EVER! Can I just stay here and you pick me up on Friday?"

REALLY?

And when I asked what was so exciting about the first day, she gave me this long run down...which included, "And guess what? We've got HOMEWORK! How awesome is THAT?"

REALLY??

I promise you, had I not been there when she was born, I'd swear she wasn't mine! I know she's her daddy's...but I'm not convinced she's mine! I HATED school! Daddy, on the other hand, loved it and was a great student to boot.

Ok, I was a mediocre great student too....I mean, I did what was needed to keep from getting an F pass my  classes! But I did not ENJOY school.

Anyway, enough about me :-).

Yeah, so, 4th grade is the year the kids start getting the A, B, C type of grades.  So we'll see how excited Jayla is after these first 9 weeks.

Along with school starting back, soccer season is also in full swing. YAY!!! I love soccer season! Jayla's team is moving up to U12, so it'll be interesting to see how this season goes. Nothing worse than being the underdog!

Stay tuned...