Happy Birthday Katie!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!!

I can't believe my Katie bug is 14 yrs old already. Her birthday was on Jan 4th. I have to confess, after a wild Christmas and wild weather and trying to work on two bathrooms and a last minute trip to Oregon for a truck Dave bought, we almost forgot her birthday. I really didn't forget her birthday, I just didn't realize what day it was. Oops!! So at 8 pm that night after throwing a cake together, shoving her gift in the first thing I found which was an empty Hersey's syrup container, and a few tears on Katie's part (because she thought I forgot), we had a party. When she opened up her money gift, she felt better. She also scored a totally fun board game called "Redneck Life". We played it a few nights later. In this game you roll dice for your name, grade level and occupation. You start off in debt with money from the check and scram and thru out the game you get children, lots of children. The object is to have the most teeth at the end, if you do, you win. Connor, or should I say "Cletus James" won with 16 teeth remaining and Katie, other wise known as "Dottie Jane" came in last with negative 19 teeth. She also ended up with 12 kids, 6 of them named "Daryl" and ended up totaling 5 different cars in the process. "Mary Sue", that's me, finished in the middle with negative 8 teeth. The only brite side to me was that I was able to pawn off my 7 children between CPS and leaving them at an overnighter that I never went back to. It is a totally fun game, however, some of the "situations" you get into kind of hit close to home. Like, burning your grass because it's to high to mow and having a port-a-potty outside because your bathroom doesn't work. Ouch!! We all had a great time and if anyone wants to come play it with us we would love it!! We can see how close your life is to "Redneck Life!".

I just want to take a moment and tell everyone how happy I am that Katie is my daughter. She is funny, positive, smiles all the time and is very patient with our life. She loves kids and is so good with them. I can count on her (most the time) to get her chores done and she is very dependable. She is helpful and willing to pitch in when I need her. She lives high values and I think is a great example of a teenager working on reaching her potential. I love her very much and so happy Heavenly Father blessed me with her!! Your a great kid, Katie bug!!