Diantha!

Today is my daughter Diantha's birthday. She is 14, and suddenly tall, gorgeous, sophisticated, and entirely nonchalant. She has eclectic taste in clothing and quilting fabrics and good taste in books. She takes responsibility, helps out, pitches in, and goes overboard. She reads her Bible and does her school without being nagged, and she is witty AND funny. In short, a great kid, on her way to being a super adult.

But... when she was a baby, she cried and hollered if anyone would just even LOOK at her from across the room. I thought she would never stop fussing, never stop clinging, I would never be able to put her down, she would never wean. She was a beautiful baby, with a beautifully shaped head... and all her life it hasn't mattered what weird thing we have done to her hair, it has always looked great. But was she a whiner!!! Desiree, my oldest daughter, said that it was God's way of reminding us that Nobody's Perfect... cause if she didn't whine, she would be perfect. LoL!

Not like we didn't love her through it. And I guess she is a life-lesson in perseverance... Because by now, we are sure glad to have her.

Here is another pic from babyhood... wearing very special glasses. One of her waiting in the doorway of the bathroom at Frozen Head State Park, to go out and be in Desiree's wedding. And one from a haircut of a foot, on Mother's Day a few years ago.

Today we made cupcakes for her to take to share with the girls in her small group at church youth group. We used a from-scratch recipe that I usually use for dark chocolate cake, but left out the secret dark chocolate ingredients, added in a little milk, and made white cupcakes. Diantha did it with a little instuction from mom.

Besides that, all I got accomplished today was to make some awesome Corned Beef soup and a huge loaf of homemade wheat herb bread. Oh, and I knitted a few rows on my new project, paid about you don't even want to know how much money in bills, spent $47 on Etsy, which is probably my allowance for a month, and shopped for groceries with 4 of the kids and dear hubby in tow. Not to mention I have been in almost constant pain for week now with these stones. Geez no wonder I am exhausted.

I have another pic above here to show you. Yesterday someone who shall remain nameless took a pic of mom at the firing range. Here I am with the Lorcin .380 squeezing off a few. I was also doing one-handed practice, and it turns out I am a better shot with one hand than with two. Go figure. My arms aren't really that big... it is the perspective of the picture. LoL. But you can see the purple shades in my hair, so that's fun.


One last little tidbit. A night-time snack, if you will. Last night we made Orange Nutmeg Sugar Cookies (I like Lemon Nutmeg but didn't have any lemon oil and I did have orange, LoL) with green sprinkles on them for St. Patrick's Day. We made a probably about 6 dozen at least. This morning these are all that were left. Yes, folks, I really am feeding an army of locusts.