Glitter and Sticks - Holy Cow She's Six

On Monday, the one with the smile turned 6.  The one who adores babies.  The one who loves to help.  The one who has a slightly unhealthy love for pain and blood.  The one who for at least 4 years has been most people’s secret “favorite”. The tomboy in a tutu.

My Jordan.

Jordan started off with an exicing weekend when one of her life long goals was accomplished - she was a flower girl.

 

This was her first year being in school when it was her birthday and since I have such fond memories of being surprised by my daddy for my birthday I took the day off work.

I started by bringing her lunch and eating with her at school.  She was excited to tell everyone that I was her mommy and she was excited to sit and eat with me (I know someday that may not be the case).

Later in the afternoon Justin and I came to her class with cupcakes and listened as her class sang her Happy Birthday and prayed for her.

 

After school the birthday girl got to pick where we had dinner.  She picked IHOP, one of my kids’ go-to restaurants since who doesn’t like breakfast for dinner (except for me)?

 

As most of you already saw, she got a Ukelele for her birthday which she is learning to play. She wanted a Turquoise one – and that’s what she got (after a minor mishap with a pink one).

 

Our usual birthday tradition of letting the birthday kid decorate their own cake – which usually ends up being a pile of sprinkles in the middle – was sadly not done since we didn’t get home from dinner until nearly bedtime.  So that will be coming later.

Overall, I’d say she had a pretty good day.  And she still has her party to come!

Happy Birthday Baby!

I love you dearly.  You have such a compassionate heart and love to care for others.  You are selfless (well mostly) and loving.  You have a smile that lights up a room in an incredible way.  You are definitely stubborn and like to test the rules and boundaries to see what you can get away with.  I know that characteristic will help you achieve some incredible goals in your future.  I love your excitement for life.  I love your slightly terrifying curiosity in blood, needles, and pretty much all things morbid. I love your willingness to try almost anything (even if only once).  You try to face your fears, but still find comfort in mommy and daddy’s arms when the dreams feel a little too real (I’ll miss that someday).  You’re mommy’s helper.  You’re Aunt Genny’s Munchie.  You’re Grandma’s lover girl.  I’m proud of you and can’t wait to see what you can accomplish.

And the part you are all most excited about (or maybe just me) – The annual photo comparison:

 Birth

 

 Age 1

 Age 2

 

 Age 3

 Age 4

 

 Age 5

 

 Age 6

 

 

 

The Welbehr Wedding

This year for us has been the year of weddings.  It hasn’t been since 2006-2007 that we had so many weddings to go to.

Granted, its only 4 weddings, but when you are actually PART of the wedding it feels like 20. This year (including the 1 wedding we have left) has resulted in:

1.       A drive to Fresno (well…Clovis, but pretty much the same thing)

2.       A drive to San Diego

3.       Justin being a Best Man

4.       Justin being a Groomsman

5.       Elijah being  a Ring”Bear” x2

6.       Jordan being a Flower Girl

I am definitely not complaining.  They have all (and I’m sure will be) amazing weddings for some of our dearest friends.  But to be honest (which is really why you blog) the last wedding was one of the best weddings ever.

NUMBER 1

First of all, it was for Sam and Tiffany.  If you don’t know who they are, you should. 

Sam is Justin’s best friend and Justin probably likes Sam more than me most of the time.  I’m ok with that – granted I had to accept that fact as part of my marriage to Justin.  Sam was just part of the package.  I have so many stories I’d like to share about Sam, but I feel that it is probably not in theme with the “wedding” blog, so they’ll come another day.

Then there’s Tiff.  I love her.  As my husband’s rather odd but pretty epic Best Man Toast mentioned: She was able to put up with Sam’s over-analization (yes I made that up) of their relationship AND she passed the “Porch Test” with flying colors (if you don’t know what the Porch Test click here).

So, the wedding was awesome because it was for 2 amazing people. 

NUMBER 2

It wasn’t your average wedding.  The wedding involved 3 pastors and a hour glass (awesome).  The Davis' made it into the vows! The Ring”Bear” carried a bear, not a pillow.  To get the Bride and Groom to kiss at the wedding you had to lip sync and dance to a song (There are videos...awesome videos).  There was a s’more station instead of a “cake” (which gave Tommy the chance to make an amazing shot with skewer).  The music was all 80’s all the time (well except the 1 swing song they threw in for me – Thanks for looking out guys).

NUMBER 3

My super sexy husband was the best man AND my son was a stinking adorable Ring”Bear” (also another How I Met Your Mother Reference) AND there were so many of my favorite people/friends there.

So I hope you see why it was such a Legen-wait for it-dary wedding (I felt I had to throw in at least 1 more reference to How I Met Your Mother).  I apparently did a horrible job at getting pictures and only got these few – but Elijah is adorable and makes up for my lack of other pictures.  Although, seeing how I didn’t get a picture of me at all, I say Sam and Tiff should have to dress back up in the wedding garb so I can get a picture with the Bride and Groom.

 

The Rehearsal Dinner

 

 

The Wedding

HELP ME WIN! Seriosuly...

I’ve bragged several times about the place I work.  Because I love it.  Seriously.  I’m not paid to say I love it (I am PAID, but that is for doing my actual job) I just honestly love it.

We are currently doing a big push to employees to offer friends and family AMAZING rates on savings account and certificates.  To be honest, even our checking account pays an interest rate higher than a lot of savings accounts (my mom’s savings account at Chase makes less than a checking account at ECCU!)

So, I want to offer you all the crazy awesome rate!  Sure there’s the checking account here (again that will probably earn you a higher rate than your “standard” savings account at your existing bank), but what I’m talking about is even better (do both if you so wish). 

Do you see those rates?!

I dare you to go to your bank and find comparable rates on the same type of account!  Family will automatically qualify (just tell them you are related to me) and friends can qualify through their church! 

I can make this even better.  You get a high rate and while your money is making money ECCU gets to fund amazing ministries and missionaries worldwide! 

AND IT GETS BETTER!! So you get high rates, we get to fund missionaries around the world, AND you can help me win cool prizes!   As part of this effort to offer YOU great rates, the employee (that’s me) can win prizes like wearing jeans to work all week ::happy dance::  If you don’t know how awesome that is you may not have to wear slacks or dresses/skirts to work every day like I do. 

SO:

1.       Help me (Rachael Davis) win cool prizes

2.       Help fund missionaries and churches around the world

3.       Earn high interest on your money

To get this great offer you must go to www.eccu.org/ECCU4 (watch the cool video - not required by pretty darn cool).  You can apply online and use the code ECCU4 to get the great rates (and get me credit for cool prizes).

EVERYTHING can be done online and you can easily (and FREEly) transfer money to and from ECCU to another bank as needed.

No excuses.  Go now. 

And for any of you with large sums of money – have no fear.  ECCU is federally insured.

Chubby Babies

I don’t know if you know this, but my kids are skinny.  Like crazy tiny.  They were always that way.  They were born tiny and stayed tiny.  Which sort of sucked because who doesn’t love a nice chubby baby.  There is something awesome about squeezing those chubby little legs and kissing those chubby little cheeks.

So I’ve had to go elsewhere to get my chubby baby fix.  Luckily, I had some friends that had gorgeously chubby babies that they let me love on (and they have a new one on the way!!)

All of this to say it was no surprise that Ann Ann was born a tiny baby.  That’s what my body does, it grows tiny babies.

So you’ll imagine my shock to see her and find she is in fact a CHUBBY BABY!  She has huge kissable cheeks and lots of cushion.  Sadly, because I am sick I didn’t get to hold her ::insert 2 year old type tantrum here::

Between head lice (yeah…another story for later) and colds we had to cancel a dinner with them and my WHOLE family.  Super bummed.

Even more so because they are leaving on Wednesday back to China.  An for being pretty un-emotional through this whole process I suddenly find myself quite emotional.

Not the type of emotional that you may think.  I’m not suddenly having attachment problems.  I am just suddenly realizing part of my family is moving half way around the world.

This little girl and her mommy and daddy are part of my family now.  In this amazingly unique way, and in 5 days the will be on a plane heading to China.  That is weighing on me more than I thought it would. 

LUCKILY, the new surrogate they hired got her positive pregnancy test this week so they’ll be back in next year for the delivery of the new baby.  Yay!

For now, enjoy these pictures of my chub-elicious Asian baby.