Happy 8th Birthday Alison!!!

Bright and early, we were up to open presents.

Daddy sent Alison a special engraved locket.  It was such a special gift and she kept it on all day long.

Eli made Alison a bracelet.  It was perhaps the sweetest thing ever...close up there with the engraved locket.  He came to me one afternoon asking for paper.  I told him he knew where the paper was and he said, "No momma, I need wrapping paper.  I need help wrapping this bracelet I made for Alison.  I had to make her something special for her birthday."  I almost melted into a big puddle of mush.  But then it got better.  When she opened it and asked him if he made it for her, she just very sweetly said, "Oh, thank you Eli.  I love it!"  Puddle of mush.

We got to FaceTime Ben, which is huge.  This is maybe the 4th time we've seen him in 2 months.  Most women get all pretty to see their deployed husbands, but Ben got the pleasure of seeing us in pj's with a big ole' look of exhaustion.

I didn't sleep much last night; the kids took turn getting up all night.  And here comes the sad part of the Alison's birthday story.  She woke up sick.

Yesterday, it was a really hot day, but the kids asked if we could go to the park after the Y.  I thought 10 minutes wouldn't be a big deal...lesson learned.  We were getting ready to head to the car and Alison turned white and said she didn't feel well and really dizzy.  I sat her down to round up the boys and she threw up.  This is the 3rd episode of overheating Alison's experienced and it's starting to worry me.  We spent the afternoon cooling off and resting and she seemed to perk up by evening, although she complained of feeling weak.  Early this morning, she came in my room crying.  She was so sad to not be feeling well on her birthday and then threw up again.  Happy birthday!

So we declared it movie day and spent the day like this:

We rented several Redbox movies and laid in bed eating popsicles.  My heart broke for her today.  A, because I knew it was too hot to go to the park, but gave in anyway.  B, because this little girl has had way too many disappointments lately.  BUT she has had a fantastic attitude about everything.  These were her birthday plans:

Plan A: Camping, roasting marshmallows, horseback riding, fishing

Plan B: Pool and Putt Putt party with Charissa, donuts for breakfast, pizza for lunch, bbq for dinner and pedicures in the afternoon

*Then rain was forecasted

Plan C: Bowling with Charissa and pedicures

*Then threw up

Plan D: Go to see Inside Out at the theater and eat toast

*Threw up again

Plan E: 3 Redbox movies, lots of popsicles and a bag of sunchips.

I promised her we will reschedule her party for when she is feeling all the way better (get ready for birthday week) and she was doing much better this afternoon.  Isn't it funny how you can tell kids are feeling better when they get their chattiness back?  I also booked her a doctors appointment for this week to make sure everything really is okay.

She had a very specific dinner planned: burgers (even picked out the meat herself), hotdogs, grilled pineapple and salad with ranch dressing (I don't normally buy ranch, so it was a treat for her).  She didn't feel up to meat or even a cake, but asked for bagels.  Perfect!  We made '8's for dinner and I picked up sushi for a more sophisticated '8'.

I hung up balloons in Alison's doorway last night, which was fun until the tornado hit.  Alison and I called Colin the tornado all day today because he wouldn't stop destroying everything in his path.  But that only made him shout, "Super Tornado!" and then would run through the house like superman.

As I'm blogging this, I have Gilmore Girls on and am reminiscing about all the nights I spent awake with this show on, with a newborn Alison who refused to sleep.  or eat.  or do anything that normal babies do.  I am so crazy thankful that she is 8 and I look forward to the day we can watch Gilmore Girls together (although she will probably think it's lame, but I'll make her watch anyway).  

Happy Birthday Alison Louise!