Kristen's Little House of Horrors

AKA: What this Feels Like

In honor of upcoming Halloween, and since I am constantly asked what my Trigeminal Neuralgia feels like, I thought I'd give everyone a fun little scare and welcome you to my own personal horror and let you into my virtual head where you can experience it all firsthand and then leave without ever experiencing it again! Lucky you! Come in, come in! I won't bite! ahahahah.

 Enter at Your Own Risk!

All Effects Are Magical and Temporary or your money back - Guaranteed!

(Now please sign this consent form that you will hold none of us liable for any and all lingering effects and or terror that may be a result of this experience. Thank you. You may now continue.)

Please enter one at a time, watch your step, that's it, leave your personal belongings at the door thank you. Yes, you are now finally entering the Kristen's Little House of Horrors.

 This is a bare cold semi-lit warehouse room like a scene out of The Walking Dead. A single chair, much like a dentist's chair is in the middle of the room, with a metal tray next to it filled with odd contraptions and needles and sharp pain inflicting devices. The legs, arms, and headrest of the chair have straps. There is a single light bulb hanging on a string down above the chair.

Please, sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Or as comfortable as you can.
You sit.
Your arms are tied down. Your legs are tied down. Your forehead is strapped to the headrest.

This is merely for your own safety and for the safety of those around you.

ok. I now need your verbal consent that you are ready to proceed. yes? would you like to muffle your screams, yes or no? no? ok then.

- We will first tape this electrical impulse wire straight across your cheek which will direct a steady ache deep in your cheek bone. There.

- Now, we are going to inject another one deep into your ear to cause a terrible constant ear ache.

- Just a second while we set up the needle darts to periodically shoot into your ear drum. There... we... go.

 - And then, hmm... this one's tricky... this is a metal clamp with sharp teeth that will randomly clamp the outside of your ear.

Alright.
- Now, we're going to take this tiny needle and slide it up in between the skin and the bone right here on the side of your nose. Yes, feel free to moan, groan, or scream if you feel the need. That's no problem at all. Go right ahead.

 - And we will insert another needle up here along your eyebrow.

- And put one right going right across lower eyelid.

- And then here we're going to put another randomly clamping metal clamp on your upper eyelid. Ah, perfect.

- And these eyedrops will make it feel like your eyeball is going to explode. Very good.

- Now that we have those in place, we will now have these hypodermic needles randomly timed to be stabbed in your face, right there across your cheek, in the roof of your mouth, in your upper lip, in your lower jaw, in your temple and in your jaw joint.

- ok, and now open your mouth please and say ahhh? no just kidding no need to say ahhh... we will now be performing root canals on each and every tooth on half of your mouth .... without anesthetic.  Yes I'll just slide this in to keep your mouth open.  Please stop screaming now, thank you. Remember there won't be any lasting effects from this, it is purely magical and just for fun.  Isn't this fun?!?!?

Yessssssss...... drills please................. there, that isn't so bad, is it?!?!?!?  is it??????

ok, just one more thing.
- Here is some unflavored pop rocks candy I'm just going to place on your tongue right here.... to let sizzle and pop a little bit.  There.

- And then oh I forgot, one more electrical current on your cheek to make a little buzzing now and then.

- oh and we'll occasionally hit you on the side of the head with a hammer too just for fun - watch out for that

Most of these are completely randomized (except for the constant aching currents). You may feel all of them, several all at once, or none, in completely random patterns, lasting for several minutes or seconds, over and over again, or not at all while you are here. Good luck to you.

And now that you are all hooked up and feeling the pain of trigeminal neuralgia, the real fun begins:

You can now choose between several specialized torture chambers to complete and personalize your horror experience or we can randomly choose for you between the following options OR you can cycle through them all for the optimal House of Horror PAIN Experience:

1. The Helping-Grumpy-Kids-With-Homework Torture Chamber

2. The Fighting-Whining-Children Torture Chamber

3. The Going-Over-Finances Torture Chamber

4. The Going-Shopping Torture Chamber

5. The Driving-with-Kids Torture Chamber (optional Driving-in-Traffic add-on)

6. The Trying-To-Think-About-Anything Torture Chamber

ok, you'd like to cycle through each of the torture chambers? Excellent choice, that will give you the optimal House of Horror Pain Experience. Your torture chair is equipped with automatic wheels that will take you through each of the chambers and then bring you back to the entrance where an assistant will disconnect you from the device and magically erase all of the painful effects and you can then collect your personal belongings and go about your day.

Thank you for visiting Kristen's House of Horror's! We hope you enjoyed your visit! Be grateful that you can leave this experience behind and hopefully never ever come back again. And we hope you have also gained some insight and understanding.

Happy Halloween!

Teal for Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness

Yay for TN awareness day! My sweet daughter really wanted to support me by wearing teal and my husband willingly wore the button I bought for him.:) I tied ribbons on our trees and wore my TN super hero shirt, even though I didn't really leave the house.

Also, through the miracle of the internet and one of the support group pages on facebook, I was able to connect with another trigeminal neuralgia sufferer who lives just one city over from me! I'm not alone! Hallelujah!! She decided to have an honorary dinner of soft foods for TN day (since chewing often causes pain for those with TN) and she invited me over to join her and her family. So nice!  It was so great to meet her and talk to her for awhile. She is trying a new experimental physical therapy treatment here developed for TMJ disorder and is having some success so I'm excited to see how that turns out for her.  Her TN is complicated by also having lifelong narcolepsy so she can't take the typical medications that I've been trying. It was very interesting comparing symptoms and what we've been through. So many similarities and differences.  Everything is so individual. Trigeminal Neuralgia is a beast that likes to take your little brain and just storm through and hack away at it - but everyone gets it hacked at differently. Ugh.

And we all describe our pain and live through our pain the best we can and try to do the best we can and we can't really compare ourselves one to another.  It's hard not to. I really struggle with that. I know my pain is not as bad as some and then I still can't figure out why I can't handle it as well as some other people seem to be able to. But then I really don't know how bad their pain is. Perhaps we are just talking about it differently. Perhaps our medications are just affecting us differently. Perhaps my other conditions are affecting me in a way I am not giving myself credit for. Perhaps I should be more patient with myself. Perhaps. I really don't know. I can only do what I can, I guess. And try not to compare in any way. I'm just doing the best I can. Oh, Please don't judge me... and I will try my hardest not to judge myself.

Happy International Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day!~

Today marks the first ever International Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day and so of course I have to bring this to your awareness!  This has come to pass through the hard work of a group I have come to admire on facebook, a small group who has called themselves the TN awareness fighters who themselves suffer from the condition. They have spent countless hours over the last months in this past year organizing and emailing, writing letters, making calls and whatever else they can to bring this awareness day into reality. They have sent a petition to the World Health Organization with over 10,000 signatures asking that Trigeminal Neuralgia be added to the list of new considered Health Topics which means it will be considered for funding and research with the WHO organization. For the awareness day, we now have an awareness color and ribbon and will have buildings and towers and fountains lit up in Teal for awareness. And they've designed photos to use for facebook backgrounds, t-shirts on zazzle.com, posters, mugs, buttons, (with profits being donated to the Facial Pain Research Organization). It's amazing!

So why do we need an awareness day for Trigeminal Neuralgia? You already know about my daily pain... the constant aching in my cheek, teeth, ear... sometimes eye, jaw, nose, lip etc. The stabs and jabs, buzzing, stinging, pinching. It's 24/7 for me, with some days worse than others. Sometimes I function better than others. Sometimes I just can't think, when my eyeball feels like it's going to explode for instance. Other times I am doing ok. But anyway - I feel like I've explained my pain in other posts. You know a lot about it already. And I'll do an update another time (things are basically the same, somewhat worse actually).



 But let me just share two stories I heard just the other night to illustrate why I think awareness is really important.  One was about a person, a grown son of a TN sufferer went to the Dr and saw a nurse practitioner and was telling her about his mother with trigeminal neuralgia and the upcoming awareness day. The NP told him she had never heard of that. Never heard of it. So he explained the symptoms to her. She said she thought that sounded like something someone had made up to get on disability.  Made up?! Ok.

Then, the same night another TN sufferer vented that she was working at her job as an ER nurse and told them about the awareness day coming up on Monday.  These nurses proceeded to make fun of the TN awareness day and the people who come in with the pain of Trigeminal Neuralgia into the emergency room seeking relief. They were making fun of people in excruciating pain. They were laughing about it.  They obviously had not idea what it was really like. They didn't get it. How can people like that even work in a profession where they claim to help heal people?! It's mind boggling.

This is why we need more awareness.  We need more nurses of all kinds to know what it is and to take it seriously. We need Drs who know how to treat it.  We need better treatments that actually work.  We need research. We need people to be aware and to be compassionate. Please just be compassionate. And someday, please, we need a cure.

I can't live everyday of my life in pain.
No one should have to live like this.
And I talk to people and I read these stories and I know my suffering is considered a milder case of this condition, on the milder side at least, which just seems almost laughable considering what I go through at times. It's hard to even comprehend. This pain is no joke.

Please do whatever you can to spread awareness.
Wear some teal and tell someone why.
Tell someone you know about Trigeminal Neuralgia.
Change your facebook profile to a TN photo.
Share a TN photo or infographic.
Look up Trigeminal Neuralgia (classic and atypical) and become more educated.
Be extra compassionate towards someone today.
(bring me cookies?  - kidding.)

You never know what effect you might have.

Thank you.
(and thank you to all of you who have already done any of the above to show your support to me and others who are suffering from this. I can't even really express how much it means to me. Really, thank you so much.)


Check out these links for more info or google search. I regret that I can't link to all the really moving personal stories that have been published in relation to the awareness day. It's amazing:

www.tnawarenessday.com
www.tnnme.com
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/07/health/trigeminal-neuralgia-awareness-irpt/index.html

Back to School Updates (and all that stuff)

Well summer came to an end as it always does and I think the kids were mostly excited, as was I. You know I love my kids fiercely. But I am a mom who just needs a house with a time of peace and quiet - especially given the conditions that life has given me.  This is our reality.  Anyway. We celebrated back to school with our traditional night of ice cream sundaes! Wohoo!

 

Isaac was starting middle school and we survived back to school night, showing him where all his classes would be and getting his locker open etc (he was very anxious about all the changes of course).

Abigail would also be at the middle school with him (more on that later). The middle school here is grades 7-9, even though 9th grade is technically high school and is on your high school transcript, which I find very bizarre but I'm trying to just let it roll off my back. Whatever! They were going to a brand new built school out here, which Abigail found weird (she went to a different school for 2 years prior) - it didn't have any of the landscaping in or signs or anything when we went to back to school night.

 

That means the younger 2 were at the elementary charter school by themselves. Elisabeth would be in 2nd grade and Samuel would be in 3rd.  So here's a little update on each of them with the back to school pics (if you are new to my blog, just a note: I don't use the kids' real names on the blog. I also don't use our last name. I know it's weird. Just what we decided to do. So they are, in order of age, oldest to youngest: Abigail, Isaac, Samuel & Elisabeth. But I do use my name and Zac's. Totally weird. Oh well. That's just how it is.;) ok.):

Elisabeth was very excited about started 2nd grade. She is still taking gymnastics and recently tested into Level 2. She is strong! She is climbing all the walls in the house (like the hallways and doorways) and can hang from just her arms. Silly monkey. She and Samuel play together a lot and that makes me happy (except when they also fight together a lot).  She can still be rather difficult at times (her stubborn streak is still strong as ever) but we're trying to work on it. But overall she is sweet and just loves to play and swim and climb and do cartwheels and give hugs.

Samuel started 3rd grade and he was much more excited than I thought he would be! He is usually a little timid and anxious but not so much this year, which is really great to see. He has jumped right in with getting his homework done too which is wonderful (well except for his reading, which he hates). And he fights me about taking his shower, which he also hates. We are trying to find an activity he can excel in (and that we can afford) because we'd really like for him to have a talent or hobby that he can do really well in and feel confident in. He doesn't really like to do much of anything except video games right now. Hmm. So that's something we're thinking about. He and Elisabeth decided to do an afterschool drama club that meets twice a month, which shocked me. My shy anxious boy with speech issues wants to do drama club of his own free will and choice?!? Ummm, okkkk.  We'll see how it goes.  Anyway, his teacher seems really sweet and I'm hoping this will be a good year for him.  They also do a class play this year which they've already talked about, so maybe that's why he's thinking about drama club. Not really sure. Hmm.

Isaac was pretty nervous about going to middle school but by the second day he was talking about how fun it was and how it was like a game, switching classes and getting to go different places to class and everything, so that was good.  Then we found out he had been enrolled in the wrong classes.  He had tested into an advanced learning program but they hadn't enrolled him into the classes for it, so we had to switch around some classes towards the end of the first week.  That was sort of stressful for me and him getting that figured out. But it worked out and his best friend was in the program classes with him so that helped relieve some of the anxiety about changing his classes for him. Phew!  He's not taking piano lessons anymore but is learning bass in orchestra now so that's good. He's also got some fun technology classes he's excited about. He is so responsible and hardworking and independent.  And he's getting so tall!!  haha.  It's sort of amazing seeing him around the house.  It's like, where did this tall boy come from??  And how did he become so good...?  One day he just said, "I'm going to do everyone else's chores and clean the whole house."  And he did!

 

 Abigail was starting 9th grade - technically high school!!! (but still middle school here - lol) She actually had the opportunity to make a decision between going to this middle school and attending a performing arts charter school in salt lake.... And this turned into a very difficult decision for her and for us. I think I'll write more about how that decision was made, and why ultimately we chose the local middle school, in another post, because it would just make this post way too long.  But Abigail is still writing lots of songs on the piano and sometimes experimenting with guitar chords, and singing. She has figured out some church hymns and has composed some of her own simple variations on them.  She is even accompanying the opening hymn singing for her seminary class today (starting in 9th grade they start taking a voluntary scripture study class for one class period, off campus). I think she's pretty brave for playing the piano for a hymn when she's never taken piano lessons before! I love hearing her play her songs. She is so incredibly talented. She is playing violin and viola in orchestra this year (hopefully trading off songs) and still taking private violin lessons.  She's also singing in our church choir now which is fun for her.  Amazing girl.

 And there you have it. A little update on them all. So, they all took off to school.... these four incredible kids.

 2 going to middle school together...



meeting their friends and walking off to the bus stop...

And that's how the first days of school went - 3 weeks ago. Yahoo!

(more on that hard school decision to come...)

Curious

Is there anyone still reading this who isn't on my Facebook or Instagram? 

As I consider my blog posts, I just wonder how redundant I am. So if anyone is out there who doesn't see my photos or my status updates, let me know! ;) 

Part of me would sort of like to collect it all into one place anyhow, for consistencies sake and all of that, but we all know how great I've been at blogging anyway lately.  So. I'm just curious. Going forward... 

Leave me a comment please! I really do want to know! Thanks. 

Fourteen: a "blogging-as-therapy" post

If you're a long-time reader of my blog, you may remember that I went through a stage when I was very self-conscious of who I was in my youth. I was kind of embarrassed by it, in a way I guess. I had issues with integrating who I was with who I am. Yeah, I just had issues.  We all have issues, right? It's no big deal. And I am mostly through with it. I've worked through it, partly through writing some great blog posts on here where you guys helped me come to terms with who I was and who I am and that it's all ok and no one really cares and it all works together to make me who I am and I can like who I am and like who I was, even though I may not like parts of who I was and still not like parts of who I am now and still want to become better even though I accept where I'm at and everything will all be ok.  It really will be ok. I don't judge you and you don't judge me and we try to create a safe space here on my blog where we all have our own stuff, right? Because we're all imperfect and we're all just doing the best we can. Ok.  So we're all clear on that.

So. But sometimes I still like to use my blog as therapy. Writing is a great therapeutic tool.

And so you see my daughter, my oldest daughter, my firstborn, this one that turned me into a mother . . . she turned 14 in May . . . 14?! How can this be? Yes. 14.  And this turned my head around and whipped my mind around in circles and kind of kept me up at night in reflective thinking, flashbacking to some kind of memories and aching and wondering how such silly old memories could still seem to hurt so much, remembering and wishing I didn't remember some things. Then wondering how she and I are so different and our experiences will be so different (of course, because we are different), but then how we might be the same, and how can I be her mother, how can I best help her through these years, and why were they so hard for me, why were they just so hard and what was I supposed to learn from them . 14 was a transformative year for me. A hard year in a lot of ways. Much of this was through my own dumb choices which I recognize, but which I was blind to at the time, I guess. Who knows. What do we really know at 14.
14. Ugh.

I turned 14 in the middle of 8th grade. I had already had 5 so-called "boyfriends" (eeeeek, please please remember that little clause about not judging too harshly). I'd had a boyfriend attempt suicide. A friend who had been raped. A few friends who used drugs (although I had never had it offered to me). And one of these so-called boyfriends who did clearly only want "one thing" - he asked for it as his Christmas present. Nice. I had my older sister call and break up with that one for me - because I was very clearly mature enough to handle this on my own. hahahahahahah.

 I also got mono at the end of 8th grade which meant I was very sick for what felt like forever. I ended up in the hospital  for 3 or 4 days with abscessed tonsils that had to be drained. Then towards the end of that summer when I was 14 I had to have my tonsils taken out, which was awful. So it felt like I was very sick that entire summer.

Anyway, I don't know how others would have described me at that time. I guess I was shy? Insecure? Self-conscious? That sounds pretty typical of a teenage girl, but I think maybe it went beyond that.

You see, I had a problem with talking.
Let me explain.

My first "boyfriend" was in 6th grade, but I've told my kids that we didn't even talk, so it hardly even really qualified as a relationship.  And that's no exaggeration.  I mean I did not exchange words with this poor boy, ever. I even called him one night (our one and only phone conversation) and we said hello and then sat on the phone listening to each other breathe for 20 minutes. I kid you not. I'd like to say we share equal blame for this, which I suppose must be true to some extent.  But I just don't really understand it.  Why didn't we say anything to each other?!? How did that even happen? I don't know. And then the thing is, this kind of thing kept happening throughout my relationships.  So I began to see that it must be me.

It was excruciating.

 I think all of my so-called boyfriends had given me lines at some point such as "you should talk more" "why don't you talk" "you're too quiet" "what are you thinking" (except for the boy who I never actually talked to).  These words would swarm around my head like bees and buzz so loudly I couldn't hear anything else until I couldn't even hear any of my own thoughts anymore and I would clam up even more than I had been before.  Teenage Kristen Rule #1: If you wanted me to talk, don't bring attention to the fact that I wasn't talking.  Some of the time, until they brought it up I wasn't even aware that I "wasn't talking".  It was just comfortable quietness or listening to them talk, or laughing, or whatever.  But then.  Once I was aware.  Then it always became awkward self-consciousness. Which I hated. Was I talking enough? What if I wasn't? What if I was too quiet? Was it not ok to be quiet?  Other times, usually when I was very emotional, I would have so many thoughts and feelings and something would happen where I would physically shut down and I could. not. talk.  I could not make words come out of my mouth.  It is very hard to explain - but it's almost like standing at the edge of a high diving board and just not being able to make yourself jump off. I would be frozen. Shut down. One of those things.  Anyway.  And it just kept happening.  So I knew it just wasn't one other person who felt like I didn't talk enough.  It was me.  As a 13 and 14 year old girl I felt very acutely that something was wrong with me.

Summer after 8th grade. 14.
My first church youth conference. I had a boyfriend who was going. This was a boyfriend who would take the phone and play basketball with it sometimes across the room sometimes when I wasn't "talking", just throwing it into the trash can over and over, and I would sit in silence.  I remember that. Why did I sit there? I don't know.  I can't remember if we had broken up officially at that point when we went to youth conference, maybe we had. Maybe we were kinda sorta getting back together.  I don't remember all the details.  We were riding in big charter buses to drive several hours to a college campus for the conference.  I sat next to him. He leaned his head on my shoulder and slept. I really liked him. I thought I did. I had a heart that liked too much too early and yearned to be liked - and I mistook all sorts of other things for being liked in return.  How could I have protected myself? This is what I ask myself. Maturity would have helped. Self-confidence... Why didn't I have any?  I don't know.

At any rate, as things went on at the youth conference my 14 year old self felt like I was being given very clear signals that this boy still liked me and we were very much still together.  There were unmistakable signs. Clear actions on his part.  At least the first night there were.  And then the next day there were various workshops to attend etc and I felt like he ignored me completely. We didn't go to workshops together like we could have. Or go eat meals together at the cafeteria. I didn't see him anywhere, although I tried.  He didn't try to see me. I felt discarded.  He didn't talk to me again for the next 2 days of the conference.

The last night of the 3 day conference there was a dance. I was tired of feeling so confused and sad and used.  I waited around at the dance for him to show. He did.  He didn't ask me to dance.  I gathered every bit of courage I had and asked him to come with me for a walk outside so we could talk.  Because we needed to talk . . . . didn't we?  Because I needed to know why he'd been ignoring me.  I needed to know where we stood.  I needed to know why he had acted (very clearly) that first night like he liked me if he really didn't.  Oh my poor little 14 year old heart.

So we walked down a sidewalk and sat down on a bench. I had words in my head that I wanted to say. So many words. Like a huge puzzle of words. I had to say them. I had to. They were exploding out of my head, but it felt so hard so hard to get it out of my mouth.  And we sat. We sat. The silence. The longer the silence built, the harder it became to say anything at all. What was wrong with me? What was my problem?!? He started picking flowers off of a nearby bush and dropping them on the ground and crushing them beneath his shoe.  I watched. Agonizing.  And we sat in silence. And I felt paralyzed. I wanted to speak. I wanted him to speak. I couldn't get any words to come out of my mouth. Nothing.  I felt like I couldn't even move. I don't know how long we sat there.  How long could it have been....?  Finally he said something like "well, if you're not going to talk, I'm going to go."
And he stood up and walked away.

I sat.

I looked at the crushed flowers on the sidewalk by my feet.

The next morning we boarded the buses to go back home. All of my friends, including this boy, somehow ended up on a different charter bus than me. I don't remember how that happened, as we had all been on the same bus when we had come.  As if I wasn't already feeling crushed and heartbroken enough (and also hating, hating myself), for some reason this added to it.  I sat in a seat by the window, overwhelmed by such overpowering feelings I could not even deal with it. It wasn't just the sadness, although there was that. It was the self-loathing - this not being able to believe what had happened, not wanting to accept this part of myself, this way that I was, this thing I did. Then the rejection. And feeling alone. And the happy noise of the bus all around me but not being a part of any of it. And it was too much.  It was too much for some part inside of me that just broke into pieces.  And it was then, on the way home from youth conference on that bus, there in that window seat, sure that no one was paying attention to me (and they weren't), that I first self-harmed. I won't go into details because you really don't need to know. But I feel like this was the age (if not before) when I began having depressive episodes.  This was definitely the beginning of one. I feel like they continued ever since although I didn't recognize it as such until much much later.

And I hope you don't feel like I am placing any blame on this particular boy or what he did, although rejection can certainly play into triggers for this kind of thing. My goodness, I can only have very vague and compassionate views of what goes on in any 14 year old boy's head. And certainly I am very forgiving of any poor boy who did his best to like/love me back in my teenage years. Sigh.

14.
And so, that was one of the defining turning points during the summer after my 8th grade year.  Along with having mono/being hospitalized with abscessed tonsils and then getting my tonsils taken out. It was just a bad summer.

My problems with talking, by the way, continued to plague me well throughout my dating years, even into my marriage, although Zac has been able to patiently work that out with me when I would shut down over the years.  It's been a hard long process even with him, which I am somewhat embarrassed to admit. But he never told me I didn't talk enough or that I was too quiet. So that is to his credit.

So, you may think I am making a bigger deal out of all of this than I should. I certainly don't see any point in comparing what should be a big deal and what shouldn't. And this is just my story, one part of my story - I can only tell my own and what it meant to me. I look at my sweet daughter, my 14 year old daughter, and I know she will have her own story to tell, which will not be like mine (in the time since I first started this post, she has gone to her first youth conference!!).  And I hope I will be able to help her navigate through her own. I hope she will not have to suffer in the same ways I did. I hope she will be confident and will be loved and love when she is more ready. (So far there has been no mention of any boys (fingers crossed).) But I also hope that there was some purpose to what I have gone through. That there is some reason for it all in helping me become who I am.

This is only one little story of me being 14.
It is hard sometimes to think about.
But it takes out some of the sting to tell it out loud.


(me second from left, a couple days before I was hospitalized with the abscessed tonsils. I got very sick very quickly. This is pictured with my siblings and visiting cousins)

"If I don't write to empty my mind,

I go mad."

- Lord Byron

`and last but certainly not least, the May Birthday Girl

Remember we had a bunch of Spring birthdays?  Yes? Yes. May brought the last of them, our first born, who became the last of the birthdays.;)

Abigail turned 14. This brought all sorts of strange nostalgia to my mind because 14 is big! The summer after 8th grade. I remember that summer.  I'm writing a blog post about it. Maybe I'll post it sometime. Maybe. If I ever finish it.

Anyway. Abigail is the sweetest 14 year old you will ever meet. And not much like I was at all I think.  Not that I wasn't sweet.  But, well nevermind.  (See? I can't help it. This 14 thing keeps coming back to me, I need to purge it or it will haunt me forever. wow.)

I decided to spoil Abigail on her birthday and take her out of school to Kneaders for lunch.  It was pretty fun for the two of us.:)

Then for her cake, she got 2 of her favorite treats: nutty bars and reece's peanut butter cups.  Turned out pretty cool, I must say, for not having any idea for sure what I was doing!

And she got some musical sheet music that she can play on the violin and a used ipod touch (just as Isaac did - except she uses it for her music and taking pictures and not for games).

Confetti!  :)

Another part of her birthday was having 2 of her best friends come over to work on making a music video for one of her songs that she has written.  They worked all day on planning, acting and recording snippets with the video camera, then Abigail put it to her song and edited it and pieced it all together.  It's really great.  We're still working on getting it to where we can post it to YouTube and get it on FaceBook where everyone can see it.  I'm so proud of her.  (This picture is of her friend doing her hair beforehand - or pretending to do her hair or something.  Silly girls.)  ;)   And a very appropriate T-shirt from my mom.

My beautiful girl.  She is so musically talented and creative and loving.  Love her so much.