Birthdays, spelling bees, gotcha days and memorials

Well, I won't pretend that I haven't been a horrible blogger. So let's just get to the recap, shall we?

Birthdays:
Kev celebrated his birthday on Monday of this week. We had family stuff going on that day, so hopefully we can celebrate soon. Below is a tribute to Kevin written by one of his little sisters, Joyce. It's pretty funny. (I'm seeing some foretelling for Joshua I think!) I love you Kevin. It has been amazing to be your wife and partner for over 20 years.

Gotcha Day:
We celebrated Tori's Gotcha Day in January. Hard to believe we celebrated the fourth anniversary of her adoption! Wow, time flies. She is growing to be a funny, sweet and loving little girl. Her favs these days include school, soccer, princesses and our dog Lola.

Spelling Bee:
Yesterday Lizzie won the fourth grade spelling bee. Yay! I felt so bad that I haven't had the chance to work with her on her words the past couple of weeks, but evidently, she didn't need it. She rocked it yesterday! On to the county bee.

Memorials:
This one is harder to write. It is still so surreal. On Saturday, February 6th, my brother-in-law Paul (my sis Lori's husband) had a massive heart attack and died. He had been battling high blood pressure for about a year, but this was totally unexpected.

The last two weeks have been a blur. His memorial was a week ago today. Paul has been a part of our family for over 27 years. He was an incredible husband, daddy and uncle. From the moment my kids were born (or brought home) he started chanting "Uncle Paul, Uncle Paul" in an early effort to get them to say his name. His methods were very successful!

Paul, we miss you more than I can describe.


Joyce's tribute to Kev:
Kris and I call him our "little big brother" because we have another brother (Brad) who is the biggest of our big brothers. Anyway, Kevin is two years older than me and was a constant play-mate for me while we were growing up. Sometimes that was a good thing and sometimes not so good. :)

Kevin was and still is a character. Anything and everything turned into a fun time if he was around. The problem was, you just NEVER knew how things would turn out...sometimes good and sometimes not so good.

Like, climbing a tree might turn into him falling out from the very top or it might just end up with a tree full of kids and nobody gets hurt. A baseball game might turn into a broken nose (usually for him), or it might just turn out to be a fun way to pass the time.

An innocent game of "darts" might turn into a dart in Kris' arm, or it might just be another dart game on a hot afternoon in the Phillippines. Or, Mom cutting out a pattern to sew might turn into being stabbed in the arm with the scissors (Kevin again), or it might just turn out to be the beginning of a new dress. (Not for Kevin.)

Then there were the neighborhood water fights when all the parents were at work. They started out simply enough...one bucket of water at a time tossed across the street at each other, but soon enough, they'd turn into an all-out, three-lawn-hoses-hooked-together shooting match that sometimes ended up INSIDE the house!!!! See what I mean?????

I'm not necessarily saying he was accident prone, but if there was trouble to be had, you can bet he was in the middle of it! SO MUCH FUN! (lol).

In school, Kevin was a rock star. Every girl I ever knew would tell me how good-looking my brother was. Then there was the occasional teacher that would say to me, "oh...you're Kevin's sister." (What was THAT all about??) ;-) His nickname for me has always been "Poy" (I think that's the name of a tropical fruit...rather appropriate, don't you think?) :)

Now days, Kevin is the best husband (to Lisa) and father (to Lizzy, Tori, and Josh) that you could imagine. I'm sure my Mom and Dad are just WAITING for the day that "you just wait, young man...someday you're going to have kids JUST LIKE YOU!" actually starts to pay off.

If you ask me....that wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.