Zoo with a friend

This post is very long overdue. Back in NOVEMBER, My dear friend Jessica met us at the zoo. Jess and I went to high school together, and now she lives a few hours away from me, so we met in the middle-ish. There are people in life that you know their faces when you see them, there are people in your life that you know their names, there are people that you know a little about, there people that you are friends with and love to be around, and then there are dear friends that just get you...no matter how long it has been since you have seen one another. I am so blessed to have so many dear friends that fit in the last category, and Jess is one of those friends! We saw each other a few years ago, and besides that, we hadn't seen each other since close after high school. She is such a sweet and caring girl, and we had a blast with her. Sometimes it is just nice to spend time with a friend who knows your history. She is precious and the girls had fun not only at the zoo, but at the zoo with Jess!
Petting zoos are great for A. If you have read this blog at all, you know that she loves frogs and all animals in general. Remember, this is the girl who is sad to see the dead bugs on cars in parking lots. She loves all animals, so she REALLY enjoyed the petting zoo. I think she probably talks to them, and them to her. I am more like S...you can see in this picture that she doesn't hate being in there, but there might be places she would rather be!

I love that she is so concerned for creatures...okay, maybe I don't always love the amount of concern for all creatures (I am refering to her trying to nurse dead animals back to life), but I do love the tender heart God has given her.

Friends!!!......My face is funny in this one....I'm pretty sure that I am telling the girl taking the picture how to take the picture. Not because they don't know how to use a camera, but because I am being too picky about the picture...I've got to work on that.

Mama and all her little piggies!!!

The penguins were really fun.

They really are amazing creatures.

Right before we went to the zoo, someone had told me that I am never in pictures and I needed to be, so I made a point of it for this trip.

LOVE this one!!! True mother-daughter communication here!

We took a picnic lunch and it was the perfect day for it!

Mama's little monkey!

I took the point and shoot with me to the zoo instead of trying to lug the big daddy camera around...that means the girls took more pictures.

Out of order...but this is the funniest looking, smiling goat at the petting zoo...maybe A just told him a good secret! And check out Autumn's profile shadow on the fence! Didn't realize I got that!

Yep....pretty much speaks for itself.

Best-worst

I have a terrible memory. As you know, the main reason I like to write down all of these stories and happenings of my life is so I can remember them. I mean, I really really have a bad memory. I don't mean to, I just do. It isn't that I just forget to do little things, or forget where I placed things, but I forget big events and happenings of my life!!! Autumn and Bethany, or my cousins, or friends that I grew up with will talk about different memories they have, and I always feel so lost and left out, because I have NO idea what they are talking about, and I really should, because I lived that memory too! This really bothers me about myself, so I have been trying to figure out why my memory is so bad. I really think part of the reason is that I am a live-in-the-moment-kind-of-girl. This can be a really good attribute. When it comes to holding grudges, I usually don't because seriously, I forget why I might have once been mad about something....seriously. Now, that doesn't mean that I never hold a grudge, but generally, I don't. I live in the present time....soak up each moment...but then I think I forget to remember each moment! So I have been trying to start reflecting on my days and on different situations, and really try and ingrain them in my mind. I recently looked back at some of my firsts posts from this blog, and I remember most of the stories really well, but there were a couple that I just could not remember the ending! Good thing I wrote it down!
With all of this in mind...we have started playing a new game every evening when we eat dinner. We call it best/worst. We each get a turn to say the best thing that has happened in our day and the worst thing that has happened in our day. This is the best game, and now, the girls are excited to play it! The game has served a couple of purposes...it has helped us all reflect on our day and remember what has happened. We have been able to thank the Lord for the best things that have happened, and learn from or process the worst. We have all talked about things in our day that we normally wouldn't have brought up and it is very non-invasive and non-threatening way for the girls to talk about the not so good things in their lives. It has also helped us realize how we affect each other's days. When the best part of my day was when one of them said something or did something for me, it made them feel very good and important. Also, when the worst part of my day was dealing with some sort of bad behavior, it made them realize that I had feelings in it too, and that I really don't enjoy getting onto them!
So....try this very simple game with your family! I think you will like it!

Funny story

Sorry, I just couldn't think of a creative title. I do not know what made me think of this story, but I thought of it tonight, so I figured I should write it before I forget it. This happened a couple of years ago...our friends Bryan and Ann invited us over to eat lunch with them after church one Sunday. Their college girl daughter (also my friend) Emily was home with a bunch of her college friends for the weekend. The girls love Ann and Bryan and Emily, and they especially loved all the attention of all of the college girls. After lunch, the college girls left to go back to college, and we were sitting around the table visiting with Ann, Bryan, and Emily. Bryan found a card that the college friends left, so he opened it. Ann was a little curious.
Ann: What does it say? Read it out loud!
Bryan: Well....(he dramatically opened it and cleared his voice and continued to "read" in a booming voice)...Bryan is so wonderful (he said something like that....something he just made up)
Ann: Stop Bryan, it does NOT say that!
Bryan: Ok, let's try again...it says...(he made up something else silly)
Ann: Oh come on...it doesn't say that....what does it say? (we were all laughing at his silly jokes)

I think this continued another time or two when A leaned over to Ann, with her wide brown eyes as if she was cluing her in to something and A loudly whispered: Pwobly he can't read!

We CRACKED up! Obviously A did not get Bryan's silly jokes and thought the poor man just couldn't read the card and all we were doing was laughing at him!

Frog girl

You all know that A loves frogs. I don't know why they make her happy, but they do. Well, my friend from high school, Sarena apparently had collected frogs over the years, but when she moved, they ended up in a box. She couldn't really think of throwing them away, so she sent them to A!
She loves them! She was very excited and plays with them often. She gathers them all together and talks to them. I'm not really sure what she says to them... Her favorite is the orange frog with the huge yellow feet. She named that one Sarena the frog. It is pretty much the highest honor coming from A to have a frog named after you, so congratulations Sarena! I don't think I'll ever get one named after me!

A gift from the Lord

This is going to be a long post...I have a feeling it is anyway, but I never really know until the words just come out. Also, the first part of this post is going to be a little griping, I mean venting, I mean therapy. But I am smiling as I am writing this griping, so maybe that makes it better. So if you would like to skip that part and get right to the blessing and gift from the Lord, then just skip to the pictures, but I really think you need to hear my griping to fully get the picture of how deeply touching this gift from our Heavenly Father is.

If you are the youngest child, especially the third child, then you can totally relate...right Stacy? (my step-sister and I have had many conversations about this subject). The simple words "baby books" kind of sets me off. Let me paint you a picture in your mind...Bethany was the first born. Would you like to know how much she weighed, when she crawled, what she liked to eat, what everyone thought of her, anything from her days as a baby? Well, then just look in her baby book! It is all there....filled with touching information and oohs and awws of what a wonderful baby she is. There are pictures of all of the fun things she did. There are pictures of the sweet baby girl with friends and family....all adoring this first born child! Her book is full. Not only is her baby book full of information, but there is a separate picture book full of baby pictures. She really was a sweet and adorable little thing.
Would you like to know all of those same details about Autumn, the second born? Well, you will find some of them in her baby book. You won't find near as many details, but you will find some. You will be able to know the basic gist of her growing up. There are very sweet pictures of Autumn in there. She was a cute little baby too. Big brown eyes, not a lot of hair. She was precious. You will also be able to find a ton of pictures of Bethany in there too! As if we didn't already know she was a precious little thing from her own book, we can also look in Autumn's book to find how sweet the older sister is. How precious!
Would you like to know about the third born child? Oh, yes, there is a third born child...you probably stopped reading by now, but HELLO.....I AM THE THIRD BORN CHILD!!! Yes, that is me, and if you would like to know anything about my first days, months and years of life, please don't look in my baby book....go ask my aunts, grandma, and dad (sometimes dad...you know how dads are with details). If you look in my baby book, it will tell you that my name is Trinity Joyce Tinsley, and it will tell you that my birthday is on August 29th! You may not realize how disturbing this is, because you may not realize that I have grown up thinking that my birthday is August 27th!!! I'm sure you can all just imagine my dramatic reaction when I realized this. I was pretty much devastated, and I was in high school! My mother had passed away, so I could not ask her about it, and everyone else just rolled their eyes or laughed at me when I asked through tears when my birthday really was. Oh, and if you would like to know what Bethany or Autumn looked like when I was a baby, look in MY baby book, because there are more pictures of them in my book than there are of me. I guess their books were just too full!
Well, and if that wasn't enough, we were at my grandma's house for a holiday I think one time, and someone found my grandma's charm bracelet. While admiring each charm with a cousin's name and birth date, one of the sisters or cousins pointed out to me that engraved on my charm was August 29th! Yes ladies and gentlemen....the WRONG birthday!!! I had come to an understanding that my poor mother was tired...I was born, and four days later her oldest turned 3...and there was one in between...yes, poor mom. I really can't imagine how she did it, and everyone tells us that she did it with a smile on her face and such grace. So I can understand how she would right Aug. 29th on my book, also knowing that Autumn's birthday is November 29th. But, she got the wrong date ENGRAVED on a bracelet! I cried. I did. My grandma finally convinced me that she remembered the day and it really was the 27th!
So through the years, I had become ok to the fact that my mom wrote my birthday wrong and didn't put much in the baby book and that I didn't have many pictures or a birth announcement! Really, I joke about it, but I really did understand.
So that brings me to the blessing from the Lord. In the 18 years that my mom has been gone, there has been several things happen that have been like a gift from God. Either some one has told me a memory of her I had not heard, or something of hers was found just at the right time....some of them were just little things, and some are big. I have cherished all of these gifts and praise the Lord for them. Well, my family came down to see the girls in the Christmas program at the beginning of December, and we had a great time. The kids did great in the musical, and we all sat down to eat together and visit some more. Towards the end of dinner, my aunt pulled out a picture and I paper and gave it to me. She said she was going through some of her old pictures from when she taught school, and she found these things and thought I would like it. The picture was from my parents' wedding, which I had seen before, but still appreciated. It took me a minute to realize what the paper was...it was my birth announcement! While I focused on the fact that my announcement was homemade, and Bethany and Autumn's announcement was printed and had pictures, Autumn pointed out to me how special mine was that mom had made it herself!
So here it is: it was one piece of paper that she made to look like an envelope. I crack up at this, because it kind of reminds me of something I would do.
I am choosing to not focus on the fact that they really wanted a boy, but instead got me, and I choose to focus on the fact that instead, they got a girl JOY!

Look! I weighed 7 lbs. and 3 oz.!! Look! I can see the lenght (haha! makes me laugh!) she meant length. I had red hair! This is so exciting!

And look at her "stamp"...it is Mr. Stork!

I LOVE to see her writing and her little drawings!

It's proof! August 27 at 3:18 p.m. Thank you LORD for this wonderful gift!!!

I really was so happy to receive this gift, but I did exaggerate a LITTLE bit on here of how bitter I am about the baby book....a LITTLE bit! I won't even get into the fact that there are very few pictures of me in any of the albums!!! That will be a whole different post!

Dinner Guests

Now...I totally realize that in writing the stories of our crazy lives, we are very likely to not be invited to dinner ever again. I get that, and my cousin Sarah kindly pointed that out too! (have to give you a hard time Sarah!) However, we will know that if we ever ARE invited to some one's house again for dinner and they read this blog, then they really do want us over because they have been officially warned what we are capable of! Of course I am saying all of this jokingly. I really do think we are really fun girls to be around, but I do admit that it is never dull around us, so you really never know what you will get....
My cousin's boyfriend came to Christmas at my aunt Jan's house and when he went home, his family asked him how it went....he simply replied, "Well the police were called and showed up." (or something like that)....He did go ahead and told them the whole story, but that was a pretty funny answer I think! Anyway....there I go rambling on and on again....back to the story Trinity....ok...
So we went to our aunt Deborah's for dinner. (this is aunt Jan's and my dad's sister) My cousin Sarah didn't make it on Christmas day, so we went for a couple of hours and visited and the girls got to play with the cousins. I have pictures to post later. The girls love playing with the cousins, and they all get along so well. They were all playing various things....everything going so smoothly. It was time to eat, so we got all of the kids' plates filled and got them all seated in the garden room, then we adults sat down at the dining room table. (Sometimes I still can't believe I actually get to sit at the adult table....I still think of myself at the kid table, but that is neither here nor there.) Soooo.....we began eating, and I got up once or twice, just to check to make sure nothing crazy was going on at the kids' table...all was well. I sat down and started eating my food when a bunch of the kids flooded the room while warning us that there was a food fight.
Are. You. Kidding. Me????
And I'm sure you could just guess which girl was not running in warning us......yep, that's cause she was in the room and the initiator of the food fight. I really just wanted to crawl under the table, but I figured that really wouldn't solve anything at all.
I walked into the garden room, not knowing what I would find, but luckily, all I found was a little piece of the tamale casserole on the table....thanks to the big girls and their great warnings, the food fight was very short lived and resulted only in a little water spilt and a little casserole on the table. MUCH better than I was expecting! Although, I will tell you that I have secretly always wanted to have a food fight...it really sounds like fun to me. Did you ever see the peter pan type movie called Hook? There was that scene where they had a food fight and all of that colorful food got everywhere....yeah....I think that would be TONS of fun. BUT, I am so very thankful that we did not duplicate that scene, but I do think it would be a lot of fun!

The Cutest Monkey EVER!!!

We finally got to go to Bethany and Jarrod's for Christmas...and that was on New year's day. We had such a good time, and the girls got a basketball goal! A REAL basketball goal. They thought it was a basketball goal that goes inside for babies when they first opened it, so they gave a rather unenthusiastic but polite response. It was later that they realized it is a REAL goal and they have been so excited about it! Can't wait to put it up! Autumn and I got fun gifts too, and nephew B had fun with Chuck the talking dumptruck that we got him. He is such a talker...he has talked since he was just a few months old really....only we can understand most of it now. He was always so funny becuase he would talk and know exactly what he was saying and expect you to know too....now we can. That is fun! His friends got him this sock monkey hat. Before I actually saw the hat, just heard about it from Bethany, I knew we had to get his picture, so we took about 20 or so minutes and got some great pics. H was the only one who wanted to go outside in the cold to watch the pics, so she was the only one in them.
B loves his cousins....or as he says...his girls. He really loves them...they have always catered to him, and the older he gets, the more they play together. They have a great connection!
I LOVE this one!!!!

This guy has so much to his personality....he is just SO much fun! Have I told you how much I love him????

I think he looks just like his momma in this one!