Miracles and birthday parties.

       My two M's, Mark and McClane had a big week. Mark, after 7 long months, finally got his drivers license back! My chauffeuring days for the 18 year old are finally done! I know he was more excited about it then me, but barely! Let me just say though, bad choices don't come cheap, it cost a whopping $390 to have it reinstated. Before going to the DMV I encouraged Mark to maybe go over the drivers ed. book just in case he might be tested again. Well he did have to take a 25 question test but it was open book and as we were walking out he said, "You were right, I should have studied because I only got a 25 out of 25 and only had to use the book once to look up an answer." What a smart%$#!

Charlie at the DMV, she's tall but not quite tall enough to get her drivers license. 

     McClane and Charlie had fun at the Partyland store shopping for piñatas and driving the safari jeep.

     It was also the wolf walk for the kids elementary school and my neighbor was kind enough to go and take a photo of our two cute girls. The girls were talking on the way home about what 'place' they got and apparently Sarah was in 99th place and Charlie claims she was in 2nd place. Whether these placements are accurate or not is a mystery but neither seemed disappointed with their results.

The school finally put out a t-shirt I actually wouldn't mind wearing myself.

      McClane is two days away from his official 8th birthday but we decided to start celebrating a little early and had a friend party this afternoon. He was over the moon with the idea of having friends come and breaking open a piñata with them. As the party was wrapping up McClane said it was the best day ever, so we'll call the party a success. He still has a few things planned for his official birthday but for now we're going to share the highlights from the friend party.

8 balloons!

A line-up for the piñata fun.

McClane started off the penguin beating.

Brock got in a few good whacks.

McClane even let Charlie in on the fun.

Greg finally had to help distribute all the piñata goodies. (That penguin did not go down easy!)

This party got bigger then planned with about four extra kids from the neighborhood showing up.

Here are the official party guests.

8 candles in a cupcake does the trick.

Lots of cool gifts from some great friends.

    And as you may or may not know, Mark had until today to get his packets done and take some tests to finalize receiving his high school diploma. To say the stress of this has been overwhelming is an understatement. Well with crunch time upon him Mark stepped up and got it done just in the nick of time. To say I was relieved would also be an understatement. I shed a few tears of joy and relief and said a pray of gratitude. I had prayed that he would be able to take his tests and pass them on the first try, because taking them more then once was going to require some finagling and he told me he passed all the test with 70% or better the first time, truly a miracle and an answer to my prayers. I still plan on getting him in a cap and gown for a photo op in the near future even if he doesn't want to. Mark hasn't been making the best choices lately but I know he's still a good kid and has plenty of potential and I'm so glad these two big events (license reinstatement and high school diploma) are finally behind us!