13 - A Birthday Girl

I am a bit behind on my posts and I would like to get you all caught up with where we are at, but it may take me some time to do so.

First things first though. On December 1st, our sweet, sweet Sarah turned 13. 13! I cannot believe that I officially have 3 teenagers in my home. I knew this day would come, but the fact that it is actually here is just proof that time stops for no one or no thing - even when we sometimes wish it would.

We like all birthdays in our home to be special, but 13 is a big deal so it had to be planned just right. And it was. When asked at the end of the evening to rate her birthday on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being terrible and 10 being perfect Sarah said her birthday was a 9.

One of Sarah's wishes for a while has been that all of the kids wear blindfolds for a set amount of time so that they would know what it is like to live a day in her shoes. Bob and I made this wish come true as we planned and implemented what we called the Blind Olympics. There were 4 activities planned out : 3 individual, 1 in pairs, and one group event. All of them had the 3 sighted children wearing blindfolds. Sarah, for obvious reasons, did not need to wear one. After that we surprised Sarah and took her down to the ranch to hang out with Hannah, the owner of the horse therapy place she goes to weekly. Hannah is Sarah's most favorite person right now and we knew she would love to spend time with her outside of her normal therapy time. We then took Sarah to a popular restaurant here in town that has a sister location in Cleveland called Fatheads Brewery. This is Sarah's favorite restaurant. Finally, we came back to the house where we played family games, sang Happy Birthday to our beloved girl, and ate ice cream cake.

Every year Bob makes a shirt for the girls on their birthday's. This one reads "Today is my 13th birthday". 

Elizabeth, ever the thoughtful heart, wanted Sarah to have something tactile she could use for her birthday. She made this sign out of Legos. 

Andy wanted to get Sarah something that reminded her of Sammy. We  called Sammy our little lion because the hair around his face and chest was like a lion's mane. Thus the lion as a gift. Can you guess what Sarah named him?

Reading her birthday shirt. 

Reading Josh's card to her. 

My goof balls. I have no idea what they were doing...

Getting ready for the blind Olympics to begin. 

The 1st Annual Gregg Blind Olympics:

1st challenge: Get dressed and race back downstairs.
2nd challenge: Put an unboiled egg on a spoon and race across the floor without it dropping. Fastest time wins.
3rd challenge: Guess how many candies were in a bag. 10 seconds to feel bag. Closest to actual number won.
4th challenge: Make lemonade and serve it in a glass to Bob and I. Best tasting won.
5th challenge: Go to the mail box, get the mail, and bring it back to the house.

Racing upstairs.

Realizing that layers was a bad idea. 

Rushing back downstairs with clothes inside out - realizing how hard it is to get dressed property without vision. 

Getting ready for the pairs challenge. Andy and Elizabeth were teamed up and Josh and Sarah were teamed up. 

Making sure no seeds get into the lemonade.

Trying to clean up their mess and throw away their lemon peels. 

Josh and Sarah had the advantage during this challenge and decided to show off by putting ice in their cups when they served it to Bob and I. Elizabeth and Andy were just lucky they got their lemonade into the cup never mind fancy things like ice and such. 

The boys are laughing in these two pictures because I am howling hysterically behind them because some guy was watching the kids during this challenge and was looking at all of us like we were crazy.

On their way back to the house. 

Josh was leading the group back for part of the way and ran into a trash can. 

Josh had it. 

Flowers from Aunt Emily and family...