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Before jumping into the fun stuff about the dinner party, I didn’t do a post last week. Or the week before. The reason I didn’t write was because I didn’t know what to write- or how to write about it.

My older brother Jake had a birthday. I haven’t spoken to him in 2 years. It is embarrassing to talk about. Some things in life are- embarrassing, sad, broken. The details of how this came about are not worth going into here, but my phone number is blocked, which means I cannot call him or his wife to wish him a happy birthday.

The biggest shame is that it has been allowed to go on for this long. Surely someone, somewhere could have spoken into his life over the past two years and said something to the effect of, “Hey, I know things aren’t great, but he is your brother, and you should give him the benefit of a doubt. Cutting him out of your life isn’t the right thing to do.”

There is a lot more to say about it, but I love and respect him, and do wish Jake a happy birthday.

Party Time

Taylor and I work pretty great as a team. We learned this early on in our marriage, and have recently gotten out of the habit of collaborating for parties after 10 years of having Children and living through a global pandemic. So we thought this might be a great time to have a party. What were we celebrating? Nothing at all.

Taylor has to have something to look forward to. I think we all do- whether it’s a vacation, party, time off of work, etc. Since there haven’t been any weddings in a while out of our friend group, and our group is almost done having kids (are we, Cores?), what fun reasons are there to get together and celebrate? Nothing much, but let’s have a party anyways!

Taylor took the Friday off of work, the grandparents had the kids, and Taylor spent THE DAY cleaning. How this was relaxing, I have no idea. But, Tay the house looked beautiful. You could hardly even tell that children lived there.

She asked that people dress “funky formal”, which was part of the fun. Bowties? I have never worn one before. Funky Formal? Definitely gonna wear a bow tie.

Dinner was catered- kinda. There is a great local place with some tasty, but not too pricey, food. They cater many events, but also have options for a take-and-bake kind of thing. Along with a fancy dessert. And charades. Then, fireworks that I brought home from South Carolina. Mortars that shoot up into the sky are a lot louder than I remember them being.

Something New.

We have 2 cars. One is 15 years old. The other is 13 years old. They are paid for. My role in the household is to keep the cars running- change the oil, tires, lights, inspections, and ensure there are no “check engine” lights in the car.

I go to the car shop every other month. The cars are running mostly pretty great- but I am sick of it. Going to our mostly awesome car repair guy, and taking a few hours, every other month for ONE of the two cars, I kinda reached the end of my patience. To argue the other side, at least all of the recent maintenance things have been fairly inexpensive recently.

We knew we needed a new car. Taylor wanted a minivan. I wanted the SUV. Neither of us have ever had a new car before (3 years old, anyways). I was motivated because I tend to obsess over things. After many months and wayyyy too much time researching, we finally got out to a place that had the model of minivan, and SUV for us to test drive side by side and see what we like. We even had the kids, and made a unanimous decision: we all liked the SUV better.

So I knew what we liked, and made them an offer: $2k less than their asking price. THEY SAID NO. My children were there, and they still stuck with their guns. Really?

There was another model, almost the exact same. $1k less than their asking price; they still said no.

Some might say, surely you could have financed just a little bit more? Yes, we could have, but I wanted to pay for it, and stick with an exact figure that Taylor and I agreed upon.

The THIRD option was 90 minutes away, in Raleigh. So, I asked my mom if she had anything to do that Friday afternoon, she said no, so we went to Raleigh.

This is the last pic of the Camry. We had it 9 years, added 80k miles, and it only depreciated about $5500. I guess its true what they say: Toyotas really hold their value

Originally I was hoping to sell it myself and get a few thousand more than the dealer would offer, but the last time I sold a car myself- maybe 5 years ago- it was hard to navigate around all the scammers out there, and seemed like a hassle. And the dealership made a better offer than I was expecting.

A nice guy named Jermaine helped us out. We had been in touch the day before. The car was a trade-in, and had just come in the day before that.

He saw what I was reading, and we ended up talking about Jesus for a bit; Jermaine helps to pastor a few churches in the area.

We are pretty happy with it. Coming from a car that is 15 years old, it feels like I am just coming out of the Stone Age: the bells and whistles on cars are pretty amazing. This is a 2021 model, but feels pretty darn new to me. Some of these things have been normal on cars for a LONG time.

Other fun things

These are just some other fun pics from the past couple weeks, with no context.

This is a post about everything. This is a post about nothing. It is hard to say really- things move FAST during December.

Rosie had a birthday. Its true. Every year, right after thanksgiving, and Taylor does an awesome job planning everything. And then December starts getting busy, and we are tired after doing all the things for Rosies birthday.

BUT the birthday was fun.

Cmon, doesn’t that look like fun? It was an 80s themed party at the skating rink. In case you were wondering what the skating rink is like these days- the answer is, the exact same. Nothing has changed in the world of skating rinks in the past 30 years. It even smelled the same, whatever that might mean.

Who is the weird person posing with these children? That’s me:

In fact, the week after the party, I volunteered at Rosies school for the December teacher luncheon, and a few children came up and confirmed my new nickname: 80s dad.

Rosie crushed it. Everyone had fun. Its amazon how these kids show up and only a few of them can skate; two hours later, everyone is making it around the rink having a blast.

The leaves are finished. This is a big deal. We have an insane amount of leaves from 3 oak trees, a cypress tree, a dogwood tree, a Japanese maple, a few other things, and leaves from the neighbors yards. Anyways, Rosie made a fun video to share:

I don’t know how many bags were the grand total, but I went out with a bang. Pictures never do this kind of thing justice, but as a manly dad, I am fulfilling my manly dad duties:

The Registers had a fun night out. We painted the town red. and white. And green. And purple.

ANd by town, I mean one specific, child-friendly and winter-themed location. The winter wonderlights were a lot of fun.

Also, in the spirit of Christmas, Mercy’s class sends home Mary and Joseph to each kid’s home leading up to Christmas. Mercy, who is new to the whole “smile for a picture” thing, was having a blast playing and smiling, until I asked her to smile for a picture:

She did smile at the idea of giving the holy chosen couple a few potato chips though:

This weekend Mercy was invited to a party as well. Rosie’s social life is more dominant than most anyone I know, but Mercy’s reaction when we told her she was going to a party for a kid in her class was precious: “My friends my friends m friends!” she said in glee. It was a “glitter magic sparkle princess party.” And Taylor was out of town. So I went. 7 out of 10.

BUT, the face paint lady was amazing.

Running of the balls? Well, I needed something that started with “R”. We didn’t really run the balls this year. We did crash a party where Rosie knew someone. And as soon as we got there, mercy fell DEEP into a puddle of mud, and got chunky mud all over her shoes. We make a great first impression.

The end of the party was to walk around the neighborhood and see the balls. Pictures at night aren’t the best, but the event is amazing. and here it is in the local news: Running of the balls

Finally, last weekend I got to attend the “Be Great Foundation” gala. It is a local non profit that teaches IT skills to people that might not otherwise get exposed to it. Here is the link if you want to learn more: https://thebegreatfoundation.org

It is an awesome event, and these two kids are being recognized for helping to create an app that can help out their peers who are struggling with food issues at home. The app connects restaurants, volunteer delivery drivers, and families, to ensure that anyone can request a meal, anonymously, if needed. The picture isn’t great, but it was inspiring to hear of these great things happening in Greensboro.

Also, since you made it to the bottom of this post, you must not be a in a rush to do something else, so here are a few more pictures from the past couple weeks that were hard to place above:

When Rosie came home from dance on Tuesday, she put her book bag down, and walked right past me. Instead of stopping to share how her day was, she sat on the ground beside Mercy, and Rosie asked Mercy how her day was. These kinds of things happen all the time.

This post is to highlight the special relationship between Mercy and Rosie.

This picture is not very recent, but Rosie loves spending time with Mercy. Mercy gets a bath about every other day. Yes, we do miss a bath every now and then, but we aim to not have Mercy be the stinky kid in class. When we start talking about putting her in the bath, Rosie will come in at the last minute and say “I want to take a bath with Mercy.” Rosie is too big to bathe with her now, but I don’t want to be the one to tell her she is too big. They just chit-chat in the bath: Rosie was asking Mercy what she was going to do when her friend came over this weekend. Rosie is just so kind the way she asks, treating her much younger sister as an equal.

Any one of these baths could be their last one together, but they are special moments that will be gone soon.

This past Saturday, Mercy was the first one up (per usual). She runs out, so excited that the automated light (to tell her when to come out of her room in the morning) turned green. Her first words for the day? “I want to sit here and watch a show and wait for sissy.”

When they are getting ready for school in the morning, Rosie pops out of bed and by the time she is eating her bowl of fruit loops, she has 1,000 things to say. So much so, that often the cereal gets soggy and she has to rush out the door. However, during that moment of talking a million miles an hour to Taylor about what happened on the playground yesterday, Mercy will pipe up and just talk jibber jabber (seriously, words and phrases that don’t make sense). I am guess it is because she wants to be like sissy and share about her day, but can’t get a word in edgewise, so she will just add to the noise in the house in the meantime.

Rosies school is closer to our house than Mercy’s daycare. I like to mix it up on the days I pick them up: sometimes get Mercy first, sometimes get Rosie first. And sometimes, not all the time, Mercy will want Rosie to sit next to her. Meaning, unbuckle yourself, and instead of sitting in the back seat near the window, sit in the middle seat. And hold my hand while you are at it (I am paraphrasing for Mercy on this one). So, I look in my rearview mirror, and will just see them, sitting in silence, holding hands in the backseat.

Hugs. It is hard to say who is the bigger “hugger” of the two. But often it will play out like this: Rosie will try and hug Mercy, and Mercy will be grumpy and ignore her or push her away (It is a game to her, Mercy loves the attention). Then, Rosie is old enough to pretend to be sad, and Mercy will then jump onto Rosie with open arms. OR, Mercy will go in for a hug, and Rosie will be busy watching one of her tween shows or doing some beads on a bracelet, and just ignore Mercy while she is trying to give her a hug.

Usually this plays out at night time. Mercy will give everyone a hug before bed. Sometimes she will insist on going out into the living room and hugging everyone a couple of times. Or, right when she is settled in bed, Mercy will say “I want to give sissy one more hug.” My impulse to be strict, but my heart melts: I can’t say no to that request. So my “no” turns into a “Absolutely. You go out there and give that sister a hug.” These moments will be gone soon.

Taylors mom says that when they stay at her house, Mercy will cuddle up close to Rosie on the couch, “like she is a security blanket.” Zippy went on to say that “Rosie makes Mercy feel safe.”

Rosie is into her outfits. Always has been (something she gets from Taylor’s side of the family- the fashionable side). So, she wants to share that joy with Mercy too by dressing the same. Rosie gets so, so excited about. It wasn’t until the past couple of months that Mercy would even smile for a picture, but somehow Rosie can bring that joy out of her.

Whatever Mercy is into, whether it is at the children’s museum, playground, or taking a picture, Rosie will come along side and join her right where she is without time to blink. She won’t let mercy have a good time alone. Rosie wants to be there for every second of it.

The bottom left picture is from last Christmas, when Mercy got a play house. Mercy wasn’t sure about it, but Rosie wanted to make sure that her sister saw how cool this playhouse (That Rosie was far too big for), was an exciting gift.

Or the happy meal toys in the picture in the upper right. Mercy probably wouldn’t care about the thing. But Rosie wanted to make sure Mercy knew how to get all of the joy and happiness out of the twenty-five cent piece of plastic.

The picture on the bottom right is the same thing: from the children’s museum, Mercy wasn’t too keen on some of the things there, but Rosie was going to prove that it was fun. And Rosie doesn’t need prompting on this. Rosie has always done this.

Rosie is not, for one second, gonna let the age difference stop her from trying to bond with Mercy.

I don’t know if all sisters are like this. I like to think it is because it took us a long time to have Mercy. During that time, Rosie was old enough, and prayed nightly for a baby sister, so Rosie’s heart was just wired a little different to even meet her little sister. There was so much built up joy and expectation from day 1 that is still visible on a daily basis.

Ok now don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. They do scream. They don’t scream at each other. Mercy used to pull hair. Mercy will try and go in Rosies room when Rosie has a friend over. Ultimately, whatever Rosie has, Mercy will want the same. Mercy will take things of Rosies because she is too young to know better. Rosie will take them back to teach her a lesson. Rosie will call her sister “Annoying” sometimes. And often, as a family, we have to slow down to Mercy’s pace, which keeps Rosie from doing some of the things she wants to do. But for the most part, Rosie doesn’t seem to mind.

All of this will change over the next few years. But for today, I wanted to pause, and just think about all of these sweet little moments between them.

At night when Taylor and I put them to bed, something inside of me just says that this is the most important moment of the day. And we pray. Each night. Often times, the prayer includes “Please protect the special relationship between them, that they will always love each other.”

Things will always change, but for now they are really sweet. Looking up pictures for this post, there is a trend: Rosie is smiling, ear to ear, in almost all of them. Even the first couple weeks Mercy was alive, the smile has had the same energy.