Sweet Bluebird and her News...

 The girl on the far left is my Sweet Bluebird.  She just turned 16.  (let me tell you, A- I am really not old enough to have a 16 year old and B- the whole driving thing is WAY TOO SCARY!  Be prepared...)
Yes, I scanned all 375 of her Facebook pictures and could not find even one pic of her alone.  Or one without her head glued to her friends, so I couldn't even crop.  So, you get to enjoy her friends also.  They are hilarious.  I love them all. 

I love creative kids, and was a little worried that my kiddos would grow out of the dress-up stage.

Guess I didn't have to worry about that one...  Her Facebook page is FILLED with her and her friends wearing pretty much everything but their normal, everyday, clothes.

Need I say more?  Incidentally, that is Mary and Joseph in our annual Christmas Eve re-enactment of the birth of Jesus.  (I think the above is what is called "artistic license.")  All the cousins are required to participate, even the big kids.  I think it's even more fun for them now than it was when they were little.  Those two are the oldest and claimed Mary and Joesph for forever.  They are lucky, they got to skip being the sheep, donkey, or shepherds.  Not that those aren't important to the story, but...

I call her my Sweet Bluebird because I don't think I  have ever met any adult who knows her and when they find out I am her mom, their first words are, "You're HER mom?  She is SOOOO sweet."  I take it as a compliment, rather than the other way, ie- how could YOU have such a sweet thing?  She truly is the sweetest.

This summer Sweet Bluebird went on an awesome missions trip with Reign Ministries.  She was gone for about two months, trekking all through western Europe.  Yes, she did go through 14 different countries, and it was an awesome experience to visit them all, but what we loved most about it was this...

She had a summer filled with worship, service and actively followed Christ.  It was truly an awesome experience. 

When Sweet Bluebird was gone, we wrote tons of letters to her. The standard letter got old really fast.  I think I wrote her two cards before I got bored.  I knew I had a summer of letters ahead of me, so I took a page from Cathe Holden, of Just Something I Made.  (If you have not been to visit her fabulous ideas, images and projects that she so generously shares, run, don't walk over to her blog, found right here.  I am not kidding.)   A long, long, time ago Cathe shared a doodle of a bluebird.  It so fit my daughter, who left our "nest" for the summer, that I created my own adaptation of her bluebird and started writing "Bluebird News."

I cut sheets of card stock length-wise into thirds, covered the front with drawings of whatever we were doing at the moment, then on the back, I wrote newspaper style articles so that she would know what was happening at home.  It was so much fun to be doodling all of a sudden.  I bought tons of colored pencils and went to town figuring out what I could actually draw.  We seemed to spend all summer visiting one old car show or another.  I still can't draw a car, but by now I can draw a really good tire!!!  It's all in the perspective, baby.

 Bluebird News was a huge hit.  She still talks about how she got the best mail, and all the kids would crowd around her at mail time.  The few times that she did call us, I spent the entire time talking to her friends whom I had never even met, and instead of getting news on what the kids were doing, or where they were, I was plied with requests to send even more mail.  The little extra time I spent to make the mail more creative, will always be remembered by Sweet Bluebird and her friends.  I know many of you send lunchbox notes with not only your kids, but your Honey also, next time you write that note, draw a little doodle to let them know how much you love them!