the big three-o

MBH turned 30 a few weeks ago. Since it was a mAjOr milestone, I wanted to throw him a surprise party...with an 80's theme. I started thinking and planning in August. We worked it out so all of his family could come...and some of mine as well.

Things didn't go exactly as planned...seeing as how I accidentally revealed all the secrets to him less then 2 weeks before. BUT it was fun to have everyone here for a few days. Because the party was the day before turkey day, we all got to spend Thanksgiving together too...along with some additional family that didn't get here in time for the party.

Here is the birthday boy with his awesome 80's hair-do...



Here is the sparklin' cake...I thought these were a fun substitute for candles. I only wish they were 15 times longer so they didn't burn out so quickly!





This pic. is of the family from my side that were in attendance :)


And this is the only pic. I could find of his side...the rest were all individual people. Anyway...
Check out those awesome 80's clothes/hair. My favorite is Lex (on the left...in the teal track suite). We had fun trying on some funky DI clothes. If you're ever looking for a good laugh, I recommend you do the same! :) (check out that awesome balloon arch Lexi and Lee made...it's totally tubular!)


This party taught me a few "life lessons"...One is that I have GOT to stop procrastinating. Another is that a theme party only works if the majority...if not all...the people are willing to participate - which is not the case for my gnarly 80's party. I ended up feeling like a dweeb :) anyway...

I am SO THANKFUL for all who came. THANK YOU all for the help with food/decor. We had fun and loved seeing each of you. I miss you all and wish I could see you more often.

Happy Birthday MBH! I hope you had fun on your special day :)

I love October...

...It is one of my very favorite months! We've enjoyed the cool weather and activities leading up to (and including) Halloween.

We went to a local farm to play, pet some animals, and go through a corn maze. We decorated/carved pumpkins. And of course, went Trick or Treating!

We hope that you had a frightfully wonderfully Halloween!

...Now bring on NOVEMBER (which happens to be a pretty great month too;)

Glasses

For part of Sept. and Oct. I was taking a photography class in the evenings. J's kindergarten teacher happened to be in it as well. We were chatting before class started one time and she mentioned that J. was had been crying at school that day. When she asked why he was sad, his response what that he "had something in his eye".

When I got home I asked what made him sad that day and he said "my eyes were just watering". (I don't know why he can't ever admit that he's crying...what a silly boy!). A few days later I got a call from the school nurse who said that he didn't do very well on his vision screening. He over heard me talking to her and started crying again :(...by the time I hung up the phone he was pretty upset. That's when I found out why he had been crying that day...I guess she told him he needed glasses and he was devistated.

I am a little phobic about raw meet. I hate touching it...and I'm obsessive about sanitising any area that the meat has potentially contaminated. So, while crying heavily, J. says, "If you get me glasses , I'm going to put them in the garbage and cover them in raw meat so you won't EVER get them out ." I was completely surprised that in his moment of desperation, he thought of such a solution! I felt so sorry for my little guy and I was hoping that the screening was wrong.

We waited a while...talked a lot about what happens at the eye dr's....and made the appointment. He did FANTASTIC while with the dr. I was a little worried about how they get an accurate reading with children but she was incredible. I was very impressed and J. LOVED her. I think he actually had fun at his apt. What a relief that was!

The school nurse said his eyes were 20/100 & 20/4o. Thankfully she was wrong...but only by a little. The eye dr. found that they were really 20/60 & 20/20. Because his eyes are so different, one lens is HUGE and the other is just a piece of plastic. Maybe we should get him a monocle!

Isn't he adorable! I never imagined him having glasses but I think he's just as handsome with them as he is without. I'm so proud of how he's handling the change. He didn't throw them away and cover them with raw meat...thankfully! He didn't even cry when MBH brought them home. I have one fantastic little boy :)

Busy Busy

Daily life over the past few years has been very simple for me. A typical day was spent tinkering around the house cleaning...playing with J., etc. MBH worked and went to school so we (the little one and I) had tons of time to do whatever we wanted (for the most part). I never went to bed before 1:30 am...and I usually slept until after 9 am.

But then August happened.


J. started Kindergarten.




I've known for a long time that I needed to put myself on a better schedule but there was never anything FORCING me to do it. I apparently didn't have the will power to make myself go to bed at a descent hour so I signed him up for AM kindergarten. I was afraid that the transition would be everything but smooth but it went really well...for J. and for myself.

One great side effect is that MBH and I are now on the same sleeping schedule. We go to bed together and wake up at about the same time...sadly, that hasn't happened on a regular basis since the little one was born more than 5 years ago.

I started babysitting.

My friend needed someone to watch her kids when she's at work/school. So instead having a quiet house containing J. and myself, several days a week we have 3 additional children hanging around, ages 4, 8, and 10.

At first I was a little nervous about how it would go. There have been a few ups and downs, like with everything in life, but over all it's been GREAT!

Several weeks ago I got a phone call from a neighbor who needed to find a new sitter for her little boys and asked if I could do it. WOW! We went from the 2 of us (because MBH is always at work/school) to the 5 of us...and then to the 7 of us.

Both of the other mom's schedules are a little different so I only have all of them about 2 days a week so it too has worked out well. Even if all of them are here, things are a little chaotic but they all get along....for the most part. :)

I have always wanted a house full of children. I never expected most of them to belong to other families but hey, you take what you can get...right?!! They are all great kids and I'm glad to have them here, and so is J.

If you throw in Flag Football and Choir practice, we are crazy busy most days. I don't think I'd have it any other way though (except more time to clean my house, lol!)

Have you ever...

...been in the cake isle at the store and come across some amazingly cute cupcake baking cups and you just know you have to buy them for the next time you bake some cupcakes?


So then your time to make those little cakes comes and you get them out...you bake...and get ready to decorate....and you look at your cute baking cup and it's barely visible or is discolored from the yummy chocolate cake contained inside. Has this ever happened to you?

It happens to me all the time! (Flo from the progressive commercials just popped in my head! She says that in one of their adds. I feel pretty lame that I know that!:)


Until I found these beauties at the store. I'm in love with them! Notice how nice the cup still looks?

Not only do they look great, they are foil lined so you can use any old sheet pan AND I got them from Smiths! There's no need to run all the way to that craft store for these babies :)

J. thinks they're pirate cupcakes when I use them so he's happy and I'm happy that they're girly! ( I miss girly things sometimes :)

On a side note....

We have lived in St. George for 3 years now...3! I can scarcely believe it. At time's I LOVE it here and at others I really don't. The temps have been fantastic this week so I think we are leaning more towards the love side!

Introducing....

My Kindergartner!

Early in the summer, he attended a Pre-K class the school held for incoming kindergartners. There were some little 'incidences' with the bus that soured his opinion of school. Because of that, I was a little worried about how he'd do with kindergarten. We spent the summer talking about how K was completely different from pre-k and that it would be FANTASTIC!

So, this morning I was a little nervous. We took him in, sat him down, put his name tag on, and then he said, "you can go now mom" and that was that. We said 'bye' and went out in the hall to watch from the window for a few minutes. That's when I got teary eyed!

I knew this big milestone was coming and I was completely fine with it. I was looking forward to having some free time and it will be good for him to have daily interaction with other children. I didn't expect to cry at all. In fact, I wondered if there was something wrong with me because I wasn't that sad. But then he said....'you can go now' and I realized that he's a big boy who needs me less today then he did yesterday - tomorrow he will need me less than today. *sigh*. I also realized that this will, very likely, be the only time I get to drop off a kindergartner. I hope that I can remember every minute of it :)

Anyway...

We are SO proud of our little guy! He is very sweet, smart, and talented and I know that he will do great in school. :) Congratulations J.!

Summer fun!

I'm terribly behind on blogging so I thought I'd turn several blog post possibilities into a few condensed ones. Here is part one!

This is the 4th of July parade in Bloomington. It's one of the smallest parades I've ever seen - they didn't even have real floats! Oh well...there was candy and I think that's all that matters to the kiddo's, right?!

MBH's work shortened his hours quite a bit this summer so his dad was very kind and let him come work for him for a few days. J. and I decide to tag along...especially because it meant getting away from the hot summer heat. :)

It was my moms birthday so some of the fam. got together at a great park in Cedar Hills for a little party. It was fun spending time with family we don't see very often.

Cousins playn' in the trees. I tried to get them all to pose for a picture but this was the best I could get!

I sure love this little guy :)

We also got to go to the zoo with MBH's side of the family. It was tons of fun...and it only rained for a few minutes. Is it raining at the zoo constantly? I'm pretty sure that it does EVERY time I'm there. I'm not complaining though! It really cooled off the temps.

All the boys with their grandma ~

Don't they look fierce?

J used to be terrifed of the big elephant but he's out grown his fear and now LOVES it! I love watching kids play with/on it's trunk...I'm glad it's there :)

We sure love spending time with family! Maybe some day we'll live near enough to be able to do so on a regular basis...who knows though!

More pics to come soon!

T-Ball

J. played t-ball for the first time this Spring/Summer. He loved playing and I LOVED watching them play. It was so much fun! The kids were so hilarious!

This is a little video of the kids practicing for those who wish to watch. He is the one with the blue superman hat on.

This is him chatting with the first base-boy. I think he really enjoyed the journey around the bases!

Batter up!

Swing Batter!

It's out!

the tooth was having some trouble coming out so we thought we'd give it some help. We expect at least one more to come out any time now. CrAzY!

(Please ignore my endless jabbering! :)

His First

Tonight while getting J. ready for bed we discovered that he has his first loose tooth! So I popped out my phone and shot this little video to mark the occasion...

(I fixed it so it is now viewable :)



He is so stinkin' cute :)

Capitol Reef

This is my sister and her famila!

The littlest one...isn't she adorable :)

KB...who's so darn funny :)

J...the toughest kid I know

B...the big sis.

They were going on a little trip to Capitol Reef and were kind enough to ask us to come along. We are so glad we got to go. We had so much fun spending a few days camping with them. It was pretty hot one of the days and so we spent a few hours swimming in the river, at the base of a waterfall. We all (the adults) wanted to jump off the cliffs next to it but we were all a little chicken...until Matt took the first plunge...and then we all did it. It was SO fun! I really wish we had pictures.

My poor little one was sick while we were there. I think it might have been an allergic reaction to the incredible amount of snow...I mean cotton, that blanketed our camp site. His eyes were all goobery and he seemed pretty miserable. He was a trooper though and hardly complained. I sure love this little guy!

The boys - they are the closest thing J. has to brothers and he loves spending time with them. he actually has several cousins his age and he adores them all. :)

The part of the rock right above our heads is actually dinosaur bone poking out of the mountain. It's pretty cool to be able to actually touch a 'dinosaurs big old bones' (from Skippyjon Jones).
The part of living in Southern Utah we dislike is living so far away from so much of our family so we LOVE any opportunity we have to spend time with each of them. We hope we will be able to spend more time with all our family in the future. :)

Happy Happy Birthday

I can't believe my little guy is 5! I guess that means he's not so little anymore...right?

He LOVES dinosaurs (and i love to hear him talking about them. He knows far more than I ever did - and do still) so, to celebrate the big day, we had a Dino birthday party.

These were the invites:

It's not what I originally had in mind, but I think they turned out pretty well for being an absolute LAST MINUTE design. I originally planned to do a large bone but looking at them now, I think I like these better.

This is the cake:





I had to make 2 cakes for parties that were only a few days apart...and hosted a coupon party...and we had house guests...and we were going camping the day after the party... and had to get ready for a party w/ 13 children...lets just say that I was short on time and the cake didn't get finished. I got the essentials in but all the extra's that make cakes great got left out. It was SO fun to have a smoking volcano though! I hope J. liked it :)

Some pics from the party:

The above and below pics are from a game called "loudest, highest, scariest"

This is "Hot Lava Rock"

and "Pin the tooth in the t-rex's mouth"

A hunt for the dino dig site...

Diggin' for dino eggs

Catch the tail

Pinata

Blown' out the candles... Isn't he a cutie?

We played all kinds of games, had a pinata, a volcano demo, and cake/ice cream. I felt like a frantic crazy person but I hope the kiddo's had fun :)

I just ADORE my son! I can't even imagine what life would be like without him and am so thankful that he is ours. He such a blessing, is very smart, talented, FuNnY, inventive...I could go on and on. He is at such a fantastic age and I can't wait to see the fantastic boy he is yet to become. Actually....I can wait! I would like to capture him in a bottle and never let him grow up! -sigh-

P.S. This is the other cake I made that weekend...