Birthday Weekend

My youngest and my oldest children's birthdays are one day apart. I allow my kids to have friend birthday parties every other year and I don't know how I managed to get the two kids whose birthdays are next to each other having a birthday party the same year. It was an eventful three days.

To top it all off I had an article due this week that I stayed up till 1 a.m. finishing on Thursday night, knowing full well what Friday had in store for me: A party, a baseball game, sending Isaac off to Father and Son's and a marathon cake decorating night.

Isaac had his birthday party on Friday because his actual birthday is on Sunday. Anway, I am completely worn out but I feel as if I totally pampered my little people and that makes me feel good.

Isaac celebrated with several of his friends at the swimming pool. I am not really sure how many were there since he kept inviting more as the day wore on. Isaac has half days on Fridays so we brought his charter school friends straight from school and met his other friends at the pool.

They had some rousing games of swim frisbee and even though the slide got shut down due to lightning, there was enough good natured water rough housing, eating of pizza, cupcakes and soda to keep everyone happy for two hours. Isaac's smile never left his face. Isaac scored in the money department but he also loved his gifts of battleship, a nerf gun, a football frisbee contraption and the dollar store squishy ball. Tomorrow his guitar hero should arrive in the mail and their will be birthday bliss.

Isaac came home sick from the Father Son outing and what I thought was just an overdose of fun and junk food turned out to be a two day fever and a cough. I am happy he had such a great Friday because his actual birthday didn't turn out all that fun. Who can have fun when they are sick? However a salmon dinner courtesy of his Nana and Papa (he chose salmon for his birthday dinner) gifts and movie watching helped out a lot he also liked his mint chocolate brownie sunday complete with 11 candles. (Oh my that makes me feel old)

Hey Isaac, my boy that makes me laugh everyday, yell sometimes, pray often, and so very very proud, I am so lucky you are my son. I honestly don't know what I would do without you. You may make feel old but actually you keep me young as I try to keep up with your inquisitive mind and adventerous spirit.

LiLi Turns 4.

Lia has been dying for a castle cake and a princess party. I simply had to indulge her for her first friend birthday party. Unfortunately, the castle cake she wanted cost $40. So I swallowed my cake making fears, which are well founded in bad past experiences and set out to make her a castle cake based on a video I found at howdini.com. I have to say that it's no Cake Challenge cake, but with the help of her 7 year-old sister I pulled off a passable cake that we were quite happy with. And Lia was happy she got her castle cake.

Lia had a full house of friends and family on Saturday. The boys acted out their parts as knights quite well and the girls, most of them devoted and wonderful cousins, were the perfect princesses.

Making princess crowns and knight shields.

The Pinata was a big hit and everyone took severall wacks until we brought in the heavy hitter, Isaac to finally spill the candy onto the basement floor.

We had a little pin the fire on the dragon. Isaac drew the dragon. Notice Lia's Nana Ora in the background. I think it is amazing that Lia gets to have her 96 year old great grandma at her birthday party.Thanks everyone for coming. We finished off the night by having a barbeque at Tom's parents house. Lia had her birthday dinner request of peanut butter and jelly and grapes. That is so much easier than salmon.

Happy Birthday my Lia, my baby who keeps my parenting skills honed, tells me she loves me "more than anyone" everyday, and has a wicked sense of humor that keeps us all in stitches. I can't believe you are 4 years old and already so smart and fun to be around, and definitely your Daddy's girl.

Well there it is the marathon weekend. I survived and now I am going to spend the week cleaning the house and the car.

Monday Write A Little

Actually since I am going to be writing a lot this week, I have an article due for Elan Magazine, I thought I would do a quick writing excercise.

I thought it was so great when Alton Brown did a couple of haikus on the Iron Chef the other night so I am going to attempt a haiku about my great Memorial Day weekend.

OK I tried and it didn't work I am much too impatient tonight for the patient laboring it takes to write a haiku so I am going to just give you this.

Friday
Gardening in the spring rain, laughing at a great movie while sharing a large family size popcorn with the 5 hugs and one aunt.

Sunday
Napping and church.
fighting a migraine and drifting off to sleep after husband makes dinner.

Monday
Gardening, gardening, vegetable planting in the cool spring breezes.
Cooking up the first corn on the cobs of the coming summer season and eating a friend's homemade butter and icecream. Laughing at neices and the chaos of friends and family.
Life is bliss this weekend. Except for that little stint with the migraine.

Recitals

Please bear with me. I am posting the videos of Rebecca and Isaac's recital on here. The visual on the recording is blurry and not all of you are going to want to hear my kids playing the piano. But for those family members who would have been there if possible these songs are for you. I thought both my kids did really well. This was Becca's first recital and I am truly proud of her. Isaac just continues to get better and better. I am just happy all that chauffering and nagging to practice pays off.

Talkative Tuesday A Week with My Sisters

My sisters have always been my best friends. I have not seen my sisters for two years and let's just say I get homesick for their company. This week my sister and her four kids came to visit me. My own children had the week off from school and so it was perfect timing. We had such a blast and managed to keep the kids busy. We talked and laughed and reminisced. It was good crazy times. I think my kids had 30 seconds of boredom total. And that my friends is a miracle in itself.




Our Week started out with a trip to the Washington Community Swimming Pool where the kids completely wore themselves out with 2 1/2 hours of play.


I had the kids all by myself one day and we made pretzels and candles. Crazy Aunt Rachelle decided it was OK to have a marshmallow cookout in the kitchen over Isaac's homemade candle.





Saturday we were joined by Tom and my brother Jake and we made a long adventure of it in Zion Park. Isaac and Jacob are standing in front of their namesakes at the Court of the Patriarchs. We visited the weeping wall and took the river walk. I have been to Zion numerous times and this is the first time I have done these trails. They were smile inducing beautiful.

On Sunday, Tom cooked us a great dinner and did the dishes, always a good Mother's day gift. I also got a long nap and the much needed game of sister Boggle.

Monday we decided to explore Fiddlers Canyon, the actual Canyon up the road from my home. We set off on our grand adventure where we found a fun little water hole, a charming creek, dragonflies, lizards, a few scraped knees. Colette slid down a small incline and Isaac kept disappearing, only to reappear on some giant rock above us. We came back with pockets full of rocks and thirsty hungry kids. I can't wait to hike back there again.





The older kids finished out the entire rest of the day playing games. Here they are enjoying the spring weather on the front porch. OK sometimes I just had to send them all outside.


We saw them off Tuesday morning and Isaac was literally holding back tears. My sweet almost 11, can barely get more than a grunt for a response child, just could not bear to see them go. I have to admit it was hard. Now I am going to be playing catch up all week so it is possible this will be my only post.

Daughters and Beauty

I have been really excited about my article that was just published today at todaysmama.com. I really feel like teaching our daughters self-esteem and the meaning of beautiful is a vital part of our jobs as mothers. This article deals with this topic and includes some wonderful quotes by Kari Ann Young, who happens to be a mutual friend of many of ours. You can check it out here .

I am busy this week with my sister and her kids so I will not be posting again till next week.