Birthdays, Valentines, & our dishwasher is still broken!

Can you believe it! The Dishwasher Whisperer came back last week and installed the new parts. Then he spent about 2 hours running it and watching it and talking to it to verify it was working. He concluded that it had another problem and would need another 3-5 days to order the parts again! Can I just say how much I hate washing dishes by hand! I seriously had gotten it down to where I could do a full days dishes without even getting my hands wet! Thanks to Scott, Rachel & Christine for stepping in and helping to do the dirty work.

Now on to the more important reports.

Oliver turned 6 on Friday the 13th! It proved to be a very lucky day for him indeed. In our family when I was growing up, especially as we all got older, we tended to celebrate "birthday months" since organizing and scheduling on the actual day was usually difficult. While this was fun in some ways to have continual parties and presents, it also seemed like more work for the parents to have no closure or end to the work and expectations. So I've tried to focus on the actual birth date and get everything finished that day, including class treats, friends parties, and family parties. It makes for a busy day, but at least afterwards we are done and satisfied.














So Friday morning Oliver woke up to an obstacle course, balloons & streamers. He could hardly contain his excitement and made us all get up at 7am to open presents.























Favorites included the personalized apron (although I had to promise to leave his face out of the picture for some reason), cool accessories, the Target gift card, and of course the much anticipated and frequently calculated 6 crisp $5 bills from gma & gpa. Also some new lego sets, a sticker maker, wii game, new shoes, and a new laser pen (all the rage at our house!). With presents open and Brenden off to school, it was time to focus on the friends party.
Oliver invited 6 Kindergarten-aged boys to our home to play games and eat cake. He designed every aspect of the party including what type of wrapping paper to use, exactly how the invitations and cake should look, what games to play, what goes into the goodie bags, and who gets which hotwheels car to play with. For some reason he was obsessed with the candles that would go on his cake. We bought 3 different kinds to choose from and down to the last second he switched them out and tried different ones before he could settle on a final configuration.

The theme was "drifting cars" which even now after planning the whole thing I couldn't tell you what that means. It seems to be a type of racing where the cars spin out a bit on the turns, and according to Oliver only certain types of cars can drift. He picked out "drifting cars" to use to decorate the cake and then to send home with the kids in goodie bags. He got quite annoyed with me any time I'd suggest a car that wasn't the right kind.









Scott was in charge of decorating the cake the night before and it turned out AWESOME -- way better than I ever would have done. Oliver was thrilled and his friends were very impressed!











We played Red Rover, did Time Trials, picked racing names & numbers and made stickers, played with hotwheels cars on the floor, ordered pizza, ate cake, and opened presents. The party was a success and although 6 kindergarten boys can be quite roudy and noisy, they all thankfully got along well.

Friends party done, Brenden home from school, some lego building, now on to the family party. As a member of the Brickoven Pizza kids birthday club, we invited Rachel & Christine & special guests to joins us there for dinner. Brickoven is a favorite joint since they have wandering balloon artists who will come to your table and blow and twist and create anything you can imagine. Oliver was quite excited about his eagle.
Then after dinner a portion of the group (everyone minus R&K) headed over to Color Me Mine for a little ceramics painting. Who would have known on a Friday night the place would be packed with date couples and we really should have made a reservation! But we waited and got in and had a successful time painting penguins, dogs, fish, flowers, and pirates (pictures to follow -- we go pick up the finished products tonight).












As for Valentine's Day, I love the tradition of hand-made valentines cards (inspiration here and here), am a sucker for flowers & chocolates, and love an excuse for a special night out.



But I know my husband loves me every day, and I trust he knows the same, so don't really feel like it's necessary for either of us to "prove it" all in one day. (Although maybe that's just an excuse for the fact that I was plum tired out after the above birthday celebration to do anything too special for Scott. Sorry! IOU a box of See's!) We had a special breakfast including heart-shaped blueberry-less muffins, a fun family outing to the mall, a date to the temple, and Indian take-out.


Heaven forbid getting through a whole post without a single picture of June! Her two favorite things right now: her umbrella and her pink plastic chair.