Mostly good times, but a couple things went wrong

Late last week I started having anxiety attacks about this week, anticipating all that it would bring and require and knowing it would be a tough one. With Valentines Day, Oliver's birthday, an unusually busy work week, and a trip out of town for the holiday weekend looming on the horizon, I knew everything would have to be executed flawlessly in order to fit it all in.

Mostly it all went ok.

But we never made it out of town. By Friday night I was just too tired. I could barely put the kids to bed without breaking down myself, and at midnight when I was finally finished folding laundry, I just couldn't pack the suitcases. So we canceled the trip. We were supposed to go see Uncle Brett in Idaho. It's snowy there. We were all looking forward to it. I feel bad and hope we can find another time to go soon.

But let's not dwell on that anymore. Let's back up and talk about what happened right.

Valentine's day required homemade cards and treats and decorated mailboxes for 3 kids. Check, check and check. We made the same matchbox cards as last year and had everything done in time for class parties on Wednesday and Thursday. I managed to slip in some Valentines shopping for Scott, but seem to have misplaced his main gift (for some reason I think I might have left it on the roof of the car when I drove away from the store). So that was too bad.

It's birthday season again at our house so this was a very fun surprise to get in the mail from Annee:


Oliver's birthday was on Saturday this year, and, as you'll recall, we were supposed to be out of town. So we planned to have his friends party on Friday, since there was no school. On Monday we got the invitations made and hand-delivered.


We took 18 kids (?!) to the Provo Rec Center to swim for a couple of hours.


It was a big group, but we managed to have fun and not bother the old people doing water aerobics too much, and only one kid almost drowned (didn't he know he couldn't swim? why'd he try to jump off the diving board?!). Thank goodness for lifeguards willing to jump in the deep end in their clothes.

Thank you thank you to Mom and Scott for coming to be extra supervising adults, for Jennilyn for keeping Huck & June, and most especially for Christine for being willing to put on her swim suit and get in the water with us (oh and also for saving that same kid another time when he ventured into the deep end again -- we did finally put a life jacket on him).

We had cake & opened presents in the observation balcony, and everyone reported having had a good time.
Scott calls this the "I AM SEVEN!" face.

All-in-all, I call it a rousing success of a 7-year-old birthday party.


Remember how last year we managed to get all the celebrating done in one day? Too bad that didn't happen again this year. Thursday night (since, remember, we were going to be out of town on Saturday) we went out to a family birthday dinner at Brick Oven, and then moved the party on to Color Me Mine where Grandpa helped Oliver paint a great race car.

But then Saturday comes around, and we're not out of town, so of course we have to do something fun again. We started at Krispy Kremes and picked out an assorted dozen, and were alerted by honking cars around us more than half-way home that they were on the roof of the car. Amazingly they held on long enough for us to realize and retrieve them. (This experience is what makes me think Scott's Valentines gift might have been lost in like manner.)
Then we moved on to play video games and laser tag at Nickel City,

hung out at the mall while Oliver designed a new hat at Lids (oh yes, you saw that right, that is a tiger getting hit by a flying dart with Oliver's name in graffiti writing),

followed by dinner at PF Changs (since, afterall, we weren't going to be able to go out for Valentines Day anyways).

No, we're not done celebrating Oliver's birthday yet.

Sunday night Christine & Nate came over to enjoy some ice cream pie.

Tuesday we took treats to school (Oli picked ring pops).

Wednesday I went back to school and read Oliver's class a story.

phew. now we're done (I think).


Other stuff...

June does Karate (she calls it "Hi-ya")


June reads Brown Bear


Huck eats his feet


Brenden got a tooth pulled

The Squirrel has multiplied

And last, but certainly not least...
Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm (one of Scott's bands) advanced to the finals of the City Weekly Music Awards

Come out to The Depot on Saturday to support them.

p.s.

Dear Citibank,
Thank you so much for giving me the motivation I need to finally close my credit card with you. I know I've been a loyal customer for over 15 years (that's right, I fell prey to those applications you sent around to college freshmen who had no business having a credit card), and my account has always been in good standing. I know I paid it off for the last time 2 years ago, but thought I'd leave it open to be my "just in case card." But I will not pay the newly-imposed $60/year fee just for that, and so now I must bit adieu. It's really not too sad for me, but I suspect deep down inside you will miss me.
Love, Sarah

around the house this evening

Vegging out, slobbering, playing, spying.

Nothing fancy.

swimming is another good way to pretend it's not winter outside...

that is until it's time to leave and you have to run out to the car in a wet swim suit and flip flops in 30 degree weather. But that's ok. It was still fun to pretend for a while.

(We are trying out possible locations for Oliver's birthday party. This one might be a winner.)

1 post per month?!

Not a very good track record so far for 2010. Sorry about that. Maybe I can do better (?) This is the time of year when it seems like we really don't do much that's very interesting. But nonetheless we manage to keep our days quite busy. Here are a few little moments when we had a camera handy...

It's STILL winter here. June and I built this great snowman while the boys did some sledding at Kiwanis park. I haven't built a snowman this good since before Oliver was born. This day (night?!) I was so determined I got a babysitter for Huck so I could really focus. June was quite pleased.

Oliver had his first snowboarding lesson on Friday at Sundance while Brenden was there with a group from school. He did great. He was very nervous ahead of time about going on the lift and falling and crashing into trees, etc. But we talked about it a lot and I insisted that once he decided to go, he could not chicken out. After much careful consideration, he finally decided to go, and he did great! He mastered heel-side turns and managed the lift 3 times and didn't crash into any trees and is dying to go back again -- all around success. And the best part (for him) is now he gets to dream about the gear he can get to go along with this new hobby. He sure loves to get new stuff!

In spite of all the snowy fun, we are getting a little tired of winter, and sometimes try to pretend like it's spring already. Grandma took June to feed the ducks.

meet Underwear Man
another evidence that we've been cooped up too long.

Huck is 6 months old!!

What a funny kid. He weighed in at a whopping 17+ lbs at his 6-month appointment today (I am sure Brenden wasn't that big until after 1 year) and is happy to show off his new trick of sitting up. He likes this sensory-overload rainforest bouncy chair as long as someone is standing right by him and watching and smiling. He drools a ton and chews on anything. We started solid foods a couple months ago hoping it might help him sleep better at night, but alas, tonight we start the crying-it-out regimen (since Scott is out of town). He is a joy and I really love the effect he has had on the other kids -- teaching June to be soft, and Oliver and Brenden to be great helpers.

June talks a lot these days about whether she is a big girl or a baby. She is constantly comparing herself to everyone we see - "I'm not as big as you, Mom" or "I'm bigger than Huck". Today her line was "I'm a little girl named June." That was her response to everything -- "I'm not a baby I'm a little girl named June." "I'm not a big girl I'm a little girl named June." I am anxious for her to be a "big girl" and give up her crib and her diapers. But I guess she needs to sort it all out in her head before she'll be ready for that.

Unrelated, but kind of funny - Today I put a pair of jeans on her (she doesn't wear jeans very often since she complains she can't climb in them) and she got very excited and said, "Mom, these are jeans like Madi's dad!" (Madi is a little friend of hers, and Madi's dad was one of the guys who was working in our basement a couple months ago). Every other member of her family wears jeans every day, but for some reason, it was Madi's dad who had caught her attention on this one. Funny girl.

What else? We're entering our busy birthday/holiday season. Oliver's a pretty popular guy and I'm not sure limiting the guest list to 7 friends is going to cut it this year. That's too bad. Oh man this crying thing isn't going very well. 20 minutes so far... breaks my heart. There are some exciting things on the horizon for the Hymns project Scott and friends worked on a while back - looks like it'll get released late summer. There's a great show coming up at Velour on Friday -- the two bands Scott plays with (The Madison Arm and Atherton) are playing back to back at Velour in Provo. You should totally come. 8pm. $6.

30 minutes so far and still going strong :(

Oh I almost forgot -- I made a fantastic batch of cookies the other night - all fluffy and NOT flat and I totally figured out the secret to overcoming our altitude issues. At the point when the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla are all mixed up, but before you put in the flour (at our house this is known as "dad's favorite part"), turn your back for a moment and come back to find 4 people crowded around the bowl, each with their own spoon, eating an undisclosed amount of the batter. Shew them away, and then proceed to add the flour (of which you had already added an extra 1/2 cup to attempt to fluff them up a bit). Turns out this is the perfect proportion for perfectly fluffy cookies. Unfortunately I have no idea what those proportions are, but lucky for me the kids have graciously offered to help me again next time.

Oh - there's silence upstairs -- 40 minutes, not too bad.

OK I'd better sign off. I need to get some work done tonight. Adieu.

p.s. He just started up again. Ugh.