Earth Day's my Birthday!

I feel kind of funny posting about my birthday...I almost didn't do it but hey, this is a record for future generations :)

I'll break it up into categories for you:  

Yummy Foods:

 

 Mom brought a couple of little individualized portions of ice cream over the day of.  It was so sweet!...and they were absolutely yummy!

 

Remember earlier, I mentioned that I had loved the white chocolate carrot cake m&ms that were out at Easter?  Every place in town had sold out by the time I ate them and wanted more.  

My cute sister in law found some at her Wal Mart, knew I loved them and grabbed 6 bags for my birthday!  Bless her!  I need to try and space them out over the next several months.  Only two of them  have disappeared so far...and it's been a whole week :)

 My very good and long time friend took me out to lunch a few days later.  I chose to go to a pizza place that has crazy different combinations.  I had had this once before and loved it so much that I ordered it again.  It's a potato/leek/white sauce pizza.  Pretty Awesome!

My mom is famous for her pies.  Four our family celebration she made my fav...Razzleberry.
As we were getting ready to go home she asked if I wanted to take some home.  I told her that my diet started the next day :)...but maybe I would take a small piece.  She informed me that she had a whole pie to send with me.  WHoahhhhh!  How can you turn that down?
I'm going to have to share it with my neighbors since the rest of my family doesn't really do pie.

Thanks everyone for the yummy foods!

Kind and Loving Family:

My in laws came and brought dinner the night after my birthday.  It was fun to have them come.  The kids think the best game to play with Grandma Nancy is "Duck Duck Goose".  Ben is darling when he gets up, runs around, and does the routine!  He gets it...for the most part :)
Thanks for being a good sport Nancy!
 

 This is the celebration at my parents' home.

My Grandparents.  I love 'em!

I wish I would have gotten a picture with my parents.  Mom, we need to make that a tradition along with the Grandparent picture...after all, you're the one that borned me :)

Other Gifts:

So many people were so kind and brought sweet gifts.  Everything from bread, brownies, gift cards, money, candy, etc.  Thank you all.
Lots of phone calls and emails too :)

These were the flowers I received from Andy, Mom, and my good friend Trina.

I thought my brother's present was pretty clever...

Isn't he cute?!

The day itself was nice.  Andy is always good about bringing breakfast in bed.  Thanks Hon!  Ben didn't have school so he and I hung out and he let me indulge in some sewing.  The other kids had an early out day.  We were pretty low key.  We watched "I Love Lucy"s for a while until Andy got home extra late from parent teacher conferences.  He stopped and picked dinner up so I wouldn't have to cook and then we played some Tenzi before the kids went to bed.  
It was pleasant :)
Thanks again to all the nice people who made it so special!

I will leave you with a couple of super cute pics of Ben and Grandma Kidd at my party:)

A Long one and a Thick one

This afternoon I put Ben down for his nap and went to rest on my own bed.  I had a hard time falling asleep.  My mind got going on a project I have in mind but am not sure if I could take on.  As I was mulling details over in my brain I heard a distant beeping.  

I jumped up and ran into Ben's bedroom.  

I don't know how long he had been seizing.  We have the monitor set to go off after 13 seconds of rhythmic movement but I've tested it several times the last couple of months and I can never get it to go off...even after a full minute.

Thus, I have been nervous and not very confident in our monitor again.

(Since the new one arrived, it has alerted us to one seizure and not gone off during one...that we know of.)

So, I cannot tell you how relieved I was that it had worked.  He rarely seizes during nap time...again, as far as we know.

I took him out of bed and lay him on my lap.  I didn't have Matt rush off and get the oxygen, pulse ox, and meds since most of the time, once we get them out and ready, he stops soon thereafter.

This one kept going and going.  At about 5 minutes I had him go grab the stuff.

Between 6 and 7 minutes he stopped...before I gave him any meds.  I probably should have by then but I tend to hold out a little bit just in case it does stop on its own.

After it was over he was stiff as a board and cried and cried.  His legs and tears didn't relax for half an hour.  He was inconsolable.  Finally, he squeaked out a pitiful "Dada".  Luckily, Andy was done teaching so I gave him a call and Ben spoke to him.  Andy said he would come right home.  Ben finally fell asleep before he arrived but opened his eyes and saw him next to the bed.  He said a precious, little, "Dada - Ho?"  Andy held him for a minute and then he was happy to snuggle back into me :)

All is well now.  He recovered well.

He had a similar seizure a month or two ago when I was gone.  Andy said he cried and was stiff for a long time afterward.  It makes us wonder what the difference is between the ones when he cries post seizure and the ones when he falls asleep immediately and naps for hours.

So many mysteries...

I love waiting for a package!

Ever since the beginning of the year I have wanted to make my first year of blogging into a book.

I tried a popular site and was super frustrated.  I was going to have to put in hours of work to get it the way I wanted...but before I could do that I had to figure out how to do what I wanted!

There had to be an easier way!

I searched a little more online and came across blog2print.

Just a few quick clicks and my book was ready to go!

Could that really be it?

Now, granted, there were a couple of things I wish I could have customized a little more...the cover, varying picture sizes within the book, and font.

But hey!  I saved hours!

I was surprised to see the price of the book but then realized I had over 400 pages!

I did some calculations and found out that the price was comparable per page with the other site.

That made me feel better so I placed the order.

Before two weeks was up my package arrived and I am thrilled with my book!

I felt kind of proud as I flipped through it.

I think when Andy saw it he felt a little better about the price too.  He seemed impressed :)

I've seen Josh with it in his hands about every spare moment he has had since it came.

I thought he was just flipping through casually, looking at the pictures and reading snippets here and there but I found out tonight that he's reading every word, page by page.

Look at how thick that puppy is.

Next year I have a feeling it will be much smaller.

I've slowed down a bit in my posts.

I think I've done 18 posts so far this year and last year at this time I had written nearly 50!

What we were Wearing When...

...Matt had an alphabet parade at school and he was assigned the letter "L".

The kids were supposed to wear something that started with their letter.

I suggested leis but Matt gave a definite "no".  I thought of a bunch of other things...lemons/limes, licorice/lollipops (that got Matt's vote) but I finally decided that if I could find some plastic lizards I would stick them to the shirt and that would be that.  I was in luck!  The local craft store had some on sale!  I sewed them on with clear thread that night and Matt approved of it the next morning :)

...I tried out a Pinterest tutorial.

For a long time I have wanted one of those knee length, knit skirts that are so cute, casual and comfy.

I bought one a once but was unhappy with how it fit.  I kept it thinking I could redo it sometime...(like that would ever happen)...so I was excited to see some tutorials on Pinterest.  It's been on my to do list for months and I finally took the plunge.

I used this tutorial.

I really liked her tutorial...so simple.  

The only problem was that it didn't fit.  It was super small so either I cut the pattern out the wrong way or I'm a really big "medium".

At the end of the tutorial she gives instructions for making custom sizes.  I gave it another go and that one was perfect!

I'm so pleased with it and want to make more...I need to find some patterned knit fabric that I like.

 I will spare you the other 15 pictures of dorky poses and faces.

I had Andy take some shots for me and I learned that I am definitely not the modeling type :)

...it was hat day at school.

I have no idea what Josh is trying to communicate in these pictures...

Notice that Abby is also sporting a black eye.  Ben hit her, close range, with a hefty board book.

That's her second black eye in two years from one of her brothers.

(Right before she started first grade, a big, hard, plastic lid to a Lego tub somehow left Matt's hands and landed on her eye :)  It was a beaut!)

And so it Begins...

...soccer season.

This means 3 or 4 days of the week either I need to have dinner ready in the afternoon, we eat cereal for dinner or pick up some food after the games/practices..  I want to get through this season with as little of the last as we can.

This year all three eligible children are playing.

They all had their first game on the same night...two at the same time.

I tried to get us off on the right foot by being ultra prepared for the evening.

Lately, one of my favorite meals has been baked tortellini or ravioli.  Andy likes the marinara sauce with beef filled ravioli and I prefer the cream sauce with cheese filled tortellini.  I added a bunch of sliced zucchini/yellow squash for good measure.

 I popped them in the fridge...

 ...and left a detailed schedule for Andy since we would be coming and going and not seeing each other much during the chaos.

 

Then I put out all their stuff so there would be no running around searching for anything. 

Things went quite well :)

 

Ben enjoyed jumping off and on this curb over and over.

Bless Dad's heart for entertaining Ben during the games much of the time.

So far, all of the games have been pretty cold and some have included moisture.  Hopefully next week we will enjoy warmer temperatures.

Spring Break Summary

Easter Evening we drove to Andy's parents' home to spend a couple of our spring break days there.

  The kids played hard, Grandma made a fun April Fool's Day breakfast (pancake pizzas and cheeseburgers), we had an awesome thunderstorm on Monday, did some serious shopping for warm weather clothes and then Tuesday morning we had a layer of snow on the ground :)

Tuesday, on our way home, Grandpa and Grandma accompanied us to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum in Salt Lake.

We got there 45 minutes before it closed...we had just enough time to see and do everything we wanted.  It was perfect!

This was my favorite part...the kids in the hurricane simulator.

We weren't sure if Ben would like it or not...just check out those smiles!

Thursday we had planned on going to "Baby Animal Days" at the historical farm.  We drove the few minutes to the farm and turned right around and came home.

I could not believe the crowds!

They were parking cars in all kinds of fields and outlying areas.  I had never seen it so crowded.

We figured it was extra busy since of the three days this event was taking place, Thursday was the only day that it wasn't supposed to rain.

The kids were disappointed of course so we tried to think of something else to do.

We couldn't all agree on one thing so we ended up coming home and having a Family Mario Kart Fest for 45 minutes.

The next three weeks the farm is open on Saturdays without all the extra hoopla that they do for "Baby Animal Days".  We told the kids we'd go see the animals soon.

Apparently though, Ben had understood that he was going to see some ducks because when we pulled into our garage he started whimpering, making his duck sound and saying "pea" (please).  It was so sad.

So...Andy brought him inside and showed him some videos of ducklings on his phone.

Everyone enjoyed it :)

playing peek a boo

Our spring break was book ended by two wonderful weekends...Easter and then General Conference!

My cute Josh sat through all four sessions (8 hours) and took notes on the computer.

He wanted to be well prepared for Grandma's quiz Sunday evening.

Sunday morning was my favorite session.  I had been hoping for some guidance and inspiration on how to be a better mother.  There were many wonderful thoughts on the topic and it will be a great opportunity to study these Divinely inspired words over the next few months.

Easter 2013

This won't be a really thrilling post...just a record for me.

It was a bit of a challenge trying to find non food items for Ben's basket but I managed :)

Friday night, the night before I put the baskets out, I brought up the fact that the Easter Bunny was not real.  Andy and I had talked about it and we had decided we wanted them to know...to help them focus on what Easter is really about.

They were okay with it.  Abby said she already kind of knew.

Fast forward a few days...we were visiting Andy's parents and the kids were off playing with their cousins.

I don't know why it never occurred to me to mention to the kids that they didn't need to talk to anyone else about what I had told them, but it didn't.

Apparently they told their cousins all about it...whoops!  I felt so bad :(

Blurry pictures ahead..., but they are the only ones of our indoor Easter egg hunt.

 I didn't know what to do about Ben.  I wanted him to join in the fun of hunting but was so worried he'd get into the candy and it would be a big problem.  In the end, Andy kept him occupied upstairs.  If I would have thought ahead, I would have marked some special eggs for him (so the older kids would know to leave them alone) that had little trinkets and toys inside.  I'll have to remember that for next year.

Sunday we had a very nice day at church.  I got to substitute in Ben's primary class.  He's struggling with the transition from nursery and so I've been spending a lot of time with him in class anyway....might as well be a substitute :)

After church we drove to Andy's parents' home and spent a couple of days with them since it was our spring break.

More on that next time.

p.s.  I kind of became obsessed with the limited edition white chocolate carrot cake M&Ms over the holiday.

Did you try them?