Shhhh.....

Shhh.....

There's a special party for a birthday boy

And your invited to show

But don't tell K because he doesn't know

So if you can make it, here's a word to the wise

Make sure to be prompt 'cause it's a surprise

We're excited to see what his face will be showing

We hope it will have not a trace of him knowing.

K's Surprise Birthday Party

The poor little fellow has been asking about his party all week long. We planned to take a few friends to the Discovery Museum after toiling with a dozen other ideas. However, it just didn't feel right, even after all these weeks of tossing out ideas and finally picking one. It came to me in the middle of the night and it felt like the right thing to do. After passing the above "book club" invitations to his friend's mamas we were set to go.

The kids were so excited to hide behind the couches, jump out, scream "surprise," and pop their confetti at him. His face went from sad, to blank, to happy enough. After he tackled his friends the party began.

We played games,

had a light lunch and cupcakes

and hit a pinata.

It was complete chaos in the best way possible. There were a few close melt downs I was able to distract. One which included my own. I took video footage of the surprise and then soon after it was all done I noticed I didn't have the recorder on. sniff, sniff....Better luck next time.

He got tons of fun stuff including 6 bionicles none of which were the same. How cool is that? He got one for Christmas and loves it. Thanks to his buds he has a nice collection and is one happy kiddo.


And hey since we're all cleaned up why not try a picture of all of us for once.

Just something I've been thinking about....

Air. I look around at the pollution we've created in the last 100 years when the earth has been around for so long. I feel uncomfortable thinking about how much damage we've done in just a few short years. The inversion is such a reminder of this.

Water. My shower is very, very hot and has pretty good pressure. I can be in it for as long as I'd like, EVERYDAY, maybe even twice a day. My kids bathe in a tub full of water and then it all goes down the drain instead of somewhere else it could be used. Not to mention all the laundry I do. Wear and wash, wear and wash. There's no conserving at all.

Trees. I throw away so much paper in the form of unwanted mail, ads, homework, etc. It doesn't go away. There are always papers to be dealt with.

Land. We consume and produce so much garbage. I cringe at my garbage can and feel guilty thinking about where it's going.

Energy. How often does something get left on? All the time. Everything plugged in, sometimes running all day and all night.

Gas. During the winter, it's easy to turn up the needle so the house is toasty warm and we're all taking off our socks and walking around in t-shirts. It can be on all day and all night.

My consumption and wastefulness seems endless. (We actually don't do all of the above to the extent you might be thinking but I'm wanting to make a point.)

The recession is rough. Lately all I read about is the number of jobs lost today. And about people desperately giving up and doing the worst possible things to themselves and others.

But, there is a part of me that feels like going through this is exactly what we need to jolt us from our consuming selves, our constantly working selves, cashing our paychecks , and buying stuff and our constant need for entertainment and living it up.

Is it so bad to stay at home and have a simple meal and then just hang out? Is it so bad to not have the latest and the coolest fad? Would it hurt me to re wear our clothes and cut back on being on the internet? Would it hurt me if there was less of everything including department stores, less hours that people are at work and therefore not be able to buy something whenever I want?

Life would be simpler, life would be less complicated, life would be less competitive, life would be at home more and together more.

Todays news reads "The U.S. Postal Service may be forced to eliminate a day of mail service because the economic downturn has led to plummeting volume and revenue, the postmaster general said Wednesday." http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/28/news/economy/postal_service/index.htm?postversion=2009012820

The post office open one less day...... I think that is positive not negative. Less garbage, less emissions, yes less money, but hey more time at home with the family. Isn't that more important?

Call me naive. Call me ignorant. Tell me I'm asking for it and I have no idea. I'd rather you not and ask that we all think about some of the positives of this hard time.

Today's haircut/pictures

This little guy needed a haircut today. You can see in the picture below taken a couple days ago that it was getting a little crazy. We spent a few minutes cutting his locks and even longer cleaning out the drains. His hair is feathery and does this cool flip.

Meet our Pets

Some time last spring/summer we added Darth (short for Darth Vader) into the family. Amazingly it is still alive. Only 2 or 3 times did I find hundreds of fish pellets in it's tank. Other than that, the boys have been pretty good at not over feeding it.

At times I wonder if it's bored so we have it join us for dinner at the table, or we move it's tank somewhere new.

It's smarter than we think. Every morning when I come up to the counter to start breakfast it gets really excited, comes right up to the closet face of the tank to me, looks at me and wiggles like crazy. It has me trained to feed it.

Once I put a picture of K next to it and it puffed up! Every once in a while I try to get it worked up again just to add a little spice in it's life but it has yet to do it again.

The other day L made a guinea pig home out of construction paper and glue. He had it stuck in his mind that it was time now for a new pet. I thought it would pass and happened to mention it to Chris the next day. So being the proactive dad that he is, he got the boys to do their chores, four stores and one huge headache later we added a hamster to the family. May I introduce to you our newest addition:Chewie (short for Chewbacca).

He is nocturnal so the boys told me. And they're right. He sleeps most of the day unless the boys have taken it out and every night at 9 pm I hear it trying to chew it's way out of the cage. It freaked me out the first time I heard it.

L is fearless with it. Every chance he gets he's getting to know it. He took it to preschool for show and tell. What a happy little boy he was! The boys are really good about feeding it and letting it get exercise.

He runs around the house in this ball. He has yet to fall down the stairs but I think it's only a matter of time since everyone else (minus Darth) in this family has fallen down the stairs!

Has anyone else seen this movie? Chris and I joined the Redds to see this flick on Friday. It was different but good. It sort of spurred the pet searching the next morning. We even looked at a beautiful Yellow Lab. PetCo has pets up for adoption. This particular Lab was a year old and for $75 bucks he could be yours. It was gorgeous. Thank goodness for it's annoying barks, ridiculous shedding, and horrible smell otherwise we would be housing a dog now instead of the rat I presently hear rolling around in it's ball upstairs.

Happy Anniversary to Us.

We celebrated by going to the Melting Pot. This is the third time we've ever been and each time to celebrate the same thing. We love it.


May we have many more heart warming experiences.

May we experience many more adventures.

May we appreciate each and every blessing.

May we spice things up.

May we cultivate sweet and tender feelings toward one another.

May we enjoy and treasure moments in our life together.

Maybe It's a Girl Thing

When I get a new article of clothing I like to try it on with different outfits. Sometimes, usually on Sundays, I try on a few outfits before I've settled on what to wear. It's very offensive when my manly hubby says something like "you've changed again!" Geesh I'm a girl give me a break. It's what some girls do. Am I right? I'm pretty sure even though I don't have sisters.

Anyhow, I also love to get things on sale. For me, the price tag is what sells me and what gives me a feeling of satisfaction. If I feel like it was a good deal then I am happier with the item sometimes at the expense of quality and perhaps fashion style.

A good and long time friend of mine would purchase a lot of her stuff and kids stuff at second hand stores. She and her kids have a great wardrobe having things from second hand stores and regular department stores. She always gets name brands and I'm always in awe at how cute her kids look. I think the key for her is to go often. I've been with her a few times and don't luck out like she does. I don't bother anymore. Besides I probably don't spend as much on kids clothing as I should.

For a handful of years I disliked shopping (a favorite pastime) because I was either pregnant or wearing a post pregnancy body. But, I'm really enjoying shopping again and so I usually just avoid it. I can't window shop. It's too painful.

I donate to the DI several times a year. And recently we went to the DI to see if they had some picture frames to hang up some of the kid's art work and I saw something cute, tried it on and was very, very, very HAPPY. So I went back once more and for $23 I added the following to my wardrobe.

Gap pants. I was very happy I found these because I lost my favorite pair of khaki pants in Jackson Hole :0(

Express Sweater

Love these white Arizona jeans. Not a spot on them BTW.

abercrombie zip up sweater with hoodie. hmmmm I'm loving it.

Cute clothes, nice price tag.......such a pick me up. Time to clean house!

Random update

The other day we got ALOT of snow AGAIN. But the next day was bright and beautiful. I took the following shots. I'm thinking of hanging these up on one of my many bare walls.

We've been sort of busy, sort of not. We had Loyd and Angela over for a couple of days (Saturday-Monday). We played games, hung out, and even got to see Twilight finally. They recently finished the first book and hadn't seen the movie yet and I've been itching to see it, so it worked out nicely.

It wasn't the greatest movie but it was good enough for me. I hope they recast some one them especially Rosalie. Bella and her dad were awesome. I liked Emmett a lot. Jasper was WEIRD. Alice was o.k. Edward was not my Edward but cute enough. Jacob played his part well but he didn't look Native American to me. I can go on and on but I won't.

The boys have started up school again and I'm missing them. But they enjoy their classes/teachers and they enjoy keeping busy. Indoor soccer has started up for the two older boys and basketball for K. We have something almost every evening so I've had to make dinner early. Let us see how long that lasts. Thankfully Chris' engagement is only 10 minutes away and has been home for dinner and helping me with the boys' practices and games. Since his out of town days last fall he has been taking K to school every morning. Now that "busy season (11 hour days)" is starting he'll be leaving earlier to come home earlier and I'm taking K again, which I don't mind.

K is starting piano lessons this month. His good friend's mom is a piano teacher and we coordinate a weekly play group with her kid and two others. She's a really neat lady and I feel lucky/blessed to affiliate with her and her family. Incidentally her husband is K's basketball coach. K seems to be doing well and super excited about the things he's doing.

L is excited to start some kind of music. He's been asking a lot so I've got something in the works. We'll see. He's limping around right now. He wanted to see what the t.v. looks like in the back and ended up underneath it. He's the one I found drowning 4 times one summer, sticking forks in outlets successfully, chocking on hotdogs, cheerios, etc., holding the window's screen after falling out of it, found by some lady at the mall after going missing, sticking his complete hand in just made pancake syrup (very hot), etc. etc. During dinner earlier this week we were talking about where we will be age wise in 5 years. "When K is 12, will I be alive?" L asked. My reply was "at this rate, I don't know.......but I really hope so!"

A is talking tons! He wants to do everything on his own. "NO!! MEEE Do It." is his new thing. If he throws a fit, I stick him in his crib. He's pretty easy that way. He's picked up hitting and recently hit L on the head with a spoon. Ouch. He can definitely hold up his own.

Overall we're trying to be good. Sometimes I'm super motivated and other times just low in energy. But I think we're like everyone else and sometimes just don't know what has hit us over the head.