You Say It's Your Birthday!

Reid turned FOUR on Wednesday.

Best birthday quote (said in frustration): Mom, I'm four now, but I don't really look bigger.


I asked Reid if he wanted a friend party or a family party. He said friend. I rejoiced. I've never had a kid ask for a friend party. I have a million ideas swimming around in my head that I would like to put to use. When asked which friends he wanted over, his answer was Ross (our friend who lives a few houses down). Who else? No one. Just Ross. What a party!

I decided not to plan anything, just invite Ross over to play. But at the last minute, I couldn't handle it. Abbey (Ross' mom and my good friend) babysits a little boy the same age plus has a one year old girl (Grayden's one true love). So the whole lot of them came over and I threw together some lunch...build your own pizza on frozen dough rolls...complete with tissue paper chef's hats. Then we decorated cupcakes and sent them home. The kids had a great time and I didn't spend a dime. It was a perfect party.


The whole day just seemed to go Reid's way. I'm not sure if we've ever had a birthday go so perfectly. Every present, every activity, every meal was perfect. Reid was on a birthday high all day. It was good for Reid. And Reid was so sweet about everything. He was so quick to share all his new stuff with his brothers. He's top notch.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

GOOD IDEA:
Visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and appreciating a Picasso.


BAD IDEA:
Visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and ripping a Picasso.


.

Role Model

At the dinner table last night...

Reid: May I have some more milk please?

Me: Wow! Reid that was a really great way to ask.

Parker: He must have learned that from me.

Ketchup

As you well know, I'm not really good about blogging my day to day life. It seems so menial. It can't possibly be entertainment worthy. So I put it off for now...planning to blog about it one day when I can look back and see the humor in it all. But while I'm in the midst of the whole stay-at-home-mom thing, my life is no laughing matter. Ok, it can get pretty funny at times, yet still mundane.

I have oodles of pictures I'm way behind on posting. I'm trying to use a little down time to play catch up.

I'm not behind on this one at all. Last Saturday. Girls night at the skating rink.

We spent last Monday's day off up in Kirtland, Ohio. I forgot my camera. Kirtland is so rich with church history. The saints settled there and built a temple in the 1830's. It was fantastic to share that with the kids. Especially Parker as he's getting older and can soak up every piece of information he ever hears. The boys all seemed to enjoy it.

I made fabric blocks for a friends baby shower and stuffed them with things that jingle, crinkle and rattle. I was pleased with the way they turned out...plus they were made totally out of things I had on hand. The only purchase was a pack of onesies to applique.

Kids are so cute in the snow. We had quite a bit a few weeks ago. Reid never lasts as long as the other two. He went in before I got my camera out.

Similar pictures...a few days later. The day before the snow day when school was cancelled. After picking Parker up from school, the boys turned the wrong direction and went straight out front instead of in the house. I sat in the comfort of my warm home and took these picture from inside my front window. The crazy boys weren't even dressed to play in the snow. Reid had no gloves OR socks. And no one had snow pants or even enough layers to stay warm. They came in (after much coaxing from me) cold, wet, pink and chapped.

Did I seriously skip Christmas pictures? Oh well, they look like everyone else's Christmas morning pictures, just insert my kids faces.

I don't remember where we were going this day. But we told the boys to go get ready and Parker took that to mean fix his own hair. We let him go out like this. It was awesome.

Grayden grabbed his crayons and paper and decided he had homework this day, too. Actually, most days we all sit around the table when Parker's doing his homework. His brothers miss him while he's at school.

This takes me clear back to fall. We spent a Saturday at Autumn's parents place. It was the perfect backdrop for a gorgeous fall day. We ate and rode horses and played on four-wheelers and launched candy rockets and jumped on the trampoline. But the highlight was the zipline. And though I have millions of pictures from this day, I'll leave you with this...Spencer jumping off Peter Pan style.

And maybe one day I'll finish catching up on the day to day happenings around here.

What's on Your Counter?

I was at the bathroom counter this morning "putting my face on," as my mother-in-law says, and Reid's leg kept catching my eye. I left it on the counter to dry after cleaning it last night.

Seeing a free standing leg on the bathroom counter isn't as strange as it may sound. It's such a part of our everyday lives that I forget it's surprising to other people. To me, it feels like everyone probably has a fiberglass leg sitting around their house (or on one of their children).

What the leg really got me thinking about this morning was finding out about Reid's condition. It was never detected in an ultrasound.

Spencer had class the night Reid was born. He called his professor to tell him he wouldn't be there. His professor came back with some flippant remark about making sure he had all ten fingers and ten toes. So Spencer, with plans to report back to his professor, counted them first thing. It was quite a surprise when Spencer announced that he was a little short in the toe department.

We actually got a little laugh out of it and still didn't think too much of it until further examination. It was WAY more than just a missing toe. Amputation was a hard pill to swallow when you're coming off of pregnancy hormones.

I had no idea at the time that a prosthetic leg on the bathroom counter would be so commonplace that I would rarely even notice it.

Spencer's professor followed up about the fingers and toes. I can only imagine how awkward that conversation played out.

No Nonsense

Back in May, before I left Texas for good, I had one last ultimate girls night with these two. Dinner, kareoke, bowling. Good conversation. Great laughter. Gorgeous friends. It's still unreal to me how quickly we become so close. For as much as I despised Texas, it brought me some of the best friends I've ever had.

Miss you both.

Phenomenon

After 16 straight days of snow and even more days of bitter cold temperatures, we finally hit above freezing today. And not just barely. It's 38 right now. Isn't it strange how warm 38 can feel?

I put on my cute coat to pick Park up from school and felt I could have made it without the coat. I was warm. No hats, scarves or gloves for us today. But there were boots. Gray is particularly attached to his. He pretty much refuses to adorn his feet with anything other than snow boots.

My heater hasn't been on since I first got up this morning. I spent the afternoon barefoot.

Oh glorious day!

I'm even thinking of shedding my winter fur and shaving my legs. (Plus, I'm playing basketball tonight and I prefer shorts.)

Might as well enjoy it while I can.

The Man in the Yellow Hat

Does anyone else find him just a bit disturbing?

My kids sometimes watch Curious George on PBS.

This single man lives with his pet monkey and uses him to lure in all the neighborhood kids. Seriously...he spends a lot of time with the kids from his apartment building without their parents around. I've even seen an episode where he brings a couple kids from his building for a weekend retreat at his house in the country.

No way would I send my kids with a man and his monkey to spend a weekend in the middle of nowhere.

I'd like to thank the little people...

Genny passed this on to me with the assignment to post seven random things about myself.

And since I never pass up the opportunity to write about myself...

1. I am very seriously afraid of car carriers. I have zero confidence in the people who chained the cars up there in the first place. I do all I can to steer clear of them on the freeway.

2. I have been within arms distance of Richard Simmons, not once, not twice, but three times.

3. I do not consider myself organized or particular or obsessive or a perfectionist or anal about most things in life. Except when it comes to packing. I can not stand an inefficient use of space. I've sort of mastered this art after 4 moves in two years. I can get way more in a box/car/moving truck/suitcase than the average person. It's like playing Tetris.

4. And the only other thing I'm really particular about is grocery shopping. I take the same route around the store every week. I don't have to write everything down because I just know to pick it up when I walk past. When I send some one else, I inevitably leave things off the list that I just assume will be picked up...because I would pick them up. And that some one else usually comes home with things not on my list.

5. I never shave my legs in the winter. And by never, I mean it's probably been since before Thanksgiving at least. Even in the summer, I don't shave more than once a week.

6. My new favorite movie is A Prairie Home Companion. (Even though it's several years old.) Most of you have probably never heard of it. I would guess that even less of you have seen it. And even less still would like it. But my opinion is, you can't go wrong with Meryl Streep. Really, is there any character that she can't play? I first checked it out from the library early in the fall and have probably checked it out four times since.

7. I do not really enjoy talking on the phone at all (except to Spencer or my mom...the lucky two who made the list). Strange, huh? I remember getting grounded from the telephone at age 14 because I spent way too much time on it. Now phone calls are strictly business for me.

Ask and ye shall receive...

I feel a little vulnerable posting pictures after talking up my coat. Don't be too hard on me if you don't share my opinion. I really do love it.


The snow is really coming down. I thought that might make an ideal background for a photo shoot of a coat. After one picture I knew that was a bad idea. So I came in for a lousy picture of myself in my dirty mirror. (And I still have snow on my sleeve.)

Why thank you. I was thinking the same thing.
I SHOULD be a coat model.

The Year of the Tiger

(The animal, not the golfer...obviously.)

My cliche New Years line: I can't believe it's been a whole decade since the turn of the century, Y2K, end of the world, yada, yada, yada. I feel the same as everyone else who has already blogged about this.

Apparently 2010 has not brought me anything exciting to blog about.

We rang in the new year with our good friends and had more fun than I thought possible.

It's only January 6th and already, I've had enough cold and snow. My appreciation for winter weather is severely limited...basically to Christmas day only. (And we didn't have it for Christmas by the way.)

If I don't get my snow shoveled before I take Parker to school, my kind, elderly neighbor beats me to it. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I finally got a coat. I like it. I like, like it...like more than a friend. OK, I LOVE it. Is it possible to be in love with a coat? I say yes.

I'm itching to keep going with all the house painting. I think winter is doing that to me. When it's so drab outside, I certainly need something a little more lively indoors.

Uncle Mike got the crazies a couple movies for Christmas. And while I appreciate him introducing us to Phineas and Ferb (it really is pretty funny), I'm irritated that he can pick better movies for my kids than I can. They have no interest in the movie I got them and beg to watch this all day everyday. Even Gray can sing along to the theme song.

And speaking of Gray, he's learned to jump. Like a legitimate both-feet-off-the-ground jump. It's cute.

I have nothing more to report.

Signing off.