Spiritual Thought Sunday--It's a Wonderful Life

Ah. Mother's Day.

And it was good.  Very good.  I got breakfast in bed and started the Sunday crossword puzzle in peace.

Last week's puzzle that I've been waiting to do until I had some time to just sit down and do it uninterrupted.

Started it, because it wasn't truly uninterrupted.

But it was a nice few minutes lounging in bed.  Pretending that I was childless.  Which would then negate the whole Mother's Day premise.

Church was good.  By which I mean, we survived another week and only have 2 weeks until Aunika goes into nursery.  Which may save (a) our sanity and (b) our eternal souls. However, I got fed up with Aunika's devil screeches and left to put her down for a nap roughly about 5 minutes before the primary stood up to sing their little tribute to their moms, leaving my little bug up there singing to everyone else's mom.

Yes!  Mother of the Year right here folks!

(Sidenote: Is it bad to go on a family vacation solely for the purpose of not having to battle Aunika in church for 3 hours for one less week?  I didn't think so.)

We went and spent the evening with Wade's parents.  Wade turned on the sprinklers for the season and I was reminded that we've slowly become our parents.  I remember going with my parents to my grandparents house and doing weird things like turning on sprinklers.  We did get free dinner out of it this go round and I don't remember getting dinner when I was a kid at my grandparents.  But, naturally, that's probably not something I would've remembered anyway.

I tracked my parents down to a hotel in Washington D.C., where they're on a bus tour of all the historic sites. I'm mildly (read: incredibly) jealous, except for the part where they said they were the third or fourth YOUNGEST people on the bus.  But, looking over the agenda, they're hitting some really cool parts.  I HAVE to go there someday.  Maybe when I write my bestseller and Wade retires so he can play house while I'm touring the country for book signings, I can go see the sites.

So, all in all, It's a Wonderful Life.

Hello

Hi.

I'm still here.

It's just that there was A LOT going on last week, what with the party of the century and my birthday and nearing the end of another half marathon training, that I decided (sorta) to just take it easy.

Meaning you weren't the only thing neglected this last week.  In fact, you may have been low on the priority list of things that I neglected.

Not that I watched an entire season of America's Next Top Model (11 episodes) and a few movies or anything.

(I folded laundry while doing this so I was being "productive").

I do have a new recipe.  I'll post that.  Soon, probably.  I also have a lot of thoughts I'm freaking out about that I'm going to post here.  Soon, probably.

And I'm running the Ogden Half Marathon next Saturday, so you'll have another installment of pictures from the course.  I'm hoping to finally rig up my camera to carry it, so I can have a few pictures from my vantage point.

And in SIX WEEKS,  I start training for the ST GEORGE MARATHON.

(I know.  It was during mile 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 of the last one that I swore (literally) that I would never do another one.  But something happened in mile 26 that changed the previous 15! miles.  Maybe it was the throngs of people still cheering at 5 1/2 hours.   Maybe it was that I finished in 5 1/2 hours, so far from my goal.  Maybe I forgot how much I swore (literally) that I would never do another one.  Whatever the reason, as of yesterday, I'm officially signed up for the race on October 2.)

And St. George hosted an Ironman event last weekend that I have a few thoughts on.

See.  It's not that I haven't been thinking about you.  It's just that I haven't been thinking about you.

Spiritual Thought Sunday: 29 Things I've Learned in the Last 29 Years

Whoa.  I'm officially in the last year of my 20's.  Which is really starting to freak me out since I still feel like I'm 21.  What did I do for my birthday you might ask?  Well, for starters, some awesome friends took me to breakfast.  My parents came out to watch Josh's soccer game and then took us to lunch afterwards.  Then we picked up Wade's birthday present and rushed home so I could run 11 miles (as punishment for missing last week's 10 mile run) with a friend.  After that, we had to head into town to get Wade's present set up and not feeling well from the run, agreed to Crazy Bread from Little Caesar's Pizza for my birthday dinner.  We ate and another friend dropped off a birthday cake she  had baked for me.  Which was good, since that detail was overlooked.  Then we sat down to watch the movie Wade had brought home especially for my birthday--Sherlock Holmes.  After trying desperately to figure out what was going on, I gave up about 10 minutes in and fell asleep.


I know.  I'm pretty wild.  I try to keep it hidden most of the time though.

1.  29 isn't as old as it once was.
2.  Even the people you really love probably gossip about you.
3.  LMF's are the bomb.
4.  Some kids have been dealt some really crappy parents.
5.  Some parents have been dealt some really crappy kids.
6.  I have neither crappy parents or crappy kids.
7.  The hour and 15 minutes before the alarm goes off, when I wake up to see how much longer I have to sleep, is not the same amount of minutes as the hour and 15 minutes that Sacrament Meeting lasts.
8.  The snooze button is the devil.
9.  Having kids is the second hardest thing I've ever done
10. Raising those kids is the first.
11. Public criticism is hard to take.  Especially if it's overly critical.  
12.  There is a great need for a sarcasm font
13.  If you want it, you have to get it yourself.
14.  The house doesn't clean itself.  Even on your birthday.
15.  I will never be a morning person.
16.  Married couples who say they've never had a fight are lying.  Or one person is always giving in.  Whatever the case, it's never ends well in the long run.
17.  What you mistake as us fighting is what I like to call passion.
18.  Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you are wrong.
19.  Chocolate is the best healer.
20.  I'm glad my parents never encouraged my dream to become a model.
21.  History is pretty cool.  Wish I would've  realized that about 15 years ago.
22.  School was fun until you had to start jumping through all those hoops to graduate.
23.  Having a math degree makes me sound smarter than I really am.  I like that.  What degree do YOU have that make people raise their eyebrows and whistle under their breaths?
24.  It never gets old telling people how much my twin brother and I weighed at birth.
25.  A full year after starting running again, with 2 half marathons and a host of other races under my belt, I'm actually starting to ENJOY running.
26.  You don't have to enjoy something fully to be committed to it.
27.  I'm a wee bit competitive.
28.  Sometimes, I think God is watching and thinking "no, no, no.  You have it all wrong."
29.  There are a hundred thousand things I want to do in this lifetime and yet my days are full of variations of the same three things: eat, clean, sleep.

It's Mario Time!

Disclaimer:  I put a lot more time into this party then I will ever publicly confess to.  So, if for some bizarre reason, you wanted to duplicate this idea in the future, please talk to me about the "real" time investment.


Josh turned 5 and for his birthday, we (read: mainly I) decided to throw him a birthday party of his choosing.  Back in January, Josh and I talked about what theme he wanted.  LEGOs.  I started looking around to get an idea of what was out there in the form of LEGO-themed birthday parties.  Nada.

When I broached the subject again in March, his thoughts had changed from LEGOs to Super Mario Brothers, and I thought for sure that some party store somewhere would have this covered.

Nope.

So basically it was up to me.  I would have to piece together a party from mid-air (read: the internet), which is not really my forte.  But much like the Halloween costume, for Josh, I would try.  I was only hoping that the final outcome would be a little more closer to my vision than the costume was.

I sat down with Josh and we talked about what games he wanted and who to invite and what to do.  I found some cakes online and he picked one he really liked, which could've really backfired had he picked this one.  Luckily, he picked one that was somewhat easier to replicate.  We mapped out what needed to be done when and about how long it would take to do it and set to work.

Look at me--being all organized and stuff.

The first order of business was starting the pinata.  I found this awesome pinata with step-by-step instructions here.  (Side note:  This is the coolest party site EVER).  I went and found the materials (basic stuff that can be found at Walmart--bonus) and started in on the longest project ever.  Josh was all ready to help--for about 5 minutes--but as it turns out paper mache-ing is hideously boring.  And tedious.  And he didn't really like the feel of the goop.  So it was up to me.

For a week we had different balloons hanging from our light fixture in the living room drying.  The first night, the main balloon of the head deflated leaving a somewhat caved in head.  Isn't that what always happens?  This last Monday, it was time to assemble the hardened balloons into the shape of Mario.

I was a little skeptical because I didn't know how this was going to translate to Mario.  But it did.

This might singlehandedly been the best art project I've EVER done.  It doesn't look exactly like it was "suppose" to, but for my skillset, it's pretty darn close.

Next up were the decorations.  Again, there's nothing out there.  So, a teacher friend of mine brought over a big roll of butcher paper and I got to work.  Using the projector we have set up downstairs, I taped the paper up on the wall (over cardboard to protect the wall lest Wade kill me) and traced different characters from the game.  Then an awesome friend and I laid them out on the kitchen floor and colored them with markers.  Josh even colored a few himself.  I cut out the images and mounted them on wrapped pieces of cardboard and then we placed them around the living room as decor.

The brown guy who's name is still a mystery--I thought it was Koopa, but Wade says that's the turtle--and Yoshi were part of games we were going to play.

(Josh LOVED these pictures and has them in his room.  With Princess displayed prominently.)

Speaking of games, there was some prep to go with that.  The first game was the Yoshi Egg Smash.  I drained 36 eggs, washed and dried the shells, colored green spots on them, filled them up with confetti (and a few with gold stars) and then glued a piece of white tissue paper over the hole in the top to hold in the confetti.

(Why, yes, this took some time.)

The second game was Koopa (maybe?) Stomp.  I filled 25 brown balloons with a gold coin a piece and then blew those up with about 20 other brown balloons.  The idea was to stomp on the balloons and the person with the most gold coins wins.  In addition to those balloons, I also blew up 80 balloons that were red, blue, yellow, and green to add to the decor.

(Why, yes, I did this by myself.  With just my mouth.  Except for a dozen brown balloons that my mom blew up.)

The last order of business was to make the cake.  Here is what (thankfully) Josh wanted.  I found the little figurines on ebay about a month ago.  This was my first attempt at a truly decorated cake, and, again, for my skillset, it turned out pretty good:

(Note to self: Next time, construct cake on platter you're going to serve it on.  Maybe not the cutting board.)

I let Josh put the figurines on himself and something finally clicked.  He's been going around pretending to be Princess Peach.  We were a little worried because all the other boys in the neighborhood want to be Batman or Superman and the likes.  But Josh wants to be Princess.  However, when I noted where he put Mario and Princess on the cake it all started to make sense:

Apparently, they're "kissing".  And I think Josh has his first crush.

(On Princess.  Not Mario.  In case that wasn't super clear.)

My stupendous, awesome, gracious, wonderful, amazing mom came over to help wrangle kids and finish with the last little bit of the decorating and party prepping.  Josh and I colored this banner about an hour before the party was set to begin, so we were definitely down to the wire:

So now--it's PARTY time.

10 little kids came over--8 boys, 2 girls--ranging in age from 3-7.  (The 3 year old is a little brother of one of Josh's friends that plays with them and the 7 year old is Josh's best friend.  It's an odd collection of children.  In more ways than one, but that's for another day.)  Our first activity was to decorate the treat bags.  I figured this would be something to start the party off pretty calm instead of just launching into all-out warfare (ha.  Like calm is a word you can use with 11 kids in one room). Naturally, the weather was crap, so we had to hold the party mostly indoors.  Which worked out good for the most part.  We also made hats, but those didn't go over very well.

I mapped out how long I thought each thing would take, and I was surprised that I was almost dead on.  There was not a lot of sitting around and staring at each other.  And the cats kept away, so there was no chasing of them either, which seems to be a favorite pastime of some kids.

After coloring our treat bags, we moved on to the games.  First up was the Koopa Stomp game.  I explained the rules and naturally, 50% of the group didn't listen.  They were suppose  to pop the brown balloons, but they went after the other colored balloons, which had no gold coins.  It was hilarious to watch the kids try to pop the balloons and after standing back and laughing, Wade (who took the day off work to finish a project for school and graciously helped pull this shindig off) found some toothpicks and that sped up the game.

(Yes, it was hard to watch all my hot air go up in smoke--and so fast too.)

Next, we moved outside for the Yoshi Egg Smash Game.  This was actually pretty fun and chaotic and a little hard to explain why only four people got prizes for winning, so EVERYONE WON.  YAY!!!

Up next was the Pinata.  I was a little saddened that all my hard work was going to go to waste.  Wade was positive that it would hold up through the first hit, but he was WRONG!

Each kid was blindfolded and got 10 whacks.  This equated to 110 (thereabouts--since some kids missed a few times during their turn while others snuck in a few more) whacks.  Then we repeated.  So 220 whacks.  Then we started in on 5 whacks without blindfolds.  It was on the final whack of the 11th kid that it fell apart.  So, 275ish whacks.  Not too bad for a homemade pinata.

(Yes, I cringed at the first hit.  And then when pieces started falling off, I almost cried.  But I held steadfast and internalized my emotions).

The pinata took a little more time than I anticipated, so it was a mad rush to open presents (CHAOS) and eat ice cream and cake.  Then the parents arrived and we sent them home, hyped up on sugar, with a party bag full of candy and doodads.  Payback for all those parties Josh has come home from.

All in all, it was a great party that Josh LOVED.  Which is good because it was his main present.  I figured I spent as much on the party as I would've for a big present (it wasn't as expensive as you might think, though it definitely wasn't cheaper than, say, taking 11 kids to McDonald's and getting happy meals.)  Sunday night--Josh's actual birthday--we had the grandparents over and we did a low-key party here.  All the other years, we've had both entire families over and it gets to be expensive and chaotic and sorta takes away from the birthday kid when there are 15 other kids running around.  So, this year, we decided to go this route and Josh really liked having his birthday centered around him.  Maybe in other years, when he won't be getting a friend party, we'll do family shindigs, but for this year, this worked.  He got some new clothes and some new toys and a bucket of LEGOs.  He was a happy kid.

I figured since this was his first friend party, I would go all out.  A friend had commented a few years ago how much fun it was to plan the birthday parties for her kids and I thought she was nuts.  But, now I know.  It was a lot of fun to put together and to see the smiles on Josh's face when he'd be helping me color or paper mache.   I plan on only doing friend parties for the 5th, 8th, 12th, and 16th birthdays, so I can afford to go all out.  Especially if it makes them happy.

What's For Dinner Wednesday--Cafe Rio Steak Salad

1.  Go to caferio.com

2.  Select restaurant location

3.  Select order online (UT only) or phone in order

4.  Drive to pick up food

5.  Drive home and enjoy

Time Out

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Spiritual Thought Sunday--Being a Mom

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSHIE!!!

It's hard to believe that it's been 5 years since my world got tipped upside down.  For the most part it's been a great ride, with a few bumps along the way, and there's no way that anyone can adequately prepare you for having kids.

How far have we come this year???  In some ways, babysteps.  In others--leaps and bounds.  

Naturally, we'll concentrate on those areas.

* In the fall, we signed him up for soccer thinking this would be a great activity for him.  To save $20, we also signed him up for the spring season at the same time.  It was seemingly evident that maybe team sports weren't his thing.  He spent a lot of the fall season holding the hand of the coach ON THE FIELD.  As in, he wouldn't run down the field unless he was tethered to the coach (for the little guys, one coach from each team is on the field).  Towards the end of the season, he had finally let go of the coach's hand, but any time he got pushed down or touched, he'd storm off the field, yell "I hate this stupid game" and start walking home.

In short, it wasn't going well.

Fast forward to spring, and I got an email from the soccer organization saying that the season was starting up. I dreaded the first game, fully expecting the same reaction from just a mere 6 months prior.  I was in for the surprise of a lifetime when Josh was actually having FUN.  He didn't have to hold the coach's hand and he's made a goal in every game thus far.  It does help that he's about 3 inches taller than everyone else.

*  Josh can count all the way to 100.  He started counting one day and except  for helping him with a few tricky spots, he made it all the way to 100.  He's also reading a lot more.  Not chapter books by any means, but he can sound out a lot of the words and work his way through sentences.  His preschool teacher has started giving him harder worksheets and that's really helped his enthusiasm with learning.

*  What might be the biggest deal of this last year actually happened last week.  We had been talking to him about things we will start expecting from him once he turns five, and one of the items was he had to start eating "good food".  We spent some time talking about what was "good" food vs. "bad" food because his eating habits are still atrocious.  For dinner, we had apples and Josh ATE a slice.  A naked slice.  It wasn't hidden.  I didn't have to take away any privileges.  He didn't have any tears.  It was the most glorious thing EVER.  And then I found out that today in Primary, he ate pretzels AND apples that the teacher had brought to class.  I almost cried I was so happy. 

*  Josh's favorite toys are Legos and the Wii.  He LOVES Legos and spends quite a bit of time making things.  He has a great imagination and can put together some incredible machines.  He also loves to play the Wii.  Especially Super Mario Brothers.  Wade and Josh beat the entire game a few months back, but Josh will go back and play his favorite boards.  He's really good and can beat me.  That's pretty humbling.

* His favorite color--right now--is pink.  I know.  I know.  I don't like the color, so naturally, my son would like it.  We did steer him away from the pink soccer ball at the store and he chose the red one.  Whew.

* He seems to be a little more comfortable about being away from me.  He didn't use to like to go knock on the next door neighbor's door to see if his friend could  play.  Now, he'll venture out there (after asking me, of course) and then he'll run back if no one is home.  He's even branching out to playing over there on occasion.  

We still have our challenges, but in the last few months, his temper has softened and he's a hoot to be around. He is always saying and doing the funniest things.  I'm excited for him to start school and to start on that next adventure in his life.

Here's a short video of one of the best days this year: