Happy Birthday, Crafty

Our beautiful Crafty turned sweet 16 today!

It was sort of a different birthday for her. It was Parent/Teacher Conferences at the high school, so she got to sleep in for a while. Then at 11:00 we ran to the library so she could take her final for the fitness class she has been taking online. She got an A, of course.

Our first appointment with her dance teacher started at noon. Two hours later, I was relieved to know that all of her teachers think she is amazing, hardworking, and top of her class! Not that I would have thought differently, Crafty has always been an excellent student.

She had so many birthday wishes on Facebook and friends coming to the door that she hardly noticed we didn't have a big party for her here. Wednesdays are so hard; the family is planning a big celebration on Sunday. I did give her a cute new outfit to wear today and I offered to take her for ice cream, but she asked for a raincheck. I think she wants to spread her birthday over the entire week.

Tomorrow is her opening social for Cupcake Club so we spent the evening after dance making and baking cupcakes. I think she has about 100 although she is planning to have them each decorate and take home several. I hope she has at least a dozen people there. She is pretty nervous about being in charge and I am so excited for her to have that opportunity.

Happy birthday, Crafty!

Give Me a Break

Becoming a Bobcat

Tonight was pack meeting and I have been stressing about it all week because they invited me to do an Arrow of Light ceremony. Normally this is no big deal, but today we were outside, so that made sound and lights a bit tricky.

When it became apparent that I would be in charge of my own staging, I asked the Dog Walker if I could borrow his Karaoke machine. He brought it upstairs and we plugged it in and burned a CD with the music and all seemed to be fine.

Then tonight he loaded it into the car for me on his dinner break.

Kneel and be Knighted

Unfortunately, he wasn't the only thing that had a break. For some crazy reason, the mic would not work. I could get the music up and running, but all of our hard work to make it so everyone would be able to hear appeared to be lost.

My sweetie showed up just before the meeting started and he tried to help me, but after we opened up the mic, we could see that a couple of little wires were broken and there was no way it was going to work.

We did our best without it. Curly still received his Bobcat and did a great job in his skits. And the Arrow of Light worked out just fine. Way better than I thought it would... I just stepped aside and let my sweetie do it.

McGyver Skills

We got through the weekend and all the excitement, so today was definitely a Monday.

You have to hold your head just right...

I had a dentist appointment first thing and it was incredibly painful as he attempted to seal up this open-ended root to finish off my root canal. (And tonight I can't sleep because the pain is so bad...) When we were finished, I got back to the house just in time to meet Bossy so we could drop Salsa off at preschool with Scout and head for Utah County.

Remember I told you about Prima Donna's car accident on Friday night? Well, Bossy and Gamer managed to get the car down the canyon (barely!) and to a grocery store parking lot where it overheated on them. Today we decided we had to deal with it.

When we got there, Bossy immediately opened the hood, checked things out, and then crawled beneath the car. The radiator hose was broken, so I went into Harman's and bought some duct tape and a tube. Unfortunately, the tube was not even remotely what she was thinking, so I returned it to the store and bought a bottle of Gatorade.

With McGyver-like precision, we cut the bottom from the bottle and used it to bridge the hole in the hose. I say "we" loosely; Bossy did all the work and I ripped strips of duct tape for her. The first time the leaks were terrible and we had to start over, but before long she had the car on the road with its makeshift repair.

We made it as far as Pleasant Grove before it started to overheat, but that was far enough. We were within the 50-mile radius to get our tow free from State Farm under the rules of my insurance policy. I made the call and we headed for home. We were a few minutes late to pick up the kids, but a quick call before we left made that totally fine.

So proud of Bossy for her ingenuity! I'm thinking maybe she can go to work as a mechanic...
... or a rep for Gatorade.

Happy Birthday, Princess

Princess turned 20 yesterday and although we sang to her up at Trefoil Ranch and she was embarrassed to stand up in front of all the girls, we decided we still wanted to have a big party today.

My sweetie did all the cooking except for the cake (I'll tell you about that in a minute). Princess had requested eggplant parmesan and we also had chard, tomato salad, and alfredo. My favorite part was my sweetie's homemade Italian bread with roasted garlic, oil, and balsamic vinegar. I was pretty full before the meal even started!

I was in charge of the birthday cake because it was also a special reveal cake for Twiz and Teach. Princess is such a good sport, she was totally fine with letting them upstage her for a minute. I made the cake half pink and half blue and then marked the right side so Teach would know which one to cut.

The cake was still partially frozen when she cut into it and the pink piece sort of flew up in the air. The kids all cheered! They all knew they were hoping for a girl. Such exciting news!

Winds of change are blowing strong here...