Happy Birthday, Fajita!

It's not quite Fajita's 18th birthday until June 1st, but we have so many birthdays in June that hers usually gets shifted a little earlier rather than later. On Sunday we had the family over so we could share in a barbecue and a little cake and ice cream.

Dog Walker's Photoshop skills make some very interesting gifts...

We had already chased around all weekend as you know, but I love the opportunity to get the kids together for a party. Fajita had to work until 6:00, so we didn't start the party until about 6:30 which was nice since Crafty was speaking in Sacrament Meeting and things were a little crazy during our morning prep hours.

My sweetie grilled asparagus, pork chops, and hot dogs. Drama Queen made cheesy pasta and cheesy potatoes. Beauty made the cake and Bossy and Fajita did most of the decorating. The Dog Walker brought home about 6 cartons of various ice cream flavors on Saturday night and I wrapped the gifts.

It was fun sitting around and visiting. So far they have not taken the foster kids, so Chips and Salsa are still with us although the 10-day notice is up tomorrow. Bossy and Gamer are working on their final appeals. The one today was more promising than the first one, so now we just have to wait and see what happens.

Memorial Day 2017

On Saturday we spent the day with my sweetie's family, so today it was time to visit with mine. My little brother has a get-together at one of the cemeteries every year to help us learn more about our ancestors. This year we all met in Nephi.

After half an hour or so of learning about my several greats back grandmother, we ate donuts and visited some of the graves. This is the first year Grandpa's brother and his wife have been able to join us and it was so fun to catch up a bit with them.

Grandpa always does a great job showing the kids each grave and reminding us how they are related. I love that this holiday is all about family and reconnecting.

Ancestor Day 2017

Did you know that on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend we often celebrate what my MIL named Ancestor Day? It's a time for family to get together and talk about our ancestors. On Saturday we had a huge family reunion for my sweetie's side of the family.

The birth of Relia with Crafty the nurse, Sport an elder, and Princess as the mom. Uncle Thayne played the bishop.

Remember when I was helping edit his grandma's history? The books are finally finished and they are beautiful! My responsibility for this huge party was a play that would get people interested in reading the book. I had never written a stage play before so I was nervous, but I finally managed to get something down on paper that we could work with.

Baby Doll makes a terrific school-aged Relia. Crafty was her teacher.

Scout played the main role of my sweetie's grandma as a young woman and Curly played the part of his grandpa. The entire thing was about 25 minutes long and it ran from the time she was born until she married. We had about 100 family members there and they all seemed very pleased with the performance. The Dog Walker and I did the narration backstage with mics.

Scout and Curly stole the show.

My sweetie was in charge of the sound system. When we rehearsed on Friday night we had quite a bit of trouble with the mics, but everything was pretty flawless on Saturday. I will leave you with several pics. I'm hoping to get a video of the entire play mostly for my own enjoyment since we watched from backstage, but maybe you would like it too.

Scout played Relia and Curly played Leo.

We got home pretty late Saturday night, but I was still in bed before midnight. I actually slept until 11:00 AM. I was so tired and a little surprised at how emotionally taxing this turned out to be. Or maybe it was the fact that we had a huge slumber party at Grandpa's house on Friday night and I slept on an air mattress with Scout... not that I really spent much time sleeping...

It's Official

Last night we attended the swearing in and first meeting for the new Youth City Council. Crafty was sworn in as the new Youth Mayor for 2017-2018 by our South Jordan City Mayor.

Sport was also sworn in as a brand new member of the Youth City Council. Our older kids didn't volunteer with the YCC until Princess, but I think I've told you before I was a Youth Council member way back in the day and we had so many fun activities and services.

I'm glad my kids want to develop in their civic duties. Taking care of our beautiful city and serving our friends is a great way to keep them focused on others. So proud of you, Sport and Crafty!!

Playing at the Beach Party

The first 5th grade beach party I helped with was not long after we moved into this house. The Beast was in Mrs. Stewart's class then. It was a big huge thing and I managed to get myself put in charge, but it was so much work I vowed never to do it again.

Then 15 or so years later Sport's class came along, I was finally feeling up to it again. Then someone else put me in charge. I don't know why I just have to be that super over-achiever...

Now it is Scout's turn and all I did today was provide a game of Plinko. We pulled the board my sweetie made for pack meeting years ago, dusted it off, and picked up some prizes. It was pretty easy and fun to hang out with Scout.

Kate and her amazing teacher!

If the kids (or adults) got the "prize" slot, they won a bag of Famous Amos cookies, otherwise it was a Tootsie Roll. I had about 40 bags of cookies and we gave them all away. Scout must have played it 10 times and she walked away with 5 bags.

Clean up was quick and easy, but set up was even better. I had the Dog Walker drive my car over to the school, take the table and the board to the gym and set them up. Then he came back home and I went over to play. It doesn't get any easier than that...

The Art Show - With Music

Last week Curly started begging me to change his dentist appointment that was supposed to be today. It was just a cleaning and who doesn't like to get out of school, right??

It turns out that he had an art museum including a mini-concert and he really didn't want to miss it. Baby Doll and I had planned to attend, but then Twiz changed his work schedule so we also had Twizlet with us. This turned out to be an awesome benefit for my cute son.

Did you know that little girls just tend to flock to a baby, especially one as cute as this one? After a few minutes of that, his teacher let him carry Twizlet around so each classmate could see her individually. She was way more popular than the art.

And much more fun than the dentist.

Happy Birthday, Bean Dip!

Today is Bean Dip's 15th birthday. We had a big family party on Sunday to celebrate for him. Drama Queen made a real cheesecake since he is not all that fond of regular birthday cake. I'm pretty sure his favorite gifts were the 24-packs of Mt. Dew.

The evening was bittersweet. We have been told that Chips and Salsa will likely be removed from Bossy and Gamer's home in the near future. Like a tug-of-war, they have been fighting every step of the way, but sometimes life doesn't go the way we want it to go. We have all been praying for a miracle and we would so much appreciate any prayers you can add to ours that might reverse the court's decision.

Removal is supposed to be on Friday. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Why would any court take two boys who are loved and accepted even with their flaws from a family and an extended family who only have their best interests at heart? The day they first came into our lives over a year ago, Bossy was sure they were meant to be part of our crazy family.

Photo bomb! Silly Chips.

We consider them our grandsons with every right and privilege that we give to any of our grandchildren. We love them. We want them. Please pray for all of us.

Summer Saturday

I still have so many things to tell you about my weekend. On Saturday we had 3 ballgames in the morning which meant divide and conquer. My sweetie was busy helping Drama Queen with her house renovation (one of these days I will have to get her to give you an update).

In the afternoon, Crafty and Sport had a service for the Youth City Council out in Daybreak. It was the first time I had ever heard of the Ladybug Festival and when I saw all the booths being set up, I decided it might be fun to take the little kids back over.

Unfortunately, I had a bunch of things to do first and we didn't get there until after 5:00. All the ladybugs had been sold by then, but the booths and activities were still going strong. We made hats, got faces painted, won prizes; and it was all free!

Afterward, we got all of our kids together that lived here in the valley and we had an impromptu barbecue. It wasn't much, just hot dogs and chips, but we built a fire in the firepit, roasted corn on the cob, and as the coals were dying down, we made s'mores.

My favorite parts were the game of basketball with the kids, the corn on the cob, and just being together. It finally felt like summer. It's hard to believe we had a snowstorm last week. Here's to many more warm summer nights!

Getting Her Ears Pierced

I forgot to tell you the most important part of our adventure on Friday!

When we were finished at the aquarium, we wandered back out into the mall and found ourselves watching the kids on the playground. It only took us a few minutes to discuss our options, but we eventually opted for my first thought... getting Baby Doll's ears pierced!


We have generally asked our girls to wait until they are 8 years old, but as we discussed it further, we decided that she is the caboose and there really wasn't much danger of setting a precedence.

It was only about 30 yards to the closest Claire's and Baby Doll was so excited. She climbed right up in the chair and chose the gold star-shaped earrings. The girl first marked her ears for placement and then loaded the earring.

I think the sound so close to her ear scared her more than the pain, but she did not look happy. The second ear was much quicker and before long she was selecting cards of earrings and a fuzzy stuffed animal for being so brave.

She is beyond responsible and carefully applies her earring solution usually more than the required 3 times a day. She can hardly wait to change them out for something different. We keep telling her the 4th of July, but she has already figured out that it doesn't have to be quite that long...

Running Away to the Seaquest Aquarium

Life is so full. Sometimes you just have to sneak some time out of the middle of a busy day and run away. Teach asked my sweetie to give a talk to her 6th grade class about his dad and WWII, so we checked out the elementary-aged kids from school, stopped by Teach's school, and then headed off on a grand adventure.

It was our first time out with Twizlet, but she did great. After lunch we drove straight to Layton to one of our kids' favorite places, the Seaquest Aquarium. Baby Doll was just so excited to see the mermaids again!

Baby Doll was so annoyed with me since it took me forever to get my camera going.

It wasn't nearly as crowded this time and other than a school group, we could spend all the time we wanted in each area. My sweetie still didn't want to go in the bird cage even after we saw them land on the head of the guy in the blue Seaquest shirt...

We spent our tokens feeding the fish and watching them jump. The kids were a bit disappointed that we only saw one mermaid and she was just posing for pictures, not swimming. When we asked one of the workers, he said they were in a transition period of new mermaids and they were not quite ready for swimming solo, but would be in the next couple of weeks.

Curly was super excited to have actually touched a shark this time! But Twizlet was the most happy of all. The beautiful soft colors of the lights and the quick motion of the birds and fish had her mesmerized pretty much the entire time.

Scout wanted to buy absolutely everything in the gift shop, but we managed to get her out of there just in the nick of time with a promise of another trip later when she had more time to browse (but more importantly, bring her own money) and the mermaids would be swimming again.

Early Morning Stitches

Sorry, I tried to post for you last night, but my server was down so I took that as a sign I should just go to bed. Yesterday was rough. I already had a full day ahead of me when Prima Donna came upstairs about 8:00 AM.

"Mom, I broke Drama Queen's glass table she was using to keep the kittens from crossing the room. It cut me up a bit, but I think it's fine." Then she pulls up the edge of her skirt. It was not fine.

She had several small cuts, and one rather large gash that clearly needed some stitches. Since it was not streaming blood, I was confused. "When did this happen?"

"Oh, an hour or so ago." She tossed her hair back and pulled out her phone to admire her "chrome" lipstick.

I was stunned. "Why didn't you tell me right away?"

"Mom." She gave me a mischievous grin. "I had to finish my makeup first."

I'm pretty sure I rolled my eyes as I pulled out my own phone to try to figure out how to avoid the emergency room by finding someone who could put in some stitches before 9:00 AM. We eventually landed at my doctor's office and he proceeded to make 9 beautiful little stitches as well as giving her a lecture on why it's not wise to kneel on a glass-topped table even if you are just trying to climb over it.

Aren't they pretty?

Running the Show

Today was one of those crazy days. I have to admit to all my friends here in the valley that I have been praying for rain for the past two weeks so my two baseball games would cancel tonight and ease things up a bit. Honestly, I never expected it to be snow! It's not often that we get snow in the Salt Lake Valley in May, but it definitely does happen.

Sport had a Court of Honor tonight, but not just any Court of Honor... he was in charge of it. He had to have a script, acquire the treats, find speakers and prayers, flag ceremony, everything. And on top of all that, he had to conduct the meeting, all to earn the Eagle-required Communications merit badge.

You can guess who got the assignment for the treats, although when Prima Donna showed up on the train for help getting her phone fixed, I reassigned the cookie-making task to her and Baby Doll and I spent over an hour at Best Buy. (I know, the things I will do to get out of cooking...)

I also helped with the script, but beyond that he was on his own and he did a great job! Besides the 9 merit badges he was awarded, he also received his Life Scout rank advancement. I'm so proud of him and all of his hard work. It won't be long before he will have that elusive Eagle rank.

Great job, Sport!

Girl Scout Sleepover

Our weekend was so crazy busy, I forgot to tell you about our girl scout sleepover. You probably remember we have one around this time every year. This year things were so out of control I couldn't even get my head around it until Thursday.

On Thursday, I bought all the food. Friday morning I cleaned the house and Friday afternoon I made a quilt top for the girls to tie. I don't like coming down the wire like that. I like a little wiggle room in my plans, but this time it just couldn't be helped.

I sent the older girls over to Papa Murphy's to buy take n bake pizzas while I set up the quilt. The scouts started arriving around 6:30; unbelievably, everything was actually in place.

The quilt didn't take long since it was a baby quilt, but Primary Children's Medical Center is always thrilled to have them no matter the size. Pizza and treats, movies and giggles, the quilt and cookie awards. And right in the middle of all that, Crafty won that huge trophy at the dance competition! We were missing a couple of our cute little ones, but other than that, everyone was here.

So much fun!

I think maybe we can do it again next year... maybe I will even remember to take more pictures... and start preparing earlier...

A Fantastic Mother's Day

I was so tired last night! We had a big family party and it was pretty late before we got most things gathered up and put away. As I sat down to write a blog post, I decided maybe I could ask Dog Walker to write one for me. A little bit more sleep would be a great last Mother's Day gift, right?

So I pulled the pics I had taken off my phone and dumped them in a post to make it easier for him, said goodnight, and headed for bed. I was a little surprised this morning to see that he hadn't used any of my stuff. He had put together a perfectly appropriate post of his own.

But now I want to share a bit of my Mother's Day with you. I'm pretty sure Drama Queen made everything happen, but I woke up to pancakes with all the sides including a delicious smoothie made by Crafty. Then we were off to church where we were served cinnamon rolls.

After church I took a little nap before dinner. My sweetie cooked baby back ribs and the kids did all the rest. We had all the kids here except Prima Donna, but I already knew she had to work, so it was all good..

They spoiled and pampered me. Beauty gave me a pedicure and Bossy brought home another cake she made. My favorite part was sharing about our mothers at the dinner table. Such sweet tender memories from my dad, new stories from my sweetie about his mom, and fabulous tributes from my own children. We laughed and we cried a little. It was perfect.

Happy Mother's Day!