A Great Birthday

Had a birthday yesterday. 33. Monumental. But not really. It was a lazy-ish day {for me}. Jon broke the Sabbath and bought me a jelly donut for breakfast. I felt so happy that just because he's now in the Bishopric of our local congregation, he still isn't too good to get a donut for his wife on her birthday. When I thanked him last night and told him how I felt, he said, "5:30 am doesn't count as the Sabbath." Agreed.

When Leah finally woke up at 8:15, she came up to me and said, "what are you doing up? This is your birthday." (Nevermind that Jon left the house at 5:30 to retrieve my donut, and then went straight to meetings after the drop-off. And Phoebe woke up promptly at 7:12....what's a birthday mom to do?) So Leah took Phoebe out of the room, and Esther too, and shut the door. I pretended to sleep for 5 minutes so she could feel she had done a great job. And she had. Talk about melt-my-heart-cute.

He made my favorite roasted green bean tomato salad, and some rosemary bread that is to die for. For dessert, we had FAMILY FONDUE. Fruits, pound cake, and marshmallows to dip into milk-chocolate and non-allergenic chocolate for Leah and Phoebe. Phoebe's favorite part was fingerpainting with it. Leah's favorite part was biting marshmallows in half and sticking them on everyone's foreheads. My favorite part was chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, and family, family, family. Jon finished off the night by doing the dishes and playing fast Scrabble with me. {This all took place in between my obligation to speak at another ward's conference and his youth fireside, and my birthday nap. Somehow, it all fit in.}

A short and sweet thank-you note:

Thanks, Jon, for the splendid day!

Lots of love,

The 33 year old.

Just a Few of NYC

Darlyblog is replete with NYC photos. Enjoy! I certainly did . . .

I'll be back soon with some new goals, thoughts, etc.

More of My Phoeberoni

She is a total ham. Knew just what to do when I whipped the camera out. I always said that my my 2nd and 3rd children would have as many pics of them as the first. Doh! I blew that promise. Better make up for lost time.

After a New York Minute, I Came Home to This

Just returned from one of the best trips of my life to NYC with gal pal Lindy Lou. Let's just say it was incredible. Pics can be seen at darlyblog, if you please.

I'll post a few here, too, plus someday in the future I'll download why this was a life-altering trip. This is my personal blog, right? So I can do that here.

One of my highlights of the trip was coming home to my 3 sleeping daughters. I especially missed Phoebe, since I've never even spent a night away from her in her short 16 months. I missed her morning breath, her kooky smiles, her "mama" whines, her love of blueberries, her dancing, and just about everything else about her (minus the blueberry-poopy diapers). So last night while Jon took the older gals to swimming lessons, I had a little Phoebe Photo Shoot. She's so sweet!

Growing Up

I decided I needed to catalog lovely Leah on her last day of 1st grade. She is getting so old; for her birthday, a friend gave her 7 books from the Weather Fairies series, and she has read them ALL this week. What the? She wasn't interested in much independent reading until then, and now has gone berserk! I love it. For each book she finishes, I bank $2 into her book fund. She's already at $18 in a week. I better lower the ante or I'll have to get a job. Since I don't already have one. ;0

But, here she is with her sisters....I hope they are always best friends.

We Love Cuzzies

Why didn't I get more pics when Ben, Becca, Bella, and Peter were in town? Because I'm a doofus on the roofus.

We had lots of fun with our Harmons. We spent some quality time chillin', spent some good times at the zoo, Ernesto's, EcoThrift, a bit of shopping, some crafting with Becca, some more quality time on the couch, and also had our selves a few Beverlies (44 oz-ers for you not in our beverage circle. A visit with Ben wouldn't be a visit with Ben unless a few drinks were had. Smiles were had, too, and so were tears, and laughter filled our hearts and warmed the air. Reference, anyone?).

Harmons, please come visit again.

Someone's in the Kitchen . . .

It's Phoebe! Now if I could only get her to do this in the REAL kitchen...

Birthday Girl

Leah's party was a success! We had a lot of messy activities, i.e. Gak, Ooblek, and Diet Coke and Mentos bombs, plus water balloons, a BBQ, and decorate-your-own summer journal. (I adapted great party ideas from here). A few kids weren't so into the mess, actually just one wasn't, and everyone else was gung-ho and ready to get dirty. Especially Leah when she put GAK in her hair. Remember, this is glue, borax, and water, with a heavy concentration on the glue. Took a long time to come out. She looked pretty punk for a day.

Schutz Shakes with Schutz Girls

These photos didn't fit in the last post. Enjoy...

Schutz Shakes

A few Saturdays ago, I decided that we needed to add a little bit o' festiveness to our current repertoire. Schutz Shakes came to me in the shower (a coincidence, I think not; besides, all of my brilliant ideas come to me in the shower---my only few minutes of peace and quiet--unless, of course, Esther decides to come in with me after I've already gotten her bathed, dressed, and ready for the day).

So we bought ice cream, and candy bars, and bananas, and Mexican chocolate syrup, and berries, and Cap'n Crunch, and had some friends bring the contraband peanut butter. (Don't worry, we made Leah and Phoebe's shakes first with Haagen Dazs sorbet and frozen berries. No ER trips for this party.) We used mini cups and made lots of shakes. Luckily the Paulsens brought their Vitamix. Our silly Osterizer was put to shame!

What ensued? Taste tests, shakes, more taste tests, refills, ooohhhs, ahhhhs, and lots of fun.

Before the party started, I had my resident sign-maker, Leah, make a poster. I don't have a picture of it, but it said:

"THE HOSE WHERE SCHUTZ SHAKES ARE MADE." and it had lots of volcano-looking creations all over it. You can tell we don't have shakes very often. ;)

Thought I'd leave you with a little pic of the Schutz Shakes Players. If you want to come for Schutz Shakes, June Edition, drop me an email. You must live near Northern California, unless, of course, you're up for the drive.

Sorry about the clauses and commas.

One Minute in Esther's Life

She's four (and a half!), fickle, fancy-free, fancy, friendly (uber----more on that later), frustrating, and mine; love her, I do.

Rewind

I like how in my last blog post (over two months ago), I said I'd have more time for blogging. Ha!

Highlights since last posting:

Leah's 7th Birthday
Leah finishing 1st grade
Esther finishing Preschool
Phoebe getting bigger, cuter, and more personality-full every day.
Visits with family and friends
Summery weather
a few nervous breakdowns (oh yeah, this is supposed to be the highlights section) . . . .

I must catalog with photos, because if I don't, this chapter of our lives could be lost forever. Please oblige. And then maybe when I get caught up, I can actually post something of more substance. I still do think, even though I hardly have time (or peace and quiet) for that anymore.

Our Animal Friends . . . tres charmant!

Now that Darlybird shipping is outsourced, I may have a bit more time on my hands; which means I may be able to update my blog a bit more frequently. There are a lot of things swirling around in my head right now, but I'm not really wanting to hash them out just yet. So I'll just tell you about one of my favorite children's books of all time.

A few years ago, an unexpected package arrived on my doorstep. (Those are the best kind.) It was addressed to Miss Leah. She was thrilled beyond measure, and opened it up right away. Inside was a book----one that I had never heard of, but have since grown to cherish as an all-time favorite: Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen.

Basically plotless, it is a charming slice of country and farm life~ makes me want to shun suburbia and move to some acreage so I can have all sorts of animals with amazing personalities. The narrators obviously love these animals---and I do, too, after reading about their antics. The illustrations are delightful as well. When it's time to read to my kids, I often reach for this book because I love it as much as they do.

If I were you, I'd pick up a copy tout de suite. Maybe you could get two and unexpectedly send one to a deserving child. Enjoy!

*Thanks be to beccalecca for sharing her love of this book with us.

Phoeb-a-Roni and Cheese is 1!!!

Phoebe turned one while on our trip down south. So we celebrated a week late. Thanks to Rubyellen of mycakies for the adorable wool felt crown.

So Cal

Jon had a conference at the Hotel Del Coronado is San Diego. In usual fashion, I said, "You ain't leavin' me behind.....or for that matter, the three munchkins." So, a trip to Disneyland was in order (I forgot my camera at the hotel....oops!), a few days at the Del, Ph's 1st birthday, a great night and morning with old friends, and a quick stop back at Grandma Jane's to break up the drive home and say a quick hello to some of the Clovis contingency. It was a fun week, but 4 different beds in 5 nights is a little harrowing with 3 kidlets. Some of the highlights included the new Children's Museum in San Diego. I wish we could just move in . . . Port-a-Party (port-a-potty turned into a miniature disco room), Pillow Fight Room---with silk-screened pillows that look like real tires, making "flowers" out of junk toys, tent city, painting a real VW BUg, ahhhh....maybe we need to move to SD.