Happy Birthday, McKenzie!!!

How time flies. McKenzie turned 7 years old today. I love her at all her ages; I wish I could keep a clone of her at each age. I'm excited for her as she grows through life, but I can't we slow it down a little? It seems life only picks up speed. In church on Sunday, Sister Black told me that the next thing you know, they've graduated from high school and moved out of the house. How can that be? Unfortunately, I know it's true. Anyway, enough ruminating. Here's the rundown on McKenzie's fabulous day:

We spent the morning preparing for her birthday party. At 12:30, Jen and Chloe came to help set up. At 1pm the guests began arriving. Each of them got a headband with animal ears on it, a balloon tail, and her face painted like a cat or a dog. There were little goldfish crackers in a kitty bowl and scooby snacks in a doggy bowl for them to munch on as they colored Littlest Pet Shop pictures while waiting for the rest of the invitees to join the festivities.


When all of our guests had arrived, we started on the games. First, we had a dog/cat chase, where their objective was to pop each others' tails. The last one with her tail intact won, and the victory went to our friend, Kenzie.

Next, the girls (and Thomas) raced in two teams, cats versus dogs, in an animal relay. First they had to "crawl like a cat" until they got to the dog marker, where they had to "bark like a dog" three times. Then they progressed to the "walk like a monkey" marker, which led them to the "hop like a frog" to the finish line. That was a lot of fun to watch. (I think we should play this at our next Girl's Night Out!) The dogs won this game.

Finally, the kids raced in a doggy water bowl relay.

I fudged it so the cats won. They were down by a few tablespoons. It was essentially a tie, but I wanted to keep things even.

While that was winding down, Michael started up the snowcone machine and we were soon dishing out flavored ice for everyone.
When the kids finished this refreshment, we moved on to opening presents, and eating cake and ice cream. I was seriously amazed with the generosity of our guests' parents. I don't know where they found the gifts their children gave McKenzie, but they did an awesome job. She got a lot of creative things, crafty things, and some toys that she absolutely loves. I sit here speechless as I think of what wonderful people we are blessed to know. You are truly great examples to me.

McKenzie and her friends as she opens her birthday presents.

McKenzie blowing out her candles.

Gratuitous cake shot.

Once the kids enjoyed their cake and ice cream, they headed out for fun on the BONZAI!!!

McKenzie's party was a blast. All the kids had so much fun. I was so grateful for Michael and Jennifer, who helped make it such a success, and to Stephanie, for loaning us the snowcone machine.

After McKenzie's party, we got the kids cleaned up a bit and headed to the mall to get McKenzie's ears pierced. The piercing guns at Claire's Boutique were out of order, so we headed over to the Piercing Pagoda. Unfortunately, there was only one person working at the booth, so she had to pierce McKenzie's ears one at a time. I was impressed at how brave McKenzie was. She usually screams bloody murder at a minor scrape, but today she held her tongue and didn't make a sound. I could tell by her expression that it was painful, yet she was committed to continue with the second ear (thankfully). She was so proud of herself when it was done. I think she looks great. Albeit, now she really looks like a 7 year old, and no longer the 6 year old she was yesterday. Sigh!


What a great day. Happy Birthday, McKenzie! I love you so much. You brighten my days with your cheery smile. I'm so glad to have you as my daughter!

4th of July, 2008

I wasn't much of a photographer this Independence Day.

We started off the day bringing fresh muffins to the 8am ward breakfast for the 4th of July flag raising by the Boy Scouts. I was grateful for all those who gave of their time and talents to provide a delicious and patriotic way to start of the day. Michael had to leave during the breakfast for work. He was on call this past weekend. After the breakfast, we went home and got ready for our city's 4th of July parade. We were 30 minutes late, but we still went, and it wasn't as bad as I though it would be. We enjoyed the people in the parade and watching the parade. I didn't bring my camera to the breakfast nor the parade -- I was just trying to get to these places with my kids presentably in tow.

At one point, there was a boat in the parade on which the entrants were spraying water at the people watching on the side with water guns. As it turned the corner onto the street where we were watching, a home owner grabbed his hose, so when they sprayed in his direction, he got them back pretty good! Another guy on our side of the street ran up and squirted the contents of his water bottle at them, also catching them by surprise. We got a pretty good laugh at that. There were also some funny hecklers on our side of the street who were fun to listen to. They were full of good natured comments.

Jen came over w/her family for games and a barbeque. Again, I didn't take any pictures. It was all so laid back and relaxed that I didn't see the need to document it, but in retrospect, I wish I had taken a few photos. We made chocolate coated waffle cones and some of us had deluxe ice cream sundaes in them (others just had regular ice cream cones, or fancy ice cream cones in the waffle cones.) Finally we packed up and headed over to watch the fireworks. We were so used to them being over the river (from when we lived here before) that we didn't realize they would be in the same place they were last year. (NOT over the river.) Fortunately, Michael (who had arrived home after the parade) called his friend, Jeff, and found out where they were and where a good spot would be to watch them.

We finally brought our camera to this event. I was hoping to somehow figure out how to take pictures of the fireworks, but since I still have no real idea how to use my camera, and don't know much about setting the f-stops, we set it on auto or night focus for most of the pictures and wound up with a lot of mysterious squiggly lights in our photos and blurry fireworks. I seriously need to take a class. Here's what we got:

Thomas and Mason reacting to the explosions in the air

Our little group watching the fireworks

Megan's reaction to the colorful lights in the dark sky

By the end of the show, the boys were cuddled up on Michael, with Mason hiding his head under the blanket.

Gardening

Thanks to my wonderful husband, we now have our very own square foot garden. It even has a spot where we can one day put a little outdoor bistro table! We've never had a garden before, so we're pretty excited about this one. We put it on the side of our house to utilize that area and hopefully keep it a little more protected from our kids, who love to dig.

We initially tried growing our plants from seeds in a little greenhouse but after a false start, the few seedlings that did make an appearance soon dried out. Michael remedied that by purchasing some tomato, strawberry, and squash plants to use in our garden. We planted them on Monday. So far, so good... but we're keeping our fingers crossed!

Laying the foundation.

The kids always want to help.

Planting seeds in 72 little starter pots - of which less than 20 sprouted and none survived.

Adjusting the watering system.

Planting.

Our garden! (Thanks, Michael!)

Bueno? Habla Espanol?

Uhhh... apparently not anymore. Once upon a time, I spoke French okay, Italian well enough to play translator for a day, and Spanish fluently -- as long as I kept to mostly gospel and common topics. Now? Now, when I try to speak a foreign language, it's usually some hodge-podge mixture of the three above. Yet another example of "if you don't use it, you lose it."

Today, Michael was out with the Elder's Quorum helping a friend lay sod. When they finished his house, they went next door and helped his neighbor lay his sod. There were about 10 men, so they completed both yards within 1 1/2 hours. Then, Michael and his friend saw a Hispanic gentleman a few houses down with 5-6 pallets of sod that he was laying all by himself. They thought they would offer their help to get the job done quickly. Unfortunately, they didn't speak Spanish, so Michael called me on his cell phone to translate.

When he handed the phone to the man, I said (in Spanish) "Hi. I don't speak Spanish very well. My husband wanted me to ask if he could help you put grass in the earth." The man replied very quickly something about his daughter. I said "I'm sorry. Can you repeat (totally slaughtered the word for repeat) that slowly?" He said he was waiting for his daughter and I couldn't really understand the rest very well. I thought he said he would have her translate for them. So I said okay and he handed the phone to Michael while saying (in English), "My daughter is coming to translate."

They decided to help the man while they waited for the daughter to arrive. They got about half the yard covered with sod. Just before the daughter got there, they began to wonder if that wasn't the man's house. Perhaps he was hired to do the job and they were taking his work from him? Sure enough, when the daughter got there, they found out that this was indeed the case. They apologized profusely for helping, and left feeling a little embarrassed. Hopefully, the guy didn't mind too much that his work day was cut a little short. It's supposed to be 101 degrees today. Already it's in the mid-nineties. I need to hit the Spanish books so next time I get a phone call like that, we won't be lost in translation!

Guess Who!

It's Mason! McKenzie left her barrettes downstairs one day and Mason found them. All he knows is that they go in your hair, so he kept asking me to put them in his hair. I think he looks kind of cute!

Michael's Father's Day

This is what Michael got for Father's Day (besides some bicycling gear.) It's one of my favorite things we've ever given him.

Thomas and The Princess Bride

A few weeks ago, I borrowed The Princess Bride from some friends for my kids to watch. I had told McKenzie about the rhyming scene ("No more rhyming and I mean it!" "Does anybody want a peanut?") once on the way back from one of our Spokane trips, and each time she related it to Thomas, they'd just laugh and laugh. As I expected, they loved the movie. We’ve watched it so many times that it even got a mention in my Gospel Doctrine lesson last Sunday. (My comments can be pretty random though, so that’s not too surprising.) What is really funny to me is when Thomas pops a quote from that movie out of nowhere.

The other day, I was changing Megan’s diaper in her room when Thomas and Mason sauntered in and headed over to her window. I said, “Hey guys, what are you up to?” Thomas replied, “We are but poor, lost circus performers. Is there a village nearby?” What??? It took me a moment to place what he just said. I totally busted up laughing before I even made the connection.

Today, Thomas was chasing Mason around the house (as usual). I was at the top of the stairway and saw Mason round the corner and start up the stairs. Right after him came Thomas, wielding a tennis ball and channeling Inigo Montoya as he intoned “you killed my father!” What a funny boy. The Princess Bride has always been one of my all time favorites. I'm glad my kids enjoy it. (The book rocks, too!)