So it took a few weeks and a few borrowed eggs, but we finally let Joy have a birthday. She wanted to have a horse themed party, so I wanted to make her a carosel cake. I bought the stuff, borrowed the eggs, and wrestled with fondant for about two hours. After much muttered cursing, and loud yelling, I gave the project up to Johnny. He did a great job putting it together for me.
And of course her present was a horse.
And this was her reaction to finding money in her birthday card from Grandma.
So, for my birthday this year, Johnny abandoned me. Not really, of course, but his grandmother's birthday is a few days before mine and she was turning 90 this year. Since Johnny was switching jobs, and still had some vacation days, and frequent flier miles, he saw no reason to not go to Utah for the festivities. There was really no reason why we all couldn't go except that we were saving our miles for the family reunion coming up, I was in the middle of a house project, and . . . I can't remember any of the other excuses, but I'm sure they were good.
Anyway, at the last minute, we wondered why Johnny couldn't take Miss Lee with him, since she flies free anyway, and it wasn't a business trip. We ended up agreeing that it would probably be a great present for his grandmother and Lee's grandparents and extended family to spend some time with her. Plus, with only two (fairly) independent kids at home, I might actually get some work done. That ended up being quite true.
I was able to not only finish mudding away the horrible faux cinderblock wall finish on one of our living room walls, but paint it and hang up picture frames as well.
This is the layout. I took the picture for Johnny's approval, but
wanted the paint color to be a surprise.
They went in about the middle of this wall.
Ignore the laundry, I have three kids.
So on my birthday, I took my two big kids to see Inside Out. Sadly, no one prepared me so I was caught crying with no tissues. The kids enjoyed it. I liked it. And afterwards we got the obligatory free Slurpee.
Not to be neglectful (which was hard after all my friendly ribbing), Johnny sent me long-distance birthday flowers. Lovely. And I made my favorite cake, homemade angel food. The kids decorated it for me.
Delicious!
I also got to spend some time in my sewing room (with the kids awake!) making myself a birthday present - a new pencil skirt, cannibalized from a skirt a co-worker had given me 8 years ago or so, that I had liked, but never quite looked good on me. I threw some lace over it, and voila! one of my new favorite skirts.
Photo curtesy of Joy.
The finished product.
All in all, a great birthday. And when Johnny got back, we went for a birthday celebration the next weekend. We went to the Historic Park in our neighboring city, which I had wanted to check out for awhile. They had a park volunteer dressed in historic costume giving a tour of the Dr. Gilbert house. Plus we got a personal tour of some of the other houses, church and train caboose by an English man. A nice accent was a pretty good present. Then Johnny took us to a Hibachi restaurant for dinner. We've only ever been to one once before, when we were house hunting in Virginia, so The Captain was barely 1. It was surprisingly successful. Meaning, I didn't want to kill any of the children. They hardly complained at all, were very well behaved, and enjoyed their dinner. A birthday miracle.
Then we went to Coldstone for dessert. The kiddos hadn't tried that before either. It was crazy busy, so we took the ice cream across the street to the beautiful fountain to eat. Lee got to see many "dog dog"s, and even pet and be licked by one, so she was happy. It was an amazing day. One of our best. It's true, my children getting along is the best present.
I love The Captain poking his head up in this picture.
We'd been talking for awhile about Joy getting her hair cut. After seeing many pictures, Johnny convinced her that she wanted a pixie cut. I was worried that she might miss her hair, but after Johnny told her about donating it to make wigs for children who loose their hair when they get sick, she was really on board. Knowing we were going into summer in Texas and doing swimming lessons for at least 4 weeks this summer, I decided it was a good enough time as any.
There's a woman in our ward who is a cosmetologist and Joy's former Nursery leader, so I thought she'd provide the best, most positive professional hair cutting experience. I asked her on Sunday, and she got us in that Tuesday after school. We had the salon to ourselves for most of the time, which meant I could sit by Joy (holding Lee, of course) through the whole process. The Captain could have sat with us too, but his ear was hurting, so he sat by the door and distracted himself as well as he could on my Kindle. (Note to self: put aspirin in the car to help with future problems like this.)
I took some pictures of the process. I'm sure you expected nothing less.
Here we are getting started. We were worried she wouldn't have enough to donate. Locks of Love needs 10", which she barely had. We ended up sending it to Children with HairLoss, and they only need 8" so we were covered.
I would have taken a picture of the cutting, but I had to hold the hair so we could get all 10".
Her shampoo. She liked having a bath without getting wet. Although she kept sitting up, so her back did get pretty soaked.
Waiting for a blowdry.
She ended up getting a bob instead of a pixie cut, so they wanted to give her some pixie dust as a consolation prize. They couldn't find any glitter, so the glued on some jewels instead. They're by her right eye in the picture. It was really sweet and she loved it.
She pretty much charmed all the people in the salon with her constant chatter.
Here's the back.
And the side.
She loves it. I love it. It's so much easier to take care of, especially when she doesn't let me brush it. Now The Captain wants to go to an actual salon to get his cut next time.
Miss Lee's birthday was on Memorial Day. And since we haven't had many people to memorialize in recent years, we took advantage of being back in Texas to see my grandmother's grave. It was the first time that we had seen the headstone. Thanks to my dad's ridiculously accurate directions, we had no trouble finding it. I thought it was appropriate for Lee to see it, since she was named for this grandmother.
And since we were in Ft. Worth, we decided to make the most of it by going to the Botanical Gardens (something I had also done with my grandmother shortly before she died, so it made a nice memorial as well.)
We had a surprising amount of fun.
Of course, the kids do love anything involving the outdoors.
I finally have a new background picture for my phone.
In front of the rose gardens.
The other two, of course, have to be in on the action.
We finished up, and headed home. Luckily, I had packed our water things, and as the storm held off, we went to the splash pad to introduce Miss Lee to recreational water. We were hoping it would be a hit, but it was rather cold. And it wasn't too long before the thunderstorm sirens chased us out.
So we stopped at the party store for some 1 year balloons. I may have had a few pictures in mind.
Miss Lee was . . . okay with the situation, but not happy.
Not even when we let her crawl around.
And then she ripped that bow off her head.
And suddenly she couldn't stop smiling.
That is, until I started trying to get her to stand up.
She was not cooperating.
But in the end, Mommy gets the photo she wants. Even if it is a bit moody.
Then there was birthday cupcakes.
She opened her presents the next day and quite enjoyed the new toys.
As far as her stats go, she is 20# 3.5 oz. And I have no idea how tall she is. Somewhat taller than at 9 months. I think around 29", the nurse doing the measuring didn't tell me and I couldn't catch a look fast enough. Anyway, she's right around 60% on everything but head size and that's still around 40%, so she's growing well, healthy, and generally happy.
The Captain's birthday was on a Sunday this year, just like his actual birth day. There were lots of flashbacks, believe me.
He wanted a party, and I didn't want a hassle, so we compromised by inviting his school and church friends to the park on Saturday. The weather was nice enough to cooperate with us.
We ate cake and snacks in the pavilion.
A Lego cake, of course.
All his friends sat at one table . . .
And he sat alone at another.
Instead of goodie bags, we had a piñata.
These days they just have strings for you to pull instead of punching everyone's lights out with a stick. Smart.
There was much grabbing and everyone got plenty of candy.
Then everyone played at the park as long as they wanted. Totally the easiest birthday I've done in awhile.
Saturday night was Women's Conference and afterwards the Stake had a snack of mini pancakes, Nutella, strawberries and whipping cream. They had plenty, so I brought some home with me. It made the perfect birthday breakfast.
Because I'm mean, I made The Captain wait until Sunday after church to open all his presents, including his party ones.
We have some generous friends, so he got some great stuff. We gave him a guitar to help him with his musical education.
Learning with Daddy
Rocking out
He also got a sleeve tattoo for his birthday. It went great with the rock star look.
