Planning a 3 Year-Old's Birthday Party

Me: "Maggie, do you want a special birthday lunch for your birthday?"

Maggie, her eyes lighting up: "Yes!"

Me: "What should we have?"

Maggie: "Um, cake."

Me: "Let's see...we could play Duck, Duck, Goose at your birthday party. What other games would you like to play?"

Maggie: "Candyland, puzzles, and books."

Cake and boardgames--I think this is going to be one of the easiest birthday parties I've ever pulled together. But I'm not sure how thrilled her guests will be.

P.S. Maggie keeps going around the house, singing "Happy Birthday" at the top of her lungs to everyone except herself. And then she announces, "When it's MY birthday, I sing 'Happy Birthday' to ME!" I think she's practicing up for the big event.

Cousins

We stopped by my mom's brother's house in northern Utah on the way home from Idaho the other day to feed the baby and stretch some legs. So, I told the kids we were going to see their cousins. You see, I'm the oldest child of an oldest child and while my kids don't have any cousins (except one very cute little baby one in Florida) some of my cousins are their ages.

In the car, we started talking about these cousins, remembering their names and who they are. Then Matthew asked if Red Shirt would be there. And he said it like it was a proper noun, a name, someone called Red Shirt.

What? Who?

It turns out, when my mom's sister (from Massachusetts) came over for dinner a few weeks ago with her 8 year old son and also her grandkids, Nathan and Matthew couldn't remember the boy's name. Since he was wearing a red shirt they dubbed him Red Shirt and they've called him that ever since.

So I had to explain that Red Shirt, a.k.a. Aydan, was not going to be one of the cousins we saw on our way home from Idaho--he lives across the country. And actually, we didn't get to see any cousins in northern Utah because they were out of town that day.

I'm thinking we need to get this extended family together more often.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

We just got back from visiting Grandma and Grandpa Camper in Boise, Idaho. The kids rafted down the river, swam in Grandpa's pool, collected chicken eggs, and spent hours and hours playing with Grandma's giant tub of old Legos. I took advantage of all the free babysitting and went shopping, read books, and just enjoyed not having to cook and clean and go, go, go.

But it's good to be home. Brian's decided he doesn't want to live the bachelor life after all--he missed us terribly, especially his little "mini-me" girl, Becca B.

Cranes, Helicopters, and Temple Spires

On Friday, we sat on our front porch and watched as the angel Moroni was placed on the new temple. How cool is that?

MY Baby

Brian said, when I was making hair bows the other day, "She is not your doll."

I said, "Yes, she is."

He just doesn't understand--it's a mother's privilege.

He calls it her "bow helmet" or her "antenna searching for alien life forms--beep, beep, beep". So, it's a little big but I think she looks cute.

Maggie understands. She was sitting on the couch the other day, holding Becca. When I went to take Becca back, Maggie said, "No, my baby." I finally had to trade Maggie two of her baby dolls for Becca.

It's MY baby. And I get to hold her and dress her up all I want.

So there.

Banging My Head Against a Wall

Me, at 10:00 last night: "You boys need to get in bed and go to sleep or you're going to crash."

Nathan: "What do you mean? We'll crash into each other?"

Me: "No, you'll crash mentally. You'll fall apart."

Nathan: "Like, we'll explode into a million pieces and die?"

Me: "No. [Insert long, wordy explanation about how you get cranky when you don't get enough sleep and your brain can't deal with things and so it crashes.]"

Nathan: "So...when I'm playing Indiana Jones [video game] tomorrow, I'll get mad because I can't figure it out and my brain will go crazy and I'll crash into Matthew..."

I gave up. I got the feeling he was sort of egging me on.

Maggie Sings

She's got the talent.

She's got the looks.

But she could use a new crew.

Fun in the Sun

We went swimming at our brand-new community pool today. It was a little crowded being opening day and a fairly small pool in a rapidly growing neighborhood, but the facility was absolutely beautiful and perfectly set up for the kids.

Maggie and Becca and I hung out in the shallow little kids' part while Nathan and Matthew played with their friends in the deeper area. (The last picture is of Matthew and Nathan's friend Colin, I couldn't catch Nathan with the camera.) Then while Becca took a nap in her stroller, Maggie and I practiced kicking in the deep end. When it was finally time to go home, I had to drag Maggie out of the water because she didn't want to leave. Luckily, we can go back whenever we want because not only is it a 5 minute walk from our house, it's free!

Oops

Me, to Brian as he's walking in the door from work and I'm heading out the door in my swimsuit: "Hey, there's a guy in our shower."

Yeah, not the best way to tell your husband that a handyman is repairing the caulk around the shower drain.

Pretty Pretty Princesses

Since Becca is growing like a weed these days (she turned three months old today) I had to get a picture of her and Maggie in their matching Easter dresses and coordinating bows before Becca gets too big to squeeze into her dress anymore. Maggie's bows didn't make it into her hair today--getting her to hold still for pigtails is pretty much a miraculous event these days--but I've got pictures of them already so I decided the fight wasn't worth it.

And now I can pack that little pink daisy dress away with all the rest of the 0-3 months clothes.

P.S. Does Rebecca look like her Daddy or what?

Look who's rolling over!

Becca started rolling over a couple of days ago. I took several video clips but none of them turned out very well--kids never perform their tricks for the camera, do they. So, this is the best I could come up with.

hot Hot HOT

You know those days when your air conditioner is broken and it's 81 degrees INSIDE your house and your baby woke up every 2 hours last night because she didn't like sleeping in her too-small bassinet in the basement because it was too hot upstairs in her crib which means you got one hour of sleep out of every two until you finally gave up when the phone rang at 7:30 this morning. And the air conditioner is STILL broken and the warranty guy sent a repair guy out--thank goodness--and he said it's all fixed and left and an hour later it was broken again and now it's 82 degrees on the main floor and WHO KNOWS how much hotter it is upstairs, you don't even want to know. And there is a pile of laundry that has been sitting on the laundry room counter since, um, Friday or Saturday ? and while you washed and folded a lot of other laundry yesterday, that particular load is sitting and getting wrinklier and wrinklier because you just can't focus on it. And plus also when you walk across the kitchen floor you stick to it because of all the otter pop and apple juice and watermelon spots because no matter how you ride your kids about not only eating their otter pops outside but also cutting them open outside, the juice ALWAYS ends up all over the floor. And you're thinking that it's probably way too hot in here to scrub floors today and the only thing to do is go down in the basement where it's slightly cooler and go back to sleep while you wait for the air conditioner repair guy to show up again.

Brian says I whine too much.

Lemonade, Anyone?

Nathan invested his own capital last week on plastic cups and lemonade mix. He set up his stand on the side of our house and met with such success (one family--and grandma--bought A LOT of lemonade) that not only have they set the stand up again today, they have doubled their selection: lemonade and otter pops. Matthew invested his capital in the otter pops, with a small loan of $1.20 from Mom to be paid when he makes his first...$1.20. And I'm a tyrant of a debt collector, let me tell you.

Of course, the boys sample their wares to ensure they give their customers quality products--but they charge Maggie. We've also got a friend helping out this time--the boys have assured him that he'll be paid wages.

So, if you're thirsty (and the temperature is supposed to be near 100 degrees) stop on by for some cold, fresh lemonade and otter pops! Yum.