Darrin's Big Day

After 9 years of birthdays I have celebrated with Darrin, I still feel like Darrin is my favorite person in the whole world. For me that is a big deal, I like people, there are many many many people I love to be around, so to be voted #1 is a very high honor. Not only is he #1 he is seriously the first person that I always want to be with. He is just a fun sidekick! I could not ask for better. So Darrin (because I know you are constantly reading blogs) I want you to know publicly how much I love you, and continue to love you. Here's to a great guy on his 31st!!

31 things I love about YOU!

#1 - You STILL make me laugh, and not just sympathy laugh, REALLY laugh.

#2 - Your smile

#3 - Your brown eyes, I am still waiting for a child that will inherit those eyes

#4 - Your outgoing

#5 - You dance, and your really good too!

#6 - You are not afraid to try new things. Rollerblading down the skateboard ramp!

#7 - You love me, the girls, and would rather be with us then out with the guys.

#8 - You are great with money.

#9 - You can make perfect strangers feel great about there life - "You are the best"

#10 - Your a happy person, you have few "bad days" unlike myself.

#11 - You still plan fun dates.

#12 - You love being a father, and you are so good at it.

#13 - You help around the house, my mom's house, really anyone's house, you are very helpful.

#14 - You like to hike.

#15 - You give me quality time even though there are good tv shows on!

#16 - You play board games.

#17 - You have a strong testimony of your Savior Jesus Christ and the Restored Gospel.

#18 - You are a GREAT public speaker, I love hearing you talk publicly.

#19 - Your hesitant to most changes, but then end up learning so much, it takes a humble person to learn from change.

#20 - You always know the words and titles to songs on the radio, I know this is a strange thing to love, but I do, I think it makes me feel like your still young!

#21 - You believe in US, and do things consistently to prove that.

#22 - Your so logical, this is such an excellent quality being the person that I am, this provides a great balance in our life.

#23 - I love your Saturday morning breakfasts.

#24 - You like to cook new recipes, I'm still thinking about those Eggs Benedict!

#25 - You workout. I am so impressed with your dedication to this, you are a great role model.

#26 - You love action movies. Even though I often protest this, I am glad that you like them, it helps me branch out a bit, and I usually end up liking them.

#27 - You are strong, and tall. This has turned out to be quite helpful from opening jars, to reaching high cupboards, oh...and to do the final lift in country dancing!

#28 - You love to swim.

#29 - You don't watch sports. oops... I hope I didn't reveal too much!

#30 - I love that you chose me!

#31 - I LOVE that I will have you FOREVER.

Happy Birthday Babe!

The secrecy is over...

After much debate, I have decided that we are going to end the secrecy. I am tired of hiding everyone's names from you and using code. I wasn't very good at it either (I noticed some mess-ups in my old blogs) so we are coming out. I am now using everyone by their real names. So Big D=Darrin, Lil' D=Darcy, The Princess=Jaya, The Comedian=Baylie, The Happy One=Eden. There you have it, our true identities revealed!

Cookie Kid

My friend invited me over today to make cookie kids. We each decorated giant chocolate chip cookies that look like our two oldest to give as a thank you for their teachers. It was quite the experience. I had it made because she did all the baking and I'll I had to do was whip up the frosting and decorate my cookies.

It's always interesting to see what I learn about myself while doing these sort of projects. The number one thing I learn is I am far from a perfectionist. I know what your thinking most people say I am too much of a perfectionist but I am the opposite. I think I inherited this from my mom, she doesn't even attempt to craft because it bothers her, which is where I am different. I do the craft, but I do it in a way where it never looks that great, yet I still continue to craft. I don't know if I would even know this about myself except the friend that I am always crafting with IS a perfectionist, and is constantly changing, rearranging, and redoing EVERYTHING! Now that is not a bad thing, and as I watch my friends nit-pick over ever move they make I think in my head, should I be changing something? Why don't I care like they do?

So I am really not knocking on all you perfectionists out there, I am more knocking on those like me, that want to do it, but don't really care the outcome! With that said. I did get a little picky and redid the mouths, but that's really only because the gel icing was like water, and had completely run down. So here are the cookie kids I made of my oldest.

My friend got this idea from a local company that actually sells these type of cookies. I had never heard or saw their product so I thought mine were pretty snazzy (in my un-perfectionist sort of way), then as I was about to post this I thought "I should see what the company cookies look like" way bad idea... it completely blows mine out of the water. So I guess I do care about the outcome a little bit, just not enough to change anything!!

Ice Cream Princesses

To my much welcomed surprise Big D called me today and told me our good friends from the ol' Happy Valley Days were coming in town, and would be here for dinner. I was glad that I had already put something in the crock pot which was adaptable to company.

It was a great visit we ate, talked, caught up and of course planned for the future when we would someday be reunited at last (this is often the topic of conversation with any of our friends that we no longer live by.) Through out this visit we heard laughter and giggles as the girls played dress up and occasionally as one got brave enough we got a little fashion show.

When we pulled out the homemade ice cream, the girls were in heaven. Could life seriously get any better for a bunch of little princesses? Dress-up and ice cream, need I say more....Life is good!

Little Frankenstein

If you ask my kids if they are afraid of monsters you may get varying answers. The Princess has a friend that told her all about a "real" monster, and that story still scares her, despite my attempts to tell her it wasn't true I finally ended it by saying that some little girls just LIE! I was a little upset she told her such a scary monster story, but apparently she believes the story too.

Anyway, I've strayed a little from the point. The point is that we have our first official monster living in our home now. I call her Little Frankenstein. I am not afraid of monsters and I gladly welcomed this one when it decided to make herself at home.

I may have gone too far on the monster analogy but when you see the pictures, I think you'll understand, her she is, our little Franky...

Race Day

Some would think running a 5k is no big deal, and for a lot it's not. But for us it is. I was talking to Big D about blogging this, and how I felt a little dumb because alot of my friends run much farther, and they do it weekly. He said, "When was the last time you competed in something physical?" I thought about that and really the 5k is the most serious competition I have done for awhile. As I write this I realize that I am totally giving you the wrong idea from using the words compete. For me, this race was really just to do it, there really was no competing! I had 1 and only goal and that was to not ever stop running for the entire 3.2 miles (I put this in here just in case you don't know how far a 5k is). I am happy to say that I did achieve my goal. I got lucky because there were many things I wanted to stop for but I didn't. I didn't even have to tie my shoelaces, which is a miracle.

I do have to boast on my husbands behalf, because he had prepared for this race. For the past year he has been running daily (minus Sundays) and has worked up to 5 miles. Last year he ran a 5k in 30 minutes and this year, we had kind of decided that he would run with me. As the race began, he couldn't be stopped, he didn't start out so fast, or maybe I just slowed, but either way, I was left in his dust (no big deal, because my goal was met.) He came in with a much improved time this year of... 26 minutes and 5 seconds. My time was 27 minutes and 30 seconds

Overall it was a great experience and it was fun to "Compete" physically again!

Barbie Photo Shoot

I was itching to blog but I couldn't find any recent photos (I refuse to blog without photos) and then I ran across these old photos. I am not really sure what we were playing that day, but from the pictures it had something to do with Barbies. You have to know that I do play with my kids but Barbies is not one of the activities that I enjoy. With that said, if you put a camera in my hands then even playing with Barbies can be fun. So here you go, the Barbie photo shoot...

The Moon Farm

The Princesses preschool went to the Moon Farm for a field trip a week ago. I remember going when I was a little girl but I had no idea what was really there. We pulled up and it seriously looked like a mini circus, we were instantly excited. There was a sign at the entrance that read: A place built by kids for kids and adults. Could there be anything better? We had a blast. The carousel was seriously from the 1980's rusted and everything, but do you think kids really care? No way! It was operated by a light switch so I had the wonderful job of turning it off and on anytime a new kid wanted to join. I am seriously thinking of putting Big D on the task of finding one of these for our backyard!

Throughout the rest of the farm they had little themed houses set up, one of my favorites was the Holland room, mainly because I got to dress up the Happy One in some tiny wooden shoes. Apparently she liked it too...

No children's place is complete without a HUGE slide that most kids are afraid to go down. So this one had that too. Of course the Comedian wasn't scared anymore, after I pulled her down by her feet the first time.

Here the Princess gets to ride on the pony.

The funniest part of the day was my children's reactions to animals. My kids like to think they like animals but they really don't. At least they are too scared to get close enough to find out if they do or not. These pictures are a perfect example of what I am talking about.

In the above picture you have a classmate, who is fearlessly petting the mule. So the Princess or the Comedian sees this and runs up, like "Oh yea, I get to pet the mule!" Then what really happens, as soon as the mule makes any sort of movement is this...

There's our Comedian, with her hand outstretched (because she thought she could do it) but then the Mule moved, and she jerks the rest of her body away. It's so funny to watch them do this, with any animal they encounter. Maybe I should help them get over this by investing in a pet, but I know too well where they get their fear of animals and it's from me!