12 on the 12th | August

This month, I only did 9 on the 12th! I was so busy with sharing time at church and Lucas's family birthday celebration that I didn't take enough pictures. Argh.

1. Lucas requested oatmeal rolls, corn on the cob, watermelon, and peanut butter chocolate cake for his birthday dinner. I was unsure how to supplement these requests for the rest of us, who actually enjoy protein and vegetables, so I looked on my blog for his birthday dinner last year. He made the same requests! So I went with last year's menu and made pulled pork and green green salad to round it all out. I put the pork in the crockpot the night before, to ensure that it would have enough time to fully cook and be soft and shreddable. (I actually hate doing that, because the smell of the meat cooking woke me up at 5am.)
2. After church. I was trying to get a picture of Lucas hanging out, checking Facebook, and he was not having it. This is his, "Are you serious?! no more pictures!" face. (His hand is wrapped due to an injury he sustained playing football with Landon.)
3. I spent the majority of the day in the kitchen. This is me wearing my Grandma's darling yellow apron.
4. Marc and Eva were sorting through things in her room to donate! Hallelujah!
5. Michelle brought watermelon. Lucas prefers it in wedges. (Not me, I like it cubed.)
6. By the time everyone was here and we were eating dinner, Lucas was in a much better mood. (Sundays are rough for him. He always gets headaches for some reason.)
7. Bob and Mim provided the corn on the cob. Delicious.
8. Lucas blowing out his 13 candles. It cracks me up that it looks like Kristen is helping him blow.
9. Even after loading and running the dishwasher, there were still a plethora of goblets and plates to wash. Parties generate so many dishes!

seventeen

Max turned seventeen on June 24th. Seventeen. I still haven't quite recovered from the shock of it.

We had a family party with a very Max menu: fried eggplant slices with soy/honey sauce, sesame-crusted salmon, Nicole's spinach/strawberry salad, fruit, and chocolate peanut butter cake.

The Denneys gave him this cow card, which he obviously loved. He loves cows.

He can never have too much dark chocolate.

A new t-shirt. We had to have a few gifts for him to open, but his main gift was a new iPod touch, which all the grandparents contributed to as well.

He's been wanting to try this soda for awhile, and he is definitely a fan.

The cake did not turn out pretty, but I remembered again that nobody cares except me.

Lucas is never sad when someone chooses chocolate peanut butter cake!

Apparently, Jack wanted to join the party. At least we were finished eating!

Much gaming ensued, Max's favorite.

misc. updates

Yes, it's that time again -- time for miscellaneous updates! (cheers all around) I'm trying to follow Ali E.'s advice to tell just one story every day, but even with that most unintimidating of dictates, I am still falling short. (thus the misc. updates...)

On Saturday, we finally found the tile we're going to use in our kitchen! It's proven much more difficult than we anticipated to find what we wanted (black & caramel checkerboard), but when we re-visited a store I had already been to, a very helpful woman pointed us to some special-order options.

In the afternoon, we went to Marc's parents' condo in Salt Lake to celebrate his step-dad's 70th birthday. They always go all out for family dinners.

How could anyone resist fruits and vegetables so beautifully displayed?

Eva adores birthdays, even when they're not her own. This is just one of the many reasons she loves going to Grandma and Grandpa's:

I had a nice Mother's Day.

Marc made really really good belgian waffles, and brought me one in bed. (I've never really understood the so-called luxury of breakfast in bed -- it seems like just a more difficult way of eating your breakfast to me.)

The kids all made me cards. Max went all out, using punches, stamps, markers, torn notebook paper and graph paper, and even definitions taken from an old dictionary! Pretty cute.

Our ward even gave out these sophisticated little gifts to all the women. (two truffles inside) Good move on the chocolate. I think I can safely say that no one wants another single carnation. Am I right?

The kids semi-cooperated for some photos after church. I went down to my studio and sewed for awhile while Marc made me dinner! (pork tenderloin with mustard sauce, radicchio and endive with blue cheese and raspberry vinaigrette)

He even made this delicious lemon custard pie with a pâte sablée (cookie crust). Yum. He did the dishes and he put the kids to bed. This all had the pleasant dual effect of giving me a break and making me realize how much I usually do! Nice.

This was the view out our back door yesterday. It ended up being a delightfully rainy day, with two hailstorms thrown in for good measure. Eva couldn't remember the word "hail" for the life of her, and kept calling it "jail".

Amy H. tipped me off to this great old-fashioned general store in Lehi. Eva and I went to check it out on Monday and we both enjoyed it quite a bit. I liked the fabrics.

Eva liked the toys, the little girl she found to chat with, the bath bubble animals that remind her of the ones we got in Paris, and this display!

{Apparently from this moment on, I forgot to take any pictures.... argh.}

When the boys got home from school, I took all the kids in for their dental checkups. No cavities! I can't remember the last time I said that. Eva isn't too keen on sitting in the dentist's chair, even though it's kid-sized, but fortunately she has two big brothers to show her the way, and that makes everything a little easier.

Lucas gave our FHE lesson, which consisted of a re-telling of a story he'd read in The Friend and a role-playing game he made up to go with it. Surprisingly, Eva really enjoyed it (she usually struggles through FHE) and said she wanted to have "Family Home Meeting" for a long long time.

Today we went to the library and the mall. I made the amazing discovery that Eva loves shopping at the mall! (and she's only 3...) I usually avoid it because it seems like too much hassle, but she enjoyed herself immensely and didn't want to leave! Always surprising me. She was tickled by the escalators, the puzzles in the children's department of Macy's, and especially the fountain with coins in the bottom. I gave her some pennies to throw in, but she wasn't really getting the concept of making a wish. Can you even remember not knowing what it means to make a wish? Anyway, I enjoy my little errand buddy -- or "go-with guy", as Jessie says.

She actually took a nap today, after resisting for 3 days, and while she napped, I prepared some good mail and made a necessary run to the post office. Note to self: never ever arrive at the post office at 4:50 p.m. I couldn't use the self-serve machine and had to wait in line for 25 minutes!

Tonight was a nice relaxing one, complete with folding all the laundry and watching American Idol. And David Archuleta sang Billy Joel's "And So It Goes"! That's one of my all-time favorite songs -- sometimes Paula surprises me by making a really good call.

One final note: I think my kids are really enjoying our family dinners. They've quickly caught on to the fact that it's a perfect forum for everyone to have a chance to talk and be heard. They joke with each other. Everyone knows what's going on with everyone else. It's so much more than just the food.

the problem with procrastinating

Things have been unexpectedly busy around here this week. I'm not sure why I let things take me by surprise like that -- it's not like I didn't know about all of these things -- but at the beginning of the week I was feeling footloose and fancy free, only to realize by the middle of the week that I had a whole lot of stuff to do, and fast. Here's what's been keeping me occupied:

• Finding and wrapping a gift for a birthday party for a friend who's turning 8. Why is it hard for me to find a present for a boy? I should be a pro, right? I ended up with the old standby, a Bionicle.

• Going visiting teaching -- first time in the new ward. I got to meet my companion and a woman that we visit at the same time! That was a first for me. I found out that my companion's husband is in the military. She has five children who have only seen their father sporadically through the years. He was on a submarine when she found out she was pregnant with twins -- there was no way to communicate with him and she couldn't even tell him until two months later! He was home for the birth of the twins, but had to leave one week later. This woman is amazing. Her husband returns from Iraq in one week, for good, but he will be in Virginia for a few weeks finalizing everything. She is so excited she can hardly stand it.

• Getting ready for YW. The Laurels have started making little recipe books. They make a recipe and bring copies of it for everyone, then they make a little scrapbook page with each recipe. (I made toffee dip with apples.) The girl who was supposed to be in charge of bringing supplies didn't show up, so fortunately I had brought a bunch of my stuff. One girl brought spinach salad, but forgot to bring forks or plates. Luckily, we had napkins, so we ate the salad with our fingers. That was another first. Incidentally, I've started having dreams about my Laurels. I'm not sure what that means, other than that I guess they're on my mind.

• Back to piano lessons. It sure was nice having no lessons last week!

• Helping Max get ready for a Scout overnight campout. It is truly staggering how many things they have to pack just for one night. They are going to Topaz Mountain, which I'm sure would be a lot more fun if it weren't getting down to freezing at night! (Yep, it snowed again yesterday. I guess they thought a late April campout would be warmer.) Also, I have to send him with a tinfoil dinner. I've never made a tinfoil dinner in my life.

• Trying to stay on top of the laundry. I just don't understand how the hamper could be almost full already when I just finished folding all the laundry last night!

• Jill's brother-in-law Jared came over yesterday to give us an estimate on tiling our kitchen and entryway. I'm so excited to be one step closer to having that done!

• Family dinners. A small victory on that front: on Tuesday I was going to a YW leadership meeting and didn't think I had time to pull a family dinner together. I was scrambling to get something, anything, for everyone to eat. Max and Lucas were having a Pokémon battle on the table. They scooted over to eat. Marc and I happened to sit down at the table as well. Eva was in the family room and said, "Hey! I want to sit at the table, too!" Maybe they're coming around...
  

• Our first ward activity is tonight. Not sure why they scheduled a Scout camping trip that conflicts with that, but... the rest of us will be going to see if we can get to know anyone. I signed up to bring cookies, because well, I love to make cookies.

• On Saturday we will be celebrating Eva's birthday and my niece Nicole's birthday. We're all going to meet at Thanksgiving Point for the baby animal birthday party and the tulip festival, then we'll come back here for panini and birthday cake. I have not done one single thing to prepare for Eva's birthday -- no gifts, nada. What in the world? My birthday banner isn't even close to being done, and I don't think I'll have a chance to make the cake until Saturday morning.

• I have to teach YW on Sunday. I've read through the lesson, but that's it so far. Hmm, not sure when I'm going to have time to prepare, probably not until Saturday night. Not ideal.

Just before I woke up this morning, I dreamed that I had photos to go with this post. Wishful thinking!

p.s. Yesterday morning Marc, Eva and I were all eating cereal for breakfast. Eva looked around and said, "is this a cereal party??" Who knew such a little thing could be a thrill?