Romper

While in Utah, I sewed this romper/outfit with my mom. It's my first successful venture sewing with knits. I've got a couple other cute fabrics to make a few more. Don't know when I'll get around to them, but at least there's this one and the confidence to try again :)

Nanny Patter Macker

This is Alice's first painting that isn't a colored mass or a face. All of her paintings have objects and stories, of course, but this one is actually recognizable. Media: Crayola finger paints and recycled office paper. Alice's description of her work:

"It's a Nanny Patter Macker. It's a race car. It goes very, very, very fast on fast streets. Sometimes there are bumps and those are houses (giggle). I put a key in the holes and a lady on it."

Happy Birthday

I'm not one who likes to make a big deal over my birthday. Something about "Hey you, celebrate my life!" just doesn't appeal to me. I do, however, enjoy the excuse to spend time doing things I wouldn't normally do. Once I figured that out, my birthdays went from embarassingly awkward to delightfully subtle and fun.

So here's how the day played out...

Early awakening. Young children don't sleep in unless you need them to wake up early :)

Quick breakfast. Halfway through my bowl of cereal, I remember it's my birthday. Ha! Bobby heads to work and the rest of us settle into the morning routine.

I release myself from chores. Woo hoo! I load the dishwasher just for fun. It's all about the mindset for me, really.

Alice and I play and clean the house a bit while waiting for friends to pick us up. I prepare a tasty pasta salad with all of my favorite ingredients (whole wheat pasta, artichoke hearts, olives, edamame, fresh tomatoes, and italian dressing). I hang the birthday banner I made (repurposed placemats and fabric from Goodwill)

There's a knock at the door and I'm expecting Marianne, but it's a flower delivery! My parents-in-law have sent me flowers, which is surprising in two ways. First, I am reminded that gifts can accompany birthdays (this tradition fell by the wayside soon after we married...we're not a gift-giving kind of couple). Second, I suddenly realize how much I was secretly wishing for someone to send me flowers from The English Hedgerow. I dance around the house all morning.

Our friends arrive and we head out to the local children's museum. We play a while. We run into other friends there. The kids get tired/hungry and we meet back at our house for lunch. I enjoy my tasty pasta salad with someone who actually enjoys all of my favorite ingredients, too. Woo hoo!

The kids stay and play all afternoon while my friend performs a serendipitous service for someone else. The kids play so well together that I get some thinking time to myself. I also clean up the house a little more and get to tinker on some of my projects. Bobby brings home dinner from Holy Land Mediterranean Grill (lamb kufta kebabs, shawerma, and heaps of biriyani rice). I highly recommend Holy Land to all who live in the area. Here's the menu.

After dinner, we tidy up the house one last bit before friends arrive for a little dessert party. We prepare Curtis Orchard fresh apple cider slushies, roast gigantic marshmallows over charcoal, and munch on Ashley's unforgettable molasses spice cookies. We chat until the kids get tired (sensing a theme here?) and call it a night.

Just the kind of birthday I like :)

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Sorry about the missing posts the past few weeks. We have been on vacation. It was a long vacation visiting most of our family out west.

We flew through the Detroit airport. But the bad weather in Detroit that day shut down the airport for 45 min. This delayed our flight in by about an hour, but our flight out was about 4 hours late. I really love how the airlines do it with delays, They don't actually mark a flight as delayed or even give any hint that it might be delayed until the plane has already missed the original time, and then they only updated it once, which turned out to be way off. However, there was a very nice guy who works for the airline that helped us out deciding if we had any hope of catching the last flight from Detroit to SLC that day. He was very confident that everything would be delayed and we did manage to get to SLC, just at about 2 AM. We spent a long time in the airport there.

Here is a tunnel that runs under the runway between the terminals. You cannot hear it but they are playing music that is synchronized with the walls.

Once we got there we visited just about everyone. I will be posting more pictures soon

Pre-Reading

On our last trip to St. Louis, we stayed the night in a motel. We got there when it was late, so Alice didn't have a chance to look out the window until the next morning when she said:

"Hey! I see a sign!"

Being the ever-diligent teacher of pre-reading skills, I quickly responded, "Wow, Alice! Which letters do you see?"

"Ummmm...H...O...O"

(I groan in anticipation)

"...T...E...R...S. What's that spell, Mom?"

I smother a laugh with the most nonchalant voice I can muster, "Hooters."

"What's Hooters?"

"A restaurant."

"Can we eat breakfast there?"

Bobby and I jump up in unison: "No."