My b-day and other goings on

My birthday was on Wednesday, and I made myself this cake. Mostly, the "frosting" (berry mousse) was the best part and yes, I sat down with a spoon and just ate it right out of the bowl. It was my birthday!!! (By the way, here's the link to my recipe.)

Honestly, as far as birthdays go, it was really more of like a normal drudge filled Wednesday--only even more chaotic than usual. Mark had to stay at work all the way through lunch and then had to celebrate the clinic's birthday (...the irony) till 7:00 pm and then had night clinic till 8:30 pm. I had been mostly cleaning house for hours and running the kids around.

 So, by the time we finally had cake late that night, we were all run ragged. Although I am always in a state of dazed fatigue these days.

 Oh yeah, and we got two inches of snow that day. My favorite!! Luke was stoked anyway.

However, I had a really good facebook birthday--meaning like 50 people who would never normally know or care made sure to wish me a happy birthday. AND my friend Jenny Norton threw me an online baby shower! People logged on (it was a facebook event) and participated in games and exchanged stories and guessed when I'll have the baby and how big she'll be, etc. It was fun!

 

Stuff from Jenny Norton from my Amazon registry

I have two online registries at Amazon and Target that people ordered stuff from and also some very kind souls contributed through Paypal for a group gift. I was finally able to order my new travel system! *Sigh of relief*

Urbini Touri travel system

 Outfits from my friend Mindee Knight

 Mini quilt from my friend Jenny Chamberlain

 Crocheted chenille afghan from Becky, who works with Mark

On Friday night, we were finally able to have my birthday dinner and Madelyn was so excited because we got Japanese takeout from Ninja courtesy of a gift certificate someone gave to Mark. This girl LOVES her California rolls (which have crab meat, cucumber and avocado wrapped in seaweed and sticky rice). She and I ate two whole rolls between us, and Mark had his favorite Bonsai sushi roll, which has actual raw salmon (noooo thank you). We also got a beef teryaki entree and some chicken Yakisoba noodles. It was all so yummy.

In other happenings:

 

Madelyn was a finalist in the science fair this year! We did her project on whether hot, cold or warm water removed set in stains the best (warm water did). I had no expectations for her to win anything, since this was sort of a "Let's just get this over with" sort of project that we did several weeks ago. 

There were several finalists from each grade in the science, math and engineering categories. Madelyn didn't end up getting a ribbon (the top 4 did) but we are still so proud of her!

 

Everyone always enjoys Tiger snuggles.

  

  Him and that couch crevice!

Sometimes we arrange a fish viewing stool for his convenience.

We had my sister Maria's girls Emery and Nora over for the afternoon Saturday before last. Madelyn was so good with them.

Nora (11 months) was sad because she'd burned her hand the day before. Normally she is very happy go lucky. She's so cute, though!

Mark sure is good with kids, too. Lucky to have him!

Another week in which Mark finishes a project and I do not

I feel like I have been spinning my wheels lately. Sewing stuff has been all over my kitchen table for two months--projects piling up everywhere--and I can't get anything done. By the time I'm done dealing with THIS

(These were all clean and neatly folded in a basket....)

and homework and housework and cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. I am too tired to face anything else. And I know for a fact that in two months from now all that stuff will be exponentially harder with the new baby, so all the more reason for me to try and get stuff done now!!

Oh, well.

Meanwhile, Mark has been also very busy but managed to get a big project done that he's been wanting to do for a couple of years now: to get power to his shed.

The logistics had always been too tricky when he'd researched how to do it before, but then our friend Alex Chamberlain bragged on facebook recently that he'd just gotten power out to his shed and Mark was determined to figure it out this time.

 I'm not even sure exactly what he did, but it involved cutting a hole into the side of our house. I kept going out and saying..."Are you SURE you know what you're doing?!??" He was very careful to take all the precautions he was supposed to, and installed circuit breakers everywhere, but still I guess I was a little dubious. There's no stopping Mark when he's decided to do something, though.

  

 He is excited to have this outdoor outlet close to our lawn now, because we have an electric lawnmower and he always had to use two giant extension cords to be able to reach the nearest outlet inside the house.

It worked! He now has overhead lights for his "workshop", and plenty of outlets for his fan, his big shop vac, and his power tools. As Alex so rightly said, this is "nerdvana".

 The shed needs a lot of tidying up, so that's the best picture I have for now. But Mark is one happy camper! I'm sure he'll be out there tinkering around all the time now.

Now it's back to the old grind for me....today I went visiting teaching, and have to go to Madelyn's science fair, and then clean the house so the home teachers can come over here while I go to a RS presidency meeting (and my visiting teachers are coming in the morning) and OH it's my BIRTHDAY tomorrow so I have to bake myself a cake. 

My last day of being 32! Who knew it would be so.... full of.... stuff! Being an adult is overrated.

Random kid stuff

Here's some pics of what the kids have been up to the past few weeks.

Cookie faces, lol

Madelyn's parent teacher night at school--the students performed a reader's theater and she played several parts, including a bandit called Dirty Dan. She had this mustache that she made on a stick. It was cute.

Her class made "Whoville" apartments

And she went on a mustache making frenzy. She made Mario and Luigi ones for her and Luke.

There was a book fair that week at school, and we found the kids markers topped with classic Pac-Man and ghosts. They love Pac-Man thanks to their dad, and he made them this set up just like the game with foam blocks and marbles. (Madelyn brought her markers to show off to her friends and they were all like, "Who is Pac-Man????")

Practicing her gymnastics moves. I guess three years of lessons are teaching her something after all!

She held another art show in her room and helped Luke make some entries.

She is constantly doodling and keeps a notebook in her backpack so she can drive on the bus:

She made a whole story about Super Cheese and stapled it all together. It's brilliant. Notice the wedge of cheese flying through the air with a cape on (that would be Super Cheese).

She still has a thing for zombies and drew a bunch of them (they are really screaming for "brains" not "Brians"...) along with a nice replica of the Hwacha (ancient Korean arrow rocket launcher built by the Mythbusters). Love the dangling eyeballs, too. Oh Madelyn.

 She recreated a scene from an Adventure Time book that she has. You can tell why she loves that show--it's so weird! Right up her alley.

 

 Last Saturday, she went to her BFF Emma's birthday party at a beauty parlor. So she decided to set her room up for makeovers when she got home. She worked on me, and then Luke found his way in and requested a mani-pedi in green and blue polish.

He has stopped wearing clothes again recently. 

Speaking of Luke.

 

 This is when I was trying to nap on the couch and he ate almost an entire package of cookies.

He is such an angel when he's sleeping! Until he comes and climbs into our bed, which lately is 2-3 times a night.

We finally got him a big kid booster seat about a week ago. I was laughing so hard because he kept giving me the Nacho Libre smile:

Tiger: "Ahh, sleeping in the couch cushion crevice"

Luke: "Let me smother you."

Their relationship in a nutshell. I'm a little worried for the baby once she gets here.

Tiger has figured out how to get back at him though:

 He sleeps on Luke's pillow every chance he gets. Even when I'm hauling Luke back to his bed at 4:00 a.m., I find that Tiger has taken his spot.

This is the black cat (whom we've nicknamed "Jabba", because he is enormous) that lives around here and hangs around with Tiger at night if we give him the chance to go outside. We're not sure if they are friends or if Jabba just has boundary issues. He has bright yellow eyes and is kinda freaky looking. I'm wondering if he's the one responsible for pooping on our back lawn these past few years.

This cat wants attention and snuggles just as much as Luke--he destroys the furniture--he keeps us up at night--he coughs up stuff under our bed. It's exactly like having another kid! Sheesh!!

Baby shower! And a car kerfuffle

This time change has kicked my trash!! All week I've felt like I could barely function in my half-dead zombie state. But I'm happy for the extra light and for springtime, so whatever. I just wish we'd stick with this time and be done with it. I'm getting too old for this nonsense.

 Last Saturday, my mom and sisters planned a fun birthday lunch/baby shower for me! It was so nice to get together and eat and visit--it had been a long time.

 We met at the Pizza Factory in St. George. Madelyn came with me, and my niece Hattie and my sis-in-law Monica.

My sister Maria came from Kanab, my sister Meg came from Orem, and my mom and sis-in-law Lori came from Hurricane. It was my mom's birthday earlier that week, and mine is next week.

 Lori had left already but I thought we'd get a picture with all the brown haired "M" girls: Mom (okay, her name is Carolyn), Megan, Melissa, Maria and Monica (and Madelyn was taking the picture). I want to give Baby QQ an "M" name, too, but I don't think Mark is going for it.

 It was such a nice day that Madelyn had to do a little frolicking!

So, while we were lunching, Mark and Luke had taken my car over to the dealership where we had bought it three years ago. They'd kept sending us recall notices and said to come in for a free repair. It was to reprogram the main computer in the car to fix some sort of engine vibration. My car had never had that specific problem, but we figured we'd get it checked out just to be safe.

Biiiig mistake.

I called Mark to tell him to come and pick us up, and he said, "There's been a problem....." I guess while the mechanics were trying to reprogram our computer, it froze up and could not be rebooted. The car was completely crippled and it needed a new computer--TO THE TUNE OF ALMOST $800 DOLLARS. "They offered to do the labor for free--once they find a replacement part--and they've given us a loaner truck to drive in the meantime." 

Ugggghhhhhhhh

So, what else were we supposed to do? I drove a red 2014 Chevy Silverado for the week.

 This truck would not even fit in our garage. Maybe if it had been completely empty--but as it was, the bed stuck out by 2-3 feet when we pulled in. I was in constant fear of sideswiping someone, or running them over, or of smashing things with the end of the bed as I tried to maneuver around.

But it had a bumpin' sound system and XM Sirius satellite radio so I drove around Cedar City blasting girl power songs by Gwen Stefani and Beyonce, feeling like this:

source

Or more accurately, like this:

source

 Because I was FINALLY A TRUE SOUTHERN UTAHN, Y'ALL. Big trucks are a THING down here. The guy at the dealership was so pleased to have this giant pickup to loan us--and was 100% sure that it was our dream come true. You can't go 5 seconds down a southern Utah road without seeing a truck. There are ELEVEN such trucks just on our tiny little street--I sat at Madelyn's bedroom window and counted them.

Anyhoo, Luke was totally thrilled with it, as you can imagine.

 Madelyn had Mark drive her to school in it every day until we had to give it back. I'm glad they enjoyed themselves...

Well, Mark and I lost sleep all week about how on earth we'd be able to pay for repairs on my car--because even though they offered to do the labor for free and even got the company to write off half of the cost of the part--$437 was still more than we could afford (not to mention the unfairness of it all--the car had been fine until they messed it up).

Mark told them flat out that we could not afford to pay that much, and waited nervously until Thursday morning, when they finally said we could get our car back for $100. We figured that was as good as a deal as we were going to get and drove down and picked it up before they could change their minds!!

Good land!!

Yesterday, I finally got around to taking some pics of the baby shower presents I got:

My sis-in-law Monica knows I love Baby Magic lotion and I had literally just made a mental note to buy some more when she gave me some! And a gift card to Walmart, which will come in super handy because the car seat/stroller I want is from there.

We don't currently have a baby car seat anymore, or a crib. Yeah, you'd think we would, but our old ones were either recalled or expired. We also don't have a dresser for the baby's clothes yet. I have everything picked out, I just don't have the money (it's going to add up to about $500) to get all that stuff. I'm pretty sure that in about a month from now we can buy it all, but in the meantime, Mark has his surgery coming up and we are still paying for medical bills we incurred last year, etc. (And the car kerfuffle was so not helpful.) I know that as long as we at least get the car seat, we can get by without the other stuff for a while, so that will come first. We already have clothes and blankets and gear, mostly Madelyn's old things--thank goodness for that.

My mom gave me this adorable outfit and velour blanket. Sooo cute! She also gave me a Target gift card and I got this:

A little outfit (will probably be what we take her home from the hospital in) and about 10 pairs of baby pants for this fall/winter. I also bought diapers, nursing pads, pacifiers and bottle liners. I've been trying to stock up on supplies like that whenever I can.

My sister Maria painted these ADORABLE peg dolls for me--I requested that she make two mermaid sisters that could represent my girls--and she threw in a Pirate Luke, too. I love them!! She also gave me cash to go towards getting the car seat, which I'm very grateful for.

 Megan decided to give me my birthday present early and got me this super awesome Star Wars window shade for my car. It earned her a high-five from across the table. I can't wait to use it! The first Star Wars movie (Ep. IV) was the best and how can you go wrong with Chewie, Luke, Obi-Wan and Han Solo??! I LOVE IT. Nerds unite!

P.S. Madelyn has just discovered the animated Star Wars Clone Wars series and "only has 115 episodes to go!" on Netflix and I'm sorry, but they are just terrible. TERRIBLE.

Then a couple of days ago, I received a package in the mail from Mark's sister Sheila, who made me this gorgeous handmade baby quilt:

 I mean--WOW--what a gift!! Her workmanship is so impeccable and I can't believe she takes the time to make them for all her nieces and nephews.

She actually made quilts for my other kids, too. This was Madelyn's:

 

 I just remember being blown away because she had intuitively chosen all the colors I was going to decorate Madelyn's room with. And she did the same with Luke's!

 She made this Irish chain quilt with all these teeny one inch squares in gradient shades of blue and green. And then hand quilted it!! I am not worthy.

 

Sheila's daughter, also named Sheila, threw in this hand knitted baby cardigan with her mom's quilt. ISN'T IT PRECIOUS! Holy talented. I guess I have come to accept that I am not the crafty queen of everything because all that stuff is way beyond me.

So happy to have such nice things for my baby! :) Thanks, everyone!