Happy Birthday Little Miss!

 Little Miss is now a Little Miss 1! The weather warmed up just in time, and we had a great Little Miss Sunshine party. Ddonn would have loved all the yellow. I think we finally figured out how much seating is enough when both mine and Werty's family are invited.. Here are the pics I promised.

  Little Miss in her party dress.

 A Little Miss Sunshine cake, of course. It was a yellow cake, three recipes worth (every time I swear I will save time and use a boxed cake mix, but then I make it from scratch because it tastes so much better! I think this is the first time I didn't hear any complaints about food, even from the teenagers. I will have to remember that yellow cake is the flavor everyone can agree on.

 I saw this idea on Pinterest, individual 7 layer dip. We skipped the guacamole, of course, for my MIL's comfort. (Nothing says party like an epi-pen, rt?)
                                       
                                   
 Little Miss' smash cake. OK, so she isn't really the "smashing" type, and the fondant made a spoon necessary. I was planning on frosting her smash cake with buttercream, but I only had just enough buttercream for the crumb layer on the big cake. So, there I was with no more buttercream and plenty of marshmallow fondant, so she got the fondant with a chocolate outline of Little Miss Sunshine instead. Um, and I forgot to add the chocolate pigtails. I had them, but I left them in the freezer because they wouldn't stay on. One of the teens did point that out, but I shrugged and said, "They're in the freezer."

  She managed to eat half of her cake.

 Ovaltine and Maeby, both have started new jobs this week. Ovaltine is working at the city cemetery, he gets to dig...and do other stuff.

 Rena and Mecedes. Congratulations on Rena for graduating with her Master's degree earlier that day. Mecedes once worked at a cemetery. He got to dig too.

 Little kids had fun in the sandbox, while older kids threw a ball around and played in the yard. Yes, that is the remains of the tree we dug out. Yes, Werty was supposed to move it before the party. But in his defense, he has a huge deadline next week for a project he has been working on for the last 6+ months. He also spent the day at Rena's graduation, which at BYU the FHSS college has the LONGEST convocation, and as Rena put it, without all the cool musical numbers and videos that you get to see at the college of Music and Visual Arts convocation, like when Werty graduated.

 My sister, bro-in-law, and my youngest niece.

 Family from ID came for Rena's graduation and the birthday party. They stayed with us for the night. The teenage twins even came. They were happy to get out of school for a day.

 Thanks to everyone who came and showered Little Miss with love and attention. She had so much fun.

Downer Abbey

There are a number of people out there who follow D0wnt0n Abbey on M@sterpiece Theater. I used to be one of them. But season 3 has me so annoyed that I am DONE with that series! Werty started calling it "Downer Abbey." Any character you reasonably like will die, and anytime something good happens, karma kicks them in the butt and kills them. When they killed off one of the main characters in the season finale, Werty declared, "Well, they just killed off the only character that any guys watching this show can relate to" and I think he's right.

My Brand of Crazy for TODAY

Everyone has their own brand of crazy, and today, mine was looking through my house to make sure a chicken hadn't wandered in. Because sometimes life is that random.Our neighbors have chickens, and they have recently taken to letting them be free range chickens. Two days in a row I have found the same chicken in my flower beds. Yesterday I went over and asked them to come get their chicken. Today, I was dealing with kiddos, and by the time I went outside to go tell them, the chicken was gone. Then I saw that my son had left the back door open when he went outside. Hence the wandering through my house to make sure there was no chicken inside. Thankfully, one of the kids next door had seen the chicken on her way home from school and had picked it up. OK. Chicken poop on my driveway. OK. Six foot gap in their fence, because it is technically a driveway where they have their broken down boat stored, that at least one chicken has discovered. OK. At least the chicken didn't poop INSIDE my house.

Brief Trip to WA

Last month I went home to Tacoma and saw my childhood home for the last time. My parents were moving and a friend was getting married. Since my parents house was in that in-between-half-moved-stuff-everywhere stage, Little Miss and I slept at their new place with my sister Crayola. I did go through some of my old stuff from the attic. There was so much stuff from myself and my siblings in the attic that just needs to be thrown away, and I ran out of time to get everything done that I wanted to. I feel bad that I left a pile of stuff that needs to be hauled out and tossed for my parents to deal with, since they both have physical limitations these days (hence the reason they are moving to a smaller, one story house instead of a tall, skinny three story house).

 Here are pics from Nan's wedding:

 Ddonn and three of her girls.

 Candid of some of Ddonn and Nan's family.

I loved her veil, so I took a picture of it.

 Ddonn with Little Miss.

 Ddonn and I with our baby girls.

While I was there I visited with an old friend and his cute family.



Little Miss with Grandpa at their new place.

By the end of the trip Little Miss had decided that she really liked her Aunt Crayola.

Grammy even managed to put Little Miss to sleep for her nap once.

I returned to UT for Easter and my birthday. Here is Little Miss in her Easter dress, enjoying a sucker from her Easter basket. Unfortunately, she got sick from the trip, and I spent the day home from church with her, while she threw up everything, even water, and of course, this sucker. But she looks happy, doesn't she? This was the first sucker that was HERS, not her brothers, but HERS.

 Werty bought me a snickers cake from my birthday, since I had no desire to bake a cake the day after flying home...with a sick baby. I was on a chocolate fast during March, so I was ready for some chocolate cake, yum!

Aunt BBug made this headband for Little Miss at my baby shower. Whenever I put something on Little Miss's head, her big brother usually says, "Look, she's a princess!"

 And Spring is finally here! My new daffodil bulbs are in full bloom, and the tulips started opening up this weekend. This is what they looked like last weekend:

Welcome New Nephew!

My SIL BBug had her new little boy on Saturday. I believe her hubby made it in time. He was still driving from Provo to ABQ when she was in labor. When I told BooBear that his fave cousin was now a big brother, BooBear cheered and whooped. About half an hour later he informed me that we needed to go see Aunt BBug. It made me so sad to tell him that we couldn't go see her at the hospital because they live too far away. sniffle.

Congradulations BBug! And the pic you sent with the email wouldn't load for me, so I hope to see more pics soon!

Training

I have started training for a 5k. (I can say that now that I am in the 2nd week of training instead of the first week, right?) There was a short article in the January Ensign about how mommies need to take time for themselves to exercise, and I thought, hmmm, that might be helpful for me. My sister-in-law Klari started doing triathlons last year. She keeps trying to recruit the rest of us to join her. Well, I do not enjoy swimming. I also have a friend in the ward who runs, and gets her kids registered in the Fun Runs for kids that usually accompany a 5k. I have jogged regularly at different points in my life, punctuated by periods of inactivity in between. ahem. And there is an annual 5k that goes right past my house, reminding me every Spring that I have missed another opportunity. But this Spring will be different! I will run a 5k, and I will sign up BooBear for the Fun Run. Klari kindly pointed me to the "couch to 5k" program, which is geared for people like me.

Little Miss 9 Months Update

I'm a few weeks late posting Little Miss' stats from her 9 month check-up, but I wanted to make sure I included pictures this time.
Weight: 19 lbs  50%
Length; 29 in  90%
Head: 18 in  85%
At 9 months, Little Miss can scoot effectively across the room in a sitting position (who needs to crawl when you can SCOOT?). She loves bath time and the feel of water running on her fingers. She eats fruits, veggies, and yogurt. She is currently working on cutting her upper front teeth. She does NOT like getting her nose wiped. She loves music, stacking toys, playing with her big brother, trying to get things to stick to her fingers (puffs do all the time), and putting everything in her mouth.



 We had a little scare last week when BooBear left a foil candy wrapper on the floor and she swallowed part of it. It was a good reminder that while she is a patient, gently soul, she still needs to be watched carefully.


And now for the rest of the month:
BooBear and I made Mommy and Daddy snowmen. Half the snow was too dry and half wasn't, so it was a trick to get it to stick together.



Here is BooBear saying goodbye to his favorite cousin the night before they flew to their new home in NM. We wish them luck with their house hunting and the new job. It will be strange to have them so far away when their new baby comes next month.



On Valentine's Day Werty told me to I should drive the car around the block - so I could see the odometer turn to 222,222 since 22 is my lucky number and all. He knows me so well. 

 

BooBear has been loving his new music class he started in January. He loves the mini drum kit they have. He made his own version at home, complete with a tambourine for the cymbal.