It's Party Time

Last week Kymberly asked me to help her write her birthday list.

Today, I tried to do my best to fulfill her list.

Breakfast in bed...check

Fix Hootie...check. Hootie is a stuffed owl that I made for her a couple of years ago. His wing was coming loose and she has been asking me to fix it for months.

Mooshi Monster Stuffy...check(courtesy of Tansley's creativity). Tansley got the idea to make a stuffy out of an old tuque from a crafty book she has so I helped her put it together.

Barbie set...check(courtesy of a second hand store). I had actually bought this barbie furniture for the doll house months ago, but had completely forgotten about it, so glad it came in handy.

Rainbow Cake...well she changed her mind to ice cream cake...bless her heart. I was not looking forward to baking a cake in this heat. A part of me felt a little guilty for not baking her a cake and decorating it all fancy...but then I had a slice of that ice cream cake and all guilt was washed away. 

And once she had a taste of it, she declared it the bestest birthday cake ever...check.

We also sang Happy Birthday to her numerous times(check) and I gave her plenty of birthday hugs and kisses(check). We did forget to give her a present before breakfast, and I completely forgot about the ball on the end of the string thingy(what ever that was), but she didn't miss it.

We met with some friends at the spray park and had pudding and popcorn wars...

When all was said and done Kymberly declared it the bestest Birthday(check) and assured me that she had a Happy Birthday Day(check).

Success

Our Olympic Primary Party

To save space and time, I created a photo collage to try to capture the fun that we all had.

It was a fun, hot and successful evening.

Superman

Recently we've been listening to "Superman's Song" by the Crashtest Dummies an awful lot. Daniel get's on these kicks where he will listen to one song over and over and over, where ever we are. This is how our children choose their favorite songs. The list includes "I want to know what love is" by Foreigner, "Separate Ways" by Journey, and "Shape of my Heart" by the Backstreet Boys, just to name a few. "Superman's Song" has now been added to the list. If you don't know the song, or it's been a decade or so since you've heard it, you can take a listen here.


While driving in the Van the other day the girls asked if we could listen to the Superman song. So I put it on. We listened to it once, then twice...and then again. I started telling the girls about the Superman movies and explaining some of what the song was talking about. A few days later we were over at a friends house. We were sitting around visiting. The TV happened to be on, and one thing led to another and we were suddenly watching the first Superman movie. The girls thought it was pretty awesome. James came and went doing his own thing. Yesterday, it was chasing him down to put him to bed. I grabbed his blanket and wrapped it around him and scooped him up. I then plopped him down in his crib(yes he's two and I still put him in the crib...I like the confinement). He laid there on his tummy with his blanket wrapped around him like a cape. He stretched out his arms and said "SUPERMAN!" and then proceeded to make flying noises. And this after only watching the movie once, and even then it's not like he sat and watched the whole thing, he was too busy playing with the pinball machine. He would then make his stuffed cow fly through the air saying "Superman!" followed by the swishing flying noises. What a kid. I tell you he's all boy.

Totally Awesome Thumb Savers

So, my seven year old daughter is an avid thumb sucker. Actually she sucks both of her thumbs. Not at the same time, just whatever one happens to be handy. When we were at the dentist the other day I asked him about putting an appliance in her mouth. He said that because she hadn't yet damaged her teeth with her thumb sucking there wasn't room to put an appliance in. So he suggested that we look for some thumb gloves. My first call was to my sister since her daughter had used one a few years back. She told me that they had just ordered them online but that she couldn't remember the company she bought them from. So I googled it and found a few different brands ranging in price from $11.75-$15 per glove or $20-30 for a pair.  Since I need to be able to cover up both thumbs and would like to have at least two pairs it was going to cost me about $40 plus shipping. But when I really started looking at them I decided that I could probably just make some. The ones that I could be bought online were made of different materials. Some were made of lycra, some of 100% cotton. Well I happen to have just a little bit of fabric laying around, so I decided I'd give a try at making a pair.

The first pair I made out of a T-shirt knit and made a button closure. They were alright, but they needed a bit of tweaking. So tweaking I did. The one thing that she mentioned to me after she'd been wearing these ones most of the afternoon, was that they made her thumbs hot and sweaty. I wondered if I used 100% cotton if they would breath a bit, and on top of that we could make all kinds of funky patterned ones. So I let her pick out some fabric from my stash and I went to work. I got them to fit perfect and started using velcro instead of a button because it is faster to finish. I like the look of the button to add some glam, but I figured we could  just add some glam of some kind to the finished gloves if we wanted.I told her she needed to come up with a name for them, and thus was born the "Totally Awesome Thumb Savers".

Here she is with her 10 pairs of Totally Awesome Thumb Savers. She thinks they are pretty cool, and so do her sisters, they wish that they could have a pair...crazy kids. Right now she is in love with this idea. I hope it lasts. I'm hoping that by the time school starts that she wont need to wear them all of the time, maybe just a night when she can't stop herself. We'll see how it goes.

My Birthday so far

Last night, my fabulous hubby brought me home these pretties.

Kathryn told me yesterday that we wouldn't be jogging this morning because it was my birthday and I was supposed to sleep in until 10am. This morning, I was served breakfast in bed at 7:30am. I guess the kids were to excited to pamper me that they just couldn't wait. After breakfast, I went back to bed for an hour. When I got up and got dressed the girls then gave me a manicure and a pedicure and they did my hair.

My Happy Birthday Balloon

Kathryn once heard me tell someone that I hadn't had a birthday cake since I'd been married because I haven't had anyone to make me one. My husband is more of the "bring me a slice of cheesecake" type, and I have no problems with that. Last year Kathryn made me a mini cake in her Easy bake oven. This year she took it up a notch and baked me a real cake all on her own. This is no ordinary cake mix cake. No this is the best chocolate cake recipe that exists in the world today, "Grandma Paxman's Best Ever Chocolate Cake". I told her that it was important to follow the directions exactly. She did. I snuck a little taste before the cake went in the oven and it was spot on. When those cakes came out, they were PERFECT. I then told her how to make icing and I got out the left over marshmallow fondant from the b-day cakes I had made in May. I made sure it was still mold-able and then she told me to go have a nap so she could decorate it.

She even had to go and put my age on it...

Kymberly let me borrow her special crown.

Blowing out the candles

Perfection!

Now we have just finished eating the cake...before supper. It's my party, I can do what I want to....actually the kids were begging so I gave in. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The cake, by the way, was delicious. The kid may have found her calling in life.

My Birthday Dinner. YUMMY!!!!

When it's this hot, water is the answer.

It's been hot. The kind of hot where the fan doesn't help because it's just blowing hot air around. The kind of hot where the only solution is to stay cool with water. However, I am cheap and I have no desire to take my 4 kids to the pool by myself. Mostly because there isn't a baby pool at our local pool, and two of the kiddies need me when in the water. NO FUN. So I like to stick around home and play in the water. We have a little purple wading pool that we fill with water, and all the kids love to play in it. They'll also put a sprinkler under the trampoline. But lately, we've decided to get creative with our water play. Check it out.

 First we made a hanging sprinkler from a 2L pop bottle by heating a nail and melting holes in it all over. All you need to attach it to a garden hose is a male to male end adapter, which I happened to already have hanging around the house. The kids loved this.

 We made a tinfoil river and floated all kinds of things down it. We used a whole roll of dollar store heavy aluminum foil and then put the hose and the top running at full strength. We found that the pop bottle lids worked the best and the kids had a blast racing them. James had fun being the giant and stepping in the river or snatching the "boats" out as the passed by him.

 Next we played with ping pong balls, golf tees and water guns. I drilled holes in some old 2x4's that were sitting in the garage for just such a purpose. Then I put golf tees in each hole and balanced a ping pong ball on each tee. The idea is to be able to shoot the balls off all the tees before the other person. This was tricky, but only because Mr. James kept grabbing the balls or knocking them off before you could even start shooting at them.

It has been a fun couple of days, and we'll be playing with all of these fun things again this summer, as well as some more new and fun water activities I've got planned.

Chief Mountain or bust.

Monday July 2, 2012 was the day. I had been planning and looking forward to this day for a few months. I knew it wasn't going to be easy. But I was determined to give it my best shot.

We headed out with a group of 15 people. Four boys between the ages of 9 and 12, two women, and 9 men. Us women couldn't keep up with the pace of the men and boys.

My fabulous husband had stayed back with us, but at one point we told him to just go on and we would do what we could. He ordered us to stay at the ponds when we got there because he didn't want us getting lost in the rock field that had covered the path. He's climbed this mountain 4 times already. He's been itching to get back on it for 5 years but the weather and timing just hasn't worked out. This was his year, and I didn't want to be the reason to keep him from reaching the top. So we told him we'd stay and off he went to catch up with the others.

The pond we did not stay at

Well when Donna and I got to the ponds we weren't ready to be done yet. Going at our own pace we found the going so much easier. We saw where they had climbed up to the next ridge, so we decided that we would head up that way and see what we could see. If we couldn't see where they had gone then we would stay. When we got to the top of the ridge, there was no sign of them or where they had headed, but we still weren't ready to be done. So we picked a landmark, a big huge rock, and we said we would go on to the next ridge, and as long as we kept that rock in view we could get back to the ponds. When we got up on the next ridge, we were a little tired and a lot hungry and there was no clear sign of which way to head from that point. So we sat down and had lunch and enjoyed the beautiful view.

View from our lunch spot.

The view of Chief from our lunch spot.

 After about an hour we looked around and said, "what if that path just picks up over this ridge?" We discussed for a bit, and then decided to head on over the ridge to see what we could see. This became a theme. We would pick an obvious land mark and then head on to the next ridge, if we felt we couldn't or shouldn't go any farther, we would make our way back to that landmark. Ponds, Big rock, Grassy ridge where we had lunch, Grassy knoll, Black earthy hill, Another big rock. (it kinda sounds like it's right out of Dora the Explorer). As we pressed on I'd see an area that looked like it could be a path so we would follow it, and then I'd see foot prints so we'd keep following them until we'd lose the path in the rocks again.Then we would just stick with what looked like the easiest route through the rock. We ended up on the back side of the mountain where we could see others climbing up the scree to the summit. At this point we knew we shouldn't go any farther.I knew that the way wasn't marked and without someone who knew the way it would just be stupid to even try, not to mention the fact that it was now 4pm.

The view from where we waited for the men.

The view of Chief from the back.

So we sat and waited for the men to come down off the mountain. About two hours later they started to come down, slowly a few at a time, but then we saw two of them head back up the scree. Immediately we knew something was not right, someone must be hurt. NOBODY wants to head back up the scree after already having been up once.

Donna and I waiting

We hoped it was one of the boys and not one of them men. Not that we wanted anyone to be hurt at all, but if someone was, it would be easier to back out one of the boys than one of the men. It ended up being my 9 year old nephew. He had fallen on the scree and cut up his hand and leg pretty REALLY badly(6 stitches in his hand and 16 in his leg). Thankfully his dad, an avid hiker, was prepared and had a first aid kit. So he bandaged him up and they got him down off of the scree. When they got down to where the others were waiting, it was suggested that he should be given a priesthood blessing. Seeing how all but one in our company was LDS, there was a pretty good chance that one of those men had oil with them. I wasn't there to witness it, but my husband says that he was blessed that he would get off the mountain in a timely manner and that he would get the care that he needed. You should have seen those men move with that 75lb kid on their backs. They took turns piggy backing him out, and we couldn't keep up with them.

So I didn't make it to the summit. But that's OK. The overall outcome was phenomenal. The experience was amazing and the company fabulous. Would I do it again? Yep, but my husband says I have to give him at least two years to recuperate.