14 Partying Tweens

And the party was...a success? In Julianne's book I think it was. Nothing really went according to plan or schedule but maybe that's normal for a casual, late-night sort of party. They ate pizza. They played "Apples to Apples" and "Murder in the Dark". They painted a craft...which took much longer than I anticipated and resulted in all of the girls painting black lines under their eyes like football players. For some reason they thought it would be great amounts of fun to jump on the trampoline...in the cold, dark and barefoot. They FINALLY settled down to watch a movie 10 minutes before the party was supposed to end. But I think...I HOPE...a good time was had by all. Here are some pictures:Opening gifts....

Checking out the notes that "the boys" left on the garage...


Crafting it up...

PIZZA!

Favorite Photo Friday: Cute Lilian

December 2008. Cute Lilian.

Happy Birthday Julianne

I don't cry when my kids go off to Kindergarten. Rejoicing and doing the "happy dance" is more the order of the day. But when they turn 12? Oh my. I end up an emotional mess.

Julianne turned 12 yesterday. At 6:55 AM about fifteen 12 and 13 year olds from the neighborhood came a-knocking at our door. (I had been pre-warned and was expecting them.) They woke Julianne from a dead sleep, blindfolded her and carried her up the stairs and out the door to a pancake breakfast down the street to celebrate her birthday and entrance to the Young Women program in the ward. Although she says the whole thing is a bit of an exhausted blur, she was very pleased.
Unfortunately for Julianne, she had a doctors appointment smack in the middle of the day. And seeing as going to the doctor on your birthday to start growth hormone shots is not usually on the list of fun ways to celebrate your birthday, I made sure to check her out a little extra early so we could go to lunch first at Five Guys. Big hamburgers and lots of fries. Dr. Lindsay was aware that it was Julianne's birthday. Felt kind of bad about it. Enough that they bought Julianne a little Happy Birthday cupcake to make the visit a little extra special. Have I mentioned how much I love our doctor?

And then, since Julianne and I had a rehearsal last night for "Power in His Touch," we had an early dinner with the rest of the family at Texas Roadhouse. She opened her presents there. Of all my children, she's the best at giving me detailed lists of gift ideas. Which means that she's always happy with what she receives, but not surprised. We did surprise her with a new bike earlier that morning though. Yay!So I spent the great majority of the day with my new 12 year old. Watching her, talking to her, thinking about what's in store for her now that she's turned 12. I found myself on the verge of tears all day. Happy tears. Complicated and overwhelming emotions. But good.

What game? I'm just here for the sushi!

Yesterday afternoon, in honor of Superbowl Sunday, we made our way to Bryan's cousin Russ' house for his annual "Sushibowl" party. Russ and his friend, both of whom have worked as sushi chefs, were in full-on sushi creating mode. And wow! Not only did the sushi taste as good as in any restaurant but I actually had to take a few pictures of my food before I could eat it...the rolls were THAT amazing! And yeah...the game. It was playing on three different big screen TV's. I wasn't even sure who the teams were before I arrived. I was informed that the Colts were the favorites and the Saints were the underdogs. Always one to root for the underdogs I decided the Saints would be my team. And then proceeded to more or less ignore the game. Bryan and I knew we couldn't stay long, having left the kids at home, so why get overly invested in a game we weren't planning to see the end of? (I found out later that the Saints did win. Yay Saints! Yay for underdogs! And yay for me for picking the winning team!) At the party, in-between stuffing myself full of sushi and chatting with cousins, I noticed a guy that looked familiar. Occasionally I would look up to find him looking at me with a quizzical look on his face. Obviously we probably knew each other from sometime long ago. So I walked over and asked him his name. Ha! Turns out we were kids together! Grew up on the same street playing kick-the-can. We reminisced for awhile. I wonder if he remembers that he asked me to "go" with him when we were 13 years old.... I didn't bring it up.

Blurb-ing my blog

Check this out! I turned my blog into a book! A hardback, fully bound book! I'm so excited! (As if you couldn't already tell by the overuse of exclamation points...) Any of you who follow my blog know that I am rather prolific. Blogging has more or less taken the place of scrapbooking and writing in a journal... so I am thrilled that I have a way to print out all my thoughts, ramblings and pictures that have ended up on my blog and keep them permanently. It wasn't even all that hard. I used a company called Blurb that my friend Jill told me about. (www.blurb.com) It took me a few days worth of random hours here and there to put it all together...you have all sorts of choices regarding formats, templates, fonts, picture sizes and colors. Then I uploaded it and they printed and sent it back all within a week and a half or so. I'm thrilled!

Favorite Photo Friday: Reading in the park

One of our favorite things to do as a family is go to the park. Bryan usually sets up a slack-line between two trees to walk on. Lilian thinks she's in heaven when we give her free reign of all the playground equipment. And then, almost always, we bring books to read. Because there's not many things more enjoyable than laying out on a blanket on a warm summers evening with a good book. (One step better, of course, would be sitting at the beach but we live in a land-locked state and so trips to the beach are few and far between.)
This picture was taken last June 2009. And on an overcast day like today where a qick glance out my window reveals leafless trees and ever-present patches of snow on my brownish grass...kind of makes you wish for summer.

Not again!

I have this horrible feeling I'm getting sick. Actually, it's more than a feeling...it's sure knowledge. As the day has progressed it's become fairly evident that I have something. And it worries me. Because I still have nightmares of our bout with the Swine Flu a few months ago. Somehow I completely lost the time from Halloween to Thanksgiving. I have vague memories of fevers, coughing and crying. I know Bryan was out of town for a portion of it. That's where the crying came from. And I'm sure there was extreme exhaustion...which would account for the blurry quality of the few memories I still possess. Seems like we must have come up out of the sickness induced fog by Thanksgiving because my pictures from the big day show us smiling, happy and relatively healthy looking. But it only lasted a short while because about a week and a half later I got hit again. This time it was mostly just a nasty cough (again) without all the other garbage. But oh, the terrified looks I got when I coughed in public! I kept wanting to explain, "It's okay...this isn't the dreaded Swine Flu. That was last month."
So, unfortunately, I'm feeling crappy this evening. Please let it be a cold, please let it be a cold, PLEASE let it be a cold! A short-lived one too, if I get to make any demands. And NO coughing! Oh please!!!

Vibram Five Fingers

See these? These funky looking feet belong to Bryan and me. Many of you have probably seen Bryan wear his Vibram Five Finger shoes around. He owns three pair and has been wearing them as much as the weather allows for a couple of years now. He gets questions, comments and compliments wherever he goes. But me...well, I was hesitant. Seriously, don't you think they look like frog feet? A neat concept yes, but fashionable? Not so much.
But after months of gentle nudging from Bryan, I decided to get a pair. No, it doesn't feel strange between my toes. That's always the first question I get asked. And no, I most likely will not be wearing them as my normal day-to-day shoes like Bryan does. But so far I've loved doing my "insane" workouts in them. Also I'm anxious to accept the challenge of those who claim that running in them is far superior to regular running shoes. And I can't tell you how excited Bryan is that we have matching feet!

Three for three

Julianne has lost one tooth per day for the last three days. Which makes for a mighty big gap in her mouth seeing as they were all three right in a row. At least we're keeping the Tooth Fairy busy...and in today's economy, it's always good to have job security. Ah, who am I kidding. Julianne stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy ages ago.

Oh, my aching legs!

My friend, Mylissa, and I registered for the Little Red Riding Hood bike ride today. It's not till June but we are super excited about it and determined to be ready to ride the full 100 miles. And so today, in anticipation of that ride and in celebration of the temperature reaching a balmy 45 degrees, we decided to pull our bikes down off their hooks in our respective garages where they had been spending a quiet winter and go for a ride. And it was wonderful! Such a beautiful day for a quick 16-17 mile ride. But oh! I haven't been on my bike since October and my legs ACHE!!