Gus's Birthday Party

or alternate title.....

Probably The Last Birthday Party I Ever Put On

Seriously, what was I thinking?  Why couldn't I have just booked a Chuck E. Cheese's Party Package?  They were too young and there were way too many boys to attempt a baking party (there were a few more boys missing from this picture).  But I had seen this cute idea on One Charming Party and Amy Atlas and had visions of seated, attentive children with their adorable little chef's hats on, happily shaping pizza dough......

You would think I've had enough Mom-experience to know better.

I can laugh about it now that it's over.  Although it took me a day or two to recover.  But Gus thought it was pretty much the best day he's ever had in all of his five years.  So, mission accomplished in the end.  It was just almost the end of me!

This is what Gus does when I tell him to smile for a picture.

Or this.

(Notice Chuck the seal in his chef's hat.)

We did pizzas, soft pretzels, fruit kabobs, jello jigglers, and cupcakes. Whew!!  I know! Right?

And then it was time for the birthday cake.

I absolutely adore this picture.  I love the look on that little face.  The magic of this moment shining in his 5-year-old eyes.  Love. it.

Aaaahhh.  The rainbow cake.

(Took me most of a day to make but I shall not dwell on that.)

And Gus's favorite part of the whole party!  Opening the presents.

It was a frenzy & he loved every minute of it!

And then my mom & I practically collapsed on the floor.

I thought about calling my visiting teachers to bring me a meal.

(kidding)

And now for .....

Gus's Favorites at Five!

Favorite thing about being five........."cuz I can climb shelves"

Favorite color................................. green

Favorite toy................................... Chuck the seal

Favorite pillow............................... penguin pillow pet

Favorite thing to eat....................... kiwi & cookies

Favorite baby................................. baby Caroline

and What do you want to be when you grow up?........a pool guy

Happy Birthday GusMan!

                  

my favorite part of the morning......

......seeing this little face when I open her door.

She's such a merry sunshine in the morning.

And we're so excited to see each other.

And I'm so lovin' her little tongue-wagging stage.

Caroline, please don't grow up any more, OK?  I don't think Mommy can take it.

Sadies 2011

Oh man, these guys were funny.

They took bread crumbs with them to the dance & threw them around.

Mars went with Ben, her very first date.

And he was alot of fun, as you can tell.

They were part of a big group and made a 2-day event out of it.

Marlee's exact words afterwards were,  "It was SO fun!"

Before dinner, the night of the dance, they all came over for pictures.

Fun times.

Now I hear people are already asking for Prom!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love,  

             Us

And for a Valentine's FHE,  we had a little chocolate fondue party.

Before we ate whatever we dipped, we had to share something we love about another family member.

I'm sure we shared lots of germs, too.

lunch bag love

I put heart-shaped bologna sandwiches in the boys' lunches this morning for Valentine's Day.

They told me I was the best Mom ever!

It's the little things, isn't it?

It was a 'celebrity couples' themed Sadies.

These guys went as Hansel and Gretel.  Are they cute or what?

Lots more to come.

So our January went like this....

Our oranges are ripe and there's tons of them.

If anyone wants some, please come by!

This is a mandarin tangerine.

We also have lemons, tangelos, and key limes that I have no idea what to do with.  Because I don't make key lime pies.

We bought a new red truck.

The boys think it's the coolest thing ever.

Marlee's Sadie's date answered her with a 'yes'.

She can't wait.

We had a cold snap.  It got down in the 20's at night for a couple days!  That's big news here.  We actually had to turn our heaters on.  One of our heaters had never been used in the eight years since we built our house and smoked enough to set off our smoke alarms.

And we found ice in our front yard!  Very exciting.

 

Caroline turned 8 months.

She's doing the army crawl and likes to get into trash cans and eat paper.

She tries to eat just about everything.

Random picture of Jake and Daisy.  Jake's her favorite.

Max dropped a dirty sock down from upstairs and it landed on this playmobil guy just like this.  He showed me and we laughed and he thought I should take a picture of it.  So of course I did.

When we're sick of eating oranges, we make weird and random things out of them.

I'm not kidding when I say, Come and get some oranges.

I love Zane's notes.

This one he put on Brian's office door.

I thought it was deliteful.

Gus is in a major stuffed-animal phase.

His current favorite is this white seal that he named 'Chuck'.  All of his previous faves have been named 'Lou' for some reason.  All of them.  So we were glad that he's branching out.

Chuck goes everywhere with him and does all sorts of things that normal seals don't do, like shoot guns and drive cars.

Chuck also gets to play dress-up and has to have his own peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

Max started cello last year and I'm just now blogging about it.

He really loves it and is in our school's Honors Orchestra.

Random picture of Max's shelf above his bed.

His mission savings bank.

A typical Max after-school project.

Gus taking a Sunday afternoon drive.

Then, for our  20th Wedding Anniversary,  Brian & I took a little trip here.......

......to Vancouver, Canada.  Then drove up to.......

.......Whistler.  It was beautiful and relaxing and amazing. 

And much more on that later.

After I'm done with Gus' birthday party.

Golden Anniversary

Well, first off, I can't just let my blog go.  I would hate myself.  I wish I could.  But I can't.
Brian accused me of writing that last post purposely as a sad cry for some blog attention.  I'm so sure!  It is absolutely how I feel!  And so what if feeling a little love from complete strangers in blogdom is the best part of my week!
So I will continue to blog.  And stress.  Because my house is always a mess.
Hey!  That rhymed!

So anyway,  this year marks the 50th Anniversary of  Garn & Mason Orthodontics. 

The practice was started in 1961 by Brian's dad and Greg's dad.  Before there were like, a billion orthodontists in Mesa.

So all year they're having contests & drawings with big prizes to celebrate.  And I mean big prizes like 50% off your orthodontic treatment(1961 prices) and a trip for 4 to Hawaii!  It's a pretty big deal.  Check out the website at azbraces.com.   
So Brian wanted me to take some shots of some kids in gold braces for the Golden Anniversary marketing materials they were putting together.  The most readily available models were Marlee & Jake.  So Brian slapped on some gold-plated braces he had ordered, we took some pictures, then he took them off.  

I had no idea they even made gold braces.  I think I like them.  Maybe it'll be a new trend.

Here are some other pictures of Jake that didn't make it on anything.  Such a shame.

And my favorite one......

Dear blog,

I love you and I hate you at the same time.

I love how you hold so many of our precious memories and images that I'm sure would have already escaped my swiss-cheese mind.  And I love how our friends and family can look at you, wherever they are, to see what we've been up to.

But I also hate the stress of keeping you up.  Sometimes I dream of the days before you and photoshop were around and wonder what I did with all that disposable time. 
And I hate to say it, but my life would be so much easier without you.  Undocumented, but easier.

What to do?

I'm so torn.

(photo by Zane)