It rhymes with Hurt-y

So. I had a birthday. Despite entering another decade -(shudder)- it was a nice weekend.

Dan got me a piano keyboard that hooks up to my computer. This is awesome because I have written a lot of songs and I want to be able to record them. That man is always thinking. (side note: he had me enter the room where it was already set up, and he rigged up some little mechanism where a ball got knocked onto a box that pressed a button and the computer started playing the Birthday Song. It was awesome!) He also gave me his old iphone and got me a new docking station and a case for it.

I got cards and gifts and facebook love. I guess it is almost worth having a birthday to get that little reminder that other people like me.

I got a massage and a facial. It was.... SO good.

I dyed my own hair for the second time in my life. The first time I was 13 and it came out orange. Now I'm 30 (shudder) and it came out kinda brassy reddish blonde. Think Nicole Kidman meets Draco Malfoy. I'm probably going to try to fix it soon. Notice in the photo I have a wide headband covering the offending part of my head.

Sorry Dan and Gwen. This is my blog and I will show the best picture of myself at the expense of others.

We had Dan's Arizona siblings (minus the still vacationing Amy) over for tacos and cake the day after my b-day. It wasn't exactly for my birthday per se, but it was fun to get together. We vowed to do something like this more often.

We fit them all at our itty bitty table.

P.S. On my birthday my children had 4 different caregivers in one day! FOUR! First the gym day care, then my friend Nancy watched them while I went to Massage Envy, then a girl with 7 siblings from church came to be here while they were napping while I tried to go get my license renewed at the MVD (yes, that is what they call the DMV out here) but they were closed randomly, and then my lovely niece Hannah watched them while Dan took me to eat at Carrabas. That is a record I hope will never be topped.

Updates Galore

Gwen.

She has been eating solids (no chunks) and sitting like a pro for quite a few weeks now. I remembered that I was supposed to be reading books to her everyday so I have been trying to do that. She eats ok... not as well as Asher did, but she gets the job done most of the time. She also takes in less liquid, which is a problem here in the dry hot Arizona air. I try to make her drink water bottles, but so far she only likes water if she is sucking on a rag in the bath. She won't put her weight on her feet, and maybe it is because they are still the size of a newborn's. As I mentioned before, she has the EXACT same size feet as her cousin Zach who is 8 weeks old. I have given up on socks and tights. They don't work at all.

Asher.

Tic Tacs are candy to him. Also- he calls Gwen's Gerber bites "starfish" and Sunny D "Sunshine." Marshmallows are still "secrets" and business cards and receipts are "treasures." He will call any ball a "space ball" especially the little squishy basketball around here. He has a few mispronunciations like "hangabars"(hamburgers) "callapaters" (caterpillars) and "Minjas" (Ninjas). He is getting more imaginative, and the other day he pointed to some clouds and called them "polar bear mountains." We were reading his "foot book" and he pointed to a duck and told me it had "diver feet." He currently has a preoccupation with an imaginary scary orange hippy-pot-o-mus (another mis-pronunciation.)

Me.

No picture, sorry.

Not much going on with me. I go to the gym a lot. I tried a diet that was supposed to make me lose 12 pounds in 2 weeks, and I was starving, but in a week and a half I had gained a pound instead of losing any, so I decided to quit that. I'm about to turn 30, which is a coincidence because that is exactly the number of pounds I would like to lose (at the minimum). I have a lot of housework to do all the time. I'm not reading anything, going anywhere or hanging out with anybody. I don't have any goals or projects I'm working on. I got a new calling of primary song leader which is something I never really wanted to do although everyone thinks that is a perfect calling for me. I got released from my nursery singing calling which I loved. I promise I'll let you know if anything exciting happens to me in the future, because right now I'm just kinda sitting around watching my kids. Good thing they're cute.

Dan.

Still cute and skinny and smart and working for Red Pear. He also has other projects that come his way every once in a while, which is nice. He works on his website spokt.com every now and again adding features and whatnot. He is a secretary in the Elder's Quorum Presidency and he still takes the occasional picture of our kids as seen above. I'm glad he has talent and a good camera. Cute pictures of my kids are nice to have.

Wow. This feels like the kind of Christmas Card we never send out! Sorry for boring anyone who made it this far. I guess this is mostly for... posterity?

July 17th

This past Saturday marked two important dates in our lives. First of all, exactly one year ago we moved into our house. Secondly (and far more importantly) the 17th is Asher's birthday. He turned three years old.

I laugh when I think about how we commemorated these events. First of all, there was no celebration for our house. Not one room is "done" as far as decorating goes. The house is still lacking in furniture and style. Some rooms need paint. The house didn't even get cleaned for it's anniversary. Sad I know.

On all the mommy blogs I see out there in cyberspace, every child's birthday party is amazing. There are themes and tons of children. There are specialty cakes and fun favors. Not to make Asher feel left out, I decided on a theme. Would you like to know what it was? Of course you would. The theme was "cheap and free stuff."

Yep. He got some cheap birthday hats and some cheap red and blue streamers that were hung unevenly through the blinds on our windows. The cake was free: an ice cream cake that Grandpa bought from the grocery store while he was in town that we never busted out. We wrapped things like tic tacs and fruit snacks. I got most of his gifts on sale at the Disney store. I didn't buy anything that wasn't at least half off. There were no kids at his party, unless you count his baby sister.

We did much better last year. Somehow as we were moving into our house we had time to make a Wall-E cake and invite cousins and stuff. Right now all the cousins are in California, so that didn't work out this time. We still have no friends, so there was no one else to invite.

The thing is... it didn't really matter. Asher is only three after all, he doesn't know he is supposed to have friends or themes or anything. He loved opening things like tic tacs just as much as he loved opening his Buzz Lightyear shirt or Hamm piggy bank. He still had a fun time, and hopefully I'll try harder when he is older and he cares more.

See. Look how happy he is. All the time. No matter what.

Another Visit

Last weekend I had some family members in town again. How lucky am I that I keep getting visited? Kristy and her three kids came as well as Lori and her two boys and my mom and dad. We were all comfy in this house, but I really need to think about getting a queen sized bed set up in a guest room. We have so many visitors and only one extra twin bed.

Anyway, I keep not blogging about it because I don't really have any pictures. I took a few, but my camera battery ran out and I can't find my charger. So here it is... my very late blog with no pictures. Here are some of our highlights:

- Kristy's and my kids playing outside at the mall play area in the heat. That took the energy right out of them, and quick! They play really well together and it was fun to watch.

- Reanne and Sierra conspiring to give me and Asher gifts because it is our birth month. They got Asher a frog that terrifies him (you can never tell what is going to put him over the edge), and me two pots of pretty flowers that I can't seem to keep alive. Thanks girls for being thoughtful, and thanks Kristy for paying for those treats!

- We went to my Grandma's 79th birthday! It was special to be there with so many relatives even though my grandma actually hates to be fussed over and doesn't like crowds much. She loves her family, so she put a brave face on. I love my Grandma.

- I loved just sitting and talking with my family. I miss that.

- We watched some old embarrassing family videos. So funny.

- We went to Cornish Pastys again! LOVE that food. (It is especially good when just coming off of a diet.)

- We discovered on the last day of our trip that Gwen and Zach's feet are the same size. Exactly. Zach is EIGHT WEEKS OLD. Gwen is almost eight MONTHS old. We knew she had tiny feet, but this is ridiculous. If they had a chart for feet size she probably wouldn't register.