31

Creeeaaaakkk. I managed to get my old bones over to the computer. Now I just need to find a place to set my cane...

I had a great birthday! We celebrated on Sunday, since Zach is freaky busy studying for boards, but we decided six years ago when he went back to school that he wouldn't do homework on the sabbath. (One of those that you look back and, just like full tithing, think- man we've been blessed for that!) So after church I got my card with Mia's scribbled "I LOV3 YOU MOM," and the present we decided we weren't going to get.

He spent his left-over Christmas gift certificate, and both our birthday gift money on a digital drawing tablet, and called it a business investment. ;) I can't believe how often I've thought how useful it would be to have one of these- I don't say "wished I had one" because, really- it is something I would never even have dreamed of having. It is so exciting!!! And awful, because he did this last time. We say no presents and he gets one anyway. Twerp... with a halo...

On Memorial Day we went to our ward picnic at the park and had a nice time- our ward is full of awesome people, the heat wasn't too bad, there was a nice cool breeze, and tons of yummy food.


Zach "watching" Bree and listening to medical lectures on his new i-touch. Yay for mandatory tuition-paid school technology! This thing amazes me- he downloaded an application with all the hymn lyrics and scriptures; we stick it in a pocket on our way to church and voila! the diaper bag is a couple pounds lighter! There's even another application that gives you access to hundreds of thousands of books- (including one I've been trying to read for the first time, Stephen Covey's Seven Habits- I'm sure I'll post about it later.. ;D) Anya and Bree getting their games on. Not quite sure what game that is, but at least it isn't video...


Mia and her best bud.
This is NOT a typical Anya-in-the-car-face.

Ah- heeeere we go.

And this is how we all felt by the end.

Such cute Bevans

If it weren't for these guys my camera would think there were only three little people in the world, and two of those are twins. So good thing. ;)

A bunch more are over here. Thanks for trusting me as your photog for the day you guys- I had a fun time!

And hey, all you Columbus peeps- this could be you! Now's the time- five years from now you'll just be older! Get some pictures done! By me! I won't even exploit you like this last family... ;D Unless you want to be.

Subtle, yet poignant...

28

Happy Birthday, Zach!

We decided we weren't going to spend money on birthday gifts to each other this year (our b-days are four days apart) because we're going to this COSI Egyptian dinner event we signed up for next weekend. (I figured we might as well make the most of the Ancient Egypt theme going on in Columbus this year. After our Egypt-themed preschool lesson, we went back to the "To Live Forever" exhibit at the art museum for our field trip. Pretty entertaining.)



So anyway. Fate seemed to agree with our no-spending gift plan. Zach's first birthday present was a four-person effort, a nice new shiny blue and black....

you guessed it...

possibly broken toe.

No pictures, to protect the weak of constitution.

I'll give you a play by play. The five competitors were Bree, Anya, me, and Zach vs. Zach's little toe. I started changing Bree's poopy diaper too early, and ended up with one of those piles where you sit there and catch it thinking there will just be a little left, so you don't get another diaper on her, because what a waste, but then you realize it just isn't stopping, so you make your husband run to grab some paper towels. One of those. Then Anya came in from the sideline and just as Zach ran to keep her bare little baby foot from landing right in the pile, he kicked my ankle with his little toe. (Good save, by the way, hon. Sorry I wasn't watching the other kid.) My ankle must know Tai Kwon Do, because it perfectly deflected all of the momentum (and pain) and transferred it in its entirety to the approaching enemy: Little Zach Toe. A worthy opponent- it did take the combined efforts of four people to bring about it's ultimate undoing.

Present #1.


Somehow, the stars aligned and I was able to wake up with the first crow of the first kid, before Zach, so he got to sleep in for once. Present #2

Mia wrote "I Love You Dad" and gave him his card when he woke up and limped downstairs, and we had a yummy breakfast. #3

Zach got to help cook his own birthday dinner because I don't have a very good relationship with our barbeque grill. Or meat for that matter. #4

He got to eat his wonderful birthday dinner outside with some annoying fruit flies because the kids had already eaten and were having so much fun in the swimming pool, we knew it would just be more hassle to try to bring them in. #5

I'm hoping fortune is as fickle as they say, or I'm in for a doozy of a b-day.

Um- Happy Birthday, Hon. No- really.

Time Out for Mom

I had never heard of the Time Out for Women Conventions until this year- which is probably just as well- I wouldn't have gone before this year anyway. It was a fun experience, and I just wanted to put a plug in for it. There are more conferences all year, all over the country. For me, the best part was the great ladies I got to visit with and get to know better. And the incredible MUSIC!! There were a few things that stood out to me in the talks- I'm excited to go over the conference talks and scriptures that were referred to and rediscover them in their new pertinence to my life. I'm a little bummed now that I realize I didn't even take a cell phone picture of our group o'gals. Oh, well. Maybe I'll corner them and shoot them in church. ;)

Not a Jellyfish Bad Day

This morning Zach read me an e-mail forward I'd heard before. A guy told his sister her bad day at work wouldn't seem so bad when she heard what his bad day was like. He was a deep sea diver who, instead of getting just the usual warm water pumped into his suit, got a jelly fish in there, too. It stung his rear, which he unthinkingly scratched and ground jellyfish into. It took 35 minutes AFTER the sting to decompress and get back to the surface where he proceeded to not poop for two days because his bum was swollen shut. We were laughing pretty hard as Zach read the end of the story- "So if you think you're having a bad day, just ask yourself- is this jellyfish bad?"

An hour later, dashing madly about the house to find the Ancient Egypt book for the preschool lesson I've been planning for a month, and ultimately not finding it, I was pretty bummed. Not to mention the fact that during my mad dash I forgot to put the Egyptian Palace Bread in the preheated oven, so by the time I remembered, it only had ten minutes to bake and ended up very mushy. My sweet husband was helping me look and load the kids into the car, and when I finally got out of the garage I was thinking, "Definitely not jellyfish bad."

I traded the twins for one of our preschool girls and we headed to preschool on the most aggravating street in the US. You go from 40 or 45 mph to 25 right before a slew of stoplights every 100 yards. When I got stopped at the twentieth or thirtieth light, just 100 yards from the street I needed to turn onto (yes, I'm kind of exaggerating) I sighed loudly, and Mia's friend asked what was wrong. I tried to explain how stop lights work when you're late, and as I gunned it to get through the next light a policeman stepped out into the road in front of me and motioned me to pull over. Did I mention I was the ONLY car getting trapped at every light? So it was very easy for me to cross both lanes and pull onto a side street.

As I watched him approach in my rearview mirror, my eyes focused on my eyes. "Oh, crap." He didn't even give me a chance to explain that my outrageous eyeliner wasn't an homage to Amy Winehouse. Maybe he saw the plate of soggy "palace" bread and the sheet cut into long mummification strips on the seat next to me, the two three-year-old girls on the seats behind me, and figured it out...

or, thought I was as crazy as I looked.

"Not jellyfish bad," I told myself as I pulled away, eyeing the shiny new ticket on the seat next to my Egyptian gear.

The lesson went okay- nothing like I had planned- but what can you expect when you're a ditz trying to teach little kids who are inherently ditzes simply because they're little. My cut-up sheets made a huge mess after our "mummification," so Mia got some unsupervised playtime while I vaccuumed. She wasn't too happy to become supervised again just to be told it was time to get off the trampoline and go home, so I packed the car while she went in time out and thought about different approaches to handling bad news. I guess I sounded pretty pissy putting her in there, because the grandpa who had been watching some of the kids while I vaccumed wouldn't even look at me as I passed him in the doorway. Great- ditz and mean.

"Still nowhere near jellyfish bad," I told myself as I pulled away.

And drove VERY slowly.

The twins traded back again, we were about a half mile from home, when Mia piped up from the back seat. "I was choking Mom!" I looked into the rearview just in time to see Mia throw up all over herself. Apparently she doesn't know what "choking" means. Or when to stop jumping on the trampoline.

Sigh.

"Not jellyfish bad... hmm- I wonder if this is what jellyfish smell like..."

Just bare-ly newsworthy

My first homemade jam.

Bree's new daily trick.

Hee hee.

Celebration Part 2

Kind of sad- it's the next month and I'm just getting around to blogging the actual PARTY!


It was a beautiful (if blustery) day, so the kids got to run around outside, get cake, ice cream, and bubbles all over themselves.




Anya and Bree weren't the most social of hostesses...


We ran inside and let them explore their inner pyros...
Their binkis came right out of their mouths when I took them the next morning, they didn't get more cake for breakfast, the carpet wasn't transformed into a gigantic floor-shaped trampoline. I'm assuming they didn't get their wishes, whatever they were.


Or maybe they weren't thinking so big...

The last hour of their birthday-a-thon was an impromtu run out to the playground when Bree asked to go "oussiye?" in their accessorized birthday suits.