Surprise! I'm 30!

I have been well aware of my 30th birthday slowly sneaking up on me for the last few months, but it hadn't phased me.  I really am not freaked out about being 30. It makes me sound like a real adult, but I've got four kids, so I'm thinking that's a good thing? I'll tell you one thing, I was super excited to celebrate my official adulthood!  

Melanie and Ian put their heads together and planned a really fun party for me.  I knew about it and I was looking forward to it.  What I didn't know was that at about 3am on Friday morning my mom and CA sisters pulled up to my house and snuck into my basement for a few hours of sleep before surprising me for a weekend of birthday fun!

Friday morning I got up with Weston and Beckett.  Davin and Talia randomly slept in.  Weston headed off to school.  Mel texted me and let me know she needed to stop by and pick up some papers from her stuff in the basement.  This is not unusual and didn't raise any flags.  She showed up at about 7:30 and I headed down to the basement with her.  I turned on the lights and SURPRISE! there were my mommy and sisters!  I seriously was shocked and couldn't believe they were there.  I cried.  And I'm not a crier (although in my newfound adulthood I seem to be turning into one).  It was seriously an awesome surprise and I'm impressed that they pulled it off.

On Friday morning we just all hung out and showered for the day.  Our friend, Natalie, came over for lunch and we had a fun time visiting while Davin was at school.  Mel and I got our birthday presents from Mom and Dad: ukuleles!  So fun!  Joy gave us uke bags and Jules made us these really cute framed quotes that said "I love you a bushel and a peck." Sentimental because our Grandpa Snowball used to sing us that song all the time.  What fun gifts!

Friday night was girls' night.  We headed to Red Robin for dinner to celebrate Mel's birthday.  It was so yummy and fun!  We laughed a lot and talked a lot and sang a little.  We overran the ladies restroom, joked around with our waitress, sang Happy Birthday in harmony to Mel, and had to request more ranch at least 3 times.

After dinner we did a little shopping, of course.  Nothing major since the stores were only open for about an hour by the time we finished dinner.  But we got some makeup, clothes, jewelry, nail polish, and hair accessories.  By the time we got home and chilled with Ian and Brad for a bit it was beyond time for bed!

Saturday morning Mom and I went shopping at Kohl's.  It was fun and successful.  I was proud of myself for finding great deals and getting stuff I actually needed.  I found capris and a few spring tops.  And even had saved my Christmas gift card for it!

That afternoon Ian and my sisters went and set up for my party while Mom and I rested with the kids and I got a ukulele lesson.  We also fed Beckett rice cereal for the first time.  That will get it's own post. Saturday night was my big party!

It was such a blast! It was all decked out with fun decorations and balloons.  There was a salsa bar, fruit with fruit dip, M&M's, and drinks.  Lots of my friends were able to come hang out and wish me a happy birthday.  We played a couple of games, but mostly just visited and listened to music.  There was an Apples to Apples type of game where each guest picked a card with a word that described me and then I got to pick which one of those I liked the best.  It was really fun and everyone (almost . . . Quinn) picked such nice words to describe me.  :)

The other game was a 2 Truths and a Lie worksheet about me.  There were five sets of three "facts" about me and the guests had to figure out which one of the 3 facts was a lie.  It was kind of funny and I was impressed that my friend, Michael Ann got all of them right!

Everyone sang and we had cake and ice cream.  It was really a super fun night.  I felt so loved and grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life.  I am definitely a lucky girl.

Sunday was my real, actual 30th birthday.  In the morning Mom, Joy and Jules packed up and headed back to California.  I was sad to see them leave but I am so glad they made the trip out.  It was really wonderful to have all of us girls together for a few days.

Ian and I were pretty exhausted so it was a nice, low key day.  We didn't go anywhere.  Just stayed home all together and watched movies.  I opened my presents from Ian and Jim and Denny at lunch and I got lots of old movies to add to my classics collection.  7 Brides for 7 Brothers, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Sound of Music, and The King and I.  I made corned beef and cabbage for dinner but it didn't turn out very good.  Kind of a bummer.  We ate leftover cake from my party and I got sang to again.  I went to bed early.  Like an old person should do.  It was a good day.  A good birthday weekend.  And now I'm 30!

Talia's 1st Haircut

Last week I took Talia to get her first haircut at Cookie Cutters. It was kind of nice not having to do this until now because she is old enough to understand what is going on.  And old enough to understand the concept of bribery.  The boys got their first haircuts when they were one or younger and it was harder.  I still wasn't sure how Tal was going to do with someone else combing and touching her hair, but she was a champ.  She didn't particularly love it but she didn't cry or scream and she held relatively still.

BEFORE:  

Talia probably didn't need a haircut and I could have waited, but I thought her ends looked kind of scraggly and needed to be evened up.  Her hair doesn't look much different since I only had the stylist take half an inch off the bottom and layer it a tiny bit.  However, I think it makes her curls a little bouncier and it makes the ends look healthier.

Talia loved the fun play area and the slide.  She picked the blue car chair to sit in and watched Jake and the Neverland Pirates while she got her hair cut.

AFTER:

She also got to get a cute french braid twist style at the end.  She looked so pretty and loved her blue balloon and blue sucker.  Can you tell her favorite color is blue?  I blame it on having so many brothers. :)  I'm glad that it's done and she won't need another cut for several months.  Girl hair is easier than boy hair in that regard, but harder than boy hair in every other way.  Hooray for a successful first haircut!

Catching Up

As promised . . . a catch up post!  Last week was super busy and I felt like we were gone a lot.  Because we were.  Here's what we were up to.

Saturday (the night before the Oscars): 

Eating great food at Brio on our shopping date.  Ian needed new jeans before his trip to San Francisco so we made a date night out of it.  The bruschetta sampler was the highlight of the meal.  The actual entrees were not bad, but not amazing.  Definitely would rather spend that kind of money at Faustina.  However, I would go there again just for the bruschetta.  Yum!  Oh and Ian found jeans that fit nicely on sale at Target.  We also popped into Jos A. Bank to exchange his white shirt from Christmas where he also picked out a new tie.  Shopping and dinner seems to be our new normal date night.

Sunday: The Oscars . . . see my post about it earlier.

Monday: 

We went out to Red Lobster with Melanie and Brad to celebrate Mel's 25th birthday!  We had a great time and Mel had lobster for the first time.  I ate a ton of shrimp.  It was great.  I loved getting to see Mel on her birthday and give her big hugs.  The kids made her cute cards and I brought her a little bunch of pink tulips.  We celebrated for real over the weekend.

During the week:

The kids were generally adorable.  I can't get enough of Beckett's cute smiles!  He is almost always happy.  He got some new clothes recently so I've been having fun dressing him in his new outfits.  

Talia can't get enough of the dinosaur museum.  She would go there every single day if I would let her. So naturally when I asked her where she wanted to go after we took Davin to school one day she picked the "seum!"  She pretty much just runs through the whole thing.  Her frequent stops are the rocks and drums in the sound exhibit, multiple walks through the star room, playing in the cave, the dino scale, sitting on the baby triceratops, seeing the giant turtle and crab in the ocean room, the shark, and the Elephant Bird egg.  

I got my craft on and made a floral spring wreath!  I had fun browsing Michael's and picking out my supplies then spending one afternoon naptime putting it together.  I think it turned out pretty and makes my house feel hopeful that it will eventually be colorful and warm again.

I ran errands.  Of course.  I braved Walmart and Sams Club with both Talia and Beckett.  Talia was such a good girl and helped with Beckett sitting up in the cart.  It was fun to spoil her with a new toy.  She was in love with this puppy in nursery, but now she goes to a different nursery class.  She still talks about the puppy though.  It was on sale and I had a coupon and she LOVES it!  :)

It actually did warm up enough this weekend to play outside!  Ian grilled.  Twice.  And Talia rode her trike and played in the backyard.  She is now obsessed with going outside.  It's going to be a fun summer for her.  And once again I am so grateful for our fenced backyard!

We squeezed in another date night to a BYU gymnastics meet with our friends, the Matagi's, on Friday.  We had a great time being back in Provo and reminiscing about our college days.  I love watching gymnastics and we had great seats.  We will definitely have to do it again sometime.

Saturday Mel and I had a super awesome girls night to celebrate her birthday.  We went to Chipotle for dinner.  Then headed over to the mall for pedicures and some shopping.  We had great shopping karma!  I came away with a spring skirt, cute necklace, and fun sandals.  Mel and I got matching shirts and shorts because we both have good taste.  :)  She also got another top, a scarf, and cute flats. We ended the evening with a red velvet mini bundt cake.  So delicious!  I sure love having Mel close by.  She is so much fun!  Happy Birthday seester!

Luckily Sunday was low key and this week has been a lot less busy.  I'm kind of enjoying the down time.  

Davin-My Middle Child

I cannot believe that it has only been a week since I last posted because we were so busy and so much happened, but I have really been wanting to do a post about Davin, so that's what we're doing today.  There will be a catch up post later this week.

Davin is such a cute, funny, sweet kid.  He also gets lost in the shuffle sometimes.  I underestimate him.  He is truly my middle child.  Weston is the oldest, Talia is the girl, and Beck is the baby.  Davin has carved out a little place somewhere in the middle.

The last couple of weeks I have all of the sudden realized how grown up my little almost 5 year old is becoming!  He has been doing so amazing at school and I just didn't see it before now.  I always knew Davin was bright, but he is not as verbally advanced as Weston was at this age, so I figured he would be more of a middle of the road kind of kid.  I'm not so sure about that.

At the beginning of the year Davin started working on sight words in preschool.  He brought home lists to practice and learn, then pass off.  There were 7 lists.  He has now passed them all off.  He was so enthusiastic about learning his words and practicing writing them.  Now that he has learned all of his sight words he gets new take home reading books.  He loves having homework like Weston and is doing really well with sounding out (and guessing based on the pictures) the words he doesn't know.  I'm very impressed.

He also loves playing Weston's math games.  For homework some weeks Weston will have a math game to play where you roll dice and subtract the smaller number from the bigger one or add them both together.  Davin is actually pretty good at these games and only needs a little help from me.  I had no idea he knew all of this stuff!  That probably makes me sound like a horrible parent, but Davin is such a creative, imaginative little soul that it's easy to assume he's just not paying attention or interested when we talk about numbers and letters.  I'm so glad that he is and I'm so proud of his enthusiasm for learning!

Davin really loves school.  Last week he got to bring home the letter bag.  The letter that week was "P" and he had a blast going around the house and finding items to take to show his class that started with the letter P.  He filled up his "P" bag and then got to present his things to his class during their pirate party.  It was a really fun day for him.

Here he is with all of his items that begin with P. (puzzle, plane, pirate puppet, Perry the Platypus, person, Power Ranger, pants, panda, puppy, picture, piece, Pez, and pom pom)

This was after school when he did his President's Day craft.  Too cute!

I also really really love his imagination.  He makes things up all day long and will often entertain himself for hours building with Legos or just plain old playing pretend.  He will pass up outings to stay home and play in the basement.

Davin is a tiny little thing, but he is truly growing all the time.  I hope that I will always remember to expect the best from him and not let him fall between the cracks as my attention is easily pulled toward the other kiddos.  I love my Dav!

Oscar Night 2013

It was a blast getting to watch the Oscars with Brad and Mel this year!  We put together quite the feast (and by "we" I mean mostly Mel).  I did the veggie tray, fruit, pizza rolls, brownies and M&M's.  Mel did taquitos with amazing Cafe Rio dressing, guacamole and chips, bacon wrapped little smokies, spinach artichoke dip, and rice krispie treats.  She is awesome.  It was all delicious and I was stuffed by the end of the night.

THE FASHION:
I loved . . .
-Jennifer Lawrence!  She looked amazing.  Great, classic dress in a beautiful pale pink color.  Gorgeous hair and she's just such a cool girl.  I was super excited about her Best Actress win!

-Jennifer Garner!  Holy fantastic color.  I adore that plum purple and she rocked it.  The ruffle in the back was fun and flirty, but not weird.  I loved her hair and jewelery too.  Plus she definitely wins best supporting wife.
-Reese Witherspoon looked fantastic post baby in her royal blue and black gown.  She made the most of her curves and I really liked her pretty blond hair long and curled.
-Sandra Bullock is just awesome.  I wish we were real life friends.  I loved her classy, sparkly (and MODEST) black gown.  Her hair accessory was a nice touch.  Oh and the hideous face she made while announcing the Film Editing award was hilarious.
-Zoe Saldana!  She isn't on the best dressed list but I really liked her gown.  The lavender was beautiful with her skin and the modern accents were cool looking without being over the top.
-Adele!  She just rocks.  She looked fantastic (and MODEST).  Her hair is seriously out of this world.  I couldn't get over it.  I would kill to have such thick, gorgeous hair.  Also she knocked her performance of Skyfall out of the park and won the Oscar for it!  Hooray!

Not so much . . .
-Naomi Watts.  I just wasn't digging the one boob cutout look.  It was weird and distracting.  I couldn't stop looking at the one boob, which was a shame because she is a very beautiful woman and I liked her hair a lot.
-Nicole Kidman.  The black and gold sequins were just too dramatic for me and I didn't like the weird swirlies at the bottom of her dress.  She did interview well on the red carpet though.
-Kristen Stewart.  Blah.  Blah hair, blah dress, blah announcing.
-Anyone else not mentioned above. :)

THE SHOW:
Seth MacFarlane.  Hmm . . . tricky.  Let's just say that he exceeded my expectations.  However, my expectations weren't very high.  Mostly he was an unknown.  I didn't know what to expect but I hoped he wouldn't be crass and horrible.  He wasn't.  He had some funny jokes, but seemed to fall flat with the audience.  Some of his jokes made me uncomfortable, but he didn't ruin the show, so I was glad about that.  He has a great voice and I enjoyed his singing.  Also he's more handsome than I thought he would be.

The opening monologue was only OK.  I liked the stars dancing.  I mean, any time I get to watch Joseph Gordon Leavitt in a suit dancing is fine by me.  What I really didn't like was William Shatner.  He looked like he had never acted before in his life and I really just didn't like the whole Star Trek future thing.

The "We Saw Your Boobs" song.  Maybe I'm childish but I thought it was hilarious.

The music!  It was fantastic and fun!  I loved all the live performances.  Especially Adele and the cast of Les Mis.  Oh and even though I thought the song at the end about the losers was kind of tacky, I still loved seeing Kristin Chenoweth perform.

The Sound of Music joke.  I laughed so hard.  And Christopher Plummer was pretty witty as a presenter too.

Jennifer Lawrence tripping on her dress as she climbed the steps to accept her Best Actress award was too funny.  She handled it well, of course.  She was so breathless and excited about her win.  I was happy for her.

I was SO excited that Argo won best picture.  It was a really really good movie.  The best I had seen in a long time.  And I was excited for Ben Affleck's success.  He gave a touching, heartfelt acceptance speech.  I really think that he and his family are a good Hollywood role model.

Other awards . . . I totally called Ang Lee's Best Director win.  Life of Pi was also a good film and I thought he was deserving.  Anne Hathaway's Best Supporting Actress win was predictable but well earned.  And, as I mentioned, I was so happy about Adele's Best Song win.  She gave a sweet speech too.

Overall, I thought it was a good Oscar show.  Not the best, but certainly not the worst.  I had a fun night with my sister and good food.  The kids were pretty good about being quiet during the show or doing something else.  Beckett snuggled up with me and fell asleep on my lap around 8:30.  There are a few movies added to my "to watch" list after last night (all of the animated shorts, Searching for Sugar Man).  I'm a happy girl and ready to relax and watch fluff blockbusters all summer until next year's awards season rolls around.  Good Night!

5 Months

Time is just marching along and Beckett is 5 months old today!  He still seems like a newborn to me, but all of my first time mommy friends whose babies are about Beck's age are starting to try solids, are rolling around and doing other big baby things.  I guess I better start moving this boy along!  

At 5 months Beckett can roll from belly to back, but he doesn't always do it.  He sits up like a champ.  We just put together his exersaucer this week and he seems to really like it!  He also had his first ride sitting up in the shopping cart seat yesterday.  He loved it, but he was kind of slumped so he probably should wait a little longer.

Beckett is mellow as ever, but not as great of a sleeper as I thought he would be.  He's still up in the night.  He was getting into a routine of eating twice a night, but I got the green light from the pediatrician to drop one of those feedings.  Crying it out is sad, but he's doing a little better.  I'm ok with being up once, but twice is just annoying.

Beckett is a good eater.  He's moving to two bottles a day and doesn't seem to have a problem with it.  I'm not as anxious to be done breastfeeding as I thought I would be, but he is getting very easily distracted while nursing and I don't nurse in public, so I'm still going to get him weaned around 6 months.  We haven't tried solids yet.  Sometime in the next few weeks we will get there.

Beckett weighed in at 13 pounds at his 4 month check up (which was late and just a couple weeks ago), so I'm betting he's gained an ounce or two since then.  Definitely not my smallest child, but he has the smallest head of them all according to his percentiles.

Beckett is so fun at this age.  He smiles and laughs when we play with him and tickle him.  He gets really excited and kicks and breathes fast whenever I read books to him or sing to him.  I try to take advantage of his night time feedings for some snuggle time since he's not much of a cuddler when he's awake.  Love you Beckstar!

Me Time

There are always lots of posts about the kids and our happenings, but today this post is about me.  I apologize if you find it shallow and/or selfish.  Just skip it if you want.  No worries.

I have been working hard to get my pre-baby body back.  It has been kind of fun.  Not ha ha, having a blast kind of fun, but definitely feeling good about myself and not worrying that it's all going to be for nothing kind of fun.  It feels good to know that my body is done having babies and is soon to be all mine once more.

I have been exercising on my elliptical 3-4 times a week, tracking calories on My Fitness Pal, trying to eat more mindfully and nutritiously, and sometimes playing Wii Fit games and counting it as a workout.  :)  I have lost 15 pounds so far and am back to pre-Talia weight.  I have another 15 pounds to go to get back to pre-Weston weight.  My goal is to get there by June so I can look awesome for our 10 year anniversary cruise.

Anyway, besides feeling good about myself and (sort of) beating winter depression, the best part of having lost the weight is getting dressed!  I bought myself some new clothes and it's finally fun to put together outfits again!  Now getting dressed is really not my thing.  I'm definitely a stay-at-home-in-sweats-80%-of-the-time kind of girl, but now that I have cute clothes that fit I kind of wish I had somewhere to go!

Inspired by my fashionable friend over at The Trophy Wife in Training, who was participating in this What I Wore Wednesday blog link up, I am going to share with you some of my favorite outfits I've worn lately.

I'll start with one I actually wore on a Wednesday with no intentions of going anywhere except to drop off Davin at preschool.  I ended up taking the littles and meeting up with Ian and some of his co-workers for lunch, so I was glad I looked cute.

Pants: Target, Shirt: Macy's, Shoes: Payless

This was way back in December, but I still liked it.  

Pants: Loft, Sweater: Old Navy, Shoes: IZOD from DSW

 I found these super cute and comfy skinny color cords on clearance for $10 and couldn't pass them up. I actually like them better with a different shirt but this is the pic that I have.

Pants: Old Navy, Sweater: Old Navy (same one as above), Boots: Target

 This was a date night outfit.  Ian and I went to The Leonardo Museum to check out a cool exhibit about Da Vinci.  We ended up also eating out at our favorite fancy restaurant downtown.

Pants: Target, Shirt: Kohl's, Cardigan: Target, Boots: Target