2005:
2006:
Last month:
Last night:
Happy, happy birthday Everett. You’re still the sweet, beautiful, pure soul you were when you were born six years ago, and we’re so blessed and thankful that you’re ours.
I’m not a party kind of girl. I don’t enjoy planning parties, I’m not a natural hostess, I don’t send invitations, and I don’t like being in big groups of people. I’m the weird one who doesn’t look forward to baby showers, and dreads going to weddings. In fact, I find that just the thought of a party is way more stressful than it is exciting. Even if I’ve had a good time – which I honestly usually do – I come home drained, not energized.
But,
one of my most favorite things is experiencing anything that involves my children’s happiness. And birthday parties in their honor make them EXTREMELY happy.
I do have to admit, Cracker Jax is a pretty cool place for kids to have a party. It was raining on Saturday so they weren’t able to ride the go-carts or bumper boats (though it cleared up long enough to play mini-golf) – and he had some friends unable to make it at the last minute – but overall it was a great party, and I think everyone had a lot of fun. Spencer declared it one of his best birthday weekends ever, which makes it more than worthwhile.
And finally, today is Tegan’s 2nd birthday. Everyone who knows me, or has read my blog for any length of time, knows Tegan’s story. I’ve told it again and again, how we’d thought our family would be complete with the three boys, but that God placed it on my heart – STRONGLY, I might add – that there was still someone missing. And so we had one more… not to “try for a girl”, but to have and meet and love whoever this missing family member turned out to be.
I feel a lot of things when I look at my little girl, as I do when I look at all my children, but far and away the strongest thing I feel is gratitude. I feel so incredibly thankful for her and what she’s brought to our family. I truly couldn’t imagine life without her.
Last year, my birthday was…. well, it was weird. We spent the whole day grocery shopping. Not just picking up a few things, but multi-store, several hundred dollar, stocking-up-for-a-month shopping. That evening we bought a used fridge for our garage from a neighbor, and wheeled it home down the sidewalk on a dolly. For dinner – and for reasons that have completely escaped my memory – we had hot dogs, one of my least favorite foods. It was a good day. Just weird.
This year started with Spencer making me coffee, and Mike making me chocolate chip pancakes. I did yoga while they cleaned up. I played Spongebob Operation with Everett, and read books with Tegan. Mom, Dad, Sandi, Mitch and the kids all came over in the afternoon for cake and icecream. The girls laughed our way through one of the workouts on my new Wii game, and the guys watched football. We played outside and pushed the kids on the swings. Everyone held the new snake. The kids raced through the house playing one made-up game after another. We saw the Cardinals beat the Packers in an awesome overtime moment. It was truly a great day.
Hot dogs were replaced with pasta with Mike’s own scampi sauce (one of my favorites) as a late dinner, followed by even more cake and icecream.
I was having entirely too much fun to take pictures, but Mike snapped a couple of me with the cake…
Yesterday seemed to mark the end of our little season of rest. The rest of the month is fast filling up, as is February, and even this summer. We’ve planned a busy spring, and possibly an even busier summer. I’m once again reminded of living in the moment, and finding that ever elusive balance.
Filed under birthdays
Tomorrow I’ll be 36.
If New Years makes me all introspective and philosophical, birthdays make me even more so. I always think about where I am versus where I thought I’d be, what I’ve done versus what I thought I’d do, what I’ve learned versus what I thought I’d learn. I think about the surprises that the past year held, both the good (becoming friends with someone with whom I thought a friendship would never be possible), and the bad (being hospitalized and tested and anesthetized yet again)
I love being in my 30’s. I’m a happy mom, and I’m a happy wife, but beyond those things I’m just more me than I ever was in my 20’s. If you have known me long, or even read my blog for any length of time, you have likely heard me say this before: I didn’t have a single opinion in my head when I got married. I really didn’t. The lightbulb moment came for me about ten years ago, when Spencer was still a toddler. Sure, I’d discovered many things about myself as soon as he was born, but it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I finally felt that feeling of “OH. This is who I am. This is who I want to be.” And if it was true then, it’s even more true now. This is who I am.
This year, I’m thankful for a husband that doesn’t just love me in spite of all the growing I’ve done over the years(I want to say “changing” but I really don’t feel like I’ve changed!), but loves me because of it. I love that he patiently listens as I pontificate about my newest passions, reads what I ask him to read when I just can’t put it into my own words, and supports whatever it is that I want to try/see/learn/taste/touch.
I’m thankful for the friends I have that truly let me be me…. not in a condescending, pat-on-the-head, kind of way, but in a true, accepting, and loving way.
I’m thankful for the people that get it.
I’m thankful for the ability to surround myself with resources that support attachment parenting, breastfeeding, baby-wearing, unschooling, natural living, non-circing, non-vaxing, life learning, free thinking causes…. and the freedom to distance myself from the resources that do not.
I’m thankful for my babies.
I’m thankful for what God has done in my life. This year, I feel truly blessed.
And finally, here is another picture of me as a little girl.
Anyone else think Tegan looks just like me?
Paxton turned 9 on Friday. One would think that after four kids and 12 years of birthdays, that it wouldn’t catch me so off guard each time. With the speed with which time is passing, it seems like I should fully expect to be waking up tomorrow to find them all grown and married with families of their own. Well he’s not quite grown and he’s not quite married, but Paxton – like the others – is definitely growing up!
We celebrated for two days (three if you include the fact that he’s now playing his new Wii game) On Friday I bought him the computer game, Spore, that he’s been waiting months for. His choice for his birthday dinner was shrimp scampi, and even I enjoyed it, sans the shrimp. How I had three boys who are so enamored with seafood is beyond me! 🙂
Yesterday, we had Mom, Dad, Sandi and Mitch and the kids, and Paxton’s friend over for cake and ice cream, followed by a Diamondbacks game. We took the train in, which made it even more of an event. We ate (and ate and ate and ate), we cheered, we thoroughly enjoyed getting to watch the Diamondbacks WIN this time! 2 home runs, a couple of triples, an all-around exciting game. A very cool game to go to for a birthday celebration.
I don’t know if it was the game, the excitement, or the jumbo sized Icees, but all the kids (minus Tegan, who was passed out cold in Mike’s arms) were in super high gear as we made our way home. They raced each other on the sidewalk, jumped up and down on the curb, and played and laughed their way through the train ride back to the station. It was a good night. And it was a giddy and exhausted 9 year old who happily went to bed at 10, and slept for twelve hours straight.
Happy Birthday Pak!
Has it been only 9 days since my last blog? What a full and eventful 9 days it’s been.
First, I’m sad to report that we lost the praying mantises. 🙁 We still don’t know what went wrong, but every last one of them had died by the time 3 days had passed.
On a brighter note, on Friday we released our butterflies. It actually took some coaxing to get them out of their habitat (I think I was envisioning them just gratefully bursting forth as soon as it was opened) but they eventually found their wings – and their freedom – among the bushes in our backyard.
In other animal news, Paxton’s leopard frog tadpoles are still doing well, but Everett’s tadpole is… off. We can’t yet tell if he is dying or if he has just slowed way down because he is a critcal stage of his transition. I’ve been following the instructions, feeding him regularly (but not too regularly), keeping his water cloudy (but not too cloudy) etc. I guess all we can do now is wait.
We actually haven’t had a lot of time to think about butterflies and tadpoles lately anyway, because we’ve been busy visiting! Our good friends Doug and Erika were here for five days and we had such a great time. We hadn’t seen each other in six months so we had lots to catch up, necessitating lots of busy days and late nights… and in one case, staying up till 4 in the morning playing Wii, PS2 and baking cookies.
Our first order of business was going geocaching. We’d been wanting to do it forever, and were happy to finally have an excuse to go, and some willing cohorts to go with us. For the uniformed, geocaching is like a big treasure hunt game. You plug in some coordinates into a GPS, hunt for the cache – which is filled with little trinkets – sign the log book, take something & leave something, and re-hide it for the next person. It was a blast and it is now officially our new favorite family hobby. We can’t wait to go out and do it again.
We also went to the Phoenix Children’s Museum for the second time, and it was every bit as fun as the first.
Last, but most definitely not least, we celebrated both Spencer and Tegan’s birthdays in one big party on Saturday. Tegan loved spending time with her grandparents and aunt and uncle, and she had a blast opening her presents
But the highlight for Tegan, in traditional Tegan style, had to be eating and enjoying her first ever birthday cake. I have to note again, for the people who have not yet heard me say it, that the lamb cake was made from the very same cake mold that made my first birthday cake 34 years ago. I was so very excited to make it for my own daughter, and what made it even more special was learning from my Mom that she too had a lamb cake for her first birthday. Three generations of little lambs! She commented that my grandmother – who passed away 5 years ago and whom I still dearly miss – would be tickled to know that Tegan had a lamb cake too… and I know that she was.
Spencer loved his cake too
and his presents
and having a real life police officer to show him how to use his new fingerprinting kit
All in all, it was a great day, and a great week… with great family, and great friends.
I'm Jen... the shy, lost girl from the east coast who married at nineteen and eventually found herself - four kids later - in the middle of the desert. I like chocolate. You can read more about me here.
