Tyler's 7th Birthday

Tyler's real birthday was Sunday November 15th but we celebrated the previous Sunday at Grandpa and Grandma Newman's house. Then on Friday I brought cupcakes to his class and they sang him "Happy Birthday". On Saturday we had his friend birthday party and on Sunday we celebrated with Grandma Thacker.

For his friend party we went to the Taylorsville Rec Center. A little bit of a drive for us but it was so worth it. We spent an hour climbing the rock wall and then went in to the party room for pizza, soda, cake and presents. I bought an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins (it's the first time I had ever bought one) and it was toxic-bright but tasted good. The party was so fun and I am glad we did it there. My mom's fiance Garry works at the Rec center and told me about the parties they offer. He also helped me shuttle the kids to and from (in the snow!) so extra thanks to him.

Here are a ton of pictures:

The invite

Tyler climbing the rock wall

The brightly colored and illegible cake

Isn't this a great looking group of kids??

Instead of a cake this year he had cupcakes that looked like....

Hamburgers!

It's still hard for me to believe that I have a 7-year-old. It seems like just yesterday he was born and now he is an incredibly handsome, smart little boy. I love him so much!

Isn't he a doll? He got lots of Lego's for his birthday. Betcha didn't guess that already!

I am so stressed-out!

I think this is the most overwhelmed I have ever been in my life! Last week I had a big UNOS- United Network of Organ Sharing (For more info click here) audit at work that took a lot of preparation. We did well but my perfectionist tendencies come out during these things and I get really hard on myself for any mistakes that I make. You know, I am not allowed to be human but everyone else can be. We have two other audits from other agencies coming in 2010- I can hardly wait. Oh, and they want to take new pictures for my work's website. This stresses my out because I look so young and skinny and acne-free in my old picture. I don't want a new one, but they are making me!

I also (for the first time ever, yes I am a bad mom) was throwing a friend birthday party for Tyler's 7th birthday. We have always just done family parties but this year he recognized that other kids were having friend parties and he wanted one too. So add that in to the mix.

And now I am preparing for my mom's wedding. This is a hard one and earlier this week I went through a day of grieving for my dad. I mean full-blown hysterical sobbing. I don't want to see my mom married to anyone other than my dad so this has been a big struggle and is the reason that it hasn't been posted on my blog before today. But the time is nearly here and I'll do what I have to do to support my mom.

Oh, and one of my co-workers asked me if I could present to a group of medical students on the Living Kidney program that we have in Utah and my experience as a living donor back in 2004. I was like sure, no big deal until she told me I needed to fill up 40 minutes. 40 minutes?!?! I haven't even begun preparing for this yet! For more info click here

To top all this off there is also Thanksgiving, Christmas, shopping for Christmas, two work parties, two family parties and a 90th birthday party for Brad's grandpa (the one who was our temple sealer).

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Here's something positive to cap off my negative post. I made this beautiful and delicious apple crisp. I used Granny Smith, Jonagold and Gala apples and it was divine!

Halloween 2009

Here are the boys in their costumes

Originally Tyler wanted to be Frankenstein and Trevor wanted to be a Ghost but they don't make classic costume like that anymore and I am not creative nor do I sew. Instead we went to the Halloween store and looked around. Tyler settled on a Star Wars Clone Trooper (big surprise there!) and once Trevor spotted the Superman costume he was hooked. It was a nice, easy shopping trip.

Look how nice my front stoop looked. I was so proud. Here's a close-up of our pumpkins.

The boys and I painted them one evening when Brad was at work because I don't do the goopy-gross mess of carving. If Brad had been home he would've though.

We went to our usual Halloween Party/Trunk or Treat with my in-laws about 2 weeks before Halloween. Their YW/YM plan a party in the gymnasium and then the adults do a trunk or treat afterwards. It's always so much fun with a cake walk, face painting, fish pond, crafts, etc. Here's Trevor decorating a candy bag. I thought it was cute that he sticks his tongue out when concentrating.

Here's Tyler doing the obligatory donut-on-a-string. I try not to let myself think about how many other people's mouths have touched that string because then I get high-strung. He was cute though and really wanted to do it. The only bad part to the night was the trick or treating in the rain. Cold and wet does not make for a happy mommy.

Here's my adorable niece Katelyn in her Cinderella costume. Isn't she a doll? She totally ignores me but I'm OK with that because I love her anyway.

A couple nights later we did our other tradition which is to go to Red Butte Garden's Garden After Dark. This picture is of all the kids who were there with us that night. This year was particularly fun for the kids. They painted pumpkins, made witches potion (dried flower petals in a vile), made witches brooms, had broom races and did all the other games and activities scattered throughout the garden. It was so fun.

Tyler's painted pumpkin

Trevor digging in the hay to find a hidden object to turn in for a packet of magic seeds. Unfortunately he spotted a plastic spider and....

This is what happened.

I laugh because he was never afraid of spiders until this one incident in Walmart. I took the boys in to the Halloween area with me. Neither of them were afraid of any of the Halloween displays including the moving scary pretend people. So, I picked up this huge (probably 3 foot in diameter) hairy spider and when I went to show him he freaked out. I mean, you could've heard him on the other side of the store. And ever since then he has been afraid of spiders- real or fake. My mother-in-law gave the boys each a little goody bag full of Halloween things and in it was one of those little spider rings. Once he saw it he threw the bag across the room and refused to touch it again until I had taken the spider out. Crazy kid!

Next we had Trevor's preschool Halloween program. He absolutely refused to sit on the chairs with the rest of his class and ended up sitting on my lap in the front row and singing all the songs from there. Much to my surprise though when it was his turn to do his speaking part he marched right up there and said it without any hesitation. Oh Trevor, how I love you. You always keep me guessing.

And finally, all the adorable cousins getting ready for the ward trunk or treat on Halloween. From left to right there is Hailey, Trevor, Tyler, Lucy and Avery. After the trunk or treat we went over to a house in our neighborhood where this guy wears stilts, is dressed in all black with a scary mask and comes walking out with a chainsaw. We hadn't ever taken the kids up there but wanted to check it out. Hailey was the only one brave enough to walk up there (or to young to know to be scared!). He was way nice though and when he saw the kids hanging back by the car he took off his mask and turned off the chainsaw to show the kids he was just a person dressed up. We chatted for a bit (my brother-in-law knows him through their stake somehow) and then we headed over to my house for our usual pizza and chatfest. Fun was had by all.

Even though we didn't get to do all the things I had wanted to do (Gardner Village, Cornbelly's, a pumpkin patch and corn maze) we still had a great time together and that's all that matters.

Gorgeous Flowers

Aren't these beautiful? They are just two of the gorgeous flowers from our San Diego trip.

Vacation Day 7 and the road home!

As mentioned in an earlier post we spent 2 days at Sea World. Trevor's favorite part of Sea World was the Sesame Street Bay of Play area so we spent a lot of time there on both days. These are the three rides they have plus they have a splash pad and a huge obstacle course/climbing area that parents and kids can go through together.

 Oscar's Rockin' Eel

This was the big boat that the life-size characters would come out on to sing and dance. You could also pay to take a picture with them. We didn't.

Abby's Sea Star Spin

This one was Trevor's favorite- Elmo's Flying Fish. He asked about going back to San Diego to ride this for several weeks.

We had originally planned to check out of our hotel, swing over to Sea World , spend a couple hours there and then hit the road home. Well, once we got to Sea World we started having so much fun that we stayed until 9 p.m.! It was Labor Day weekend so it was more crowded that we had been used to all week but we tolerated it. They were having fireworks that night so it got more crowded the later it got. After we left we went to an In-N-Out Burger to see what all the rage is about since they are not common yet in Utah. Let's just say we were underwhelmed. From there we just wanted to go home. I told Brad we could rent a cheap hotel room for a night but he wanted to try to drive it so we stayed up and took turns only stopping for gas, snacks and to switch drivers.

It took 12 hours to get home and when we did Brad and I were exhausted. The boys slept most of the way home so we really lucked out there. My feet were hugely swollen by this time and I was starting to worry that maybe I was having some kidney function issues. We hurried to unload the car, unpack, get the laundry started and then we got naps. It was so nice to be home but we feel thankful that we were able to do this dream vacation this year. This is the first real vacation we have taken as a family and it was bliss.