Birthday Mania

Birthday Month has come and gone. Three birthdays between the 6th and 16th...thank you very much.

Lyndsey's was the first. It was September 6th. She was turning eight!! Of course she was lucky enough to have it land on Baptism Saturday. I noticed this would happen about a year ago. The wheels turned in my head and I though how cool and convenient it would be to have a kidlet birthday party/ extended family party for all three kids/ baptism celebration all in ONE DAY! Yea!!! Months of planning...First the perfect dress for my last baby and of course a cute photo of her in it.

Then we made the perfect invite (two kinds of course- one for the baptism and one for the kidlet party). Then I had to arrange all the food: Pizza, salad, veggie tray, fruit, bread sticks, appetizer, drinks, cake etc... for an army of 40 people. Then Lyndsey decided it would be fun to have a tea party complete with a craft for twelve little girls. They would make tea party bonnets (supervised by 6 adults). The straw hats turned out to not be easy to find and when I did, I bought out two stores worth. I had to also find the perfect flowers, netting and ribbon. The logistics of the party were mind boggling: be at a niece's wedding the night before, get everyone up and in church clothes and to the church at 9:30 AM on the morning of. Then someone thought it would be nice to have "a display table" with a book to sign for visitors. Please, this was supposed to be simple. It feels like a wedding.

After three loooonnng baptisms with over a hundred people in attendance, we finished and moved onto the party part. We had invited the little party girls to the baptism and had to transport them to the party.

Once we got there we had kids running all over the house; we were trying to bake 6 pizzas and get the food ready and I was trying to round up little girls to make there craft. We had a bit of dilemma with a father asking if his younger daughter could come to the party too (what??? why do men create such social blunders. What could I say? Of course I graciously said sure) now I wouldn't have enough hats. It was stressful but worked out in the end when a girl who was at the baptism didn't show up to the party (whew!)

Several adults wrangled hot glue guns, flowers and bows onto hats and we settled down for a tea party with china and lemonade. The girls looked adorable and finally we were able to feed the crowd who was patiently waiting for the cooking pizzas to be done and the craft to be finished.

There was lots of food and more people kept showing up (I will save you from the details). Now it was present time. Relatives brought presents for all three kids. We had our presents for Lynz and her friends of course brought gifts. Then there were more baptism gifts and cards. Wrapping paper, tissue paper, plates, cups and napkins of paper. A new hamster for Lynz running loose in his ball. Kids and people in my house and yard. FINALLY, the joy was over. It took the whole rest of the weekend to recover and then... and a few days later...It was Sarah's birthday.

Our New Dog (Mutt) for the day

Our neighbor Gwen's daughter found a dog hanging around one day. They already have a dog and we had been thinking about getting one, so we asked if we could keep it while trying to find it's owner. We posted ads on KSL and signs around the area. We held this dog and played with it and really thought it was cute until night came. We had recently fenced our yard and it is summer, so we left the dog in the back yard. In the morning it was gone. It had dug under the fence to visit our other neighbor's yorkie. We put the dog back in our yard and placed a rock over the hole it dug. Within minutes, it had dug another hole and gotten out. Our neighbor was getting annoyed. We borrowed a leash for the night. Mark didn't want the dog in the house. All was quiet until just as we were falling asleep the crying began. First the dog yelped, then he whined and then the yowling started. Nothing would shut the dog up. This went on for a couple of hours. I turned to Mark in bed. "What should we do? Should we let him in?" Mark replied, "No way, let him go...perminently." I was upset he would suggest such a thing. Another half our of crying went on. We both couldn't sleep and I quietly slipped out of bed and let the doggie in. I put him in the mudroom where he couldn't hurt anything and slept in quiet the rest of the night. In the morning we let the dog out and he was once again on a long leash. He wasn't liking that, but what could we do. The little escape artist wouldn't stay in the yard. The crying began once more. Meanwhile of course no one had called to clain the mutt. I think someone had dropped him off far away in hopes he wouldn't come back. Gwen showed up on my doorstep and asked what she could do to help. She said her 15 year old daughter was crying in her room because of the dumb dog's crying and they hadn't slept all night. I was pulling my hair out by then and really regretted asking for the dog. I didn't say one word to Gwen, but silently handed her the dog and shut the door. Goodbye doggie!

The first day of school came too quickly for Sarah and Lyndsey. Sarah started the
5th grade in Mrs. Ketcher's class and Lyndsey started 2nd grade in Mrs. Jarman's class. It was a sigh of relief to have the house back to myself.

Oh yea, Westley is still here...For one more month...Someone help me!!! JK...Wes and I enjoyed the house quite together due to the fact of
1. Westley no longer had anyone to tease.
2. Westley slept in until noon most days.
3. I snuck out to shop ALONE before Wes woke up
4. We made lunch together and quitely read the paper
5. I hadn't given him any chores to do yet that day
6. He was off mowing lawns
7. I was off to work.
We celebrated the end of the summer together by going to a movie right before School started,(eighth grade)!
"Please come see Mama Mia with me...I'll pay...and bring treats...and increase your allowance..." (WE) sort of enjoyed the movie.

24th of July Camping at Albion Basin

Albion Basin's flowers are incredible especially if you check them out in July/August. Apparently everyone else in the nearby region decided to as well. That being said, we attempted camping over the 24th of July holiday. Two days turned to one after a sleepless night of partiers in a cabin above our campsite. We were in the campground in Alta's Skiing basin in Little Cottonwood Canyon. So much for getting back to nature. Although it took one day to pack and one day to unpack, we trimmed our stay to one night. I swear I will never tent camp again. It is too much work and the kids really do hate it! The hike was fun though. The other great part was Emily, my sister, and her family coming up for dinner. We looked forward to their coming all day. We left on the 24th of July and went to my Mom's instead to help her out after she broke her leg.