::happy birthday to me::

Here's what I came home to today for my birthday: (Kris and I were on a business trip--more about that later).


Kris's mom was here taking care of our boys, and she helped Max (and we all know what that means) set up for my birthday. It turned out so cute!


More later, but now I've got to go and get some sleep after all the revelry!

::my birthday in photos::

Pancake breakfast:

with bacon and overeasy eggs--my favorite!

Some fun presents:

Special Italian bistro dinner:



What a great day!!

::finished::

Check it out:

This is what I did with those cute snowflakes.
My original idea was to hang them from the ceiling of the kitchen. But I needed tons and tons to do that, because I would've wanted them thick. And the ceiling in our house is a bit low, so I was afraid Kris would be banging his head on them all the time.
And there was this perfect overhang at the window that was just begging for some fun.

So there they hang. Those two you see that look yellow aren't really that yellow. They're just kind of off white. When I realized how they looked compared to the other yarns I didn't make any more of those.

I think they're really fun. They make the winter seem just a little more festive. And you can't really tell, but most of them are made with yarn that has a little bit of a sparkle to it.
I like their silhouettes:

I got the pattern from here. They look really hard and complicated, but they're really very simple. And they're fast too, once you make one or two. I cranked out like 8 the other night when we were watching a (dumb) movie. And it's easy to improvise with them too. I came up with two other patterns based on the original that I really liked.
So try them. It's fun!!

In other news Kris has been tying a lot of fly fishing flies. He's getting good at it. He's working on flies for salt water fishies.
They're a lot bigger than the freshwater ones I'm used to seeing.
ALSO, Kris fixed my stained glass lamp. You can see it in a couple of the pictures in the beginning of this post. We got it for our wedding from some wonderful friends and I love it. One of our last moves did it in though. The post was totally broken. It wasn't of the highest quality to begin with, and four moves in four years was just too much. Anyway, Kris attempted to fix it a while back and it turned out badly--gorilla glue + fingers = bad news. But the other day he had an epiphany and fixed the dang thing with a dowel. I'm so happy to have it back! We need it out here in the winter. It's so dark and gloomy almost all of the time.
Anyway, I know my husband loves me when he solves a nearly unsolvable problem for me and doesn't give up on it.
That could light up anybody's january.

::pinatas are cool::

Every year on my birthday growing up my parents would get a pinata for us to smash. It was truly awesome. I posted a few old pictures of it last year on my birthday.
It was a fabulous tradition, and our best friends down the street, the Williams would always join us. I can't think of a year that they weren't there.

So, my mom had a brilliant idea. She planned a mini pinata party for when I was in town, and invited the Williams! And since all of us who used to be the kids have kids now, they were the ones smacking the pinata around. It was awesome.

The Mercado Latino in Provo came through for us with a cool rainbow pinata. They had so many different kinds there I had a hard time choosing.
We smashed it in my parents (recording) studio, which is also traditional, since the 31st of Jan isn't usually the best weather.
My mom got all the big kids blindfolded, turned them around and then set them free.






The littler ones were kind of nervous and unsure.

But with a little reassurance and parental aid they went for it too.

And had fun.

A group of cuter kids I haven't seen. Honestly.
The pinata beating was fun to watch. Although I was really worried I was going to get hit in the head with something--a big stick, a rainbow, a kid. It didn't happen, thank goodness, although one of the valiant beaters did get a splinter. But luckily he was brave and it was removed.

Finally I gave the pinata a quick unobtrusive rip and opened it up and bit, and the oldest strongest kid was able to send the treats flying!
Everybody did a good job gathering and sharing around.

and enjoying the spoils.

And afterwards we got to enjoy big pieces of Costco birthday cake.  What could be better?  I even got a big huge yellow rose from Megan since it was my birthday (sort of--like two weeks before).  Awesome.
It was so fun to get to do this, thanks Mom! And it was just great to get to see Joel & Beth and their kids and Megan and Mags. It's been way too long (besides the meetings and greetings in cyberspace of course.)

And if you want to see more fun photos of the event and hear more about it go here to my mom's blog!

::frigid outing pt 2::

......after we got done freezing at the crazy graffiti for park we hopped back in the car and headed over to check out another area. It was still cold over there.
We parked by one of the oldest lighthouses in the US. Now I can't remember of course--maybe it was the 3rd oldest? Anyway it was cool. And I got a picture of it just as the light flashed at us. Can you see it?

Max spent some time jumping off rocks. That was fine with me because it kept him away from the edge of the land, at least momentarily.

He is such a boy.

And then of course he went over to the edge. Think it was just to bug me? Take a look at the expression on his face.

Stinker.
So as you can see there's the edge of the land and then there's the ocean. In between there were a whole bunch of rocks on a slope. And it was cold and icy. So of course we went down there. Well, the boys went down there first.



It was really pretty.



Some of the rocks were pretty icy. Max did a pretty good job, but he definitely needed some assistance.

Wow, in that picture the ocean almost looks like ice itself. It was so grey.

I wasn't really planning on going down there, but once they got down to the bottom they started calling me. And although neither Grant nor I wanted to go, we did.


I watched my feet very carefully so I wouldn't end up in the ocean.

It was already cold enough. Falling in the ocean really would've bummed me out.

There were some pretty amazing icicles down there. It looked like there were all these little streams flowing down to the water and then suddenly it got super cold and they all just froze.

Kris says that's not what happened though. But it looks like it to me. It was really beautiful.
Melissa took a picture of Kris and I. While we were posing, Max did his best to break through some ice and fall in the water. Chad somehow kept him upright with the hand that wasn't holding Grant. Impressive daddy skills there.

But right after that Max finally succeeded in cracking some ice. (Melissa captured this moment)

See the ice cracking under his feet? Kris's arms are reaching out to grab him....but he did end up dunking both hands in the freezing water. And he got the bottoms of his jeans pretty wet Brrr. And somehow he still cried when we said it was time to go up and leave. I think kids must be made of teflon.
And so then we went home. It was a fun freezing adventure. I think we're going to go back when it's not quite so cold.

::eyes::

There are still beautiful things in January.

I wasn't sure. I hadn't seen anything for a while.



Turns out I just needed to open up my eyes.

.:.:Happy Birthday to Me:.:.

Since it's my birthday I figured I could get away with a slightly self-indugent post. (hah, like they're not all that already, right?)
So to start with, here's one of my all-time favorite pictures.
This is Max sometime in the summer of 2006. He was really mad at me, I can't remember why, and he made this ridiculous face. I laughed so hard. He just held the face. He held it long enough for me to run and get the camera.

And to take two pictures.

Hah! It still cracks me up. You can see he needed a haircut in this picture too. Seems to be a constant problem at our house....
And for a quick trip back in time, here's a picture of my birthday back in 1985. I was turning 5. Fabulous cake, isn't it?

Please note a very young, very cute Megan peeking into the picture from the right.
The tradition for my birthday was to have a pinata. It was often homemade. Our best friends the Williams would come over in the evening and we'd beat that thing long and hard until it broke. Sometimes the homemade ones would never break and dad would have to take the thing out somewhere and smash it for us.

Here's the one from when I was 5. I love the rainbowness of it. I also love that I'm wearing some sort of long pearl necklace. Awesome.

Here we are in 1988, when I was turning 8. Joel and Megan Williams on the left, and Charlotte's best friend Brittany on the right. I love the high noon effect of the big photographic light we had.

And this is 1992. What do you think we were all saying in this picture? Something loud I'm guessing. We didn't even bother to decorate this pinata, it's just the organic newspaper. Completely functional. I bet it was hard to break too. Joel did a pretty good job breaking them as we got older though, so he always had to go last so he didn't just break it first and bum everybody out.
Oh yeah, please note Murphy's hair in this picture. Does it look familiar?
There's much much more, but that's all we're going to see for now. You'll have to wait for my next birthday for more!!
But I'll leave you with this picture.

Remember the clarinet we saw on the sideboard in the tea party picture? Well here it is in action. Why am I kneeling on the floor to play? Who knows, but I played whenever and wherever I could. Doesn't Charlotte look adorable in this picture? What a cute smile.
Happy January! Aren't we glad that it's February now? And that's all the questions for tonight. Later! We're off to watch Lost. It's a good birthday present.