::pinata::

In my family, we always broke a pinata on my birthday--that was the only time we ever did it, and let me tell you what, it was awesome. Our friends the Williams always came over and we sometimes made the thing by hand and it was impossible to break. Joel (the oldest kid) always hit it way too hard and broke it off the string or sent something flying somewhere, and since my birthday is in the middle of winter, we were always inside trying not to break something.

Anyway, awesome memories inspired by a recent pinata experience--one more report on when the Wildes visited.

When we were buying the chiles we went into the little latin market there. And there (along with cokes from Mexico) were a bunch of great big pinatas, all different sizes and colors and characters.
So Kris and Blake chose Woody to bring home and beat the heck out of. I guess it was just too fun to resist.


I love the above pictures with the dads preparing the pinata. They look so serious and earnest. The funniest part is that I had to step in and redo all of the packing in the end because they didn't pull all the newspaper out of Woody's insides, so there wasn't a lot of candy getting stuck in there.

So anyway, the kids waited very impatiently.


We BBQ'd some hamburgers too--though I can't remember if it was before or after. Sandy is amazed and perplexed by all the crazy kid action going on all around him.


Of course, as usual we had to use some bizarre thing to hit at the pinata with. This time it was the gross stinky machete that Kris brought back from his dental mission to Nicaragua forever ago. Sheathed of course--it's not very sharp anyway.


Sandy thought it was all very interesting and fun until people started whacking Woody in earnest. Then he didn't like it at all and screamed!

Annie didn't ever make the baby scream though, she's way too gentle!


I took a bunch of fun video and then sadly I deleted it in getting to know my new camera. Don't tell Max, he'll be much too bummed. But anyway, Max sliced off Woody's body and released all the candy and then the dads took turns going at the rest of him.
And that's all the fun for now. We had a blast with the Wildes and the kids had so much fun playing together. Wish they could come every weekend!

::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!

.:.: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.