Hey, look at me! I turned 34!

My birthday was (and ever will be) the 3rd of September. This year it fell on Labor Day.

Ryan had to work from 9-5 that day. I decided to treat myself to sleeping in, which is a rare opportunity these days. I awoke to the hushed voices of Cora and Oliver, who had kindly fixed me some breakfast and were in the process of delivering it to me in bed. I'm sure Jane would have loved to help, but she wouldn't get up. Bless her dear heart . . .

My breakfast: Cereal, half a Costco muffin, 2 pieces of toast, a fruit leather, and a cup of water. I happily ate it all.

It looks like I'd been bedridden for weeks, not yet strong enough to lift my food to my face.

Mmmmmm, freshly poured water!

   

 

After I savored my breakfast, I got some treasured cuddle time with Oliver. I LOVE that he willingly lets me snuggle him.

I lazily faded in and out of sleep for about an hour while Jane and Cora cleaned and organized my bathroom. I didn't even ask them to. =)

I can't really remember what happened during the afternoon, but when Ryan got home we all went out to eat. My one birthday request was to not have to make dinner.

When we returned home, I opened some presents.

A nice, durable cutting board!

A cute BSU hat and a set of nifty vegetable peelers!

A sleek slotted spoon!

And a beautiful granite slab to put on our kitchen counter. The perfect surface for me to roll out my cookie dough!

Hooray for birthdays! Hooray for happy children!

Cards from loved ones. They all know a thing or two about me, heehee.

Erin made me this splendid set of hair clippies! I love them!

Megan gave me these cool glasses.

They have signatures on the backs.

My good friend Aubrey (who I met in high school and happens to be in our ward now) brought me a cute box of taffy and a magnet that says "All you need is love".  Yup, I couldn't agree more. Love is all we need- everything else is just a bonus.

The ol' birthday turned out well. I got oodles of facebook greetings, a fun phone call from Renee, a nice time with the fam, a few texts from pals who remembered my special day without facebook's help, and just an all around feeling of grateful reflection on another year down the drain, I mean, behind me. ;)

The festivities extended for about another week as varied friends and family found their way to my heart through toothsome food. I met Maria at Kneaders for chunky cinnamon french toast the morning of the 4th, where Maria gave me the Beatles birthday card with a thoughtful Franz Witte (garden center) gift card. (How did she ever know I like flowers and plants?) Later that day my visiting teachers, their kids, Oliver and I met at Kleiner Park to chat and let the kids play. One of the ladies shared yummy homemade cupcakes as a kind birthday gesture. My parents took Ryan and me to dinner on the 6th, Melissa and Marsha treated me to lunch at Applebee's on the 11th, and my friend Cheryl spoiled me with a delicious lunch at The Creperie on the 12th. My tummy and I deeply appreciated it all!

Only 11 months until my next birthday, so get prepared.  ;)

Floating Balloons and Kayaks

September commenced with the city's annual hot air balloon frenzy.

We went on Saturday, the 1st.

 

 

 

Look at all the balloon silhouettes. Next year we'll have to go down into the park instead of watching from the rim. I should have remembered from last year that we'd be staring straight into the sun.

Sleepy Jane

A flock of birds mingling with the balloons

After that beauteous morning activity, we drove to Donnelly for more pretty time. My parents park their RV up on a friend's property during the warmer months of the year and go up there on the weekends, or whenever they feel like it. We decided to spend a large chunk of the day with them. By "we", I mean Ryan, me, Cora, Jane, and Oliver.

Brad (my stepdad) has like 5 kayaks.

My mom and Cora chillin' on the dock.

I love that Oliver will wear his bucket hat. He looks so sweet.

Cora? Is that you?

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the water was really shallow, maybe 1- 2 feet deep most of the way across.

My girls 

This was Jane's first time kayaking on her own. She did really well. I don't think I'd ever kayaked either, only canoed. << That word does not look right.

Careful!!!

Jane making it look easy

Paddling for our lives

Showcasing my best grandma face

Cora's safe arrival back to shore

My parents' home away from home. That's Grandpa Chet on the right, Brad's dad.

After we were finished kayaking, we drove to McCall for dinner at My Father's Place, per Brad's suggestion. Then we headed home by about 8pm. It didn't seem like we were there for 9 hours, but we were. I guess it's true that time flies . . .

The Gist of August

Hello there, it's me again. Before I move on to September, I thought I'd fill in the missing bits of August.

I didn't jot anything on my calendar before the 4th, so let's begin there.

The 4th-- Not only was it Jane's birthday, my niece Maisie had her 5th birthday party that day. Her actual b-day is the 6th. I planned Jane's party around Maisie's, and it worked out fine. Maisie belongs to Gavin and Maren, and Maren is the queen of expert craftiness. Maisie chose Indiana Jones for her party theme. Maren went all out, fashioning her own vines and leaves out of paper, sewing felt satchels as party favors, etc. It was spectacular.

The 7th--  Jane's first day of school! The school she now attends is on a modified year-round schedule. That means her summer is less than 2 months long, but she gets longer breaks throughout the year. She's liking it there so far, and it's really helped that her friend across the street goes there. They are together most of the time they're at home, so it's handy to have them on the same school schedule. I'm loving that (for the first time) both our kids can walk/bike to school every day.

The 13th--  cousin Fletcher's 5th birthday.

The 19th--  Cora's birthday!

The 21st--  Ryan and I took the kids to the ever popular Western Idaho Fair to see Weird Al. I thought Cora and Jane would at least slightly enjoy it, but I was mistaken. It would have helped if I'd bothered to introduce them to his music first. The only reason I knew of Weird Al as a child was 'cause I had an older brother.
I understand why it was hard for them to appreciate the performance when they weren't familiar with the original songs, let alone the parodies. Ryan and I thought it was a really entertaining concert. Well, what we saw of it. Sadly, the kids were not amused, so we only stayed for about half of it. Bummer! But then we went and got some greasy fair food and shared an ice cream potato, so it turned out to be a fun evening overall.

The 23rd--  My mom watches Fletcher during the days while Megan and Mike work. Mom and Fletch wanted to get together with Oliver and me, so we went to the Boise aquarium. Oliver is obsessed with sharks lately, so he was ecstatic to be in the same room with a whole bunch of them, even though they are small. These are the kind that are safe for people to touch (perhaps because they're well fed?)  so they're in an open, shallow pool along with some mini stingrays. It's really neat to watch them.
Oliver's voice gets extra high-pitched when he's talking about something he loves. He kept yelling animatedly about this shark and that. It was cute. He and Fletch were running to and fro like kids (or me) in a candy store.
The people next to us were feeding dead fish parts to the little sharks and rays. I was standing inches away from the exhibit, laboring to keep Oliver and Fletch from falling in, when suddenly one of the rays whooshed up along the side of the clear barrier between it and me. Part of its body briefly extended over the edge of the tank. I was surprised and relieved that it didn't leap out and clobber me. (Sorry if you were expecting a better story.) It made me realize that those soggy sea creatures could probably jump out and touch someone if they really wanted to. Eeeeeeeeeeek!

The 28th--  Cora's first day of 6th grade. I think I was more nervous than she was. She said she made it to all her classes on time and didn't have too much trouble opening her locker. Atta girl.

The 29th--  Maria and I got together in the evening to shop for fun things to send in a care package to Renee. We miss her tons, and hope her family moves back from Florida before too terribly long.
We closed the evening by going to see "Snow White and the Huntsman" at the cheap theater. It was decent. More visually stunning than plotally stunning.

Welp, that about wraps up August.
Maybe it's kind of silly that I try and keep my blog current. It seems like they're going out of style or something. Not many people I follow have kept up with it. Their last posts are from weeks, months, even years ago. I just continue to do it because I like to, and it would overwhelm me to get too far behind. And it's a nice chance for me to ramble when I'm sure no one wants to listen in person. =)  I guess that's the courteous side of me. I don't want to spill out all my inner thoughts and such to many people in real life, 'cause I always feel like I need to hurry up and stop talking so they don't have to listen to me for very long. Here I can talk at typing speed, whatever that means. You can stay and read as long as you want, or skim through and leave as quickly as you like, and I will never know which one you did. That's the beauty of it. And that's one of the reasons I prefer to write right here sometimes...

Cora's 11th Birthday

Cora's 11th birthday was August 19. She is getting too old! She's fast approaching my height, and her shoe size is half a size away from mine. That's saying a lot, seeing as I wear a size 9. That's big for my height. But enough about my Ichabod Crane feet. Let's talk more about Cora, one of last month's birthday girls.

Since her actual b-day fell on Sunday this year, we had her party the day before. She invited a few friends over for a jolly good time. They came over for a few hours in the afternoon, but not before I decorated the kitchen and set out a variety of snacks.

Here we have cream cheese, ham, turkey, and lettuce rolled up inside tortillas.

 It appears Cora took a candid picture of my back. I sure was busy!

Cora mostly took charge of the games she wanted to play.

They played Spoons . . .




And they played the fast-paced candy bar game that includes passing a die around until someone rolls a 6. That lucky person gets a chance to hack the giant Hershey bar open with a knife and fork until the next person rolls a 6 and takes a turn, etc.




Then they played the flour game.They compactly fill a cup with flour and carefully turn it upside down in the pan so it stays in the shape of a cup.

Then everyone takes a turn gingerly slicing a section off, trying not to make it collapse.



That's a penny sticking out of the top. Whoever makes it fall has to pick it up with her teeth.

See how cautious Cora can be.

 

After the games and snacking, we gathered around her doughnut cake. Lucky for me, Cora wanted this instead of actual cake.
I forgot to mention in Jane's birthday post how much turmoil my hands endured in the making of her cake. Mixing the fondant, kneading the food coloring into all the fondant, and rolling out and negotiating the fondant for hours on end made my hands and wrists burn like never before. That night I had to sleep with ice packs and take painkiller, and I whimpered myself to sleep. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have arthritis simply because I made that cake.
Not that I would have refused to make a special cake for Cora if she'd requested one. But it would have been lovingly frosted rather than painfully fondanted. =)





Right after we sang to Cora and started distributing the doughnuts, I realized Jane had missed the moment. She was upstairs with her neighbor friend, playing a game on the computer. I felt like a jerk for failing to notice Jane was absent, but the scene was a lot busier and louder than the pictures demonstrate. And how did Jane not hear us singing happy birthday anyway?!

Present time!

She'd asked for this Star Wars mug a few weeks earlier, so I surprised her with it. It's two-sided, like two cups in one. 

 

Cora the nun.

Sometimes I think our kids actually like each other...

She had a good party, then the friends left and we went to a family-friendly Chicks n' Giggles show in Kuna. (My sister Megan's improv comedy troupe, in case anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about.)  It was really funny, as usual. After that, we all met up with Meg and her friend at Arctic Circle for some eats. Then cousin Malory had a sleepover at our house, which was a fun end to Cora's day.

The next morning before church, she opened the rest of her presents. Later that evening, Grandma Ann and Grandpa Brad stopped by with a present. I baked yummy peanut butter cookies before they arrived, since the donuts were all gone. It just didn't seem right to have a birthday without a treat available to eat

We love our Cora. She's in 6th grade, her first year of middle school. She likes it. She's still taking piano lessons and doing really well with it. I love that she willingly practices without being asked. She's also playing the viola in orchestra at school. She's not liking that quite as much as piano.  =) 
She's responsible, kind, and smart. I like that she's willing to watch Jane and Oliver when I need her to. I think she really likes being in charge and having responsibility. I still can't believe I have a kid who is old enough to babysit. How did this happen??