Grace's 9th Birthday Party

This year, Grace's birthday party kind of snuck up on me.  She normally has her party planned way in advance so I'm usually well prepared come the end of February.  This year, she took forever to decide what she wanted to do and then we moved the party up a week because soccer season starts the weekend of her birthday and most of her friends wouldn't be able to come.  

So, when February 25th came up and I had really only been planning things for a couple of weeks, I didn't feel ready.  I was super nervous that I hadn't done enough for long enough.  I was so wrong.  We had the best party ever!

I think this was actually the first time I truly enjoyed myself at a birthday party.  I always have a really great time planning with my kids - that's our favorite part.  Then, the party comes and the kids love it and I love watching them have a good time, but I'm usually running around like a headless chicken trying to manage everything; trying to make sure each kid is ok and having fun; hoping that everyone stays alive until their parents come back.   

I told her she could do anything she wanted, go anywhere she wanted, buy any cake she wanted... she came back with "I want the party at home and I want you to make the cake Mom."  I'm flattered she still likes our home parties even though they are more work.  She's been super into Legos lately, so we decided on a Lego party.  I'm no Ace of Cakes yet, but I was pretty proud of my efforts on this Lego cake.  

One of the reasons the party turned out so great, was frankly, Grace's friends.  She kept the guest list pretty short this year and only invited truly close friends and not random kids from class she played with last week or kids I urged her to invite for whatever reason.  These kids are just stellar.  They are all so sweet and smart and polite and well-behaved.  It really made a big difference having a small group of kids who truly care about Grace.  I set the party time for 2 hours.  In the end, I could have kept them all afternoon, they played so well together and had such a good time.  It was hard to make them keep moving to the next activity.

This was an unexpected great party activity.  Grace has been making shrinky dinks in her science club during the last few weeks.  She begged to make them at her party.  I couldn't figure out how to make that fit the Lego theme, nor did I really think the kids would be that into doing it.  But, I trusted her and went for it.  We bought shrinky dink paper and then printed outline drawings of Lego mini figures for the kids to trace.  I thought they would maybe spend 20 minutes doing it.  After nearly an hour, I had to beg them to stop so we could finish the party!  They turned out SO cool and we bought little keychains for them to hang from.  

we tried not to let them put their noses right on the oven... 

but it was just so fun to watch their little creations shrink!

We found that Lego still makes a bucket of random Lego bricks, so we ordered a couple from Amazon and split them up into sets for the kids to have a Lego build.  It was pretty interesting watching how creative some of the kids got with no instructions or set design.  Other kids had a harder time with that - they are so used to having a design and instruction manual for Lego building.  We decided we also had to have the Lego candy we used to buy in Massachusetts.  After calling many stores here, no one had ever heard of it, but we lucked out and found that on Amazon too.  Our prime membership has already paid for itself this year for sure.  We put the candy and the mini figures in the piñata.  

(David - trying to explain that "when he was a kid" this was how ALL the Legos were!)

Grace, Ethan, and Ricky 

Neleah

Ethan 

Harriet

Ricky 

Grace

Dallin

Christian

Aiden

Time for Cake!

Harriet was so excited to get to go to Grace's party.  She told her kindergarten class all about it at sharing time.  She gave Grace a little Lego helicopter.  She loves her big sister so much.  

I love pictures of kids.  Even when you try to make them pose for a shot, it's still candid.  Grace, trying to be as silly as possible, poor Aiden, hiding - he hates being in pictures, Harriet very upset that no one will be nice for the picture, Ethan plugging his ears so he can't hear Harriet complaining, and the others trying to stand still as long as possible to get the picture.

Thanks so much to Grace's friends for making our party so awesome.  We are so grateful that she has such great kids in her life and that they could all come help her celebrate turning NINE!!!

Dirt Trip #1 2012 - Southern Utah

I say "#1" because, with what David has envisioned for the year, this won't be our only one.  We headed out into nature for President's Day weekend.  Originally, we had planned a ski trip to Taos, but when we were invited by David's brother Brian and family to meet them in Southern Utah (they were coming from San Diego), we gave our kids the choice: ski, or meet your cousins in the desert?  Unanimous vote - meet the cousins! Hiking in the desert!  Sweet!  Harriet was all too happy to head to REI for a new pair of Keens for the occasion.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Christine decided to join in too.

So, our "dustcation," "mud holiday," whatever you want to call it - started out with a stop at 4-corners monument.  I drive past this spot multiple times a year on my way to Salt Lake.  I have never actually been there before, though.  It's an hour detour from the main road to Salt Lake and I always feel like I just can't add an extra hour to our already dangerously long 10-11 hour day.  So, we keep passing it by.  It felt good to see it, check it off the list, and I can stop feeling guilty about it.

cousins: Grace, Clare, Harriet, Jeremiah

Chapman blood relatives:  Christine, Brian, David, Earl, Barbara

(I'm not claiming them!)

We stayed in Bluff, UT at a cute little inn.  (by Monday morning, I was SO glad we weren't camping!!)  We spent Saturday afternoon exploring the town cemetery, full of pioneer graves.  Harriet is always fascinated with cemeteries.  So is her uncle Brian.  I thought Harriet was pretty funny - she was eating a Haagen Daas ice cream bar from the motel gift shop and couldn't finish it.  She asked where she could keep it for later.  I told her we didn't have a fridge in the room, so she'd have to finish it or throw it away.  She said "oh, that's right - the pioneers didn't have refrigerators."  She thought we were staying in a REAL pioneer cabin - it must be super rustic if it doesn't have a fridge!  Again... glad we weren't camping!

Harriet was also excited to learn that she has a good, solid, pioneer name.  Her name was found on pioneer plaques all over town.  It's rare she sees her name in anything modern (like a keychain at a gas station) so she has to get excited over old stuff.

We opted to spend our Sunday "going to church" in "God's Country."  That U2 song from Joshua Tree will always be my favorite soundtrack for driving through the desert.

We started off by heading to the San Juan river "Goosenecks."  This would have probably been more interesting to me if I wasn't so cold.  The kids investigated with David.

We made poor Grandpa relive a terrifying moment from his life when he was out exploring with his young family and went down a super steep, narrow, windy, dirt road full of switchbacks and sheer drop-offs, only to be met by a giant uranium truck going the other way and had to back his car all the way back up the road.  When we got to that spot on this trip, he looked like he wanted to cry.  He says he's never been more scared in his life.   When we got to the top of this road (which, has been much improved since then, but still made me nauseous enough to never look out the window), we were met with a snowstorm.  Luckily, the drivers got smart and decided not to head to Natural Bridges and turn around - wait -we have to go back down?  More looking deep into the car avoiding any glance out the window.  No pictures of that, sorry.

Then, we drove through the "Valley of the Gods."

The kids went on a good hike with Jeremiah and most of the rest of the family.  Clare, Christine, and I wimped out and decided it was too cold and waited in the car eating junk food.  Plus, I am still trying to make my knee better from my epic walk a couple of weeks ago.  I'd love to get to the point of walking without a strap on it again.  (Actually after spending 3 days, mostly sitting down in the car, it IS starting to feel better.  I just might be able to head out for more walking in another week.)

And, then, onto Monument Valley.  I have never been here before either, but we have a photo hung in our house that Brian had taken on a previous trip.  I love looking at that photo.  Seeing it in person was stunning.

(this is my version of the same shot)

Again, we met with another desert snow storm.  Can I just say how much I love quick desert snow storms?  They make everything look so pretty, but they come and go within about 20 minutes and so don't make your life too difficult.  I loved the loose horses all over the monument.  We're pretty sure they belong to the local Navajo tribe and weren't wild horses, but it was cool to see them roaming completely free in a totally gorgeous setting.

do we look cold?!  

ok - these two family photos look like someone photo-shopped us onto a postcard or something!

storm rolling in...

check out "Three Sisters" before the storm

ponies headed towards "Three Sisters" - snowflake near the lens.

 Storm - white out conditions - we couldn't even see a giant mesa that was right next to us for a while.

"Three Sisters" during the storm

cool, weird, sad tree

"Northern Window"

It was so cool to watch the storm clear and reveal what was behind the "window."

"Three Sisters" after the storm.

Our good little Pathfinder was a trooper and lasted through the trip.  It feels like that car has been on it's last wheel a lot lately, but we put some extra trust in the new tires, crossed our fingers when the check-engine light went on, sang praises when it went off again, and made it home without any issues.  It's nice to have an old car you don't care about scratching up or getting dirty though.

Cool trip.  Thanks to Brian and Wendy for dreaming it up and inviting us.

We opted to head home early Monday morning when Harriet came down with another cold Sunday night.  This has been a dreadful several weeks with the kids just cycling through viruses.  She's home from school today.  Again.  At least we are home in our warm house.  Wish I had gotten JUST a little bit more done today though.