homeofthebudds

In which I took no pictures and you get to imagine the goodness.

It's my birthday.

34, baby.

Woot.

We celebrated on Monday 'cause it was Mr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday and therefore a holiday. It's nice to celebrate when everyone is home from work and school. So I moved my birthday.

I was thinking about taking the family on a trip to the coast, or the snow, but decided to hibernate at home instead. We did venture out to the art store for a mini shopping spree for about an hour the night before, but otherwise - we didn't leave the lovely warm house.

I spent the day making things. Food to be exact. My family rather enjoyed this sort of birthday celebration I think.

We started off the morning with two different types of pancakes. I thought it was one when I was first reading recipes last week, but turns out I was flipping two pages instead of one. Since I had all the ingredients, I figured I might as well make them both. I used Mark Bittman's How to Make Everything Vegetarian (thanks, Jill!) and made the Light & Fluffy - Lemon Poppyseed variation pancakes (topped with powdered sugar) and then the Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese Pancakes. Both were pretty darn good. Good enough that they didn't last on the plate long enough to let the idea of taking a picture cross my mind. I know it doesn't sound as appealing, but the Sour Cream ones were pretty tasty. They'd be a perfect carb in a hearty eggs & ham sort of breakfast. Both were super light cause you beat the nonsense right out of the egg whites.

And then, perhaps because it's cold and wintery and I'm ready for some sun and lemon, I continued the citrus (along with the beating the nonsense out of the egg whites) theme with a Lemon Chiffon Cake. Except I forgot to add the lemon parts. So it was a normal (vanilla/almond) flavored chiffon cake. And then when making the icing, I figured shoot, "Let's get that lemon involved here" and made the lemon icing.

Yeah. I don't recommend mixing those two flavors.

The icing was great. And the cake was great. I recommend eating them seperately.

In centimeter slices if it makes you feel better.

That was my first every chiffon cake and I gotta say, I'm definitely making more. Yum.

And then I tried a roasted vegetables combo that was new to me (sweet potatoes, butternut squash and carrots) that didn't turn out so well. Unfortunately.

Sorta. 

Dave is a Maximizer and by this time in the day was going a little crazy with my haphazard cooking ways and wanted to analyze exactly what went wrong and how to fix it for next time, but I drove him nuts and said it was more fun my way.

Finally, we tried Pan-Searing some Filet Mignon. That was tasty. We also learned we like steak in tidbit form. We really just want a couple bites and we're all set. A whole steak is almost overwhelming. Lesson learned. Our budget likes it better that way too. :)

Ellen made me a fabulous coupon book full of choices like drawings and poems and hugs and high fives. I cashed quite a few of those in. Both of the boys made me bead bracelets with my name spelled out. Now I have one for each wrist so I'll never get confused who I am. :) Love it.

Dave finished the night off with an awesomely silly poem that was all about, well, I won't share here. :)

It was a pretty fabulous day full of making and trying things. My favorite way to spend my time.

Four

A long, long, long time ago, before the time of software failings, before the time of school, before the time of fall, my little Brenny turned four.

He started his day the way we've been beginning birthdays lately - with a milk tinting sugary cereal. Yum.

I must admit I was suprised, but, inspired by Ellen, he declared he would have a friend party. He and I (and Isaiah) made a Pin-the-Glasses-on-the-Pumpkin game (also inspired by Ellen's pin-the-glasses-on-Harry game)

We had a little pinata hitting,

Sooooo much pinata hitting...

and soooo much pinata moving up and down...the pinata master decided it needed a little helping along.

So he ripped a hole. And then another hole. And maybe another.

And then! yay! Pinata goodness!

Apparently I'd taken more than enough pinata pictures by that point and decided hat pictures were more important.

I don't think I've ever bought hats before. But Brennan had a definite vision.

Lots of fun was had by all - Summir especially. :)

Also in Brennan's vision: a cake from Costco. He'd been talking about that for a couple of months.

He was pretty pleased. Friends, hats, pin-the-glasses-on-the-pumpkin, pinata, Costco cake...everything this four year old dreamt of.

Ellen's birthday

Ellen has turned eight. EIGHT!

Many, many months before her birthday she became certain that this year she would have a friend party. Her friends. (Not mine. Dang it.)

She was also quite certain her party should definitely have a theme. A Harry Potter theme.

So we baked wizard hat cupcakes,

made owl crafts,

played "Pin the glasses on Harry Potter",

and snacked on broomstick trailmix.

She was thrilled out of her mind.

She's tried to start planning next year's party, but I told her I need a few months off first.

Brennan faces

Brennan was in quite the mood and was the main inspiration for all the posing.

Isaiah faces

Ellen faces

Ellen had a birthday recently. During her birthday breakfast of Lucky Charms and Powdered Sugar Gem Donuts the kids made faces at me.

Dave is downright amazing/AKA The best birthday ever/AKA I have some fabulous friends

So. This David Budd o' mine is pretty much the most fabulous person ever. I have a little story to tell.

First, to set the scene, you should know that today is my birthday. Yay for birthdays. You should also know that yesterday Dave had the day off and we did our celebrating then. Finally, you should know that we're not really celebraters. We're just not. We don't do Christmas presents for each other, we don't do birthday presents for each other. Usually we mark the day with a meal out or specially prepared or a trip to the park or the coast or something like that which is accompanied by a kiss & hug, and a "Happy Birthday, I love you!"

Lately, however, I've been feeling a desire for a bit more. I mentioned this to Dave a couple weeks ago and said I was thinking about inviting some folks over to celebrate. This is a very big deal because I do not remember having a birthday party. Ever. There may be a memory that I've forgotten (mom??) but I think I always chose the shopping option. So I thought, "Hmmm, maybe this is the year I should throw caution to the wind and actually have some sort of party." And then I promptly did nothing about it and came up with another idea to visit the coast. And did nothing about that.

And then I sent my lovely friend Emily an email saying "whine whine whine should I do something? whine whine." And she listened to me complain and told me to get off my butt and do something. And I'm afraid I didn't.

And there's the backstory.

So yesterday morning I woke up to find that Dave had gotten up in the middle of the night (like literally 2 or 3 am or something) and decorated the house with balloons and streamers. Awwww!

And so I spent the next several hours lounging about, reading things, taking Strengths Finder tests (another post) and being spoiled with breakfast in bed. I started the booking a massage process (dave's gift to me...Awwwww!) Dave and the kids presented me with a painting they'd been working on for me (Awwww!!!!)

We had some lunch, and took the kids to Claim Jumper for a birthday slice of Motherlode cake. Dave suggested I look over the menu a bit and be sure that's what I really wanted, but really. There's no other choice.

We went to look at IPhones as I've been thinking about upgrading from my pretend prepaid phone to a  real live smart phone. We went home take care of dinner and put the kids to bed and I was thoroughly satisfied that this has been a fantabulous birthday and was completely looking forward to this upcoming massage.

Dave encouraged me to get out of the house and go to a girls night out that a friend had been planning. I drug my feet a bit (sometimes I'm like that), but I got out the door. I got to my friend Jaime's house and noticed that the house was dark and there weren't other cars there. I had been purposely late so as not to be the first one there since I wasn't liable to know a lot of folks. But it looks like even ten minutes late (maybe 20) was still early. I knocked (since I knew she was putting the kids to bed early and I didn't want to be the one that woke them up), I knocked and finally got the courage to ring the bell from another friend that showed up (yay Wendy!)

We went in and out jumped a bunch of friends screaming "Surprise!" at me! My first thought was more along the lines of "You're surprising me that you all know each other? What is Leslie doing in a closet with Laura? Where did they meet? And how do Katie and Leslie know Jaime??" (Which is absolutely hilarious looking back since I totally had a secret suspicion on the way over...Dave was really pushing me out the door, it was a weird time....but seriously I had finally RSVP'd that I could in fact go the day before. There's no way.  Really, I should stop being so self-centered, I thought.)

(Oh! Another fabulous Dave side note. I had actually RSVP'd that I couldn't go earlier because Dave had a ticket to a Blazer game which was already on the calendar so I needed to be home with the kids. But! He sold his ticket to one of his friends, convincing me that the friend has actually randomly asked for it, so if I wanted to go to Jaime's girls night....)

But no. Emily, fabulous Emily, had been emailing and putting ideas in people's heads and between she and Dave and Jaime & Leslie and I don't even know all the details of who I'm leaving out, they organized me my first birthday party ever.

Dave even tried to fly Emily out from the depths of Utah to come be there. (Huge tears inducing Awww!!) (And you should know I'm not a crier. I hate crying.)

They gave me presents! They took me to dessert at Papa Haydyn's where we tried just about everything on the menu and where even more friends were waiting. (Apparently this was the wrong night to choose to be late!) They took me back to Jaime's house and played games that I would like after Dave warned them I hate strategy games. It was fabulous.

And then. And then! Approximately twoish hours after I told Dave I'd probably be home I got a sweetly worded text hoping I was having fun (which I learned later was Dave's way of making sure I was still alive and not wrecked on the side of the road somewhere). When I came home there was more appreciative crying (really the only response I seem to have these days) and I noticed that Dave had been cleaning! And further reorganizing and making things nice! 

AND, and this is a big "and", on the stereo, my favorite Garth Brooks CD from way back in high school days. This is a very big deal for a couple reasons. One: Dave likes music. He cares about it a lot. He has a lot of opinions about it. I don't usually - so long as it isn't loud. Two: Dave is not a Garth fan. Three: In our lives, this CD is played at one and pretty much only one specific time - On a road trip, when Dave has driven all day and I get a shift in the late night to get us home and am trying to be quite alert and awake. Then Garth Brooks, No Fences, comes on full volume and I sing along at the top of my voice (throwing in a good amount of twang) while everyone else sleeps. (They sleep through it, really. It's pretty amazing.) Fourth: He totally had to plan ahead and snag it out of the van to have it at home. And finally, a Fifth reason this was such a big deal: He'd had it on, on repeat, for at least two hours, waiting for me to get there.

And that, my friends, was pretty much the best birthday I've ever experienced.

 

fondue fun

Dave's birthday was also this week and he figured the best thing to do would be to dip things in chocolate.

So we did.

The boys both chose to dress fancy all day to celebrate.

But then we thought maybe fancy clothes and dipping things in chocolate aren't a good combination. (do you see it in his hair - twice? and under his arm?)

(Oh and did I mention the boys got a haircut?)

Brennan got his first buzz and Zaiah got his first mohawk. It's been a big week around here.

But back to the chocolate...

Ellen took her chocolate dipping quite seriously.

As did Dave. In fact he took it seiously enough to say "Forget all this dipping nonsense. Bring this goodness to me."

Now that was a good idea.

Happy Birthday Dave!!!

And now we are seven.

There was cake,

and there were art projects/presents,

(greatly enjoyed...

by all)

...and there is Cookie.

Everyone is absolutely head over heals for Cookie. She has spent a large amount of time traveling our house in her little plastic exploring ball.

Ellen is amazingly confident with this little creature. Even after she's been nibbled a few times. I'm rather impressed.

Happy Birthday Ellen! We love you tons & tons & tons! I'm so glad you're a part of our family!

Playing

Isaiah got a snap circuit jr. set for his birthday

it's pretty much what everyone is doing when they're not in the basement playing the drums.