It's a post! I didn't die! I'm still alive and kicking and here. Just haven't been HERE, per se.
Tons happened since the last actual post. Mom, I'm sorry about that last one there, I don't have a right to "publicly" blogflog you (I made that up. I'm going to copyright it!) when I own half of this relationship. I love you and I am sorry.
So.... I turned the big 3-0 yesterday. and I am still alive today, so that's good. I wasn't actually that worried about it. I don't mind getting older, just make the jokes because it's what one is supposed to do somehow. Couple that expectation with the fact that I am hi-larious (and oh so modest!) and there you have me, making jokes about aging when I don't actually mind at all.
It is kind of strange, though, to be in my 14th senior year of college (or something), turning 30, and surrounded by my friends who are all turning 21 this semester.
Not ALL of them, but a good portion anyway.
Another friend of mine turned 20 on November 30th. I had a great deal of aging pain when I realized for TEN WHOLE DAYS ONLY we were in our 20s together.
Now, still talking about getting older.... I have 5 classes this semester. One of them is Human Development: Adults and Aging. My birthday was on the last day of lecture for the class. In an ultimate act of irony (and sorry if this spoils the ending for you) my birthday lecture day was over the very end: DEATH. It was a great way to turn 30.
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Friday, December 11, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Alex Turned 9!!
Alex had his birthday this Tuesday. The kid has made it to be a nine year-old. I'm impressed. He is maturing faster than I can keep up with.
He's got this girl he is crushing on that plays with him basically every day. Annie wants to be just like them but she doesn't understand why it is okay for Brooklyn to pull his hair and tackle him but not so okay for her to do the same things. Especially since Brooklyn spends a lot of her time playing with Annie and Ashley, too.
Luckily, Alex is just so dang awesome he tolerates her trying to figure this out while she beats up on him. A year ago he was hitting back and hurting her. This year, he understands that he is bigger than her and so he just takes it until he feels the need to say something to the grown ups. It reminds me of an older lion being beat up on by the baby lion. Just taking it until he's not any more.
We had his party early so his friend who was moving could attend. I was a little unsure what we should do with his gang of 8-10 year old boys but we made it work. It was a little bit awesome, I'm afraid. Starting with the weather: We were due for nice weather but the day before his party the forecast changed to thunderstorms.
We ended up doing a lot of his party outside anyway as the weather held up perfectly until an hour after everyone left.
We played a ton of games. The first one was a game where you make a mound of flour with a bowl, put a whopper on top of it and take turns making cuts with a butter knife. Whoever makes the cut that makes it fall in has to retrieve it with their mouth.
This was a fun game until one kid inhaled so much flour he threw up a bit.
Ashley was adamant about getting a turn to fish for the whopper but once she did, she made the same mistake and took in half the powder. Oops!
Then we played upset the fruit basket. Or some modified version of it, for those of you who know this game. We had 3 kinds of fruit and a caller. The caller would yell out 1 or 2 types of fruit and those had to get up and change chairs. Whoever is left standing is the new caller. Or you can yell "Upset the fruit basket" and EVERYONE moves. It was awesome until the kid with the broken arm got bumped into a little to rough.
We put a blanket over Alex and told him to take off the last thing he put on today. He took off his socks. Wrong! So he took off his shirt. Wrong! Before it got graphic, we let another kid try it. He totally got it and whipped the blanket off as soon as we said "go". But it's a fun game. The other kids wanted a turn, too. But since the joke was already told, I don't know if they wanted anything more than to be undressing under a blanket in front of a bunch of people.
9 year old boys are strange.
We took them outside and let the kids feed Alex the leftover whipped cream from his cake "frosting".
And then Alex chased them to exact revenge.
We played murder which some of the kids were really good at and some of them couldn't understand if you paid them.
Then there was cake and always the last thing is the Silly String fight in the backyard.
All in all, it was a good party.
And we are proud of our boy who is so smart and so funny and so snarky.
We love you, Alex!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
"What'd you git?"
So much fun to get gifts. Who cares if I had to get a new license with an AWFUL picture? I got to unwrap things!
The kids and the Aiden went to Shopko Tuesday night and came home bouncing with excitement (the kids not the cripple). They snuck into Alex's room and got everything wrapped and signed and then traipsed the goods out to sit on the tv stand and tease me until Wednesday afternoon. My children are sadistic and I don't know where they get it from.
I tried to bribe Ashley to tell me what it was. She just kept saying "um, NOPE!". I offered her the extra brownie, the first piece of Cool Mint Dessert the next day, an extra hour before bedtime, nothing worked. Oh, she's good. I tried her first because she's littlest and because the first Mother's Day Aiden was living with us he took the kids to get a flower pot stand and some flowers and pretty pots and stuff to do them up in. As the older two were outside helping set it all up, Ashley came in and told me "we got you flowers". I thought that even though she's a year and a half older that I could still get her to blab. Nope.
Annie, on the other hand, is the captain of ruining surprises. She has been threatened with her own presents going in the garbage if she tells anyone what they are getting for Christmas (and we limited how many she knows anyway). She went with me and Alex to get Ashley's present, walked out to the car after 10 minutes of talking about how we don't tell Ashley because it's a surprise, saw Ashley and told her all within 30 seconds. For SURE this is the kid that will tell me what's in the wrapping paper! But she wouldn't. Not totally. I started guessing things and she gave in a little bit. I knew she'd be mad at herself (and so would everyone else) if she kept saying more so I stopped guessing. She tried to egg me on but then realized what was happening and stopped all talk on it.
What did I get? I got some new slippers with snowflakes on them and a new board game from the kids. Aiden gave me a bottle of Mormon booze (martinelli's), two symphony bars, and a new word puzzle book. Those I got Tuesday night to try to appease the monster (me). It's a bath kit and if the chocolate holds out until later today, it will be used as such.
I also got money from Mom and Dad. Who doesn't love money? Ashley's preschool class sang Happy Birthday to me, Amy and James brought me a cute little jar with chocolate, and Aiden had one side of his face swell up at work. Luckily I was hanging out in the class across the building so I called the doctor's office where a nurse told me there were no appointments but suggested we go to the ER (oh man, again!) since it sounded like an allergic reaction.
It wasn't. It is an infected parotid gland. For those of you who don't know, that's one of your salivary glands in your cheek. The weird thing is it's apparently very rare to see. The nurse said she had one case the day before and before that it had been 30 years. I had my parotid get clogged when I was preggo with Alex and then an infected sublingual (under your tongue) this spring. So weird to have it three times between the two of us when it's so rare to begin with.
Yes, we went to the GD ER again BUT the upside is Aiden got off work at 2 instead of 6. I scored an extra 4 hours with him for my birthday. He kept apologizing but I loved it (besides that he didn't feel well).
The kids and the Aiden went to Shopko Tuesday night and came home bouncing with excitement (the kids not the cripple). They snuck into Alex's room and got everything wrapped and signed and then traipsed the goods out to sit on the tv stand and tease me until Wednesday afternoon. My children are sadistic and I don't know where they get it from.
I tried to bribe Ashley to tell me what it was. She just kept saying "um, NOPE!". I offered her the extra brownie, the first piece of Cool Mint Dessert the next day, an extra hour before bedtime, nothing worked. Oh, she's good. I tried her first because she's littlest and because the first Mother's Day Aiden was living with us he took the kids to get a flower pot stand and some flowers and pretty pots and stuff to do them up in. As the older two were outside helping set it all up, Ashley came in and told me "we got you flowers". I thought that even though she's a year and a half older that I could still get her to blab. Nope.
Annie, on the other hand, is the captain of ruining surprises. She has been threatened with her own presents going in the garbage if she tells anyone what they are getting for Christmas (and we limited how many she knows anyway). She went with me and Alex to get Ashley's present, walked out to the car after 10 minutes of talking about how we don't tell Ashley because it's a surprise, saw Ashley and told her all within 30 seconds. For SURE this is the kid that will tell me what's in the wrapping paper! But she wouldn't. Not totally. I started guessing things and she gave in a little bit. I knew she'd be mad at herself (and so would everyone else) if she kept saying more so I stopped guessing. She tried to egg me on but then realized what was happening and stopped all talk on it.
What did I get? I got some new slippers with snowflakes on them and a new board game from the kids. Aiden gave me a bottle of Mormon booze (martinelli's), two symphony bars, and a new word puzzle book. Those I got Tuesday night to try to appease the monster (me). It's a bath kit and if the chocolate holds out until later today, it will be used as such.
I also got money from Mom and Dad. Who doesn't love money? Ashley's preschool class sang Happy Birthday to me, Amy and James brought me a cute little jar with chocolate, and Aiden had one side of his face swell up at work. Luckily I was hanging out in the class across the building so I called the doctor's office where a nurse told me there were no appointments but suggested we go to the ER (oh man, again!) since it sounded like an allergic reaction.
It wasn't. It is an infected parotid gland. For those of you who don't know, that's one of your salivary glands in your cheek. The weird thing is it's apparently very rare to see. The nurse said she had one case the day before and before that it had been 30 years. I had my parotid get clogged when I was preggo with Alex and then an infected sublingual (under your tongue) this spring. So weird to have it three times between the two of us when it's so rare to begin with.
Yes, we went to the GD ER again BUT the upside is Aiden got off work at 2 instead of 6. I scored an extra 4 hours with him for my birthday. He kept apologizing but I loved it (besides that he didn't feel well).
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
A Birthday Post For My Beautiful Wife
19 Things I Love About Her and 10 Memories I Want to Share (which equals 29 if you haven’t figured that out yet):
Things I Love:
1. She loves her children more than me. That may sound strange, but it wouldn’t be right if it were any other way.
2. Her laughter. If we played it for the whole world, we might finally see world peace.
3. Her wit. She always has the snappiest comments and come-backs. If you spend much time with her, you better be on your toes.
4. She reminds me that I am a good man, a good father, and a good friend without even saying the words.
5. Her brains. She’s much smarter than she will ever give herself credit for. Even better, our kids got the brain genes from her and not their father!
6. Her kindness. One of the biggest reasons she wants to be a dentist is so she will be able to philanthropic work for people in need.
7. She can cook! That sounds pigheaded of me, but I appreciate the yummy food I get to come home to after eating preschool food all day in preschool proportions.
8. Her voice. Her singing can turn my mood around at the drop of a hat. And I love that she can appreciate her ability to sing because she deserves to be proud of herself.
9. Her courage. She left a relationship that was detrimental to the welfare of her children and herself even though she knew it would be a rocky road.
10. She does not judge me when I eat half the carton of ice cream while watching a show.
11. She is an amazing mother. She’s tender when needed and stern when needed. Her number one concern and priority is always our three little buggers.
12. Her friendship. She will do whatever it takes to help a friend in need and expect nothing in return. Many people have benefited from her desire to make other people’s lives better.
13. Her eyes.
14. She knows more show tunes and Disney songs than anyone I know. And, she’s always willing to sing to them!
15. Her passion for reading. Her love of reading has inspired the same passion in our children. Alex read ¾ of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in one weekend. He’s 8. And he picked reading over video games.
16. She loves Christmas! We put our tree up “too early” for some, but we decided that Christmas was never long enough and therefore should be extended well into early November!
17. She’s amazing with other kids. Although she claims to not like other people’s children, she spends quite a bit of time in my preschool class and receives more than enough hugs to show just how great she is with the kiddos.
18. Her love of teeth. She made me look in one of her teeth that had just been drilled out for a filling because she was so excited to tell me everything about the tooth!
19. She mocks me for being short and crippled. While this may seem wrong or masochistic. However, her lightheartedness not only tells that my (lack of) height and crippledness doesn’t bother her bother, but also reminds me to not take stupid crap like that so damn seriously!
Memories:
20. Holly and I got married on April Fool’s Day in a courtroom with a few of our friends who decided to come. The judge was a complete kick in the pants. He used a Hallmark musical greeting card that played The Wedding March and Going to the Chapel. We wore jeans. We laughed A LOT! If you missed it, you surely missed an entertaining afternoon.
21. While going to SCC I was knocked down in the bathroom by some bigoted jerk. I was in a bit of a haze afterwards and she was the only person at work that noticed something was “off” and checked in on me to see what was wrong. This was before we even started dating. It felt so nice to know that someone was concerned for me and my wellbeing.
22. We went to Disneyland a couple years ago. Seeing her face light up at the sight of the entrance was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I will never get that smile out of my face.
23. We have spent a lot of time surfing through our massive collection on iTunes and singing together and to each other. The singing is intermittently interrupted by fits of giggling at the corniness of it all.
24. She made me an amazing dinner of meatloaf, fresh bread, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes after my first day at work. No one has ever taken the time to show that kind of appreciation before.
25. We went to see Mamma Mia! the movie while visiting my sister in Seattle. It was so tragically, awfully, pathetically done that we decided to walk out (laughing all the way). She even managed to get the ticket price refunded!
26. She took me out for dinner for Veteran’s Day last year. Again, no one has ever taken the time to show me that kind of appreciation before. She also helps me teach the kids about Veterans and the men and women who sacrifice so much for our country.
27. She went ALL OUT the first year we were together for St. Patty’s Day. She knew how much I love and value my Irish heritage and that St. Patty’s Day is almost equal to Christmas in my eyes. She bought decorations galore and we planned a celebration. I’m smiling just sitting here writing about it.
28. She planned a huge birthday dinner for me when I turned 29. There were so many of my friends at the table. I felt so incredibly loved. And then she surprised me with a trip to Vegas with 2 of our friends from Spokane. Then she surprised me again when we walked into our hotel room and my best friend Greg from California was sitting on the couch. It was the most amazing birthday EVER.
29. For Ashley’s birthday we decided to get a cat. One. Holly responded to an ad on Craigslist for kittens. When she came home there were two little black kitty heads poking out of her coat. She had fallen in love with 2 of them and knew it would be sweet for the two brothers to have a playmate and a friend. It was the best choice she could have made because now we are the proud owners of two cats who are loving, albeit completely sometimes, and who can tolerate our crazy kids.
And one more thing I love about Holly for good measure:
30. Her heart. She loves me completely. She loves her children even more. She smiles when she sees me walking out to the car after work. She smiles when she sees me in the morning. She snuggles up on my shoulder while we fall asleep at night and I can see the love she has for her family on her face. For the first time in my life I feel fully loved by someone who is holding back nothing of her heart.
Happy birthday, baby. Thank you for being in my life. I can’t imagine things any other way. You have filled my life with so much joy, laughter, and passion. I could not ask for more.
ps-Happy Birthday to you, too, Val!
Things I Love:
1. She loves her children more than me. That may sound strange, but it wouldn’t be right if it were any other way.
2. Her laughter. If we played it for the whole world, we might finally see world peace.
3. Her wit. She always has the snappiest comments and come-backs. If you spend much time with her, you better be on your toes.
4. She reminds me that I am a good man, a good father, and a good friend without even saying the words.
5. Her brains. She’s much smarter than she will ever give herself credit for. Even better, our kids got the brain genes from her and not their father!
6. Her kindness. One of the biggest reasons she wants to be a dentist is so she will be able to philanthropic work for people in need.
7. She can cook! That sounds pigheaded of me, but I appreciate the yummy food I get to come home to after eating preschool food all day in preschool proportions.
8. Her voice. Her singing can turn my mood around at the drop of a hat. And I love that she can appreciate her ability to sing because she deserves to be proud of herself.
9. Her courage. She left a relationship that was detrimental to the welfare of her children and herself even though she knew it would be a rocky road.
10. She does not judge me when I eat half the carton of ice cream while watching a show.
11. She is an amazing mother. She’s tender when needed and stern when needed. Her number one concern and priority is always our three little buggers.
12. Her friendship. She will do whatever it takes to help a friend in need and expect nothing in return. Many people have benefited from her desire to make other people’s lives better.
13. Her eyes.
14. She knows more show tunes and Disney songs than anyone I know. And, she’s always willing to sing to them!
15. Her passion for reading. Her love of reading has inspired the same passion in our children. Alex read ¾ of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in one weekend. He’s 8. And he picked reading over video games.
16. She loves Christmas! We put our tree up “too early” for some, but we decided that Christmas was never long enough and therefore should be extended well into early November!
17. She’s amazing with other kids. Although she claims to not like other people’s children, she spends quite a bit of time in my preschool class and receives more than enough hugs to show just how great she is with the kiddos.
18. Her love of teeth. She made me look in one of her teeth that had just been drilled out for a filling because she was so excited to tell me everything about the tooth!
19. She mocks me for being short and crippled. While this may seem wrong or masochistic. However, her lightheartedness not only tells that my (lack of) height and crippledness doesn’t bother her bother, but also reminds me to not take stupid crap like that so damn seriously!
Memories:
20. Holly and I got married on April Fool’s Day in a courtroom with a few of our friends who decided to come. The judge was a complete kick in the pants. He used a Hallmark musical greeting card that played The Wedding March and Going to the Chapel. We wore jeans. We laughed A LOT! If you missed it, you surely missed an entertaining afternoon.
21. While going to SCC I was knocked down in the bathroom by some bigoted jerk. I was in a bit of a haze afterwards and she was the only person at work that noticed something was “off” and checked in on me to see what was wrong. This was before we even started dating. It felt so nice to know that someone was concerned for me and my wellbeing.
22. We went to Disneyland a couple years ago. Seeing her face light up at the sight of the entrance was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I will never get that smile out of my face.
23. We have spent a lot of time surfing through our massive collection on iTunes and singing together and to each other. The singing is intermittently interrupted by fits of giggling at the corniness of it all.
24. She made me an amazing dinner of meatloaf, fresh bread, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes after my first day at work. No one has ever taken the time to show that kind of appreciation before.
25. We went to see Mamma Mia! the movie while visiting my sister in Seattle. It was so tragically, awfully, pathetically done that we decided to walk out (laughing all the way). She even managed to get the ticket price refunded!
26. She took me out for dinner for Veteran’s Day last year. Again, no one has ever taken the time to show me that kind of appreciation before. She also helps me teach the kids about Veterans and the men and women who sacrifice so much for our country.
27. She went ALL OUT the first year we were together for St. Patty’s Day. She knew how much I love and value my Irish heritage and that St. Patty’s Day is almost equal to Christmas in my eyes. She bought decorations galore and we planned a celebration. I’m smiling just sitting here writing about it.
28. She planned a huge birthday dinner for me when I turned 29. There were so many of my friends at the table. I felt so incredibly loved. And then she surprised me with a trip to Vegas with 2 of our friends from Spokane. Then she surprised me again when we walked into our hotel room and my best friend Greg from California was sitting on the couch. It was the most amazing birthday EVER.
29. For Ashley’s birthday we decided to get a cat. One. Holly responded to an ad on Craigslist for kittens. When she came home there were two little black kitty heads poking out of her coat. She had fallen in love with 2 of them and knew it would be sweet for the two brothers to have a playmate and a friend. It was the best choice she could have made because now we are the proud owners of two cats who are loving, albeit completely sometimes, and who can tolerate our crazy kids.
And one more thing I love about Holly for good measure:
30. Her heart. She loves me completely. She loves her children even more. She smiles when she sees me walking out to the car after work. She smiles when she sees me in the morning. She snuggles up on my shoulder while we fall asleep at night and I can see the love she has for her family on her face. For the first time in my life I feel fully loved by someone who is holding back nothing of her heart.
Happy birthday, baby. Thank you for being in my life. I can’t imagine things any other way. You have filled my life with so much joy, laughter, and passion. I could not ask for more.
ps-Happy Birthday to you, too, Val!
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