Weekly Review May 28 '11

Happy Birthday to Seth! It is hard to believe that our "baby" is four years old today! He opened his presents in the early afternoon and we had cake and ice cream this evening.

A new "Cars" themed plate. He got a matching fork & spoon, too.

"Mater's Tall Tales"

That's one of the cars he "sorted" at the grocery store a few weeks ago!

A wooden train set

All the loot--are you seeing a theme here? Everything was either cars or trains! Even Grandma & Grandpa were coordinated with us, without any planning!

Cool Hot Wheels toy from Grandma & Grandpa

Playing with the train

The cake (see explanation about cake near the end of this post.)

Ready to blow out the candles

It was good!

We had a busy week again, with school in the "winding down" stages. Mentally, the boys are already "done". They are ready for school to be out, and so am I! It feels like summer now, too. We've had more than one day with temperatures in the 90's. There has been some rain, but not as much as we've been having and most of the severe thunderstorms missed us.

On Sunday I got to church early for choir practice--we sang that day. I had a Primary visit that afternoon and that evening I took the oldest two boys to a fireside--the purpose was to get them excited about Youth Conference. The fireside was excellent; a real spiritual feast! They are going to Kirtland this year. I am really excited for them! On my way out, Jolie (Ridd) Smith stopped me to introduce me to "another Oremite" as she called her, who has recently moved into our stake. The new sister said "you probably won't remember me..." but when she said her name is Daelyn Dorr, I said "Yes, I do!" I thought that would interest those of you who remember the Dorr family. She's married now--I think she said her last name is Heaps. She said her husband may remember Ben, because they are close in age. Her family moved to this area 4 months ago, but they came from Pennsylvania so it's not a big culture shock for them to be here.

Monday I was supposed to work on pledge drive stuff, but I forgot so I did that on Wednesday instead. I was busy with Primary stuff, phone calls, and emails all day that day. After family night and all the kids were in bed, Frank and I ran to the store to get a few things we needed and while we were there decided to get Seth's birthday presents. On Tuesday my visiting teaching companion and I had the two ladies we visit teach over to my house and we all had lunch together. That was very nice! I think it was that evening that the boys got out Seth's new sidewalk chalk. It was funny to see that the big boys were just as interested in the chalk as Seth was!:

They made some pretty colorful creations. The fun thing about this sidewalk chalk is that it is "3-D". After finishing a drawing, you can view it through these special 3-D glasses that came with the chalk and it makes the picture look 3-D. It actually worked--I was surprised!

Scott had a doctor appointment (dermatologist) Wednesday afternoon. We also picked up Tanner's prescription and took it to the pharmacy. When I went to pick it up later (after taking the boys to YM that evening) the copay was more than double what it has always been. I called the insurance the next day and discovered that a generic drug just became available, and since we got the name brand it cost a lot more. It would have been nice to know that! We'll be asking for the generic drug from now on.

Thursday I made two batches of cupcakes for Seth to take to school:

I have certainly had my share of cupcake and cake baking lately! On Thursday I also worked on Sharing Time for a few hours and got a much needed haircut and color touch up. Frank was supposed to have a meeting, but it got cancelled. He had a pretty busy week again at work, though.

At Seth's school they do a special ceremony called "walking around the sun" for their birthdays. They have a light in the middle (representing the sun) with the names of all the months of the year in a circle around the "sun". The child holds a globe in his hands and, starting at the month he was born, walks around the circle one time for each year of his age. We also had to put together a timeline with a photo for each year of his life, along with a few sentences about something he did during that year. He will add to the time line each year until he is 10. Because Seth's birthday is on Saturday this year, he got to "walk around the sun" yesterday. He also was allowed to bring three items that are special to him to show. Frank and I both went in to attend his little ceremony. Here he is eating his cupcake:

After the kids got home from school, Frank and I went to the temple. We were both feeling sleepy and they needed help in initiatories, so we decided to do that. We tried a new restaurant on the way home that was recommended by friends. It was a greek fast food place, and the food was really good.

Besides celebrating Seth's birthday, we have been busy today with several other things. Everyone but Seth and I went to help a family in our ward who are moving to a different house. (They will still be in our ward, thankfully!) Everyone but me got a haircut. Frank and I ran to the store for a few things. I baked a cake for Seth--not that we really need more cake around here! But he saw a Mickey Mouse theme cake online when I was looking for ideas for his party, and he insisted that he had to have that cake. (I thought it was a little strange looking, but he loved it!) I really preferred to do cupcakes for his party, so I promised him I'd make the cake for his actual birthday, so that's what I did. It turned out looking almost as good as the one in the photo online, except that the icing I used to write his name was not the right consistency so the letters kept running! I was also busy today trying to finish up preparations for sharing time. Since this is a 5th Sunday, I had to come up with the whole thing by myself. We had the Elders over for dinner tonight, so they got to share Seth's cake. All of that has filled up our day.

Now we are looking forward to teh Sabbath day, as well as a day off for everyone on Monday. We hope you all have a great weekend!