"My Digger Birthday"

Barrett has been referring  to his upcoming 3rd birthday as "my digger birthday" because he had picked out a construction type Mega-blocks set for his birthday a few months ago.  I hid it in the basement thinking that he would forget all about it before his birthday arrived.  I obviously underestimated his memory, so the theme for his party was evident.  I called on the talented Brittney to help with the birthday cake.  She exceeded all expectations once again.  I baked the chocolate sheet cake in a 10"x15" pan and provided the butter, powdered sugar and digger and she created another edible work of art.  I gave the kids each a party "hard hat" to wear and a few of the adults wore them too.  I also made a vegan lemon Bundt cake and a yellow sheet cake that I served with sliced strawberries for the guests whose tastes didn't run to chocolate sheet cake with colored buttercream frosting.  The lemon vegan cake was a little dense, but surprisingly good.  It was a fun party!

Barrett's digger cake.  

He was thrilled with it.

Brittney even put dirt and rocks into the shovel.

Another view of the cake.

Does Britt need to go into business or what?

The cake with the Scooby-doo candle that Barrett picked out.

He finally got his hands on the cake.

Cousin Gray and all the kids in their hard hats.

Grammy joined in on the fun.

Brynne and Gray modeling the construction look.

Happy Birthday Barrett!!!

I can hardly believe that my baby has just turned three years old.  It has gone by so fast, but he has grown and changed so much already.  Since his birthday fell on a Thursday this year which is a piano lesson and swim lesson day we didn't do much to celebrate on his actual birthday.  He got to play with his cousin Nathan at his house in Salt Lake while Grandma babysat.  After the girls got home from school we took him to pick out a Cars mylar balloon.  After his swim lesson and a shower he got to open up his presents from Justin and me.  We planned a family party for Sunday which will be featured in my next post.  He had a much better birthday than last year when he came down with strep throat.  It was the sickest he has ever been and his glands were so swollen and his throat so sore that he couldn't even swallow his own saliva.  We are happy to have him in better health this year.

He was a tiny little guy at first.

He has always loved a bath.

With his sisters on his blessing day.

  

With his fangs, shortly before his first birthday.

(His eye teeth came in before his incisors on the top

 so we called him our baby vampire.)

On his second birthday.

The very next day with his glands all 

swollen from having strep throat.

He doesn't even look like the same boy!

Have you ever seen a more pitiful face?

Opening his presents after his swim lesson.

Brynne, Barrett and Blythe.

I'm the Allergy Queen

As if I don't have enough allergy concerns between Barrett and myself, now the dog apparently has allergies too.  She was outside in the yard most of day and didn't come in until it started snowing around 2 p.m.  (Yes, snowing!!) I noticed that she looked a little funny and upon closer examination I realized that her face was very swollen around her eyes.  I called the vet's office and explained the problem and was told to give her Benadryl and to repeat the dose every 4 hours until she was back to normal. Luckily we have plenty of that around our house.  I made a her a peanut butter and Benadryl sandwich using 3 pills.  She scarfed it down.  I'm guessing that all the wind we had earlier today as the storm blew in must have blown pollen or some other irritant into her eyes.  Poor puppy!  At 7 p.m. she didn't look much better so I made her a refried bean and Benadryl sandwich, after having second thoughts about the wisdom of having given her peanut butter earlier.  She's finally looking like she's about halfway back to normal.  So here are some photos of one miserable looking dog.  

She doesn't look so bad here, 

but you can tell that her eyebrows are swollen.

Here her eyes are almost completely swollen shut.

If Barrett looked like this I'd have injected him

 with his epi-pen and rushed him to the ER.

For comparison, here's what she normally looks like.

I think I can officially dub myself "Allergy Queen."

(Actually, our allergist was the first one to call me by this title.)

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Today we spent most of the day down in Provo at BYU.  I was asked to work at a car seat checkpoint sponsored by BYU's Department of Social Work  that was being held at Wymount (married student housing).  I felt I ought to participate since it had been a while since I'd done an official checkpoint and seeing as how BYU is my alma mater.  I talked Justin into coming down with me because there is a Minerva Teichert exhibit that is running at the BYU Museum of Art that we have been wanting to see.  I thought it would be fun to take the girls on a little tour of BYU as well.  

While I was busy inspecting car seat installations from 10 a.m. to noon, Justin took the kids to the natural history museum and to a playground.  After I finished with the checkpoint, we headed over to the Wilkinson Center to have lunch at the CougarEat.  Justin didn't want to eat there at first because it's been remodeled since we were at BYU and is now in his words "just a glorified food court."  I argued that at least it would have a variety of food so we could all have different things, while if we went to Burgers Supreme (his pick) we'd all be stuck eating hamburgers.  He ended up having a navajo taco for old time's sake.  After lunch we wandered through the bookstore and ended up buying the kids each a BYU t-shirt. (I'm still not sure how we got talked into that.)  

Then we walked over to the art museum and I tried to impress the girls by telling them that I used to work as a docent at the museum when it first opened.  I'm not sure how impressed they really were, besides it's not as though I got paid to do it; I was strictly a volunteer.  (Hmmm, this sounds just like my volunteer work as a CPS Tech; someday I need to figure out a way to get paid for what I love to do.)  Barrett, unsurprisingly was not interested in any of Minerva Teichert's murals so Justin and I took turns riding the elevator with him while the other walked through the exhibit.  The girls started complaining of boredom about halfway through, but at least they stuck with me.  Then Justin took all the kids outside while I quickly checked out another exhibit, this one on British Victorian Art.  

We piled the kids into the car and then I talked Justin into driving us across the street to Heritage Halls where I lived as a Freshman.  I dragged the girls into Horne Hall and I showed them the door to my basement apartment and also pointed out Maesar Hall, where my Mom lived when she was at BYU.  We also drove by Helaman Halls where Justin lived his Freshman year.  Our last stop was 511 North 100 West, which was our first apartment where Justin and I lived for almost 2 years and on the way there we happened to drive by the Park Place apartments on 700 North where I lived the semester before I met Justin while on study abroad in London.  It was a little strange to be back on campus again.  The last time we were there was for a dinner for Justin's EMBA program back in 2001 0r 2002.  The juxtaposition of some parts of campus looking completely unchanged while others, such as the Wilkinson Center and the library looked so different, was a bit unsettling.  I would have liked to have walked around campus a little longer especially since it was so nice and warm out, but everyone else had had enough.  It was definitely a trip down memory lane.  On a side note I just remembered that when I was growing up the ultimate compliment that my Dad would pay me would be to tell me that I looked "collegiate."  Isn't that funny?!  However, now I wouldn't mind being told I look like I'm a college student!

Cousins

Justin's twin brother Chris was in town last week with his two children Emma, who is 9 the same as Blythe and Alex who is 4 1/2.  They came down to Moab with us for the weekend and we had a fun time hiking, biking, geo-caching and visiting.  The kids hadn't seen each other in almost a year and  a half so they had all changed quite a bit.  When we got to Moab I stashed my camera on the top shelf of the bedroom closet where it would be safe from Barrett and it stayed there almost the entire time.  I took 2 photos of Emma and Brynne curled up on the sofa while watching a DVD.  The rest of photos are from after we got back. 

Justin got a new mountain bike last fall, which he needed since he was still riding his 1987 Specialized Stumpjumper.  This was our first trip to Moab with his new Santa Cruz Superlight and he was pretty excited to try it out on the slickrock.  He and Chris planned a Saturday morning ride and were joined by my Dad and my cousin Brian and his friend Elias, who were also staying at the house with us.  About halfway into the ride Justin took an uphill fall and broke the derailleur off his new bike.  He had to walk back while everyone else finished the ride.  Luckily, he came across some other bikers who had some tools so he ended up removing his chain so he could at least coast down the downhills instead of having to walk the entire way. It was a less than auspicious inaugural ride on the new mountain bike.  Blythe also has a new mountain bike and my parents took her and Emma on a fun ride from their house to Rotary Park.  We met them at the park and the kids had fun playing on the playground and making lots of noise on all the musical instruments made of pipes and such.  Barrett was ecstatic to be on a slide again since our playgrounds are still covered in snow.  He had been begging me to take him to a playground and I kept promising him that I would take him when we got to Moab.  It was a fun trip, but we could have done without Barrett getting carsick on the way home and throwing up in Spanish Fork Canyon.   

Emma and Brynne watching the Nancy Drew movie.

Alex and Barrett at our house

 the last morning the  cousins were here.

Blythe and Emma.

Emma, Blythe and Brynne.

Brynne harassing Gray.

Blythe, Gray, Brynne and Emma.

We had a family party on Sunday night at Justin's grandparents house in Salt Lake so that everyone could see Chris and the kids.  The girls had fun tormenting Justin's cousin Gray, who is a good sport and is always up for some rough housing.  I should have taken a photo of Barrett with Gray because Barrett just loves him and calls him "My Gray," but Barrett wasn't cooperating.  Gray has two brothers Miles and Wyatt who haven't been living at home for awhile, who are equally fun to play with.  The girls are looking forward to May when all the boys will be back home.  

Moab Hike

We spent last weekend down in Moab at my parent's house.  It was the first time we had been there since the house had been remodeled.  It turned out really well and it's a fun place to stay.  Hopefully the next time we go down the new pool cover will be on and the pool will be operational.  It was soooo nice to be somewhere without snow.  We went on a hike with my parents on Friday afternoon shortly after we arrived.  I forgot my camera every time we left the house, but fortunately my Dad took these photos.  We hiked until we could see Corona Arch. Barrett really surprised me by being such a great little hiker.  He walked all the way to the end by himself and then walked at least half way back to the car before getting into the backpack. At the start of the trail we had to cross some railroad tracks which he thought was pretty cool. Not long afterwards we could hear a train on the tracks we just crossed.  I was glad we missed the train.  The temperature was in the high 60's. Perfect!

Barrett leading the way.

Brynne and Ruby, it's hard to say who loves Moab more.

Barrett and Blythe taking a break.

Justin and the kids on the steepest part of the hike.

Barrett climbing up the slickrock.

Corona arch

Our family in front of Corona arch.

Hippies

Last week the girls had "Spirit" week at their school.  Monday was "Backwards Day," Tuesday was "Hat Day" and the girls chose to wear Justin's BYU baseball caps, Wednesday was "Twin Day" (for more about this day see Blythe's blog), Thursday was "Hippie Day" and Friday was "Crazy Hair Day."  I took some photos of the girls dressed up as hippies.  This was after a lot of explanation on my part about what hippies were (are?) and what they wore.  This is what we came up with.

Peace.

Blythe wore bell bottom jeans with a hole in one knee 

complete with macrame type belt, 

a tie dyed t-shirt, head band and single side braid.

Brynne was a dressed up hippie in a long tiered skirt,

 peasant type blouse, sandals and a head wrap

The Justin and Jill Simpson Family

My sister Jess did this first on her blog and then my cousin Kirsten "simpsonized" her family too.  It got me wondering what our family would look like if we appeared on The Simpsons.  Justin used to watch  a lot of The Simpsons before we had kids and stopped watching TV.  

Here we are . . . 

Justin

Jill

(Sadly, my hair only actually looks like this the day 

I get it cut and the hairdresser styles it for me.)

Blythe

Brynne

(With Ruby next to her although most of Ruby got cut off.) 

Barrett

I think our cartoon selves resemble us quite a bit.  Aren't we hilarious?!

If you want to try it yourself, just go to simpsonizeme.com and upload your own headshot.