Forty Fabulous Memories from my Fortieth Birthday

1. I rolled over in bed and realized that Brooke's stomach must be feeling better and despite waking me up several times during the night to ask for a drink, she hadn't thrown up again.

2. Breakfast in bed: Carnitas breakfast burrito from Santiagos and a yogurt parfait.

3. Erin telling dad that he couldn't give me just fruit for breakfast. They had to make me a yogurt parfait - yogurt, fruit and granola.

4. Feeling stuffed after the burrito and offering the parfait to Erin. She happily at the whole thing.

5. A handwritten birthday greeting from Erin.

6. A phone call in between classes from Jacob to wish me a Happy Birthday.

7. A card from Rex telling me to put my feet up, today was my day.

8. Being chauffeured to my 9:00 a.m. massage.

9. A nice 75 minute massage with only a few uncomfortable moments when I should have said the pressure is a little much. The masseuse found some really tender spots on my scalp - OUCH!

10. Brooke and Rex greeting me in the waiting area to take me to my next appointment.

11. Crocodile tears from Brooke that she couldn't go to school because she was afraid the lunch ladies would make her eat ALL her lunch and what if her tummy didn't feel like it.

12. Consoling Brooke in the back seat while we were chauffeured to my next appointment.

13. Brooke spilling the beans: you're getting your nails painted AND your toes!

14. A manicure with paraffin hand dip

15. Dark purple nail polish.

16. A pedicure downstairs at Rumors - wow, their basement it nice.

17. A nice, relaxed conversation with the gal doing my pedicure.

18. Being asked by the nice girl what my secret is to nearly 19 years of marriage.

19. Wearing funky, cheap flip-flops outside when there is still snow on the ground. A man can't think of EVERYTHING.

20. A sonic diet coke with fresh lime.

21. Walking into a clean house with the carpets freshly vacuumed.

22. Four cell phone messages - two friends actually singing to me!!

23. Lunch out with my hubby at The Olive Garden.

24. Chicken Gnocchi Spinach soup

25. Shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond for new pillows and threatening to buy his and hers comforters. I have been recently accused of stealing the comforter.

26. Brooke's first basketball practice.

27. Brooke begging to eat at Qdoba instead of Mimi's

28. Kids fighting in the car which caused me to change my dinner request from Mimi's to Chili's (it's closer).

20. Dinner at Chili's where soooooo many things went right over my head!

30. Entering my house and KNOWING that someone had been there.

31. Candles flickering in the darkness.

32. Wonderful friends snuck in my house to surprise me!

33. Having "Happy Birthday" sung to me - hasn't happened in a long while

34. Costco Cake and ice cream!

35. Wii "Just Dance" - I have pictures to prove that so many people danced for me including Bishop Ackerman.

36. Presents along with two cards that were exactly the same.

37. One present: vintage Diet Coke

38. A present from Brooke that she wrapped herself: a half-eaten box of Tic Tacs

39. Brooke's last words as I tucked her in, "Mom, I think you had the best birthday for a grown-up." I think so, too!

40. Climbing into my Sleep Number Bed a 40 year old woman who is blessed beyond measure.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Just a few more things to do before my head hits the pillow. Oh, I can't wait!

Today was filled with a few last minute shopping trips, a trip to the grocery store and cleaning up the mess when Brooke took a bottle of Eucerin lotion into the bath she was sharing with Erin. I thought Brooke was done making messes with bottles of lotion, but I guess I was wrong. I had to wash her hair four times in order to get all the grease out.

We enjoyed a prime rib dinner as a family and Erin made snickers pie for dessert - so rich and yummy! We read the Christmas story together and discussed what a true gift our Heavenly Father gave us with the birth of Jesus Christ. We are so thankful!

Sleep tight and Merry Christmas to all!


Is the prime rib done yet?! It's become a Christmas tradition to set off the smoke alarms when I'm searing the prime rib - happened again this year!

Brooke and Erin Sunday before church. Michael and Jacob sang in the choir and had to leave early, so I didn't get a picture of them.

Take a guess...

So how much food do you think a group of 24 LDS missionaries can eat?

Well, from our experience this morning they ate the following:

3 lbs. clementine oranges
2 bunches of bananas
44 biscuits
one pan sausage gravy (made with 3 lbs. of sausage and a half of a gallon of milk)
3 lbs. of bacon
24 extra large scrambled eggs
many cups of hot chocolate
and a few grits (we made some for an Elder from South Carolina, he took the leftovers home in a Tupperware.)

Yes, they ate it ALL! They would have eaten more. In the future I guess we'll make more. :)

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween on Saturday. I also love it when Halloween occurs before the time change.

We relaxed most of day and then leisurely put on the girls' costumes about 5:30. I've grown lazy in my old age and I don't sew costumes anymore. We picked this year's costumes out at Target. I begged Brooke to be Super Girl, but she would have nothing to do with it. We settled on Bat Girl for Brooke and a 60's girl for Erin. Erin loved the way I did her hair and asked if I would do it for church tomorrow.

The girl's buckets were full after only 45 minutes and they were content to head back home. The weather was so nice which is surprising since two days ago school was cancelled and we had a foot of snow in the front yard.

I've been accused recently of favoring certain children on my blog, so I forced Michael and Jacob to join in a group photo. We laughed when Rex suggested that they dress up like each other this year.

Hope Halloween was great for everyone!

Totally Wicked!

On October 10th a group of twenty friends and family went to see Wicked in Denver. It was a fabulous night that started at the Cheesecake Factory and ended in a standing ovation for the cast. We thoroughly enjoyed the performance despite the fact that Elpheba was played by the "stand-by."

Some of our group

About a week later my friend Candice called to see if we had seen the performance and I said we had. She was looking to get tickets for her daughter's birthday. The website makes it very hard to find open dates, so I suggested that she called the Box Office directly. She called me a few minutes later to tell me that the were sold out except for a few seats with obstructed views. She then asked if I had heard about the lottery. I hadn't. She proceeded to explain that 2 1/2 hours before each performance they hold a drawing for 20 tickets. All of these tickets are GREAT seats and only cost $25 compared to nearly $100. WOW! We made plans to head down with our families on Tuesday night to see if we could get tickets for her and her daughter. I couldn't get Wicked off my mind and suggested to my SIL, Suzi, that we try and get tickets on Saturday night. Unfortunately, there were about 60 other people there on Saturday and our names weren't called.

All day Tuesday I thought about how exciting it would be to have our names called and surely between 12 of us we could get 4-6 seats. We thought our chances would be even better with it being a Tuesday night that was cold and rainy. There were still at least 60 people who had the same idea, but weren't we happy when the first name called was Michael Johnson?! We listened as 9 other names were called (each person was allowed to buy two tickets, so only 10 were called). Not one of these names did we recognize. We were disappointed to say the least. We had hoped to get at least 4. We had already seen the show so we insisted that Candice take Michael's tickets. We discussed it back and forth for quite awhile outside the theater. We really wanted her to take the tickets and enjoy the show and she didn't know if she could enjoy the show knowing she had taken Michael's tickets. The man who drew the names then approached us and said that there were a couple of seats in the Mezzanine that had opened up and we should head to the box office. When we got to the box office there were four tickets left in the Mezzanine two together and two single seats. Candice bought the two together and gave me back Michael's tickets. I called Suzi and told her to get ready and come down to see the show. After the call I started to feel the same way Candice had felt. I looked at Michael. He said with a smile he was fine and he wanted us to take the tickets, but something continued to nag at me. So in a last minute decision we made the show sell out. We bought the two single tickets for Suzi and myself and Jacob and Michael took the tickets Michael justly WON. These two tickets just happened to be on the second row. When the boys were seated Jacob called and said they wouldn't feel good about taking the seats unless we agreed to use them during the second act. Suzi and I went to the second row for the second act and it was AMAZING. The costumes were beautiful, the facial expressions (especially from Glinda) were fabulous and we were able to see that many actors spit A LOT.

Overall, what a great night. We went to the Stage Door afterwards and saw many of the actors (no Elpheba) and had our picture taken with the Wizard, AKA Larry (Richard Kline) from Three's Company.

Our picture with the Wizard, Richard Kline, aka Larry, Jack Tripper's friend

Newest Halloween Decor

My sister Liz turned me on to a great "crafty" website:
www.theidearoom.blogspot.com/.

This gal has some really cute ideas, one of which I HAD to copy!! It took a few days to complete as well as a few trips to several different store to get the bottles, but I'm so happy with the way my newest Halloween decorations turned out.

See the orginial idea here:
www.theidearoom.blogspot.com/2009/09/creepy-halloween-apothecary.html

Print out your own labels here: www.flickr.com/photos/lovemanor/sets/72157602788222231/

Welcome October!

Sweet at Six

Is it cliche to say that the past six years have flown by? Probably - but they really have. I remember heading to the my 40 week OB appointment like it was yesterday. They hooked me up to some monitors and did a LONG stress test which Brooke didn't pass. Knowing her personality now, I know she was just playing a joke on us! They induced me around lunchtime and less than ten hours later (I know a long time for my fourth child) she was in our arms.

Today is Brooke's birthday and I hope it was special for her. She climbed into my bed shortly after six and I smiled at her and said, "Happy Birthday." She looked back at me and said, "Happy Birthday." She is such a sweetheart.

Her birthday celebration started last Saturday when we had a "Pajama Party" (think sleepover, minus the sleepover, wear your jammies and come eat breakfast, HUGE hit!) with some of her friends. We served breakfast: french toast sticks, bacon, eggs, hash browns, strawberries, juice and milk. After breakfast we decorated pillowcases that I tye died the night before. They turned out so cute. It was quite a quest trying to find 100% cotton pillow cases, but finally I found them hidden on the end cap at Target. Then we opened presents. At one point Brooke thanked one of her friends by saying, "Thank you, your majesty." I don't know where she comes up with these things! Keeping with tradition, Aunt Liz's present was an AWESOME mini cake for Brooke and cupcakes for the guests. She even decorated each of the kids to look like Brooke's friends. I have to say I was a bit sad as they dismantled each adorable cupcake. Brooke had an intense desire to smash her face in her mini cake, so we let her. It wasn't too messy and she was in heaven!













Today I made cups o' dirt to take to Brooke's class (I had to convince her that we've made cookies on a stick for so many years that we should try something different). The kids loved them and Brooke loved the attention. Her teacher let her decide whether she wanted "cha-cha's" in her birthday song and she chose to let the kids add the "cha-cha's." If you don't know what this is I fill you in next time we're together.

After distributing the extra dirt to some other teachers we were off to a soccer game for Michael and then we met dad at Mimi's for dinner before his meetings. After we ordered, Brooke opened her presents and was thrilled with her new Nintendo DS because Erin bought one a couple of weeks ago with her birthday money she has been saving since January.















Overall, it was a picture perfect day. We love you Brooke! You're the sweetest six year old we know!