Birthday Week

It was a great birthday week.  Rock climbing with my friend. Lunch out with friends. Family birthday party. Birthday party for Spencer. It was a great week. 

 Chloe likes this little space. It's for blankets, but fits her perfectly.

 I took a decade break from rock climbing. I can't believe it's been that long. It was so fun to hang out with my friend Sherrie and climb again.

 I used my old mattress to make a bunch of floor cushions and two trifold futons. I'm really pleased how they turned out.

 Opening birthday gifts. Spencer of course loved his new Pokemon cards and Pokemon drawing book and money from Grandma. Oh, and we got him a cool bow and arrows that are pretty fun.

 Nine cushions. It took a long time. I used all the random fabric I have that was big enough. The kids are using them for forts and to lay on to read books etc, etc. Fun times.

 Birthday party fun. We did a Pokemon themed party for Spencer and four of his friends.

 Pokemon cookies.

 Caterpie counting contest.

 Tasty treats.

 Pin the Tail on the Pikachu.

 Pokemon Bingo.

 Paint your favorite Pokemon.

 Pokemon goodie bags.

And Bill being his goofy hilarious self using a "foot rest."

We're not sick anymore, hallelujah!

The flu plague has finally left our house! I caught it around New Years and it went through all of our kids except Genevieve. Chloe only today is finally better. It hit her for ten solid days. Bill finally caught it on Thursday, so he doesn't feel great but it will go away soon enough. Thank goodness for a return to health. Chloe slept at the foot of my bed for the whole week.

This is her laying on a heating pad. She had a fever for like seven days.

We sold the Jeep this weekend. It kind of feels like giving away your best friend. We loved that car for so many years and wanted to keep it forever, but it just really had too many problems this last year and so we parted ways. Currently we're in this zen state of only actually needing our van, so we're dreaming of new cars but not actually in the market. It's a novel place to be. We've required two cars for our entire first ten years of marriage, but for now we don't need that second car. Very cool.


I got a bunch of new plants this week. I used to have tons of house plants but through the various moves we've had in the last five years and lack of space in our house in South Carolina, I got rid of all of them. I'm building them back up now and it makes me happy. I have six in my living room now and I have my eye on a couple big ones that I don't have a clue where I would put but I want them anyway.

Bill and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on Friday by staying at home since Bill had the flu and Chloe was also still sick. That's life! Haha! We actually have plans to do a staycation while a friend watches our kids overnight, but that will have to wait a couple weeks. Bill made this delicious dinner though, even though he was sick. He's the best. 

 On Saturday I took three kids with me to Spencer's basketball game and Bill stayed home. Genevieve stayed with him and this is what she did for most of the three hours I was gone. Found random places to sit to read our Calvin and Hobbes books. I love it!

We got a new mattress earlier this month and I cut up the old mattress into squares and made a bunch of floor cushions plus two tri-fold futons. I used all the fabric I had in random colors that was big enough to cover a cushion. So they don't match at all and the kids have claimed their favorites.

Been a while

Whoa, where did three weeks go? The holidays flew by. I'm currently enjoying our annual Seattle snowstorm. I mean, we've lived here for one year and a few weeks and we had one last year and now this year, so that makes it annual, right? Haha!

The kids have been playing outside for hours yesterday and today. We're off school both days and I imagine at least a couple more, since this is Seattle and snow makes everything grind to a halt here. Last year when this happened I was caught completely off guard, but this year I'm set and we can stay in for days. I'm just enjoying the beautiful flakes coming down still.

Bill is home and took a sick day to help with Chloe, who got a horribly virulent strain of the flu that I brought home from our Utah trip and passed to Spencer and then very lightly to Aaron and Chloe got nailed just as hard as I did. Poor girl has been miserable since Saturday. It's finally starting to get a little better, but she developed a sore in her mouth as part of it and eating hurts. So lame. Her fever hit 103.5 the other night. It's crazy. We even got them in early enough to get tamiflu for all three kids and maybe it helped the boys but not really Chloe at all. I'm just pulling out of two full weeks of my version of this, so I just hope Chloe pulls through faster. Genevieve is our immune system warrior. She didn't catch it and I don't know how she escaped, but I'd like to clone her immune system.

I know most everyone in the world hates January, but I've always loved it because my birthday is this month and then I got married in January, so that makesit even better. And Spencer was born on my birthday, so basically we celebrate this month like crazy. I'm having a lovely month. After Christmas we took a trip to Utah to visit my mom, who had returned a few weeks before from her 18-month mission to Phoenix. That was lovely. And we got to spend a few days with Bill's parents too, which was also great. I quilted my first quilt on my mother-in-law's long-arm quilter. That was fun. We went to Temple Square one last time before it's torn apart for a few years to redo it. We tried out the Musum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point with my sister and mom and two nieces. They got an annual pass, and that is a really cool museum. More like an indoor massive playground. I'm pretty sure that's where I picked up the flu from, but otherwise it was super fun.

2019 was a total beast of a year for me. It blindsided me. I thought it was going to be great, but between the upheaval of moving, major health issues, and plenty of other stuff, it was just hard. So when I woke up January 1st feeling renewed and like this year is going to just be so much better, nothing has really gotten me down. Even this crazy flu hasn't done it. I just feel so good to be past last year that I still feel great. I am looking forward to my energy returning though post flu. It's been a little slow coming. I have big plans for this year though. It feels good.

Anyway, here's a photo dump of some of the fun times the last few weeks. I'm a lazy blogger, so I'm not even going to organize them, ha! We had a great month.

December

December has been a fantastic month. We've done tons of fun stuff. Here's a few highlights.

I hit the jackpot on friends moving here to Washington. I have lots of friends, but particularly two that have kids that line up almost exactly with mine. We trade kids around all the time and it is like I never knew what I was missing before this. Chloe and these two boys are the best of friends. They are so stinking cute together. When they come over they just drift away and play for hours and they almost never fight or need anything from me. It's glorious. 

 Grandma Suzanne sent hte kids the cutest Christmas outfits. We've been wearing them nonstop ever since.

 Spencer had a total tragedy happen this week. He was supposed to go on a choir fieldtrip and the school district only sent one bus instead of the two that were needed. The teacher had to make a split second decision and she decided to take part of the choir, just the fourth and fifth graders, and leave the third graders. There were reasons, but man, it was horrible for Spencer and his friends in third grade. They're planning how to make it up to them. I decided to get him out of school because I felt horrible for him and wanted to make sure he was okay. He's a sensitive soul and I wanted him to feel loved after such a huge disappointment. So I got him and thankfully he was okay, but I took he and Chloe to McDonald's for lunch and just never took him back to school that afternoon. It was so fun.

 I guarantee neither of these will stay blondies, but for now they're my two blondies, and they look so much alike, down to even having the exat same color eyes. They love each other so much. It's adorable. We had a great time eating and going to Costco.

 Here's the first of two triple batches of date nut bread. I make it once a year and it's a labor of love, but  man, the results are stellar. I gave a bunch away for gifts but the second batch I made into muffins and tiny loaves and we are going to enjoy them for days.

 I got building this week! So satisfying. I made this end table and bench for the table my friend and I made a few weeks back. They both turned out just as I wanted and I can't wait to stain the table. My friend already swiped her bench before I got to fill the screw holes, she loves it so much. Haha!

 We had the unfortunate surprise this week of springing a leak in one of my kids' room ceilings. We've had absolutely crazy rainstorms for days, and the darkest day on record, which was horrible, and it overwhelmed our very clogged up gutters from the fall pine needles falling. I don't know what the process will be now to fix it, but there's definitely damage to be mitigated.

 Chloe and I went to the school for a holiday singalong. It was fun. They have a really great choir teacher.

 Spencer also had a choir concert at the high school, which was super fun.

 My cousin's daughter got baptized on Saturday in Spokane and my Grandma, who I haven't seen since February and before that a long time more because she was on a mission with my mom, was there. We decided it was totally worth heading over for the event. We had the greatest time. It was a total whirlwind trip because I was accompanying the choir number in our ward the next morning, so we had to leave at 4AM to get back in time, but we went over Saturday, visited with my aunt and uncle and grandma, went to the baptism, and had a delightful evening with my cousin's family before we slept and then drove back super early. It was totally worth it.

 And this is Genevieve and her second cousin, who through a total quirk of genes, look almost like twins. They are the same age and in the same grade and aside from being blonde vs. Genevieve's red, otherwise they look so similar. The funny thing is my cousin and I look quite similar in our very dark features, so both of us having light-haired girls that look like each other is just trippy.

It has been a great month and now Bill is home for a few days for Christmas and I'm delighted.