Today feels eerily quiet.  My brother Daniel and his family left last night after a week of fun, visiting, excursions and treats.  We were spoiled rotten with family and coming back to reality is a little bit of a downer.  The time went by way too fast.

For starters, I had a great birthday.  We met some of my friends at Kneaders for breakfast - their french toast cannot be beat.  With Robyn home from kindergarten we headed over to Kangaroo Zoo to run kids silly around all their inflatable toys.  Then with tired girls home with a patient Daniel, Mimi and I went for pedicures.  Jeremy asked all his friends to text me Happy Birthday so my phone was constantly buzzing me with the message "Happy Birthday, Your hubby loves you".  Friends dropped off little treats and sweet notes.  Jeremy showed up with roses and we had cheesecake.  The love shown was greatly appreciated and I was truly touched, all day long.
Tuesday we checked out Robyn from school and headed up to the Children's Museum with little girlies in tow.  Spencer and Allison have really outgrown that place but Robyn is their target demographic age as she loves it.  My favorite quote of the day was a conversation between Claire and Robyn.
Claire: "My dad is the greatest"

Robyn: "No, my dad is the greatest.  But your mom is the funnest.  She is the queen of fun"

So Mimi has a new name in our house.  One night at dinner Robyn comes up to Mimi afterwards to tell her that she ate all her dinner.  Mimi said OK and moved on.  A few minutes later Robyn came up to me to say that she had eaten all her dinner but Mimi hadn't done the "done dance" with her.  The things that girl remembers...  So of course Mimi broke out the "done dance" for her and made her night.  And every night girls hit the hot tub and baths afterwards.  Robyn was right there with Claire and Samantha telling Mimi and Daniel that they could rub her with lotion and stretch her to make her tall just like their daughters.

Wednesday we grabbed Allison from school and went to Sundance for the afternoon.  Robyn had never skied before and took to it like a duck to water.  Spencer stayed in school and then babysat Taylor for us as an afternoon on the bunny slope did not appeal to him and I wouldn't let him head off on the mountain by himself.  It was one of those perfect afternoons.


Thursday and Friday were filled more with real life although we did get to have a girls only dinner with Taylor as our token meal at Pizza Factory that night.  And then Friday we had a babysitter come over while adults only headed up to Red Iguana one of my favorite Mexican restaurants.  Spencer was telling us we should get the nachos as when he had them "they were epic".  So Jeremy obliged.  And we returned home with JCW milkshakes to share.

Saturday we had some crabby kids so we ended up just hanging out and visiting instead of going anywhere.
This week I often felt like I should be apologizing for the tantrums, mess and screaming that goes along with our family.  But really that is who we are.  Or should I say who Spencer is - ha ha ha.  But really it made me glad that we all accept each other warts and all and work with what our family is.
On Thursday night Jeremy and Spencer got to go up to SLC with the youth to tour the conference center and watch The Testaments.  Then Spencer came home at 10 and did some homework and then got up an hour early to do some homework again the next morning.  Made me realize that he is growing up.


A mom moment I forgot to share last week.  Jeremy was gone and the kids and I were doing family prayer together upstairs on the landing.  Allison excused herself to go to the bathroom and when she turned to flush a toy phone in her shirt pocket fell out into the toilet bowl.  For some reason she thought getting it out was a mom job.  I disagreed.  Lots of tears - we are talking 10 minutes of tears.  Robyn was offering to get it for her.  Spencer was telling her she was a wimp for even thinking of letting her little sister do it for her.  So while Allison went to go find a rubber glove Robyn went in and bare handed it.  While I explained to her why she needed to REALLY scrub her hand and arm, Allison started bawling more because she was now a wimp.  So Allison went into the bathroom, glove in hand, slammed the door, dropped the phone back into the toilet and bare handed it herself just to prove that she could do it, and then took a disinfecting shower for a LONG time.  I couldn't decide if I was really mean or if I should just laugh.  I chose to laugh.

Superbowl starting, Jason's family coming over, 7-layer dip and hamburger cookies made (peanut butter cookies with brownie and red frosing sandwiched in between) so we are ready to go.  Hopefully Jeremy can relax a bit.  Between church, work, some studio stuff plus getting a new tenant in the condo with all the cleaning and fixing and paperwork that entails - Jeremy hasn't been able to have much free time.  Hoping things ease up for him.  And now for some photos from last week.  Love Heather