Thanks-birthday

Updates! I'm behind on my posts. How have I not posted anything yet in November?! Shame on me. Before this month ends (tomorrow), I'm fitting in a post or two. 

Post, begin...

Hubby Jake celebrated his birthday November 13th. He chose Rodizio Grill for his schmancy dinner outing, and I sure didn't complain...until afterwards when I was overly stuffed full of various meats, salads and delicious Brazilian limeade to the point where I thought my stomach was going to burst. Mmm, hungry now typing this. I love you top sirloin! It was a simple birthday celebration on a Tuesday evening, ending with presents and cake afterwards. Birthday highlights include: Jake liking 2 of the 5 shirts I bought (that's a big win for me); feeling awkward explaining to Gage that the Steve Martin Twitter book I gave Jake is a funny "adult book" so he couldn't be filled in on what we were laughing about; discovering that Nothing Bundt Cakes is a fabulous bakery and the marble cake with cream cheese frosting I bought for Jake was the most amazing cake ever and now I'm plotting one for my birthday; also discovering that the birthday candles I bought that advertised as having colored flames were full of BS, as clearly seen in the photo below. 

HaPpY BiRthDaY!!!

 

Side note: Jake did blow at all the candles out in one blow. What a champ! Additional side note: Clearly Jake is not turning 12 as the number of candles imply, so regardless of blowing out all candles, his wish might be voided...which might be good since he probably wished for me to smother him less. Not happening!

The other excitement November brings is obviously Thanksgiving. This year was definitely out of the ordinary since we were not able to spend it with my parents, who of course we rely on to do all the cooking. No, they decided to have a huge family party with my cousins out in Colorado at my Aunt and Uncle's new South Western adobe-style, half-million dollar mansion they just bought. Did I mention it's a half-million dollar mansion? Ahh! Why did we not go, you ask? Because dear sweet Jacob was assigned to work at the hospital on Thanksgiving!...only to find out at 5 a.m. ON Thanksgiving that he no longer needed to go in. Good hell. So, instead of rushing to pack our bags Home Alone movie style and venture on the 8-hour drive to Colorado, we stuck with our plans and prepared a wonderful meal for the two of us...no, wait, make that three of us because we were nice and invited my brother to join us, having pity on him for also missing out on the Colorado festivities. 

Our Thanksgiving consisted of the Macy's Day parade (I get emotional when they show Santa at the end...wow, pathetic), delicious feast complete with mac n' cheese, watching 21 Jump Street, and deciding to venture out into the madness of Black Friday shopping ending up a new 40" Samsung HDTV for our bedroom, a DVD player, new vacuum and power drill. Well worth our hour and a half wait outside in the cold with other crazy people. It ended up being a nice holiday, and I was thankful to have a wonderful hubby to spend it with. Now bring on Christmas and MY birthday.

* Happy Halloween *

I give special kudos to my Bloody Mary pumpkin...used a red candle. Maybe Frankie should've had a green one?

 Pretty much my favorite holiday!!...or at least second fave. Hip-hip, hooray! My Halloween will consist of scary movies (I've saved up my DVR full of them...thank you AMC Fear Fest!), making butter pecan cupcakes, picking up Cafe Rio for the hubs and I, and passing out candy for the first time in my own home. I am one happy camper. To add to my happiness, I also got to do my much-anticipated pumpkin carvings this year. Oh, what joy! Last year we were in the middle of moving into our house so unfortunately my beloved Halloween got skipped...minimal decor, no pumpkins, such a drag! I made up for it this time around with decorations up since middle of September and even spent $20 on a profesh pumpkin carving kit, compliments of my pumpkin pattern site I've used for the last 6 years, ZombiePumpkins.com...see it, share it, love it, thank me later. 

Zombie from The Walking Dead (Google bicycle girl...dare you). Been following the show faithfully for 3 seasons. OBSESSED!

Have a happiest of Halloweens, and enjoy my 2012 pumpkin carvings above and a super creepy song below that's been playing on the radio that will make you feel uncomfortable for laughing. Slightly disturbing, yet hilarious. If you don't laugh, I'm not sure we can be friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYFnY_1JO8U


 **UPDATE: Here is a picture of Gage in his creepy grim reaper costume and the coolest, spookiest house we took him trick-or-treating too. We've been waiting a year to go to this house since discovering it last year by our home.  

Oh, and I couldn't help but share my Halloween craft from this year. Absolutely LOVE how he turned out!!

K...the end.

A Jedi Birthday

On Sunday the 14th, Gage turned 9 years old!! His last year in single digits before moving on to a tween. Where does time go?! It doesn't seem that long ago that I was giving him a Curious George monkey for his 5th birthday while he was in footy pajamas...the days when he would still cry when he lost to Disney Bingo...the days when he hollered for Jake from the bathroom to announce that his poop was "creamy"...Sigh...

Anywhoo, memories aside...he's growing up now! To celebrate, we gave him the choice of going to Frightmares at Lagoon or having a birthday party at home with school and primary friends, thinking he'd totally go for rides, haunted houses and Churros. Right?! Wrong...he surprised Jake and I both by choosing to have a friends party instead. So late Monday night, I was scrambling to throw together a birthday party that would take place 5 days later. Luckily, I had a sweet Star Wars birthday party idea pinned on Pinterest, so a Stars Wars birthday party he got! I had successfully executed a Superhero birthday for him for his 6th birthday, so using a similar style, we planned a Jedi training where the goal of the party was to find Gage's missing birthday cake.

Here's the exclusive details on the party of the year....

Darth Vader and Yoda invitations.

Inside the cards read:

"Inviting all Jedis!

An evil emperor has stolen 

Gage's birthday cake!

Your Jedi skills are needed to track 

it down and save the Galactic Empire. 

Lunch and a Jedi training will be provided 

to sharpen your skills. Please joins us, 

and may the force be with you..." 

(Ehh...had I not had 15 minutes to throw the invites together I would have realized that "Jedis" is probably not correct since I think "Jedi" is already the plural form, and then I also would have maybe realized that the Galactic Empire is actually part of the dark side and that the Galactic Republic is the society that the Jedi fight for. Whatever. Don't be a nerd and call me out on it.)

Moving on...

I hung blue and silver foil stars from the ceiling for decor, and then the party of course needed light sabers since every worthy Jedi has one. Most Star Wars parties that I've looked up online have used actual light saber toys that are about $20 a piece, or homemade light sabers made out of pool noodles by cutting them in half and duck-taping the ends...I think they look retarded, and I'm not rich enough for the other option. Instead, my brilliant mind decided to buy foam swords from the craft store and then tweaked them into light sabers by cutting off the pirate handles, painting the remaining handle base black, duck-taping the handles to make them silver and then adding random blue masking tape squares and lines for buttons and what not. I think they turned out pretty fantastic...even if they aren't round! The kids didn't complain. 

Next up was the lunch menu I planned out. This might be my fave part of the whole party...ok, it was. Sure I could've just had boxes of pizza for the ravenous children, but how unoriginal is that? I snazzed it up a bit and labeled everything using the Star Wars font found online...

As you can see, menu items included:

Han-Burgers  (mini sliders)

Palpatine's Pizza  (bagel pizza bites)

Yoda Soda  (Sprite and green sherbet)

Obi-Wan Kabob-ies  (strawberries, pineapple, grapes)

Wookie Cookies  (frosted oatmeal cookies)

Chewbacca Chips  (barbeque chips)

Princess Lays  (regular chips)

UHH-DORABLE!!!

The party started off with lunch once all the hopeful Jedis arrived, followed by games, which Jake was in charge of because I was too stressed out doing the above mentioned things already. We didn't have time to plan an elaborate scavenger hunt like I would have liked, so instead Jake kind of winged it and planned games such as Fighter Jet making (paper airplanes), a Pop-Rocks eating contest (seeing who could keep the whole packet in their mouth the longest with no peeps), and Asteroid Dodgeball which was the fave of the party. We used balled chunks of tin foil for the asteroids and had the boys play dodgeball in our emptied-out basement, encouraging them to use their light sabers for blocking. They loved it!! Then, to tie in everything to finding the birthday cake, the winners of each game above were handed a clue to help discover the secret location of the cake...which was hidden in Jake's car trunk. At the end of all the games, the boys came together to read their clues and figure it out.

 

Eventually the cake was found and the boys acted as if they really did just save the planet, waving their light sabers and announcing to everyone that they passed that they had found the birthday cake. Victory!..and then of course, there's always that one kid who claims he knew where it was the whole time. Liar, liar pants on fire.

After cake and ice cream (Beaver Tracks ice cream!), Gage opened his buttload of presents, and that was it...successful birthday party completed! That meant time for a group pic of everyone with their light sabers before all the kids went home. It was a great, fun-filled day...and I needed a nap after.

Oh, and for the record, Gage LOOOOOVES my Shutterfly book we gave him saying it's his most favorite treasured present that he'll keep forever and ever, which really was a tough competition among all the assortments of Nerf guns he got. I'm beaming with pride! Hooray!! 

* HaPpY BiRthDaY Gage! *

R.I.P. Gage the Kid

Last Friday, Gage finally got to go to his cousin Aidan's birthday party he had anxiously been waiting for all week...a zombie themed birthday party! Oh yes. A party full of young, wonderful children dressed as dead corpses with rotting flesh. Bless their little souls. To prepare Gage for the big event, I of course had been looking into zombie makeup tutorials. I'm not sure which one I was more excited about: Gage going to a zombie party, or me getting to do his makeup. After a well-spent $4 on Halloween makeup at Walmart, this was the fabulous freakish fiend I created...behold, creeper Gage! And liquid latex? My new best friend. It created some nasty looking scabs. Bravo.

 Look how gaunt his face looks in this! Sick. Awesome.

At the party, as if all the children ghouls weren't frightful enough, there was the zombie buffet table to feast on that featured delicatessens such as birthday cupcakes topped with mini severed body parts, dry ice in the punch bowl that eventually resembled a bloody brain, chocolate pudding with Oreo pieces that looked like dirt itself accompanied by gummy worms to complete your compost dessert, and a giant green Jello bowl with floating apple and pineapple chunks, all of which these fabulous foods were displayed on a blood-stained table cloth. Yummy. To add to the creep factor, the lights were dimmed, picture frames in the house were tilted and had spider webs draped over them and eerie pipe-organ music played in the background sending chills up my spine. Seriously, some creepy tunage...not a norm kid's Halloween CD with Monster Mash and Purple People Eater. How...awesome...is...this...party?! Answer: so awesome that one of the little girls in attendance was terrified of everything (especially the life-size zombie cut out taped on the front door) and shut herself in a back room for the entire party to watch a movie. Poor thing. 

 

Here we have a pic of a few zombie party-goers...the rest were scattered around the house and would not follow my "gather around for a picture" directions. Grumble. But, if I may say so, Gage was by far the most legit. Thank you Walmart makeup! And Gage says, "Arghhhhuhhhh!"

P.S. Speaking of zombies...yippy skippy that The Walking Dead started on Sunday!! I've been longing for it.

Book of Awesomeness

I did it!!! I finally created my very first photo book! I joined Shutterfly some time ago but have never sat down to complete a book yet. Who has time for that?! Just the old-fashioned scrapbooking used to take me hoooours to complete a page or two due to my extreme pickiness (or profesh artistry, which I prefer). But, thanks to a coupon that came my way a few weeks ago, I was motivated to sit my booty down to test out my computer craftiness. Alas, a masterpiece was born. And who is the masterpiece for? Well, sure there's a billion pics of Jake and I that I would love to compile in a mushy love book entitled "Meant to Be Forever and Ever" with swans and hearts decorated on it, but that will have to be another day. THIS book is for Gage. He has a birthday coming up and we all know Christmas is on it's way, so I knew it would be a great gift for either occasion...I'm thinking perhaps birthday, otherwise heaven forbid he get Star Wars Legos for Christmas AND this book because we all know what would get tossed to the side. My hours upon hours of hard work (and don't forget those Coke shots at 2 am) would get passed up for a one-inch plastic Chewbacca. Galactic tragedy, I do forsee. (Read in Yoda voice.)

So now, let's take a looksy inside my spunky and funky photo book, entitled The Adventures of Gage Jones. Hooray!! And for the full effect, be sure to click on "full screen" for maximum awesomeness.

 

 

Click here to view this photo book larger

Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com.

Autummmn

Once again, fall is in the air! Yippee! I just love it. Normally I beg for summer to stay longer, but I feel satisfied about this years'. It came on time (unlike last year where spring blossoms were barely on the bare trees by the time my wedding rolled around in May!), so I felt summer had a good, long run at being hot and sunny and just fabulous. Now move on over, August! Let that crisp, cool September air blow in and bring out those beautiful fall colors and scents of spiced pumpkin and apple. Mmm...ahh. And oh, how I've missed my sweat pants! The nights are finally cool enough where I can curl up on my couch in sweats. The simple joys in life. Just need a cat in my lap.  

Today was the perfect day for a Sunday drive up American Fork canyon to see the autumn colors. Fall isn't quite in full bloom so trees of red and orange are still scattered among lots of green. Absolutely beautiful! It got me so excited for the change of season that I set out my fall decor once back at home and am even debating whipping out my Halloween stuff already too...I'll try to wait a few more days. Better believe it that Hocus Pocus will most likely be watched later this week...and then at least 5 more times before Halloween. Ooh, how I adore that movie! 

Welcome fall!

Day of Remembrance

I can't believe it's been 11 years since the terrorist attacks that happened on September 11, 2001. I can vividly remember the day and can recall quite a bit, even for only being a young 15-year-old sophomore in high school during the time. I have shared "my story" with a few friends and family members when the subject has been brought up, so in lieu of today, I would like share my experience publicly on here since it will always have a profound impact on my life that such a huge, tragic, historical event happened during my lifetime.

I had just finished my PE class--my first class of the day. I had gotten dressed and ready for the rest of my classes and was standing around in the hallway outside the locker room waiting for the bell to ring to dismiss class. Meanwhile, my friend Derek came to chat with me (I can still remember his backpack being on him and he was gripping both shoulder straps by his chest while talking). He had told me if I heard what happened and proceeded to tell me that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center tower in New York City. Now, let me be honest here...I can't say I even knew what the World Trade Center towers were, despite having seen them in Home Alone 2. All I knew was New York City had extremely tall skyscrapers, so Derek must have been talking about one of those. I also didn't think he meant a commercial airline. No, I pictured a single pilot in his own private plane flying into some tall building in New York. My response back to Derek (while walking to my next class by this time) was that the pilot must have been an idiot..."He couldn't see the tall building right in front of him?" I chalked it up to stupidity since those stories always made the news.

When I made it to my next class, Driver's Ed, the TVs in the classroom were turned on with the Breaking News reports. I immediately realized it was more serious than I pictured...still not thinking "terrorist" activity at all. That was foreign to me in my lifetime. I had gathered now that it was a commercial airline, and behind the newswoman reporting were huge clouds of smoke billowing out of the tower in the distance. My thought was something must have malfunctioned in the airplane...and a lot of people just died. A tragic accident. Suddenly, as the newswoman was reporting, I could see another airplane flying in the distance behind her and without warning, crashed into the adjacent twin tower. It was like an explosion. Burst of fire and then more clouds of black smoke. The newswoman spun around completely stunned and became unorganized because she, like everybody else, had no clue what had just happened. Did I really just see that? Another plane? (Now, in researching the time of second plane crash afterwards, I don't think what I saw was a live news feed...the crash had happened earlier. Point being though, I vividly remember watching the news broadcast and actually seeing the second plane fly into the building.) Absolutely shocking. It was immediate to me at that point that something was not right. The first plane could have been an accident but two was not.

Throughout the day, my classes continued with the news programs in the classrooms either being muted in the background or even turned off. I specifically remember in my math class that the TV was on as we entered class and then once our lecture began, the news was turned off. Knowing everything we do now about 9/11, it's hard to fathom how the news was just "background" and everybody continued their work through the day. But that is what happened because again, the idea of a terrorist attack had not really been explained yet. It seemed too extreme. Everyone knew something big was going on but had no idea what.

Once home from school, I was glued to the TV and heard about the additional crashes such as the one at the Pentagon and later watched President Bush's speech to America. It was complete chaos around the country and no one knew what to expect next. More attacks? When? Where? There was so much to report and no one could make sense of it. When the explanation of it being terrorist attacks was announced, that became the primary focus in the media in the days that followed and set everything in a scary, surreal perspective. Flights were grounded. Sports events were cancelled. I can even remember hearing theme parks such as Disneyworld and Seaworld closing and remembering how huge that was. The world stopped. 

At the time, I didn't really feel affected personally by 9/11. Being in Utah, I felt safe because little Taylorsville, Utah is not a major city such as New York, Los Angeles or Washington D.C.  The thought of an attack here was not even a possibility in my mind, though I can recall some of my friends being completely freaked out by that thought...one friend even stayed home from school for a few days. Being in Utah was a comforting thought in my mind and still is. I did not know anyone involved in 9/11, so it was hard to sense what people and families were going through that lost loved ones. I'll still never know that feeling, gratefully. What I did feel and what I could relate to was an overwhelming sense of pride in our country and wanting to know who was responsible after it had just been horrifically and unjustly attacked. Our home. It became personal to me in that sense, and in the days and weeks to follow where our Nation came together to rise up and pray for America is among some of my strongest memories I have. I have always had a strong pride in my country and to see our Nation's flag displayed everywhere--in store windows, cars, front lawns--was beyond moving. It was beautiful. I felt that we were suddenly fighting for the same cause and not so divided. We all wanted justice. Policemen, firemen and military men finally were getting the recognition and respect they deserved long before this event. Our country had been hurt with such magnitude, and we would never be the same.

Now after 11 years, it is still such a big day for me to look back on. I've enjoyed hearing other friends' experiences of where they were and what they remember since everyone has a different story to recall. It's been even more interesting to see how our country has developed since then and what huge changes have taken place as a result of 9/11. An obvious one that stands out--airport security. One change that I'm sad to see that has dwindled among people--being proud to be an American. 

I am and forever will be proud to be an American. To say I lived during such an historical event that captured the world is something rare and precious. I feel that it will always have a special place in my heart, and I hope that I am able to visit the memorial site in New York one day. September 11th will never be forgotten.  

9/11 Healing Field Memorial in Sandy, Utah. 2011.