Party #3

This party was on Talea's official birthday, Sunday, May 4th. We went to stake conference, then afterward we went to our friends' house (they're in our ward). Their daughter, Maelin, is 6 months older than Talea, so they're not in the same primary class right now, but they still have fun together! We had cupcakes and a pinata bash. Talea kept asking if she could "yuck my pi-ata" because she had misheard me when I said she'd get to "wack her pinata." She played with all the girly girl things Maelin has, and then Maelin came to our house for Talea's first slumber party!

So cute playing together in the Cinco de Mayo tutus I made.

Poor Hyatt is around too many girls. He found the high heels fascinating. At least he matches!

Here's the gang, minus Kiersa and me. Their baby is a month older than Kiersa. Yuck the piata time!

Hyrum was in control of the rope, tormenting the little ones.

Of course the dad's are into getting the candy too! Funny story about Richard Tovey (in red)...He's a DA lawyer here, and before he moved to Coquille, I was on jury duty in one of the cases he was prosecuting. He didn't win, but it was funny that not long after that, they moved into our ward!

Hyrum convinced Tilly to eat a super sour warhead candy. Her face was priceless!

The birthday cake...

...was interesting. My Aunt Judy used to make her girls Barbie cakes for their birthdays, and I always wished I could have one, but my mom didn't do cake. She did taffy, and my grandma would do the cakes, and though delicious, they were ordinary. I decided to go all out for Tilly since it was a BIG year and try to make a Barbie cake. I contemplated buying the special cake pan that makes the skirt for the Barbie, but Hyrum thought I could do it with stacking my own cake pans, so I ended up with a jimmie-rigged version. I used 2 regular cake pans and a bundt cake pan. I cut the rounded tops off of all and stacked them, but they still weren't tall enough for the Barbie. Drat! So I started stacking pieces of the cut-off tops around the waist to make the dress taller. Oh boy. (Now do you get an idea of why Hyrum dislikes my cooking? I'm all about substitutions and creative solutions.)

Once I got it tall enough, I had to slather icing on it to cover all the imperfections. So now the icing had crumbs all over in it. But hey, sprinkles can cover crumbs, right? I sprinkled the cake, then envisioned strawberries in the shape of hearts all over the cake. I looked at the clock and it was past 8 pm. (I was decorating this cake after we got back from Wildlife Safari while Hyrum barbequed for the party...I had no time to spare because, like always, this was a last minute thing). I had no time to be creative and a perfectionist like I always am, so throwing caution to the wind, I hacked apart a few strawberries, stuck them up in what I noticed later was crooked lines, and tossed on a little piping to make it look less boring. It turned out okay for my first time, but a disaster compared to what I was envisioning in my head. Just don't look too closely at it. A brief glance at it looks the best.
Lest you didn't believe me about throwing out the perfectionism, I didn't even decorate the back of the cake. My sister said I should have piped a rear-end on the back since I left her bare-bottomed.

Talea managed to blow out the candles before Barbie's hands became melted plastic.

And here's the final reveal of how disastrous this effort really was. "It was the thought that counts" is what I keep repeating to myself.

Party #2

After Jeremy and his family left Party #1, Kyle and his family met up with us at the Safari. Kyle works for Hyrum too, and he's the one I talked about in my previous post that we met in our lamaze class while his wife and I were pregnant with our first babies. They're Seventh-Day Adventists, so they had church in the morning (Saturday) and couldn't meet up with us until the afternoon, thus the round two of the party. Their daughter, Milana, is just a few weeks younger than Tilly. We just played the rest of the day at Wildlife Safari with them and drove through the park again. Talea loved having a friend sit with her, but ended up falling asleep before we were done. Hyatt fell asleep too.

Talea thought it was pretty fun to drive the first time through, but she about drove us off the road every couple of seconds! It's just too cute to see moments like these: Tilly and Lana off to play together.

Zonked!

Amy, Kyle and the kids fed a peacock in the parking lot.

After we were done at Wildlife Safari, we went back home and played at our house...er, apartment. Talea and Milana donned their Cinco de Mayo tutus I made and had a blast together. Kyle, aside from working for Hyrum, is a volunteer fireman in Coquille, and works on the ambulance as an EMT for Coquille and Myrtle Point some evenings. He was on ambulance duty during the party, but we live 1/2 block away from the Myrtle Point fire station (where the ambulance place is), so we all hung out until 11pm. Tilly wanted Lana to spend the night, but Lana's mom wasn't quite ready for her little girl to be old enough for that yet. Tilly's never had a sleep over, but is anxious for one!

The pinata had to be a unicorn, of course!

Believe it or not, I again attempted a creative cake. Tilly requested a Barbie cake. That fiasco is for another post.

In true Cluff tradition, we did a hot dog roast. Well, actually, it was too windy for our massive burn pile, so we barbequed them. So much for Cinco de Mayo food!

Amy gave me a break holding Kiersa for a bit.

Party #1

My cousin, Angi, informed me of a brilliant idea her family used, and I'm implementing it in my family now. From now on, every 4 years will be a big birthday party for my kids, and all the other years will be low-key. I think it's a great way to keep the budget in control and stress levels down, and it will keep the kids from getting too greedy about birthday stuff. So the big birthdays are perfect. 4 is when you start getting excited for your birthday to come. 8 is when you get baptized. 12 is when you go into young women's or get the priesthood. 16 you can drive and date. Perfect!! Plus, I don't have to stress about not being creative enough. My little family is too last-minute and impulsive to plan ahead for holidays and birthdays.

This year Talea turns 4, so it's the BIG year. Shira wanted to have a joint birthday party with Talea and Sophia (Sophia's birthday, 05/05/05, is the day after Talea's, 05/04/04). Sophia is Talea's cousin and best friend, so it sounded good, but when it came down to it, it was going to be too much driving and headache for too little of party, and Talea was dying to go to Wildlife Safari, which is a drive-thru zoo. Besides, kids are free until 4 years old at the Safari, so we had to go on Saturday before she cost us $12! After all, I have cheap Cluff blood coursing through my veins.

This is Talea and Sophia. They get soooo excited when they get to see each other.

So Talea ended up having 3 parties over 2 days. The first party was with Jeremy (Hyrum's head installer at work) and his family at Wildlife Safari. We headed out there in the morning and played with them there until lunch time when they had to head back home for other obligations. We pet the animals and got up close and personal with many.

Here's Jeremy (our head installer) and more of the gang. Recognize the elk hat? That's right baby. He and Hyrum were sporting theirs that day.

This was a huge accomplishment for Hyatt, to pet a 4-month-old llama. He is terrified of most animals.

Yeah, this lioness was only about 5 feet away.

This crazy emu kept belching at us!

I'd hate to have to rope one of these cattle! These are cows from Africa.

While we waited for Party #2 to start, we played on the Safari playground and rode the elephants. Talea was thrilled, Kiersa was asleep in the Bjorn, and Hyatt was scared, but toughed it out anyway.


All Kiersa wanted to do was eat and sleep, eat and sleep. What animals? Who cares.

After all that action, it was time for a break! Lucky kids can just go anywhere!
Here's a few more shots of our fun that day.

Talea turns 4?!

Where does time go? It just seems like the other day that I was giving birth to my first baby, and here she is 4 already, and I have two more kids I've given birth to since her! It's nice now though that I can officially say that my kids are 4, 2, and newborn, rather than 3, 1, and newborn. People would give me strange looks when I said that. Yes, they are all 23 or 22 months apart, but basically spaced every 2 years, by sheer luck!

You see, I couldn't get pregnant for the first 2 years of my marriage. We weren't really trying to, or trying not to, get preganant. We just figured that whatever happened would be fine. After 2 years of never saying "Oh my gosh, I'm pregnant!" we decided to consult a fertility doctor. I got a recommendation from a friend, went for the doctor visit and came away with fertility pills (just clomid, nothing that produces 6 kids or anything). I was actually scared to death that I was holding the power to get pregnant in my hand. I put it aside for 6 months fearing I wasn't actually ready (though I was months away from turning 27). I heard that sometimes it took people several months to get pregnant even with clomid, so one day Hyrum and I finally decided it was time to get the ball rolling, and low and behold, ready or not, it worked on the first try and I was pregnant!

38 weeks later (I got toxemia and was induced 2 weeks early) we had a tiny, beautiful little girl, weighing only 5 lbs, 8 oz. She was so precious and we were madly in love with her. We thought we had it made. Infertility would be our natural birth control! Just take a pill every couple of years to GET pregnant rather than take a daily pill NOT to get pregnant. Well, we took care of 4 nieces and nephews when Talea was only a year old, so I had 5 kids to take care of for 6 months, and that put me over the edge. I decided 5 kids was far too many for me. In fact, 1 was just enough. I decided I was done having kids, then ironically, I felt some pregnancy symptoms, but thought I was imagining them. I took a test just for fun, and found out I was pregnant...again!!! We didn't think we could get pregnant unassisted, so we were stunned! And just thankful that these kids would be 23 months apart rather than 10 months apart! After Hyatt arrived, Kiersa was our next surprise. I guess I can't rely on infertility!!! Hyatt and Kiersa are 22 months apart.

Here's a 1 day old Talea, the same size as my 30 oz hospital mug!

From the moment Talea arrived in the world to this very day today, Hyrum and I prefer to be with our kids rather than without them. It's rare that we go anywhere without our kids because it just feels too wierd to be somewhere without them, and it's so fun to have them around. Talea is now at the age, and is of the personality, that she is totally into friends and playing with them, and, sadly, has recently decided that if given the choice to stay and play with her cousin, Sophia, or go shopping with mom and dad at Costco, she'll take staying and playing. It about broke our hearts, especially Hyrum's, but we knew that day had to come. We just hoped it wouldn't be only after 3 1/2 years. After each baby, I hit a point where I feel stressed and feel that I don't want any more babies, and that's when another comes on it's way. But then after each has arrived, I've never been happier to have that tiny baby in my arms joining our growing family. I love my kids!!!!

The business T-shirts

Well, I showed you the hats, button-up shirts, and sign for Hyrum's business, so here's the T-shirts now. What do you think? I love them! Well, I hate the name of our business, but that couldn't be helped. I love the design though. It's a billion times better than what we had before. It looks like a billboard, doesn't it? Well, that's the point. Advertising! We can't change the name of the business until we pay it off in 10 years, unless we do a DBA name (doing business as). The problem is, we can't think of a memorable name to use instead, and apparently none of you can either since none of you stinkers have left name suggestions in my comments!!! Get crackin' slackers! I'll give the winner a prize! Remember, it's a cabinet designing business for kitchens and baths, so something along those lines.

Health in the household again!!!

Hyatt no longer has Giardia!

Kiersa no longer has a clogged tear duct!

Talea no longer has Fifth disease!

I can now walk normally!!

Everyone is over their illnesses!

Although...

I'm lactating and last night I had...uhh...a clogged duct and had to try to self-remedy since it was after hours for a doctor. I started getting a fever (of course a sign on infection), so I took a hot bath to see if that would help, and it did, but I suffered with the chills most of the night. Thankfully though this morning I fixed it and all is well again. Well, except for my ankle.

My ankle still gives me fits, although it hasn't for the last 2 days. Since the day it decided to freak out almost 2 weeks ago where it locks into a strange position and doesn't allow me to bend my ankle 90 degrees (make sure you look at the pictures of it on "Not me too!!"), every day it has been locking up, and when that happens it's super painful to walk. In fact, I made it to church fine on Sunday, but on our way home it locked up and Hyrum had to carry me into the house since it's such a long walk from the car to our place. It hasn't locked up since Tuesday, and I'm so grateful!! You don't know how much you appreciate your foot until it's almost useless.

Here's some fun pictures I took of my healthy girls. I thought it was funny that they looked so similar in the pictures, coincidentally with the same poses. Remember you can click on them to see them larger.

Look at their silly lips!

Muuuah!! Tilly loves Milly more than you can imagine!