Happy Birthday, Talea

On May 4th, Talea turned 1...


2...


3...


4...


and finally 5!!!


We had to work on Tilly's birthday, so I asked her how she wanted me to fix her hair on her birthday, and she said she wanted a bendy unicorn horn. Hyrum mentioned something about the 4-horned sheep we saw recently, so she changed her mind and decided she wanted her hair fixed like that. So, here she is as a 4-horned sheep.


It was pretty strange, and got in her eyes a lot, so I pulled all her hair back for the remainder of the day.

We had planned to go camping at Arizona Beach for Talea's birthday, but we were rained out, so we postponed it for a later date. We had originally bought an inflatable pool for Hyatt's birthday, but gave it to Talea for her birthday instead since May is warmer than April. Hyrum got her a little pink bat, ball and glove in hopes of getting her enrolled in T-ball, but we were too late for this season. Her favorite presents though, were free!!! Points for the parental team!


The first was an adorable trunk of costume dresses that Dru was no longer interested in, so Tasha gave it to us to give to Talea, and eventually my "little" girls. Talea was in 7th heaven! We took it to work so she can dress up when she wants and take some dresses when she plays with her friends.

The second was a practically new (less than a year old) swingset I found on craigslist.


The sellers wanted to trade the swingset for a trampoline, and though I didn't want to get rid of my trampoline since my kids use it constantly, my friend had a great trampoline that she didn't want anymore since it took up her yard, so I traded her trampoline for the swingset.


That's probably the best luck I've come across in a long, long time.

And last, but not least, Talea got a card in the mail from her Aunt Elisabeth. Elisabeth has a natural knack for knowing exactly what my kids will love. The card had Tinkerbell on it (Talea LOVES fairies) and it sang a song when opened. This card was loved so much by Talea that she went to bed with it that night. Elisabeth also sent her some barrettes for her bangs. A much needed and appreciated gift!


While at work, Talea found a caterpillar, and wanted to get a few pictures with it.




Then she wanted to be a unicorn.


And a bird.


And take her own pictures of rocks she found, and her Grandpa making silly faces.



After work, we got pizza and went bowling with friends.










Hyatt got to sword fight with a boy (with glow sticks)!


I didn't have time to make a cute cake for her, so I baked a German chocolate cake (which didn't come with enough frosting) and made a cherry cheesecake (both of the cakes were from boxes of course). I put trick candles on it, but Tilly was already familiar with the trick since we used them for Hyatt's birthday too.


And that was it! My oldest baby is now 5, and I can say I have 4 kids under 5 (rather than 4 under 4).

Happy birthday, my beautiful little Tilly Weed! You are completely precious to me and my life is so much brighter with you in it! Your love of bugs, princesses, dirt, flowers, imaginary things, discovery, exploration, cuddling and animals are so fun to witness, and nothing makes me happier than discovering all those things with you and your siblings and answering all your "whys" to the world. Though you've learned how to try my patience and have discovered the power of bossing people around since you're the oldest, you are an incredible big sister and such a help to me, and I couldn't have requested a better daughter. I love you more than you can imagine and there is nothing you could do to make me love you less. Happy #5!

Long overdue updates

So much has happened over the past few weeks, but I haven't been able to blog about them because my life suddenly became a whirlwind and I haven't had any time to sit at the computer. Where do I start? After our Easter Cluff reunion, we came home and went back to work.

We moved Paisli out of our room and she and I started sleeping through the night...well, until 6:30 or 7 am.

But...then she got sick a couple days later and that glorious blessing that all mothers celebrate (a full night's sleep) ended since her phlegm kept waking her (and me) up.

Then Daisha came to visit, and her 35th birthday was during her visit, so we went to the Game Park again (always a blast for us, especially since we saw a pygmy goat just minutes after it's birth),








and to 7 Devils Beach where the wind blew our hair into our ice cream cake and made it too miserable for a bonfire, so we went home to barbeque our dogs,



let the kids bond,



and let Edward experience his first pinata (ghetto style, with an extension cord on a broom handle to dangle it over the railing and a broken toy broom handle for the stick).



Talea was devastated when Tabitha had to leave so she had a hard cry while Hyatt did his kisses goodbye with Tabitha. Talea LOVES to play with girls of any age, but really has very little interest in playing with boys, other than Hyatt.



Also during my blogging hiatus , Kiersa Milly developed a minor addiction to her fuzzy/soft blanket.




I can't break Kiersa's bottle habit. I've never had a problem with getting my other kids off the bottle when they turned 1 because I just put all the bottles away and had only sippy cups. This time though, I have to keep the bottles around for Paisli, so Kiersa keeps stealing Paisli's bottle when I'm not looking (like while she's riding next to Paisli in the car), which makes it pretty impossible to break her of her bottle addiction. I've decided that with how crazy my life is right now and how stressed I get, the last thing I need to worry about is making sure Kiersa is off bottles. Have at it little Milly!

I watched (brace yourself) High School Musical for the first time. I LOVE musicals, but this was one hard movie to sit through. Actually, I didn't sit through the whole thing. I did housework since that sounded like more fun than the torture of that movie. I couldn't stand the overexaggerated facial expressions and annoying acting by Sharpay (who names their kid after a wrinkly dog breed?). I'd be fine never seeing another one again. It was a sad attempt at copying Grease, though the main boy was cute, but young enough that if I was naughty in high school, I could have a son his age. Yikes! I'm getting old.

We moved our travel trailer back to the shop, so we have our driveway back again! Hurray! We were supposed to go camping at Arizona Beach this weekend for Tilly's birthday, but the weather didn't cooperate. It's been postponed for a couple of weekends.

We tilled for a garden, and planted it.

While mowing, I found my mini-me. Hyatt LOVES to mow with me and is convinced that HE keeps the grass short with his bubble mower. Maybe I should kick back for a while and let him take over!


My Dad moved in with us. We warned him of our crazy life, but he wanted to come up here.

He made us his famous salsa and macaroni and cheese. If you've ever had these foods made by my dad, you're drooling right now.

He is going to learn to design and he's helping us get more organized and productive so our business will hopefully survive this economic/building plummet. His move means we now have Kiersa's crib and Paisli's bassinet back in our room, and we brought another twin bed up in the living room so Dad could sleep in the kid's twin bed. We're packed like sardines, but it's nothing we're not used to (remember, Hy and I lived in a semi truck for a couple years when we first got married). Now, is Dad used to this cramping? Maybe. His house was a lot bigger, but my mom is a collector of...well, everything. I hope he feels at home and that our long flight of stairs and being away from mom aren't too rough on him.

Tilly turned 5!!! I can't believe she's old enough for school! What's even better is that I no longer have 4 kids under the age of 4. I'll have to post about the big day later.

Hyrum Netflixed High School Musical 2 and 3 (despite my protests), and I've been dying! I did more housework to take my mind off it. My dad watched these and actually found them tolerable. Ugh. Hyrum seemed to enjoy every minute of them! How in the world do we coexist so well with such differing movie tastes!?

I started walking in the morning and am thoroughly enjoying the morning light. The donkeys down the road had an adorable baby, and the Canadian geese are back with their goslings. I love walks!

Paisli has started sleeping through the night again (for the last 3 nights), but her nose started getting runny again today, so I have a feeling the luxury sleep I've been getting will end tonight.