Le Cafe Anniversaire

Last night we transformed the house into Le Cafe Anniversaire to celebrate Savannah's birthday.

There were white cloths and red roses for the tables, twinkle lights and candles in mason jars flickering on the shelves and fireplace, and maps of Paris on the walls. 

There was brie and croissants and herbed goat cheese and sparkling french lemonade.

And soda in a bottle.

There was a chocolate cake topped with an Eiffel tower and served with french vanilla ice cream.

And in the background there was La Mer by Charles Trenet (which only gets better with time) and Je Ne Sais Qui Fumer performed by Paris Combo, a (shocking) personal favorite of the birthday girl.

There were charming guests who spoke only French for the first fifteen seconds of the party with plenty of "Bonjours" and "Ooo la la's" to go around.

There was dancing and talking and wild, boisterous games of chance.

And in the center of it all, there was a nine-year-old girl who was lit up like Paris at night.  

A Random Post That Might be Entertaining

(Well, that may be going too far.  I suppose I can only promise that it will be random.)

When I woke up on Wednesday morning this week, I was sure it was Saturday.

The weekend has felt a long time in coming.

Last night as we were doing up the dishes, I confessed to David that it had been a lonely, unproductive day.  (My deep clean is over and I am wondering what to do next.)

And this morning Ethan told me, with tears, that he didn't know that "all-day school" was going to be so long.

We're still adjusting, I guess.  I remember when Savannah started the first grade it took two months until she could come home from school and not dissolve into tears before dinner.  The Halloween decorations were already up.  I would like to promise that this will be my last post on our adjustment, but Halloween is still a ways away.

In other news, I have become enamored with a new word and ended my "Word of the Week" hiatus.  (I know.  You're welcome.)  Thanks mostly to Ms. Estes book, next week will feature a post about the wonder of "stolid" and maybe even the adverb form of "stolidly" if I can muster the emotional fortitude to be "unemotional and impassive" myself.  Let's be honest, this seems very unlikely, but David thinks this may help with the aforementioned "adjustment" we are going through.

I have become less enamored with our telephone.  With no one here but me to answer it, it seems to ring constantly.  And for someone like me, who absolutely hates talking on the telephone, this is growing wearisome.  I have even considered turning off all the ringers for one or two (or six) hours so that I don't have to listen to it ring.  But I always worry that it's the school calling.  And someone forgot their lunch or their viola or just threw up on the way to library. 

My mom used to have a code ring.  If it was my dad calling he would call, let it ring two times, and hang up.  Then he'd call back and she'd pick up.  I am wondering if this can be instituted at the school without raising too many eyebrows. 

I know what you're thinking, "Caller I.D., April.  It is 2009 after all."  But I still have to listen to it ring, and then get up and check the caller I.D. and good heavens, I need to conserve my energy for later in the day.  I am beginning to see why Mr. Alexander Graham Bell never had one in his house.

By the by, David sees my abhorrence of the phone as a deeply disturbing character flaw that he has had the good grace to overlook all these years.  Give that man a medal.

And lastly, there were some very sweet comments posted on the post-before-last, as well as a couple of gracious emails, about the fact that I turned off my comments on the last post about the Great Divorce.  I thought it was dauntingly courageous of me to do the post at all, and I did not think I had any courage left over to read all your kind thoughts of confidence and well wishes.  Turns out I heard them all anyway.  I have enough imagination for that at least.    

Well, I am off.   This weekend we will remember and celebrate the arrival of Savannah on earth.  Last night over chicken tacos we talked about a Saturday dinner party with a completely french menu, a three-layer chocolate cake, and decorations that include poodles and clay models of the Eiffel Tower.  Ooo la la. 

An Old Refrain

If you're busy, you might want to skip this one.  You've read it before after all.

Right now, I'm trying to talk myself into doing my chores from yesterday.  (Let's be honest, my iron is much too low to make this even a remote possibility.)

Instead, I keep pushing the refresh button on my blog, hoping that I've written something clever to read since the last time I looked at it.

(Do you find it endearingly charming or sadly pathetic that I find my own blog wildly entertaining? 

Never mind.)

Last night, as David and I lay in the dark reviewing our day he asked, "Do you think all parents feel like this?"

I thought about it but didn't answer.  I was busy counting.

Counting the years we've had with our boy, and the years we have left. 

I was alarmed to see that the hourglass has flipped devastatingly in favor of the years we've already had.  We're running out of time.

I asked David, slightly panicky, "Do you realize we only have 7 more family vacations together before he leaves.  Including this one?"

And then we both whispered together, "We've got to make the most of it."

And neither of us said "Jinx" because it was such a sober moment.

After the candles and the presents and the story about the first time we met, I tucked my boy in and told him to stop growing up.  He grinned at me, like we were sharing a joke.  

Little does he know.

I couldn't have been more serious. 

And if it weren't for the chocolate frosting smeared across his cheek, reminding me that he is, in many ways, still my little boy, my heart might have broken in two right then and there.

It was a very close call.

Padding My Resume

I'm not sure of the reason for my blogger's block.  Lots going on, and no way to link it all together in one clever post.  I put a lot of stock in cleverness.

That being said, there isn't going to be any in this post.  So you can go ahead and lower your expectations.  Soothe yourself by just being happy there is a new post.

After a brief lull after the holidays, real life has returned hot and heavy, as evidenced by the fact that my sewing room has once again been turned into ground zero for Caleb's new science project (by the way, throw out your hand sanitizers people, that's just a pandemic waiting to happen) and the stacks of current projects I have piled everywhere else.  

Here is my life by the numbers:

This weekend we celebrated the 95th birthday of this lovely lady (my grandmother)

and travelled 427 miles from home to watch her blow out her candles.

On the drive, David helped me work on the address list for our

1st annual "Garden of Hope Spring Tea Luncheon,"

to raise money for the 1,800 cancer patients at David's hospital who will be diagnosed this year,

and which will be held on May 9, 2009. 

Mark your calendars, though you may be lucky enough to get one

of the 500 save-the-date cards we are mailing out.

(I told David this week that he was a very lucky man to have such a wife.  I mean look at my community outreach and charity work.  I need to update my resume.  He replied by using "affinity" and "opine" in a sentence and I got all giddy and forgot about the fact that he really owes me one.)

I have spent most of the last week working on the aforementioned invitations, as they should have been at the printer's 2 days ago,

and when I wasn't, I was working on a 94 inch square quilt that will be auctioned at our event,

and helping Caleb swab 10 petri dishes with E.coli (you read that right)

and washing my hands with soap and water 100 times afterwards.

Quilt retreat is only 56 days away,

so I have also been madly working on my round robin projects (I'm only behind one rotation now)

and making a couple of trips to the quilt store and the post office.

And when I was on one of these trips to the quilt store

I found the perfect fabric for the boys' room and decided to make a few pillows for their beds,

which made me think of making a 50 inch matching cornice box for their window.

(I know that sounds ridiculous, but I couldn't help myself, and I told David that very thing, besides which you'd be amazed at what I can do with 18 inches of styrofoam and some liquid nails.)

And just because I know you are wondering, Olivia and I started Anne of Green Gables

and we are on chapter nine.

Christmas Stories from My Digital Elph

In an attempt to dump my brain, I am dumping my camera instead. Bear with me. It's about all I can manage in the middle of the holiday season. 

Here are our gifts to deliver around the neighborhood. Gorgeous, no? All ready to deliver. Then just as we were eating that chicken pot pie in the bottom of the frame, two separate families came around and delivered the exact same gift. Really. So we had to start over. For the record I wanted to make Lelly's "House Sparkle" in the first place.  David scrunched up his nose at the idea. When our friends delivered the second bottle I told David that this never would have happened with "House Sparkle." He said there was a reason for that. I ignored that. We ended up making a Christmas CD which was a far superior idea anyway and only took us another three or four days (heaven help me) to make the mix, copy the CD's, figure out how to print CD covers and then finally deliver them.    

Olivia had her Christmas viola recital last weekend. She was beaming at her chance to wow the world with "the Can Can" and "Ode to Joy."  We were all sufficiently wowed.

David and I finished up most of our Christmas shopping last weekend.  I snapped this picture of David in a store that we have never shopped in and are unlikely to ever visit again.  I've said it before, there are a million little universes out there.  How we ended up in this one is a mystery of the season. 

Amy and Kelly and I went to dinner on Wednesday night.  And then Kel and I did some (mostly window) shopping.  Here she is expressing her outrage at the sight of this anatomically correct cologne bottle.  Whatever happened to public decency standards?

My nephew, Luke, had his first birthday party on Saturday, and we played at the park with him and all his other fans.  My kids were good enough to open all his presents for him, and, bless his heart, he didn't seem to mind a bit.  (I think Ethan has secret designs on his Christmas presents as well.)  We had a great time and I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.

This one is by far my favorite.  I snapped it as the girls and I were leaving the Nutcracker on Friday night.  After a night of gorgeous dance and costumes and music, they are whispering about the magnificence of the Sugar Plum Fairy and picking the parts they want to play next year.  They oohed and ahhed through the whole thing, gasping at just the right moments.  They even raved about our "great seats" up in the balcony.  And here they are reviewing all the best moments:  "Olivia, weren't those gingersnaps soooo cute?"  "Oh, Savannah I think next year you could definitely do the Russian dance."  We hummed and pirouetted all the way to the car.

The stories that my Canon Elph could not tell this week (either because they were too sacred or too sad) include a multitude of car problems (for both cars), the worst of which is that David's car needs a whole new engine, and will have to be replaced.  So I am shuttling him to and from work and making due until we can do that.  And meanwhile, I am secretly enjoying this extra time with David every day.  

After grudgingly (yes, even petulantly) making my way through the first couple weeks of the holiday season, I have finally caught the spirit of it.  On Saturday night we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and I started bawling at the drugstore scene with Mr. Gower and never really stopped.  And then last night we had dinner with some friends and went to a Christmas concert at our church.  (Caleb and Olivia both sang in it too, Olivia with significant feeling all over her face.)  The music was gorgeous, and suddenly I caught the Christmas spirit, and I belted out "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" at the end as loud as I could.  Today is cold (a first this year) and overcast (rare), and it finally feels like Christmas.  David said we could light a fire tonight after Caleb's violin concert.  I think if we open the doors we really can.  There will be hot chocolate.  And marshmellows.  And more Hark-the-Herald-Angels-belting with "significant feeling."  And Dicken's "Stave One" in which we shall meet Marley's ghost.  It's finally Christmas at our house. 

A Ton of Bricks

(First a word to Claude:  This post contains secret birthday stuff, so you'll have to hide it from Mom 'til Wednesday.)

My gorgeous mother-in-law's birthday is on Wednesday, and so I had all the kids write her a birthday wish this morning before they left for school.

(Let's just ignore the fact that I'm late, late, late in getting this done and am going to have to overnight these little birthday wishes, plus the girls are still wanting to make a "doll fashion spread" and send it along with their cards.  I'm not sure what that entails, but they were busy with the camera and accessories all yesterday afternoon.  I know, for instance, that there's a page about "What to wear when you have nothing to wear" that involves a shower cap and some terry cloth.)

But I digress.

So I gathered all the cards up and we hurried our way through pancakes and hair do's and sorting the Monday laundry and finding the scarves (!!) (It's supposed to be 80-something today...scarf weather for sure.  Heaven help us.) and shuttling them off to their bus stops with kisses and well wishes.

And then I sneaked a peek at their birthday wishes.  I couldn't help it.

There were lots of "so, so, so muches" from the girls and a delicious picture from Ethan involving a birthday hat.

And from Caleb there was this:

"The thing that I like about you so much is your laughter.  We could use some in the house right now.  We're all worried about school..."

And that hit me like a ton of bricks.  Which feels a lot like heartache by the way.

Oh my boy.

Sometimes I just forget about childhood.  

And so I've changed my plans for the week.  This week I have only one thing to do.  Laugh.  A lot. 

And make sure my kids do their fair share of it as well.

I guess we could use some in the house right now.

A Decade of *Love* and *Happyness*

Olivia's had her birthday this weekend.  10 years old.  On her "wish list" she listed a number of things and then, at the bottom in big letters she listed:

Love!

Happyness!!

This is just so Olivia.  From the sentiments to the misspelling to the exclamation points.  This is my girl.

This week we saw an overdue expectant mother from our church congregation walking through our neighborhood, walking through her contractions and trying to get something going.  It reminded me so much of Olivia's entrance into the world.  We were living in San Diego at the time, near a golf course.  And I was so uncomfortably miserable near the end, David would take me out and make me walk that golf course.  We walked for miles and miles.  I told Olivia this week that it didn't work, it only made me tired.  The day she was born I awoke to contractions about 4 and tried to lay quietly so I didn't wake David.  At about 5:30 or 6, I woke David and told him my water broke.  He said, "Are you sure?"  I don't know why he always asks me that.  I'm always sure.  Olivia arrived a couple of hours later.

And she brought love and happyness with her.

Here is a top ten list of some of my favorite things about this darling girl:

1.  She has a great sense of humor.  Really great.  Around our dinner table, she is nothing short of hilarious.  David and I just sit and grin at each other over our water glasses.  The other day she did this impression of a chicken talking to a chicken salad that had us busting.

2.  Olivia is (without question) the most empathetic person I know.  The day I got released from my young women's calling she sobbed all through sacrament meeting for me.

3.  She is desperately in love with Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I find this absolutely charming.  And I can't wait to introduce her to Anne.

4.  Olivia loves to watch David and I kiss.  She starts hanging around when she knows David is about to arrive home, just so she can catch us.  She takes pretend pictures while we kiss and then closes her eyes and says, "Ahhhh."  This makes David and I both quite nervous about her dating years.

5.  She makes pretend quote marks in the air for everything and anything.  I find this hilarious and terribly endearing. 

6.  Of all my children, Olivia gets in trouble the most at school, usually for talking.  Last year she sat next to a boy named Willy and she would regularly "have her card pulled" for talking to him.  When I would ask her about it, she would say something like, "Oh Mom, I had to tell him how nice his handwriting looked.  He was doing such a good job."  This always took the wind out of whatever I was going to say.  I once suggested that she wait until recess to encourage Willy, but she told me that he needed it right then.  (see #2)

7.  Olivia was born to be a mother.  She mothers everything.  She mothers all her friends and all her "enemies."  I'm often sorry that I'm the mom when she is so clearly the natural at it. 

8.  Olivia loves anything lemon.  Her birthday request is always lemon pie, and I took lemon muffins to school on Friday for her birthday celebration. 

9.  Olivia has only recently started liking chocolate.  For years she would pull the chocolate chips out of her cookies until I started making a plain batch just for her.  At kids quilt retreat this year she said seriously, "Chocolate changes people."  (see #1)

10.  Olivia loves seafood.  Tonight we had Garlic Shrimp Linguine and candles and toasted the birthday girl.  We went around the table and told all the reasons we love her and reminisced her birth.  Olivia did all the funny lines.  She's heard it before.  And then she had two pieces of lemon pie. 

Happy birthday, Livy.

I hope it was full of love and happyness.

It's Hard (for me for you) To Be Five

Ethan had his fifth birthday this week.  David's parents sent him Jamie Lee Curtis' book It's Hard to Be Five.  I agree, and have added my own bit to the title.  The fact that my baby is five is quite disconcerting and I've even felt a bit of grief at this milestone. 

Ethan's life is a miracle.  My doctor still gets chills when he thinks about what could have been.  Beyond that, every day of regular, ordinary, real life with him is a miracle.  He makes all of us more fun.  As Caleb always says, Ethan is a light.  Ethan always asks me why he was born last.  I tell him Heavenly Father knew we would need some comic relief here in the wilderness and so He sent you just in time.  He always says, "No, not that.  Really why?"  And I say I don't know, but I'm sure glad you came.

In his honor, here are five things he said this week that made me smile, with a few pictures from the day:

1.  Ethan roars when he goes to the bathroom.  It is hilarious.  (And disconcerting for Caleb when he has to accompany him into a public restroom.)  A few days ago after the roaring, we overheard, "I'm getting the hang of this."

2.  After I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner he said, "Spaghetti with no salad."  That is exactly what we had.

3.  (Very loudly at the grocery store check-out)  "Wow Mom, we got a TON of YOGURT.  A TON!!  Is it a YOGURT HOLIDAY?!!"  The clerk grinned through our entire check-out. 

4.  I took the kids to the dentist on Tuesday morning.  The hygienist who was cleaning Ethan's teeth asked, "Does your mom help you floss your teeth?"  He answered, "No, my mom doesn't believe in floss."  (That was supposed to be a secret.)

5.  As I tucked him in last night I asked him if he'd had a good day.  He made a happy sighing sound and then said, "Yes.  All my days are good days."

Belated Birthday Wishes

I know that most have you have been following Kelly's moving saga like me, with admiration and a bit of cringing for all the unexpected "kumquats" she's been gracefully marmalading.

But there is something fabulous that has come because of all of it...she is back with us.  And we celebrated her birthday together last Friday, something I never could have predicted in January, or even May, and something that feels so close to "living on the same street" that I feel giddy. 

Here's the play by play:

We went to dinner at Bloom in Scottsdale, a brilliant choice by Amy.  The decor was divine,

the food was delish (Amy had the salmon, Kel the chicken and fingerling potatoes, and I had the scallops and "forbidden" rice),

and we all commented that we had never had a bottle of anything chilling by our table, nevermind that it was just water.

After a long dinner, lots of delicious conversation, and a (dark) picture (Kelly taught me how to turn off my flash...just a moment too soon perhaps),

we headed towards Scottsdale Fashion Square for either a movie or window shopping.  We briefly contemplated seeing "my dirty little French film" (as Amy called it), but Kelly reminded us that she doesn't like suspense (perhaps why waiting for the moving truck has been so trying).  Note that neither of them objected to the nudity.  There are so many reasons we are friends.

We window shopped our way through the shoe department at Dillard's,

[Psst....If my husband is reading this, I'm in love, love, love with these shoes.]

stopped briefly by the Clinique counter so Amy could buy mascara, and then headed out into the mall.  We considered stopping at the MAC store so Kelly could have another make-over, but apparently she didn't want to be orange on her birthday and wasn't taking any chances.  Wise in her old age, no?

We all felt ancient at 34 when we saw what "the kids" are wearing (or not wearing) these days.

We went to Claire's and I bought some sparkly things for Savannah's hair (Amy convinced me by saying, "You can always use sparkly things."  Indeed.)  While there, we found a crown for Kelly

and a curly, golden-brown, hair piece.  It might have been the forbidden rice talking, but we quite liked the color and talked her into buying it.  She is now armed with a cartoon picture and a plastic hair piece to take to her next hair appointment.  Why don't I have a picture of this??

We had to walk back through Dillard's on our way to the car and that is when I found the cutest shoes ever (we all tried them on) in "graphite" (could there be a more lovely color?)

and my window shopping suddenly turned into actual shopping.  We almost talked Kelly into buying some leopard shoes to go with her new hair.  Again, why don't I have any pictures of this??

I thought later that night, that we had probably celebrated Kelly's 17th birthday similar to this one (minus the $80 shoes and the discussions of our kids' music lessons) and here we are 17 years later, reunited.  Lucky us. 

And we missed you Tiff.

Happy Birthday, Kel.  I can hardly stand how happy I was celebrating it with you.  I am hoping you slept the first night of your 35th year in your own bed.  How very glad I am that you are right down the street again. 

Word of the Week: Deprecate

deprecate  /vt./  to express earnest disapproval of; to urge reasons against. to depreciate or belittle. denigrate.  underrate.  pooh pooh. 

deprecate  /vt./  1.  I've always loved this word, especially the "self deprecating" combination, the way it defers and shrugs before it even really gets going, but I'm happy to see its week end.  With "deprecate" on my mind, my inside voices have been too negative and whiny to stand for much longer.   

deprecate  /vt./  2.  I spent much of the week deprecating Squarespace's new V5 version and the difficulties it created in my life.  But by Friday, I had worked out most of the bugs, created a new banner, and figured out the best way to upload pictures.  Whew.  Now if I could only figure out the other issues my computer is having...is it the memory, the modem, or the 10 million megabytes being taken up by Caleb's computer games?  I know just enough about blogging and computers to be dangerous. 

deprecate  /vt./  3.  One of things that David finds most aggravating about being married to me, is the way I deprecate big birthday celebrations.  (I ascribe this to nature and nurture, by the way.)  I find regular life taxing enough, and so I always quail a little bit at the monumental effort required for birthdays.  Especially the parties.  Despite all this, I encouraged Savannah to invite her friends over for a swim party (at my parents' house) on Friday afternoon.  I picked up a pizza and grapes and ice cream bars at Costco and we had an impromptu party with three of her best friends...no invitations, no presents, very little expense, just fun.  I'm expecting my Olympic medal any day now.

deprecate  /vt./  4.  Yesterday I taught my first gospel doctrine class.  And I'm not being the least bit self-deprecating to say that it could have gone better.  For the most part, people just stared at me, like, "Okay lady, go ahead and teach me the gospel.  I'm just going to sit here and watch you make a fool of yourself."  And we had really good material yesterday too...tons to talk about, but apparently I don't inspire that kind of really good classroom discussion.  The highlight of the lesson was when I used colored chalk to diagram the wars and epistles that went back and forth between the four main characters (Moroni, Helaman, Ammoron and Pahoran [my personal favorite]), but that was over in the first ten minutes.  David ran to Walmart for me at 9 o'clock on Saturday night for colored chalk.  Bless his heart.  He wanted to help, but there was just no help for it.

deprecate  /vt./  5.  My sister, Rachel, and I taught another body image class on Tuesday night and had another round of serious technical difficulties.  You'd think by now we'd have it down, but no.  This time we showed up without a cord to connect the proxima to the computer (an fairly important part it turns out) and so I had to call David to come to our rescue.  Even after he brought the cord we still couldn't get it to work and so he came in and tried to help us while I started the presentation.  I told Rachel later that it's either the devil or the Lord trying to stop this presentation and I'm not sure which one it is.  I was immensely grateful for David's expertise and IT support, and felt I ought to take back all the deprecating remarks I've made over the years about not having a "handy husband."

deprecate  /vt./  6.  One of the highlights of my week, again, was watching the Olympics.  I intended to go to bed early last night (I mean really intended), but I thought the closing ceremony was just so incredible that I stayed up and watched.  And then I couldn't leave without hearing Mr. Costas sign off one last time.  We have quite a relationship now and I just couldn't help myself.  (Did you hear the comment about laying the egg in the bird's nest?  Classic.  Be still my beating heart.)  And no matter your feelings about the Olympics in general, you just can't deprecate the efforts of Beijing and the Chinese people in their hosting of these most spectacular games.  I am quite at a loss as to what to do now.