May 2015

A review of the month of May.

Oh Brian Regan - how we love thee!

1. This man.  I mean, seriously!  Funniest human on earth!  For Christmas, Alan and Marie gifted each of the adults tickets to his show in May and we were all excited about it for the full 6 months until the show!  I love that going to his show is now an Adams Family tradition as we've been the past several years together as a group.  This year was almost all new material which made it so much fun!  He did this bit about hunting that had us in tears it was so funny.

The whole crew minus Kellie and Wes.

Proof that we occasionally take pictures together still.

2. We spent the night at the Ridings the night before the Brian Regan show and kid swapped with them (they were headed to the show Fri night and we went Sat).  The next day was Dan's second Ironman (crazy man!) and I feel bad that we didn't make a big deal of it this time around, because in hind sight I was realizing how huge that accomplishment is and we almost blew it off since he had done one before.  Sorry Dan!  We think you're amazing!  Anyhow, that morning Burke got Darcie dressed and I about died when he brought her upstairs.  He had not realized that her onesie was actually a romper, but couldn't find any other pants in the bag, so he just assumed they must go together.  He threw the clashing sunhat on because we were going to go out in the blazing St. George heat and the whole glorious ensemble is as seen below!  When Cassie and I couldn't stop laughing he said defensively, "Well, I knew it didn't look right, but I didn't see any other outfits in there!"

3. Kellie and Wes love the Kentucky Derby and every year they have us all choose a horse.  If your horse wins they send you a $25 gift card.  I have yet to actually watch the derby as every year I have something going on during it.  Here's a list Burke jotted down of all our choices and I will have you know that I was going to choose American Pharaoh (who won the Triple Crown!), but that dirty dog Kevin beat me to it!

4. This spring and early summer we were delighted by a bold black and yellow bird that would attempt to drink from the humming bird feeder each morning.  We are certainly no ornithologists, so I couldn't even guess what this bird is called, but I have never seen one like that in Utah in my entire life.

I don't know if you can make this out (it's a snapshot taken from a live video), but we were filming the yellow bird when a hummer (little brown blur on the left) came to drink from the feeder.  The yellow guy just stared him down and the hummer zipped away when he realized this big guy wasn't budging.

After a few weeks of enjoying our feathered friend each day, we went to Logan for Memorial Day and while sitting in my parent's kitchen, I began to tell them about this bright bird that seemed so out of place in our climate when suddenly the EXACT same bird landed on their humming bird feeder!  They had never seen him before and I was freaking out!  I mean, seriously, what are the odds that the exact same kind of bird would make an appearance right as I was trying to describe him?!

Bed heads admiring our bright yellow birdie friend.  Can anyone tell me what he is?

5. You may know that I am still a novice in the kitchen.  I try my best, but it is certainly not my forte.  Over the past couple of years, I have tried to get braver about trying new recipes.  The picture below is pretty monumental as I absolutely LOATHE handling meat.  I usually can slip the meat from packaging onto the pan/into the crockpot without touching it, but this particular night I made cordon bleu from scratch and had to wrap the thawed chicken around the ham and roll it in the breading.  Burke was so proud of me (enough so to document with a picture) and I was dying!

6. Burke was out of town for a work trip and called to FaceTime when he got checked into his hotel.  Daphne usually spends these conversations making lovely faces and gets the whole family going.  Sure didn't know Burke was taking screen shots the whole time!

 

7. Mother's Day!  Daphne actually let me do her hair (miracle!) on Mother's Day because I guilted her about it being my special day...and then threw a bribe of gum into the mix which kept her still enough to curl it.  I had to document because she never lets me do it and because her hair is so fine, even though it was coated in layers of hairspray, it was nearly completely straight by bedtime that night.

As close to Shirley Temple as we'll ever get with her stick straight hair.  Also, she's wearing an apron over her dress so she wouldn't get food on it right before church.

The thing I was looking forward to the most this Mother's Day was finally having a child old enough to sing with the Primary children in the obligatory songs they do to honor mothers each year.  Daph was shy about going up on the stand with all the kids and when she finally got up there, she just sat there and pouted during both songs.  Oh boy.  As she came down off the stand and was still a couple of pews away she cried out, "Mom! I didn't really sing because I didn't really know the words to those songs!"  She was pretty upset and embarrassed because I think she could tell we had really wanted to hear her sweet little voice up there with all the other kids.  Oh well, many more programs to come in the years ahead.  Also, Daphne's amazing Sunbeams teacher, Sydney Pearson, helped the kids make these cute cards for their moms and it totally made my day!

We cruised over to Alan and Marie's house right after church for a fancy Mother's Day dinner that the menfolk created to show their appreciation for us ladies.  Marie is always so thoughtful and she had all the kids make these cookie bouquets for us, plus she gave us boxes of chocolate covered strawberries and potted strawberry plants.  I wish I had thought ahead and done something for all of them in return.  I need to get better about recognizing my loved ones on special holidays, especially birthdays!

Danelle, LeeAnn, Marie, Grandma Elaine and I with our cookie boquets

Burke made a jello salad with cream on top and decided to spruce it up with a lovely "Mom" in pink!  Marie kept chuckling about that for a while. Haha!

Before we left for home, the kids put on a little program outside that Sadie (our eldest local niece) had been choreographing for a good hour or more after dinner.  She had each of the little cousins lined up on the patio standing in position on their name marked in sidewalk chalk.  Then they would each take a turn coming forward to "center stage" and saying something like, "She washes my clothes." or "She makes me lunch." and then they would act it out.  Daphne was the last one and she said, "I'm grateful for my mom."  Then they came out into the audience and gave us all these little flowers they had been making and gave us a big hug and kiss.  They ran back to their name spots and proceeded to sing songs and dance for us, giggling all the while.  I wish I had recorded it.  Such precious little babes!

I feel so grateful to be the mother of these two lil' muffins.  I know there is a lot of negative talk about how hard it is to be a Mom, but I don't feel like that is at all accurate.  Sure, there are hard moments, but for the vast majority of my 4 years of mothering experience, I have been filled with joy and satisfaction in my role as a wife and mother.  It is such a privilege.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd....then Darcie puked all over me when we got home.  HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ME! Ha!  But really...how perfect.

Darcie just chillin after plastering us both with vomit.  

Bodily fluids are probably the worst aspect of being a parent.  Ugh.

One last thing about Mother's Day.  Burke bought Daphne a glow in the dark sucker on Saturday when he was out picking a few things up for me.  He had told her we could open it when we got home from Grandma's house so it would be dark enough to see it glow.  Unfortunately, when we got home she couldn't find it anywhere!  We searched the house from top to bottom and she even said a prayer to help find it, but finally we had to put her (completely devastated) to bed.  We finally found it out in plain sight later that night in the playroom and Burke let her have that silly thing for breakfast in the morning!  You would not believe how delighted she was when she woke up to it!

8. Hiked to Hidden Haven with Mike and LeeAnn the last Saturday in May.  It was all fun and games until Daphne tripped on the way back down and had blood gushing everywhere.  Thankfully I had a red jacket for her that we wrapped her arm in and the blood stopped within a couple of minutes.  Even with that mishap, I was reminded of how much I enjoy hiking - definitely need to do it more often!