Happy Birthday, Adam!

We have had some fun celebrating Adam's birthday the past couple of days. For our family activity last night, we let him choose what he wanted to do, and he decided that going to Chuck 'E' Cheese sounded like fun. Justin and Ethan each flew solo most of the time we were there - concentrating on the big ticket givers. They sure gobbled up a lot of tokens! Adam and Lindsey hung out together the whole time - getting their pictures taken, and riding the rides together too. Scott, Garrett, and I talked budget at a table where we could watch the rest of the kids. In all honesty, Garrett wasn't much of a contributor to the conversation :), but did enjoy eating the Skittles that Justin gave Adam for his birthday. It was pretty fun.

Adam has been counting down the days until his birthday for weeks now, and was so excited that today was finally the day! I thought I was going to get out of giving him a friend party because he hadn't brought it up, but no such luck. He just doesn't know how the system works yet. He wondered today when his friends were going to come over for his party. Oops.

I thought this picture was cute. When Scott got home from work, we pulled Adam's presents onto the table, and I asked him to get close to them so that I could get a good picture. This GQ pose was what he came up with. :) He sure is a funny boy. I love his smile and his cute, round cheeks. My favorite thing to do with him is snuggle up and read books on the couch. Happy Birthday, Adam!

Fun in the kitchen

I have had some fun in the kitchen lately. Next time someone asks me what my hobbies are, I am going to include "looking through recipe magazines and recipe books". I salivate over the pictures and think about how good the recipes will taste. :)

Every so often I get really bored with the typical fare the kids will eat - the cheese pizza, the spaghetti, the pancakes, etc., and break out my recipe binder. I have a few sheet protectors just stuffed full of pages out of food magazines that looked fun. After actually trying them, I have found some of my favorite recipes!

For Adam's birthday today, he let me make a "self-frosting zucchini cake" that I have wanted to make for a while. Wow! It was great, and almost better than making something tasty was that I used one of the fifteen frozen two-cup portion baggies of zucchini that I have had sitting in our basement freezer since August. Nice. I feel so domestic and provident having used our own garden produce. :)

Interesting time of life

It just dawned on me today as I took the boys to Orem, then to lunch afterwards at Sizzler, that I wasn't at all worried about getting back to my baby. I am done nursing the little guy. Out of 139 months of marriage, I have been pregnant or nursing 108 of those months. Amazing. This is kind of interesting to be neither one of those things. I feel good, and I don't have to plan my activities around feeding a baby every 3 hours. I wouldn't change a thing - I am so grateful for each of our children, and I enjoyed nursing them too, but this is kind of interesting for me. Maybe I need to go shopping all day by myself to commemorate - except with the knowledge we have gleaned from our Dave Ramsey class, we would have to make sure it fit in the budget. :)

A little bit about teaching the kids piano lessons

I took Justin and Ethan out to Orem today to participate in "Festival". They play two memorized songs for some other local teachers, then are given a score based on how well they did. Over a few years' time, their combined points allow them to earn trophies. Anyway, they did a great job. They seemed really proud of how they performed, and I was happy with how they did too! I am also excited about what comes next. Ethan and Lindsey are pretty easy to please, but I looked through my books today in order to find some songs that Justin would like. He picks up on songs really quickly, but I have a hard time finding songs that he gets excited about. I found some great songs today and showed them to him, but he didn't give me any encouragement like, "Oh, Mom, I love that song! Let me have it right now!" or "Wow! I am so glad that you are teaching me! You are really thinking about me and what I will like. Thanks!" No, I didn't get any of that. Maybe someday . . .

Lindsey has been so cute the past few weeks. She has been doing two or three official practice sessions a day, and has spent a good 15-20 minutes aside from that just tinkering. A few weeks ago, she announced that she had written a song. She plays it all the time and sings her original lyrics, "I can be like God if I try." It is pretty cute - makes me tear up when I hear her little voice in the piano room singing.

Ethan picked up on the fact that Lindsey is passing off a lot of songs, realized that he wasn't far from finishing his current level of books, and has kicked into a higher gear this past week. What a cute boy. :) I love seeing our kids play the piano! I unashamedly bribe them to practice with piano treats, they earn money for passing off songs, we give them a little money if they are nice during their lesson time, and they earn even more money if they come to me and ask for a lesson.

I really want this to work. When Justin has complained about piano lessons, I have told him that he can either take lessons from me, or he can take them from another teacher. The truth is though, I don't know if I could send them to anyone else! I really enjoy the one-on-one time with them. I need to remind myself of that during our next lesson time when he is giving me a hard time. :)