Tuesday, March 23, 2010

My Birthday

This weekend was my birthday weekend. And yes, I take the entire weekend as my birthday weekend. Oh, who am I kidding. I have a birthday month.

On Saturday, we went to my parent's house and spent the day there. It was GORGEOUS, it even reached 73 degrees on the way down. What a beautiful day!

However, my poor motion sickness-prone daughter did not enjoy the ride down as much as the rest of us. She threw up about five minutes away from my parent's house, but luckily we had brought extra clothes. A little bit of cleanup later, and we were back on the road.

We went for a walk to my parent's neighbor's house, where we fed goats. I love this picture of Grammie and Grandpa with the older kids!

The goats were very happy to see us, and loved their stale-chip snack.



Ben was a little leery about sticking his fingers so close to the goat's nibbling teeth, so he was a little conservative in his feeding efforts.
Drew wasn't real sure about the whole thing. This was as close as he got.
We went back to the house and played in my parent's yard. I love that my family will steal my camera and get some pictures of the stuff I am not seeing, as well as taking pictures of me. I am hardly ever in pictures, but this family makes sure I get into some.

My brother performed the typical uncle-tricks of spinning the kids in an airplane, and having a great time.
And we played soccer with the fruit-tree goalposts. Our little goalie did a great job.

I lay down on the grass to enjoy the sun, which, of course, led to Ben pulling grass and throwing it on my head....
...Which led to my brother attempting a picture of all the kids laying on me... (My camera is not a point and shoot, and is not user-friendly, which is why this shot is a little blown out. It's hard to get a good picture with my camera when it's set to manual!)
which led to my brother and Drew having some Tiff-is-a-pillow-time...
...which led to me being pinned down by my Dad and given my birthday spankings by my brother. So not cool!
And of course, my darling Emma would not let anyone beat her mother without getting in on the fun. Thanks a lot, kid!
OK, now go look at Drew's face in the picture with my brother beating me. See that look? Apparently, that's his "the fresh air is making my cough, and I'm about to throw up my food" look. But what baby would just throw up on the ground? Not mine! My children want to be close to me. Which is why the birthday spankings ended abruptly when I shouted, "Why is there something warm and wet on my leg?!?"

Yup, I got puked on.

On my birthday weekend.

Sigh.

Oh, well, that's the life of a mom of four. Luckily, only two puked that day, and it was two separate isolated events that caused the puking, there was not an illness involved. Praise God for that one!

OK, moving on.

Usually, my brother does something goofy with my camera, and he always gets blogged. I don't know if he forgets this in the moment or what, but here is his self portrait with my lovely sister-in-law, Beth.
Beth looks lovely as always, but My brother seemed to master the straight-up-the nostril shot. Lookin good, bro!

Although I can't give him too hard of a time, he did give me a fabulous birthday present. He gave me a card that said simply,

stillseekingsanity.com

Love, Jeff and Beth

I am so excited! We hope to get it all sorted out this week, I'll let you know when the big switch happens. The current blog address should continue to work though, so don't worry. My brother is so thoughtful!

We had a fabulous dinner of barbecues steak, potato salad, my favorite fluffy rolls and sesame peas. My dad is the best cook, it was mouth-watering good. We ended the meal with strawberry chip cake.

There are six candles because I am 33 and 3+3=6. It makes sense if you think about it. Also, my dad had left the BBQ under the eaves of the house and we had set off the smoke alarm in the attic, and all of our ears had been ringing already and we didn't want to test every smoke detector in the house on this particular day.
What a fabulous day.

My actual birthday day was Sunday, and it was fun. Marty's dad was in town and we got the whole family together for Stauffer Sunday, which is a tradition where we gather the whole family, including Marty's grandparents and all his aunts, uncles, and cousins. There are close to sixty people involved, and it is loud, family fun. Marty's Dad lives in Oregon so we all try to get together when he's around.

Yesterday, Marty took the day off work and we had birthday fun with just our family. During nap time I went on my own to peruse the feed store and I bought the seeds I want for my garden this year, and I was also a bit swayed by the pretty flowers. So I bought some of those, too. Yup, I spent all of my birthday money at the feed store, but I am so happy about what I got. I cannot wait to plant my garden! My brother-in-law usually roto-tills my garden for me, but for some reason he feels the need to work on his wife's honey-do-list before he does mine.

Sheesh. I mean, really. (Just kidding, Dan, I love you!)

Anywhoo, I am off to have a fun playing in the dirt. I have seeds to start and flowers to play with. Have a great day!

5 comments:

Snow Mommy said...

Um, well, instead of a honey do list, Dan has been busy fixing a water leak in the yard. Don't worry, the rototiller will be over soon!

TheOldestStudent said...

At least when you get puked on on your birthday weekend, it's your own kid's puke... Did I ever tell you about Bhin?

DJan said...

Tiff, it sounds like you had a (mostly) great birthday weekend! You look about 12 years old in that picture with the bow in your hair. Great pictures, lots of fun!

Whitney Lee said...

I'm glad you had fun; aren't families the best? It looks like your weekend was filled with laughter. You don't look remotely close to 33...

Love my babes said...

Gotta say I love the dandelion your dad has on his ear. I tell my kids that my favorite flower is the dandelion and I have been caught w/one behind my ear that I have forgotten. Just thought it was a flower given in love:o) Glad it was a wonderful even if puked on birthday weekend!