I'm officially middle aged....

I've been looking toward (notice I didn't say "forward to") my 40th birthday for a couple of years now. I've been "crowding 40" since I was like, 38 and now it's actually here. It's a totally cliche thing to say, but I really can't believe how fast this first 40 years of my life has gone. Crazy!

Anyway, my lovely friend Jenna - the party planner extraordinaire - threw me a surprise party on Friday. I shoulda seen it coming, knowing Jenna like I do, but for some reason, I totally didn't.

She had been planning it for several weeks and was in cahoots with my hubby (who wasn't exactly what you'd call, um....helpful). She also recruited some of my other good friends (some of whom prefer to remain nameless - you know who you are) to come and to help with the food and the cakes. It turned out so nice and I was so utterly and completely surprised.

In fact, kind of a funny story about that: I'd been at girl's camp for 3 days and while I was gone, our microwave (that we got for our wedding) died. I felt like I needed to run to the big city and get a new one that night because we had other stuff going on the next day and then the weekend. Anyway - when I told Marty I was going, he said, "NO! You can't go! You are NOT going tonight."

Well!

He has never said anything like that to me before and I went instantly on the defensive. I was like, "Don't you dare tell me 'no' mister! You are not the boss of me!" And then I, of course, was even more determined to go.

So he was calling Jenna in a panic and they finally figured out the only way to get me to the party was to talk me into waiting and taking Marty and the kids (who were supposed to be at Jenna's having their piano lessons) with me shopping. So when they were done with their "piano lessons" (translate: hanging at Jenna's while she was in a pre-party panic) we went to Jenna's to pick them up and take them Cedar with us, and there were a bunch of decorated tables and whaddayouknow, Jenna with a camera, and a bunch of my friends!

Surprise!

You coulda knocked me over with a feather!

So here are a few shots from the party: I wish I had taken more, I think I was in a little bit of shock, frankly.

The gorgeous invitation (with the pertinent info on how to get to Jenna's house brushed out) that Jenna made and distributed. Love it!

That's one of my all-time favorite pictures - - Jenna swiped it off my blog.

And then another really good friend - who prefers to remain nameless - put that same photo on a great big yummy CAKE!


The absolute coolest cake I've ever seen! It almost broke my heart to cut into it.

A few friends at the party:


Molly, who kindly lent me her camera for the occasion and took some pics for me too.


(notice in the background that there are THREE white minivans - looks like a Mormon Mom convention!)

My lovely oldest child gave me a whole stack of housework coupons - does he know me well or what? I've already used one, and some are reusable! (notice the 3 "punches" on the bottom - this one's good three times!)

*no "wining". that's the best part!


And, finally, a picture of me on my own blog - I know, I know, you thought this day would never come. And I just realized something... In the old pic of me, I'm trying to feed a baby horse some grain that he doesn't really want - in this picture, I'm trying to feed a baby human some cake that she doesn't really want.



Hmmmm.

Food for thought.

Thanks so much to all my friends and family who came to my party and have called and sent Facebook messages. I feel very loved today. :)

You have made turning 40 a lot less painful. Now on to living with being 40....

All Jaxon, All the Time - 12th Bday Party

I've been so behind on my blogging that I haven't had time to record some really important events like my big boy turning 12 years old!

(There's also been a couple of other important events in Jaxon's life lately so I will be posting several posts about him this week - all Jaxon, all the time - and see if I can't get caught up with what he's been up to the last few months.)

He decided that he wanted to go to the big city and see the movie, How to Train Your Dragon, so we took three of his best friends over to Cedar and took them to lunch and went to the movie. We had cake and opened presents at the Arctic Circle around the corner from the theaters and Jaxon received the latest book in the Fablehaven series, which he had really been looking forward to.


There was a lady sitting across the isle watching the festivities, and when she got up to leave she came over and told Jaxon that any boy who was such a big fan of Fablehaven ought to have a $5 bill for his birthday.

And so she gave him one....

(I just love this picture!)

Nice, huh. There are lots of nice people still left in the world.

We had a heckuva good time and the movie was great, and I kind of like these boys.


Especially this one:


He's a dang good kid. I can't believe he's already 12, he's growing up on me, and I'm not too sure how I feel about that.

Love you, bud. My big boy.

Remembering....

We had such a lovely Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday, there was a family reunion for Marty's mom's side of the family. Marty's brother Ryan brought his wife and 5 of their 8 kids down for the reunion and stayed through Memorial Day. We LOVE having them - in fact, we wish they'd bring the whole family - all 10 of them - and just move in for good.

On Saturday morning, we all walked over to the cemetery and put flowers on Marty's mom and dad's graves. Marty's mom died when he was 17. They were very close and it breaks my heart a little every time I think about it. His dad died 3 years ago at the age of 87 and we miss him.

Marty's dad's nickname was Bruin and he was a veteran of WWII. In our very small community, we actually have a whole lot of WWII vets. Every holiday, our town puts up flags in the cemetery for them.


I love the flags.


But when I look out across the cemetery and see them all, it makes me wonder why so many young men were drafted from such a small community. But the cool thing is, almost all of them came back. In fact, I think (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that they all came back except one, who died of disease instead of in battle.

We also have a military commemorative plaque for Marty's dad at the foot of his grave. He served as a forward reconnaissance scout for the artillery and he was wounded and received the purple heart.


(isn't he handsome?)

Ryan also served in the military - the National Guard - for quite a few years. Both he and Marty are such good men. It warms my heart to see them honoring their parents in this way.


There are also a lot of their grandparents and great-grandparents buried in this cemetery. Most of their family goes back to the original founding fathers of this community.

Their grandpa was a blacksmith and has blacksmithing tools and an anvil on his grave site.



I think it's a wonderful thing to have a day set aside to remember and honor our loved ones who have passed on. We love them and hope that we are living up to their legacy.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!

Don't get me wrong, I love my Suburban, my old GMC pickup, and my sexy Dodge Cummins, but they all get pretty lousy gas mileage - some worse than others. For a while now, I've been wanting a little car to run around in. But not just any car - a car that gets KILLER gas mileage. I've been shopping online for months and found one that was the size I wanted, the price range we could afford, and best of all - a 4 cylinder with a standard transmission.



I prefer to drive a standard, but they're getting kind of hard to find. Most of them are Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans, etc. Which is fine by me since those are all good cars. Well, this one I found is a Mazda. It's really clean and well maintained.

We had to go to Pleasant Grove to get it so we made a trip of it to see Grandma for Mother's Day and buy the car at the same time.

Just before we left my mom's, I filled the gas tank. We went 207 miles to the next time we gassed up, and I put 5 gallons back in it. That's

40 miles to the gallon, people!!

And it's a blast to drive - zippy and sporty and handy in the turns. I'm totally lovin' it.

Zoom Zoom ZOOM!

Compartmentalizing My Life

Organizational skills do not come naturally to me. In fact, being slovenly and chaotic comes VERY naturally to me - it's so much more fun to be creating than cleaning! But even though being organized isn't my forte, I do have a strong desire to be organized and I have made an effort to work at it throughout my life. Being organized helps me to feel peaceful and in control of my craziness.

A few months ago, I took apart my 75% of the closet and organized it according to color, and within colors - short sleeves to long. It's felt so GOOD! I sent about half of all that mess to the thrift store and have really enjoyed how easy it is to keep organized. Every time I look in there, I smile.

And my hubby now knows where to hang my things as he's folding and putting away the laundry!


So! On that note, I've been so busy with photography lately that I finally decided to take the plunge and get an official photography website. I've also decided to add a photography blog that is separate from this, my personal blog.

So, from now on, photo client sneak peaks will be on my photography blog, and only personal and family stuff will be on this one. I don't know exactly how well it will work, but I'm going to give it a try.

Both the new site and my new photo blog are still under construction, but here are the links if you want to check them out.




So drop a comment and let me know what you think. And wish me luck in my efforts to be organized - it's always an uphill battle around here.

A Flower for You....

Happy Mother's Day to all my wonderful friends who are mothers.

Whether you know it or not, you inspire me and I can't think of a single one of you who doesn't do something as a mother that I wish I did better.

Thanks for your friendship and your examples. This flower's for you!

My Beautiful Mother

This weekend we went up to see my mom - - aka, Grandma.

My folks live about 4 hours away, but we don't get up to see them more than 2 or 3 times a year. So it was nice to be able to go up on Mother's Day.

I've bragged about my mom on my blog before, so I'm not going to go on and on today, but suffice it to say, mothers just don't come any better than mine.

I realized that I needed to take some photos of her and my kids together - I've never really done that before.

The kids were acting pretty silly, but I love this anyway.


Thanks Mom, for being such a great mother. I'm thankful everyday for your example and support in my life.

I love you!