Four Score and Three Years Ago

My sweet mother-in-law celebrated her 83rd birthday today.  Her actual birthday is tomorrow - she is one day older than Martin Luther King, Jr.  Let that sink in for a moment . . .

This woman is amazing.  Truly.  Can I sign up to look like this at 83???

It won't happen.  For one thing, I have no problem doing nothing.  No problem a'tall.  My MIL gets twitchy if she isn't . . . well . . .  doing something.  Anything.  It has to be productive, even!  (Indeed it makes me look bad.  Very bad.)  She works, volunteers at the hospital, teaches Sunday school, walks daily and travels across the continental U.S. to visit with any various assortment of four children, twenty grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Me?  I . . . . uh . . . well . . . . I . . . . blog.  Does that count as productive?

We enjoyed a pizza party and in lieu of birthday cake, horked down her favourite:  Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

The whole idea here was to make a stack of eight doughnuts, and then another stack of three, with corresponding candles.  It looked better in my mind than it actually turned out - but she was happy, so I'll take it.  Notice how bent out of shape Chase is in that first pic.  He's going through a phase of feeling offended at everybody else's birthday because it isn't HIS.  It'll be a long four months for him.  And us.

I can't say enough how grateful I am that my MIL is who she is.  She enjoys everything about our family and rarely turns down an invitation to join us.  She is supportive, funny, kind, respectful and could not be more proud.

Who wouldn't love somebody like that?

Birthday Sweet

My smallest little angel snuggling into my new blanket.  This is the kind of birthday I had - sweet and relaxing.  Perfect!

Best.Party.Evarr

My mother was a party-throwing genius.  Fondue, home-fried tortilla chips, dry ice in the punch, a carousel cake that actually turned . . . she was brilliant.   And not only did she have the planning perfected and not only did everything look and taste and sound stunning . . . SHE was stunning.  She knew how to have a good time, and she knew how to ensure everybody around her did, as well.  She paved her life with smiles.

Cue in the lummox of the family.  Yes, that would be me.  The sweet little baby lummox.  I am socially awkward, I become overwhelmed at the thought of making pancakes and my toes look funky.  Okay, so the toes have nothing to do with the party . . . or at least they shouldn't.  Just take my word on that and consider it a lesson learned.

Not only do I lack the "party gene" entirely - but I also lack the advantage of first-hand amazing party experiences.  By the time I came along, I think my mother realized just how much work was involved and she didn't have the health, money or energy to continue.  So when my own little family unit started to form, I pondered birthday parties, felt intimidated, and came to the logical conclusion that birthday parties are highly overrated.  What child needs a big party EVERY year?  Why that's just overkill!  Throw in some cake and call it a day, I figured.

How young and naive I was!  HA!  Again, I say "HA!"  I was clueless about the power of vicarious living.  I never had a birthday with a theme and I wanted one, dammit!  I wasn't going to throw away my second, third, twelfth and sixteenth chances!  Over the years, we've celebrated with pirates, safari animals, luaus, trains, firefighters, skating, swimming, dogs, cats, farms, zoos, butterflies, bugs, soldiers,  cowboys, Transformers. . .  you name it.  And, yes, the good ole "cake with the family" birthday celebration does happen - quite often, in fact.  At my most "extravagant" I am still all about making things as simple and easy as possible.  But even those have a lovely little theme with coordinated colours, favourite foods and the traditional abundance of embarrassing baby pictures flashing across the computer screen for all the living room to see.

Our newest addition to the family provides another opportunity for birthday fun!  And so this past weekend, I threw myself into doing what I could to make a nice day for me her.  Reason #6498 why I ADORE having older kids - SHE did most of the planning!  I just had to go along with her ideas, and that was perfectly fine by me!  You see she, too, was the youngest child in a family with very limited means and an ailing mother without much energy.  So she never really had the chance to choose a theme and run with it.  Until this year.  And run she did!  Ran, skipped, flipped, and swung from the rafters.  "Go Bananas" is a gymnastics term and the theme she chose, and boy did we ever go bananas!

We had fabulous food (better than Thanksgiving, truly) and friends and family and crafts and music and monkeys and goody bags.  I wouldn't call it "going overboard" (there were, for example, no live animals brought in . . . unless you count the boy who lives up the road.  But he was a sweet, docile little pup.  He can't help it if he's a boy)  but we definitely got into the spirit of things.

And it made the birthday girl cry.  She cried.  She was just that happy.  So the "throw everything into this party to take away the sting of not having her mother here" plan was a success.

Wait . . . I lie.  My sister WAS here.  Surely she was.  And maybe even my own mother, as well.  I bet they were both scandalized at the condition of the kitchen floor.  (I never did get around to giving it a good wash.  Nor a bad one.  Wait . . . wash?)  And the asymmetrical streamers probably made them itch.  My mother would have been raising an eyebrow at the lack of fancy display and home-made foods.  While I did my best at wrapping presents, I braced myself for a good smack in the back of my head from my sister - who had mastered the art.  I hope they were able to get past all of that and relish the smoked salmon, curly ribbon, house-wide decorations that tied in with the theme and the stunning birthday girl with the big grin.  Because when it comes down to it - that's all the stunning I need.

Happy Birthday, Sprout.

What Rhymes with Orange? BIRTHDAY!

My littlest guy is just a little bit bigger, now.  Three years bigger.  He still seems so small compared to his Amazon siblings until I look back to his newborn pictures.  Who WAS that precious little bundle of blob?

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It was gorgeous outside!  A beeyooteeful day to celebrate!

He had the best time romping around the yard with his manly little toolbox and, um, purse . . .

. . . as he gathered nature (I guess that's why he needed a purse?) . . .

. . . and repaired it.  Naturally.

During his nap-that-wasn't-really-a-nap-at-all, a sneaky little family full of smiles crept into the house and scattered around.

One even tried to show him how you're SUPPOSED to nap.

I originally chose a "tractor" theme, but it turned into "trucks" when I found THIS cake and fell in love with it.  (And, um, also when I couldn't find one with tractors.)

It wasn't until after I bought the yellow and green decorations to make everything tractor-esque that it occurred to me that I should have bought ORANGE decorations.  Chase is allll about the colour orange right now.  Miss Vee had the brilliant idea to buy as many orange SNACKS as possible.  So: goldfish crackers, orange slices, cheese slices, large Cheese Nips, those . . cheesey poof ball thingies, cheese potato chips, carrots, orange bell peppers, etc.  I was shocked at how pretty it all looked displayed on the table. And I FORGOT to take a picture.  I had the orange slices all fanned out and strawberries in the center - things like that.  I just don't DO that kind of thing.  I'm usually a "throw the potato chip bag in the middle and grab what you want" kind of person.  I even served all of this on. . . get this . .  REAL plates.  So just take my word for it.  It looked purdy.

I feel that I need to mention at some point my sister.  It was difficult without her.  It was damned difficult.  My sister was all about family and family parties.  She came to allll of the birthdays.  Her absence was glaring, and it hurt.  It hit me hardest when I picked up the cake, of all things.  It was adorable, and she would have loved it.  On a "normal" birthday Saturday, she would have been on the way down to my house, or preparing to, and I would have called her to tell her all about how it looked and she would have reminded me of all of those last-minute details.  I broke down right there in the middle of the parking lot.  And I realized later that I had focused so much on the petty details of theme and food that I totally overlooked planning  for PEOPLE.  Not until the food was prepared and the decorations were put up did I realize just how few guests were going to be able to attend.  If I'd been thinking straight, I would have at the LEAST invited his BEST BUD whom he plays with just about EVERY FRIDAY????   I don't even know what to say about that.

BUT . . . the show must go on - idiot mother notwithstanding.  It wasn't my day, after all, it was the Little Man's.  Thank goodness he is too young to notice or care whether the house is bustling, or not.  When is a house NOT bustling with a new 3 yo, anyway?  And what we lacked in numbers we made up for in love.

So . . here is his big sister, taking the "truck" theme to a whole new level.  "Trucks = pregnant redneck, right?"  I'm still trying to figure out whose genes to blame for this one.  You'll be happy to hear that the birth went well  . . . the baby just popped right out, really . . . and was adopted into the Smiley family before Grandma arrived.  Whew.

Chase most certainly knew the day was special and all about him, and he loved every minute of it.  Although he still insisted whenever you asked him that "nonono, NOT fwee!"  Sneaky guy is already lying about his age.

Now he doesn't have to bother carrying his blankie around everywhere.  He can wheel it around in his ginormous shiny new Tonka truck!

When all of the excitement calmed down and the guests returned to their homes, the food was put away, the wrapping paper crumpled and tossed, the leftover cake covered and left out to taunt me at all hours - he clutched his newest friend and perhaps the whisper of a few lifelong memories as he drifted off to sleep.  Sweet Dreams, Master Chase.

New Wheels

Master Chase turned the big Oh Three, so it was only fitting to hook him up with a new set of wheels - three of them.