Spoiled Rotten

Is it horrible that I'm doing a post about my presents? Sorry. I swear I'm not trying to brag. Just to say thanks to those who pampered me and showered me with gifts. And to brag. Just a little.

Exhibit A: The Adorable Apron
My mother made this super cute apron for me. It so girly and flattering. LOVE. IT. Don't love how I kind of look 5 months pregnant in this shot.

Exhibit B: Plaid Pajamas
The pj's Big Daddy got me. Love plaid. Light, cute, summery. Been wearing them for 5 days.

Exhibit C: Polka Dots
The robe Big Daddy got to replace the awful white robe that got stained when I washed a red crayon with it. 'Cause nothing says sexy like a white robe with red splotchy stains all over it. Hot.

Exhibit D: Glass
My brother and sister in law got me these beautiful bud vases from the Red Envelope. I love this place, mostly for the beautiful boxes they come wrapped in. What's inside is only semi-relevant.

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Exhibit E: I'm-An-Old-Lady Shoes
I feel like a dork only being 35 and needing comfortable shoes, but it's true. I can't wear bad shoes for very long or my feet kill. So my sister got me these awesome sandals that are totally comfortable and actually cute. Tevas. Did you know they still make Tevas? Well they do, and they rock!

Exhibit F: Littlest Pet Shop
My daughter, Daphne, got me this toy monkey for my birthday. She picked it out herself. And then she opened it herself on my birthday morning before I got up. And now she won't let me hold it. Or play with it. What a gyp.

Exhibit G: YUM
German chocolate cake my darling Aunt Kathy made me. I really wanted to take the whole thing in the car with me on our trip. But I settled for a small slab, equal to half the cake.


Exhibits H-X: Flip flops, cute shirt, other cute shirt, other cute flip flops, delicious candles, wonderful fragrant soaps and lotions and candles, gift cards to my favorite restaurants and stores, an intriguing book, and more wonderful things that are too numerous to name and take pictures of. Thanks, Everyone!

Exhibit Y: Someone reads my blog!
And got me THE SNUGGIE! And in royal blue, thank goodness. Oh, I mocked it, but you can be dang sure I'm going to be attending my ward camp out in STYLE with this baby! Now if only I had a son in little league....

And finally, exhibit Z, my most favoritest, most awesome present ever (even if Big Daddy did only get it for me so I'd stop borrowing his):

Needless to say, I got completely spoiled. I felt a little guilty about it, until Big Daddy said, "Hey, you only turn 35 once." True, but I plan on turning 25 at least 5 more times.


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Bithday Bash

Sorry it's taking me so long to get to the birthday stuff (as if you care!). Let's see if I can knock out this post in less than 6 hours....

So my birthday was Thursday. And I had a pretty good day. My friend Cara took me to lunch at Rumbi where I had my most favoritest blackened Mahi Mahi. YUM. And then the rest of the day was pretty standard kid/mom stuff. Lots of phone calls and birthday emails (thanks!). I had told Big Daddy that the only thing I wanted for my birthday was to not plan anything. Usually if we do anything for my birthday, I pick the itinerary, I call the babysitter, and if there's a party, I make food for it and clean the house. Usually, though, we just do birthday parties for his birthday. I think we've done at least 8 since we've been together since his birthday is Halloween and it lends itself to good parties. Anyway, Big Daddy told me that morning that he had something planned. We'd be leaving about 6pm and returning about 10pm. In my mind that was about perfect timing for dinner and a movie. So we fed the kids about 5, opened presents, and at 6 I got ready and we left. I hadn't asked him what we were doing because I like surprises. So I didn't ask any questions, even after we got going.

About half way to Salt Lake, Big Daddy got a call on his cell. It was an upset client. She was in charge of a symposium where they needed a manual printed and it was starting in half an hour. Where was the manual? The whole thing was going to be ruined. Big Daddy apologized and explained that he had thought it was tomorrow. But he had it with him in his brief case and could drop it off on the way to dinner. So we stopped at Noahs, where the symposium was supposed to be held. I asked if I should wait in the car or come up, and he said I might as well come up and meet his client, who he had told me all about. So up we went and as we walked up to the room the symposium was supposedly in (but which he had really rented himself), I could see one of his friends. It took me a second to figure out why he was there, and by then I was at the doorway. About 30 of my friends were there and yelled "Surprise!" I was shocked. The room was full of balloons, the tables were covered with food--CATERED FOOD, food I didn't have to cook myself! And from one of my favorite restaurants, Zupas--there was music playing...everything was perfect.

I was a little overwhelmed at this point. Ok, a lot. Every time I turned, there was another of my friends, people I would never have expected Big Daddy to have contacted. How he found all their phone numbers and emails, I'll never know (but I thank all of you who helped him!) Pretty much every friend I have within a 50 mile radius of us was there. It made me totally emotional! I have to admit, I shed a few tears. And honestly, if I hadn't been in a room crowded full of people, I would have sat down on the floor and bawled. No lie. I was so overcome with love and appreciation for my darling, dear, wonderful husband that he would go to so much trouble, and for all my friends that would come.

But there's more. On the pool table in the room were little black boxes, like the kind chinese food comes in, but tiny. Inside each was either candy or a ticket to win prizes that Big Daddy had got. Car washes, cash, hats, t-shirts, and other cute things. There was German chocolate cake from Magleby's, my favorite cake (which he can't even eat because of the nuts), and he had gotten two of them for me and my guests. There was Wii Rock Band on the big screen TV. There were delicious soup and sandwiches and bottled Cokes. And then, after we'd all eaten and rocked out, there was the pièce de résistance, the t-shirts. If you don't know, my husband is a graphic designer extraordinaire and works for a printer. So when he wanted to make something comemmorative for my birthday, he designed a beautiful logo that represented my life and had it printed on t-shirts, one for everyone. He even got sizes ordered ahead of time! (I can't even imagine how much he spent on all this stuff!) Here's what the t-shirts looked like...




It's a picture of an Indian goddess, Kali. Although she's the goddess of destruction, she's also the goddess of change and time. So since I used to live in India, teach Indian mythology, and turned super old, it was a fitting picture. Then on the arch over Kali's head are archetectural features from all the places I've lived: The Detroit skyline 1974-92, The Ulmer Munster (cathedral from Ulm, Germany)1990-91, The Taj Mahal - 1994, the Coronado Bridge in San Diego - 1995-96, and a Fijian Burre - 1999. Then there's the 35 on her belly (to represent my age in 10 years my actual age. And finally, there's the image of the stained glass above our front door that has the address of our current house. It's amazing.


So what more can I say? It absolutely blew me away. So I'll just leave a few words for my sweet husband here:

Honey, you are the most wondeful, talented, generous, giving, thoughful man EVER! It was the birthday party of a lifetime. Not just the party, everything. The gifts, the card, the thought that went into it, the weekend getaway....everything. You are the best and I am SO GLAD that I married you!

And to everyone else who helped put that evening together, thank you. If you hadn't helped, it never would have worked. And thanks for those who came. Your friendship means everything to me. (p.s. If anyone took pictures, would you email me copies? thanks!)

I only have one more question....how is he going to top this for when I turn 40!?!

And The Winner Is....

I am back from out of town. It will take me most of the day, I'm sure, to get caught up, write about my surprise party, birthday, and weekend getaway. So check in later for those. In the meantime, I used very amazing technology to determine the winner of my birthday contest. It consisted of writing down everyone's name who commented on my blog in March, then writing down everyone's name who commented on my birthday. Then my husband picked a number between 1 and 82 (the total number of entries). It was #51. Then I counted to 51 and...



the winner is
SHANNA!
A.K.A. "SO"
From "Just So"


And she wins this:

Congratulations, Shanna! Just email your mailing address to me at coldfingers1 at hotmail dot com and your package will soon be on its way!

As for the rest of you, thanks for your comments and support, and for making my birthday so awesome. It was really fun having so many people wish me a happy birthday. Last year I think I got about 4 phone calls on my birthday and 1 or 2 emails. This year, it was about 5 times that. So thank you!

(Note to those of you with upcoming birthdays: advertising your birthday on the internet is a great move. Having a giveaway on your birthday? BRILLIANT.)

Hang In There...

Dear Blogging friends,

Due to the fact that my husband surprised me with the most amazing surprise birthday party EVER, and I got home really late, and I haven't even packed, and I'm leaving at 8am to go out of town, you will sadly have to wait until MOnday to find out who won the drawing for my birthday presents. See you then! (And I'll have pics and details about how it all went down.)

Signed,

Me, only older

You Say It's Your Birthday...

On a chilly March night thirty-five twenty-five years ago, a very pregnant woman stood in the kitchen talking to her friend on the phone. She was 10 days overdue (can you imagine??? I would DIE!!!) Suddenly, a gush of warm water hit the floor...her baby (me)had finally decided to show up. Late and with a messy floor. Not much has changed. Eight hours later, that woman had enough contractions to head to the hospital. There she begged the doctor to administer a general anesthetic. (Epidurals were not to be had in Michigan at that time.) The nurse begged the woman not to do general anesthsia, but the woman was not to be deterred. So finally, the anesthetic was administered and the lady conked out. The next thing she remembered, she was in the hallway at the hospital, and a little basinette was next to her. In it was a giant, pink shrimp. That's how she remembers it, at least. And then she fell back asleep. The next morning she awoke refreshed and renewed, having slept through the entire thing. Lucky girl. And the giant shrimp turned out to be the most beautiful, wonderful, awesome baby ever born, at least that's how I remember it. And I was there, so I should know.

So that is the story of my arrival on Earth. Thanks for everything, Mom.

And now on to the good stuff. The presents. What did you get me? Here is what I got you...

It's just a few of my favorite things: Chocolate covered marzipan, Blockbuster gift card, homemade soaps, George Clooney, ColorStay lipstick in a nice neutral color, cute spring socks, and Twilight sweethearts. These may or may not be left over from Valentine's Day, but I found them at Blockbuster a few days ago while buying the gift card, so if they are, don't blame me! In order to be complete, this gift pack should really contain Coke and cheesecake too, but they don't ship well. Sorry.

So that's the birthday loot. And guess what? Most of you don't even have to do anything to win these presents! Everyone who has commented on my blog during the fabulous month of March will be automatically entered into the drawing for these fine prizes. However, to boost your chances ever so slightly, everyone who comments on my blog today (on any of my posts) will get an extra entry. In case you're not good at math, that means TWO for some of you!!! Your odds are getting better. It's my way of saying thank you to all my loyal readers, friends, bliends, and blesbians. And to encourage the lurkers and blurkers, those of you who lend your support in a more...silent way, you can win too. Just come out of hiding today and say hi (and hopefully tell me how you found my blog), and you'll be automatically entered as well. So to make things clear: Already commented? Entered. Commenting today? Entered. No comments? You suck.

I will be announcing the winner of the birthday hoard of gifts tomorrow morning just before I head out of town for my birthday getaway to warmer climates.

Best of luck to you, and THANK YOU for being there for me. You're the BEST! (And yes, I mean YOU.)

p.s. I know I said I wanted a German chocolate cake, but on second thought...

Countdown: 1 Day Until OLD

Just reminding you of three things:

1)Tomorrow is my birthday. I am turning 25. Say it out loud: TWENTY FIVE.
2)There will be presents bestowed upon my most loyal and excellent readers
3)If you lurk, blurk, follow, or blollow, please plan on saying hello tomorrow as your real, non-anonymous, non-silent, non-witness-protection self. It's my one birthday wish! Well, that and truffles.

See you tomorrow!

Animals Never Get Old (Except At The Zoo)

Just to proove that I am an animal lover, despite the fact that I hated the zoo this last time, I give you the following montage of funny animal pictures. Seriously, they never get old.

(I'm not sure what the deal is with the weird pigeon English, but the pictures are funny regardless.)










































(Ripped straight off from Christie's email to me. Thanks, Girl.)

p.s. Tomorrow is the big day! And by "big day" I mean that most horrible and wonderful of all days, the mid-30's birthday. Be sure to tune in for your chance to partake in the giving of the presents!

My Week, A Photo Essay

My one kid is eating cereal in front of the TV, a magic combination that keeps her busy for hours (not that I let her stay there that long. Sometimes.) My other child is sleeping still at 8:30 am like a good boy. So I'm going to indulge in a morning blog post. Pictures I took over the last week.


The butter pecan cake I made for our relief society birthday party. Did you know Betty Crocker makes a butter pecan cake mix? Neither did I. Until I got assigned to decorate one for the party. It's a mean thing to ask a dieting woman to do. (I confess, I did sneak half a piece. It was good!)

Spring. Right.

Daphne's mad photo skillz. This was supposed to be a giraffe. Instead it's her finger. I'm not sure why she always puts her finger over the lens, but she does. Every time.


This picture is titled "The Good Old Days." It paints a picture of a time when men actually put forth effort to impress a woman. Notice both the peacock in the front (who is being totally ignored by the pea hen, like a good pea hen should) and the turkey in the back, who is also being ignored by the female turkeys. Not like today, where the women paint themselves up like harlots and strut around half naked for the menfolk. See? The good old days. (Yes, I do realize these are birds, not people.)



Eureka! Ever since I was a little girl, my mom would make us shaped pancakes. Bears, butterflies, snowmen. Carefully dropping smaller and larger circles of batter together to make these characters. I have tried to carry on the tradition with my kids, but I'm not so talented with cake batter. They all look sort of like an over-inflated Michelin Man. But the other day while fishing around the storage area under my kitchen island, I came across my Christmas cookie cutters and had the brilliant idea to make my kids' pancakes using those instead. SO much easier!

My most favoritest pajamas EVER. Quite possibly my favorite outfit ever. I got them from my friend Kelli Ray at her Christmas boutique. She has a clothing etc. website called State of Hype. If she still has any, I would highly recommend them. They are the most comfortable thing I've ever put on and actually pretty flattering for pajamas. And who doesn't love mixy-matchy patterns like paisleys and plaid???