Birthday Girl

I can't believe that I'm blessed enough to get to be a mom to this amazing girl.  I also can't believe that she's 11 already.  Monday was her birthday - she had enjoyed watching the packages come in the mail.  Dan made her a puffin cake (at her request - he's so awesome!!)  She loved her presents!  Dan gave her a few books from a new series she's been enjoying, but he got her digital copies of the books, so to tell her, he wrote her a note in a series of runes used in the book and made her translate them!  She picked burritos and taquitos for her birthday dinner and during dinner, I told her the story of the night she was born.  

Eileen is such an amazing person.  I'm so glad that she is my oldest daughter - she has been such an easy way to get used to motherhood in each age.  She is helpful, kind, funny, a good example to her siblings and fun to be with.  

Dan and I weren't feeling very good on Tuesday, so we mostly stayed home and rested - James obliged thankfully, I think he might have been a bit under the weather too.  Anna still had trumpet lessons in the evening and after, I chatted with Sara and Tyler for a few minutes before heading home.

Wednesday was the usual, James and I went to the library with Tayanna and Nicole.  James kept asking if we were going to eat lunch at their house again - I told him that we weren't this week, but maybe we could invite them for lunch at our house sometime!
Choir was a ton of fun - we are working on Christmas music and we are doing some really awesome stuff!  After, I tried to go play volleyball again, but no one was there.  :(  Hopefully next week!

Thursday was the usual.  James had preschool and the kids had piano lessons.  Then in the evening I had institute.  I've really been enjoying the class - Sara is an excellent teacher and I love the chance to really study the scriptures and discuss them!

Friday, I messed up.  I double booked Eileen's Great Grandpa time, and her well child check up.  We kinda managed to squeeze them both in, but I felt bad :(  Eileen is healthy and growing well.  After the check up, we all got our flu shots.  I got mine first so the kids could see me not cry :)  Then Eileen got her flu shot plus her vaccinations.  Then James wanted to go next.  He was disappointed when he only got to have one - he wanted more like Eileen got.  He was so cute and tough.  The nurse said she had never had a kid ask for more shots!  The rest of the kids all did great too - the nurse said she was very impressed at how well the kids all did!  That evening, we had the Youngs over for dinner.  We had meatloaf and mashed potatoes and had fun chatting and hanging out with our friends.

Saturday was cleaning day.  We got the house straightened up, then we let the kids do some extra chores.  Evelyn has been throwing away the lunches we send her to school with and has been buying school lunches - and racked up a big old lunch bill.... so she is now doing extra chores to pay us back for that....  In the evening, we went to a baptism at the church, then headed home quickly to meet Jasmine who was babysitting for us.  We were going to get pedi's but the place closed an hour before they said that they closed online... so we just went to a movie instead, we saw the new Bond movie.  We had a great time - but since I always have a great time, just being with him, that was a given :)  After the movie, we headed home and watched a bit of TV before heading to bed.

Sunday was wonderful.  James threw a huge tantrum at the beginning of church, so we spent all of first hour in the lobby with him on time out and pouting.  After that he was fine though.  The rest of church was wonderful, then we headed home for a relaxing afternoon of playing together, interrupted only by ward choir and singing beautiful music!  We had yummy banana muffins for dinner and then we called family and chatted a bit before the kids went to bed.