You didn't think I'd forget the little guy did you? Happy Birthday Gibson! It's been a great first year. It's hard to imagine that Gibby has gone from this:
To looking like this in his first year.
Now if we could just get Gibby to get a haircut and a job we'd be in business.
Gibson's birthday wasn't quite on the extravaganza level that we've seen for some other birthdays this year. Actually, his was pretty simple and involved fewer cold swimming pools. Gibby got to eat his birthday cake at the same time as Sarah, his cousin who is just a few days older than him. Sarah went all in on the cake.
Gibby wasn't quite as carefree. He liked the cake, but didn't like the mess. He ended up eating most of his piece, but Teri had to feed him little bites the whole time he was in his high chair. Nonetheless, Gibson did manage to get a little chocolaty.
Gibson made out pretty well with the gifts. I think everyone felt bad for him because his birthday was so close to Christmas. He got all kinds of things like books, a Glowworm, Baby Signing Time - including the ever popular diaper dance (Thanks Nathan), and even a fox (which he promptly tried to eat).
All in all, it was easily his best birthday so far, but I'm guessing he probably won't remember any of it by this time next year.
The first Christmas after Teri and I were married was a whirlwind. We married on December 16 in Mesa, drove to Thatcher that night for a reception, flew up to Utah the next day to go to my brother's wedding on December 18, had an open house for my brother and me the night of the 18th, and then we were back in Arizona for Christmas in Thatcher. I figured the next Christmas would be a little more routine, but as it approached Teri got the feeling it was yet another whirlwind.
Teri jokes about it now, but she insists that she has never come across a family with so many Christmas traditions. Her secret favorite tradition is kicking the pole - something my family has done for years now. No, it's not some feat of strength.
Kicking the pole actually dates back to when my family was a lot younger. On Christmas Eve my Mom wanted some time to get everything set up for the evening and asked my Dad to get all of us kids out of the house so she could work without all of our pent up excitement bubbling over her preparations.
My Dad started out taking the conventional approach. We drove across the town and looked at lights for a little while, but when we still hadn't killed enough time we drove to Ken Price ballpark, where we sang Christmas carols to the ball field. I know it sounds kind of odd, and it felt odd the first time we did it, but it quickly became the treasured family tradition we repeated every year. Flash forward a couple years after that first caroling experience. My brother Scott was playing in a baseball game at Ken Price field and my other brother Russ was running just outside the confines of Ken when he ran smack-dab into a steel parking lot gate knocking himself flat.
When we made it back to Ken Price 6 months later during the winter someone started kicking the pole in an effort to pay it back for the vicious body blow it dealt to our brother. The next year that had turned into a tradition as well. Teri has even gotten in on the action. The year after we were married we were in Utah for Christmas and we had Teri kick the pole. While trying to feign intensity Teri sternly scolded the pole saying, "You hurt Russ." Teri then dealt the pole a swift kick to its midsection. The funny part was that Teri had never met Russ at that point, he had left of mission just as we were getting engaged, so we were surprised at Teri's enthusiastic response to our family tradition. But Teri's never been one to shy away from jumping in to things with both feet; it's one of the reasons I adore her.
I thought it might be fun to share some of those traditions here. If you're like Teri you may feel they're a bit much at first, but feel free to adopt any that you think would be fun. Although if you decide to kick the pole please let me know so I can give you some tips. You wouldn't want to end up trying to kick the pole only to have your feet slip out from beneath you just as you prepare to deliver your gigantic wallop.
Yes, that would have to be the headline of this week, narrowly beating out "Grumpy: 71 years later. How a 3' Man Doubled in Size and Got a Job at the Junkyard."
It is with great regret that we announce the passing of our second Escort. I like thinking back to the good old times when the Escort had a working motor and not everything under the hood was broken. Times like this:
I don't actually remember anything like that happening, but apparently even the ever plentiful internet doesn't care about the Ford Escort enough to post an interesting video or two. Oh well.
Our first Escort passed on in January. While we had hoped to hold bake sales all year to pay to get it fixed, we unfortunately had to divert money to cover paying for Gibson to be born. You would think we'd get a little more utility out of something that cost so much.
With our cash strapped and our two little boys unable to win any high profile best looking baby competitions, Teri and I decided to put off fixing our white Escort and made the best of using only one car. Our silver Escort became our workhorse hauling us to and fro, here and there, nither and thither. Until that fateful day several weeks ago when it decided it no longer had a will to live and ended its life outside of Kohl's.
A few days and a diagnostic check later, the Escort was pronounced dead on the scene. We took her to the junkyard and despite the best efforts of a gnomish junkyard employee to not use their business, we were able to strike a good deal. We swapped 1 dead Escort for a total prize package (worth $52) to include 20 Totino's pizzas, 3 "as-is" air fresheners from any car in the junkyard, and season tickets to the WNBA. Cucumber melon never smelled so good.
Like most things in life, there is a good and a bad side to this story. The bad side is that we had to replace the car somehow, and while we considered going the "green route," ultimately we decided the kids were too small to peddle. So we bought a Honda. What's bad about that? Well, they didn't give it to us for free. I was hoping for some last minute "Hey you're our first customer in weeks because the economy is melting" giveaway, but curiously enough they did ask us to pay.
The good side of all of this is that Honda driving videos are a lot easier to find online than Escort videos. For example, this little number is amazing and it begs two important questions. Do people in the rest of the world really drive like this? And, do people in the rest of the world really just wander out into the road and stand there as they watch a car that is clearly nanoseconds away from totally losing control and just wait for it to come slamming into them? Oh how the other half lives.
In summary, the bad side of having to pay for the car is pretty much a wash with the upside of watching crazy people nearly kill themselves in a car manufactured by the same people that made mine. Now if I could just figure out some way to teach K and Gibby to wash windows.
I think Teri and I have been excited for McKay's birthday for about 9 months, no joke. I'm not really sure why. I suppose it is because McKay loves Cars and there are some many cool toys to get excited about. So a few months ago, we decided that it would be fun to play "Pin the Tow Cable on Mater" instead of on the usual donkey. Teri took the challenge head on and came up with her own Mater poster.
I think it looked awesome. Teri had to take 2 pictures of Mater, combine them into one side profile shot, draw it all out, and then paint it. It got a little hectic there at the end when Teri's mom and Teri were frantically slapping background paint on him, but they got it done just in time for him to dry and be ready for the game.
I probably should have won the actual competition, but because I had purchased all the game prizes and knew that they were probably too complicated for me, we let Miriam win. She's 4; I think she'll have a good old time with that 24 piece puzzle.
McKay had his own troubles, although none of them were behavior related. (Thankfully, our fast wasn't in vain.) Actually, McKay struggled with blowing out his candles. Apparently, I should have spent less time teaching him what sounds camels (spitting) and peacocks make and spent more time teaching him how to blow out candles. Oh well, McKay's cousins seemed happy to lend a helping mouth.
McKay loved opening his presents. Interestingly enough, he wasn't more excited about the boxes the presents were in than the presents themselves. At least not until the very end when he realized he could make the boxes into race cars. But McKay had good reason to be excited. He got a lot of cool stuff.
Gibson was very pleased with the day as well. Not only did he get a cool new hat, but he was pretty sure at least some of those toys would be making their way to him.
McKay was pretty worn out by the end of the celebration. He wasn't able to take a nap that day because he was too excited. He just sat in his crib singing, "Happy Birffday to me. Happy Birffday to K. Happy Birffday to me-eeee. Happy Birffday K." So by the time 5:30 PM rolled around he was zonked.
Happy Birthday buddy. We hope you had as much fun as we did.
For my birthday I got what I had always wanted - another 3-D cake. Years ago, when I was something like 2 years old, my mom made me a 3-D Care Bear cake. It looked something like this, although my mom's cake looked more like a specific Care Bear and didn't have all the cupcakes.
I don't remember which one my mom made for me, but if I were to get one now I would ask for Champ Bear...or maybe Good Luck Bear. I'm kind of on the fence on this one.
Anyway, for my birthday I got another 3-D cake. And this time it wasn't even a Care Bear. It was an entire castle.
I bet you're jealous. I would have been if I were in your shoes.
I suppose I should mention that I basically share a birthday with 2 of my neices who were turning 4. One of them was born on my birthday and the other came 16 hours later but on the next day. This year was apparently not my year to pick the cake design (although they did console me by putting my flag on top of the very highest turret). Here we all are by our respective flags.
The true highlight of the night came just after we blew out the candles. Teri got the kids a pinata. McKay thought this was a great idea. He handled the bat quite well. Of course, he's had a lot of practice doing this to Gibby.
Concerned that I might be upset about not getting enough pinata swings on the parrot, Teri bought a pinata just for me.
The showdown between me and Cookie Monster took longer than expected. Cookie Monster had obviously put in a number of hours to get in peak condition for our bout and if I hadn't had a bat I think he may have defeated me. Cookie Monster was being manuvered by Teri's brother Kevin who managed to get Cookie Monster to whack me in a reasonably strategic fashion. The end result was that I had to assume a defensive posture which limited my offensive capabilities.
Despite the embarrasment of taking 25 minutes to break open a pinata when the kids took a whopping 12 swings (including McKay) it was a great birthday. Kudos to Teri for organizing my fun day. I think she totally deserves the entire turret that she ate.
A good chunk of the year has passed without us blogging about birthdays. We intend to change that in 3...2...1.
Teri's Birthday
In February we got a call from the Young Women's leader in our ward asking if there was a small service project that the youth could come over and do at our house as part of a service scavenger hunt. We heard that most people were having the kids wash windows, weed, or somethign along those lines. Teri decided to use them a different way - cutting coupons. So one Wednesday night we had four kids show up to do their service. They were a little perplexed by their coupon cutting role, but I think they were excited not to have to wash windows for a minute or two. Teri thought the whole thing was fun and mentioned that she used to love scavenger hunts when she was that age. And that's when an idea popped into my head. Why not do a treasure hunt/scavenger hunt for Teri's birthday?
The Saturday just before Teri's birthday she got to spend the whole day deciphering clues and making her way across the greater East Valley area. Included in her journey was a hike up "A" Mountain in Tempe,
a math equation using paddleboat prices from Tempe Town lake, secret codes hidden in a book at the Tempe City library, a jaunt through Bass Pro Shops to find her favorite candy, an intense racquetball battle against Sven - the semi-pro racquetball champion of the world,
recycling old computer parts, performing a 1 woman play depicting a scene from the Lord of the Rings with McKay starring as Frodo (so technically a 1.5 person play),
and my personal favorite, having to jump into Chris and Lolly's backyard pool to fish a clue out of there. Keep in mind this was in early spring and as you can tell by Teri's facial expression, the water was a little bit cold - even for Arizona.
To assist Teri in figuring some of these rather obscure clues I proided her with a clue hotline. Teri's brothers knew a guy from work who could do a lot of different voices and so we plugged his number into Teri's phone and whenever she completed a task or got stuck she had to call him for further instructions. And judging by the fact that Teri thought there were at least 3 or 4 people answering that phone at different times, he did a great job.
All in all I think it was a pretty fun birthday for Teri. Plus, her sister Julie made her this awesome cake.
So happy birthday TeriDel. We love you and are so happy that you are a part of our family.
Last we parted, TeriDel was this close to dying of a heart attack. But she didn't. And there was much rejoicing.
It turns out that Teri had a particularly violent reaction to a viral infection that has been going around in the Phoenix/Mesa area. We found this out because Teri's sister-in-law's sister (say that 5 times fast) is pregnant and she came down with the same thing. They did a bunch of tests and presto! viral infection it was.
While most people just get gastrointestinal symptoms, (occasionally resulting in an Oregon Trail incident), other people come down with violent illnesses consisting of chest pain, difficulty breathing, and other heart attack symptoms. I ended up in the first group, but Teri made her way into the second. Regardless, we're just glad that everyone is relatively healthy now and all we have to battle are allergies. Well, I don't have to battle them, but Teri, Gibby, and K all do so I just cheer them on. Go team.
On a tangentially related note - if you are yearning for the good old days when you could play the original version of Oregon Trail, pine no more. I found the online version of Oregon Trail complete with hunting and the original graphics. So take your best shot and see if you can navigate the trail without losing at least one member of your party to some random illness. I am in the Top Ten scores; I bet you can't beat me. And right after I say that Teri plays the game for the very first time and beats me. Now we're both in the Top Ten.
