I Had a Birthday!

I knew my birthday was going to be a good one when I found this taped to my door the night before.

And it was a great 40th birthday!  It was a really busy/regular day for mom life- clubs and sports and a solo festival- but there was also delicious food, sweet flowers and gifts, lots of phone calls and texts and messages, and so many fun surprises!

Including one delicious cake!

There were a LOT of candles on it!

But each one was a reminder of a good life. I definitely felt extra loved on my birthday!

The Bitter and the Sweet

 Life has been full of the good and the bad lately.  We just found out our favorite family full of besties is moving to North Carolina this summer.  We are already scheming up ways to keep friendships strong despite miles. 

Our sweet old neighbors Mr. Rob and family are also moving south this summer.  I think the Iowa winters get harder as you get older.  We are losing a lot of Iowa friends to the lure of warmer climates and proximity to family lately. 

Noah sat down to write a letter to the company that made this robot one night.  He wanted to let them know about some design improvements he thought they might want to implement.

Emma and Noah are in slime club together- the longer school day means a little extra fun!

Track practice in the rain results in curly-q's!

Tightened braces result in Chick-fil-a!

A long day at school is always made better with a good pup snuggle. 

And there have been lots of emotions about music lately- the hard practices and extra efforts for everyone's first solo festival are resulting in conquered nerves, feelings of satisfaction, positive feedback!

It can't always be fun and games in life, but sometimes the bitter really does enhance the sweet!

Birds in Our Backyard

 Spring is slowing springing around here, and that means the return of many of our favorite bird neighbors!  We've seen Eastern bluebirds, male and female cardinals, the usual black-capped chickadees and nuthatches, and lots of robins and red-winged blackbirds in the last week.  I'm even happy to see the turkey vultures soaring overhead and picking at the occasional roadkill again. 

We watched a huge bird resting on the branches yesterday, and thought it just might be a gray heron.  But it turns out those are only found in Europe and Asia, so we decided it must be a (much more common) great blue heron instead.  Such a big a beautiful bird!

We've seen quite a bit of a tom turkey that looks just like this- both in our backyard and down the road by the pine trees.  They are beautiful and fascinating and kind of funny to watch as they strut around and display their feathers. 

One morning I watched the one in our backyard chase around two lady friends for a good 20 minutes. 

Jason and I had a hard time getting anything done in the hour before we were supposed to leave for spring break because there was a HUGE osprey resting in the trees. 

He looked like a porg from all the way over here- see that speck of white in the middle of the tree? 

There has been a persistent male red-bellied woodpecker hanging upside down from our birdfeeder lately.  It's fun to watch him hop up and down the nearby trees too. 

It seems to be arriving even slower than usual, but all of these birds are telling us that surely spring is almost here!

Tornados in Spring

Living in the Midwest means dealing with tornadoes.  Last Saturday we had a great storm sweep through the area, just a little closer than we would have like. 

 7 people will killed by this massive tornado, 6 of them just 15 miles west of our house and the other 1 about 15 miles to the east of us. 

At home the sirens were blaring and we spent an hour or so hanging out in the basement, and Jason and Leah hunkered down in the basement of the nearby mall until the worst of it had passed. 

We just experienced lots of rain, wind, and hail.  

There is no sound so sweet as a properly running sump pump. 

Our driveway turned into a little lake for a bit, and the sunset was painfully beautiful.

Sometimes living in the Midwest is a little too exciting. 

-Isms

Never a dull moment in this brain!

While we were trading stories about scars and other memorable life moments, I officially decided that the moment Emma's mammoth wart finally came out of her foot as the top three most disgusting moments of my life. 

Of course the kids wanted to know what the other two moments were. 

"Having babies?" they guessed to which I said no, that wasn't exactly disgusting. 

"Uhhh, are you sure?" Noah countered.  "Wasn't Emma born in (puts up air quotes) 'the wilderness'???"

Ha!!

*****

Trying to understand the function of the female chest after hearing the word boobs- 

Why do you only have two of them if you've had four kids? 

So milk comes out of those? You're kind of like a cow!

Why are Leah's bigger if you're older?

If I put a straw up to it and (slurping noises) that's how it works? 

Wait, so I used to put my mouth on that? 

(Yep, and if you want to think of something even weirder I used to do that with Grandma Cathy.)

Wait, what? Why did you let Grandma do that to you?!

Lots of Life

 School art projects!

A two hour delay just when we needed it the most (spring break can't come fast enough)!

Noah and Adam finally took a few dozen runs down Hobbes Crk Hill!

We had an after church pizza party with our French-Swahili members!

Noah has made the best friend in second grade- Jack!

Homemade lemonade was a sticky, delicious hit.

Stake presidency dinner!

We've been spending a lot of time at the stake center lately.  These cuties don't seem to mind. 

A Relief Society temple trip!

And a Daddy, Adam and Leah temple trip (only 9 more before Emma will join them!) 

Playdates with friends- 

Dreams come true at Chick-fil-a!

Waiting and waiting until dinner is ready. 

Lots of seminary, school, and track for Leah. 

Lots of good life!