Happy? Birthday

No, that question mark after the "happy" is NOT a typo. Look at the boy in these photos. Does he look happy to you? His reason for crying? Well, he hates singing. And there were about 20 of us standing around singing Happy Birthday. He was havin' NONE o' that.















It gets better once we break out the "Cars" movie-themed gifts.















Let's talk cupcakes for a moment. These are cute, aren't they? It's a good thing, too. I ruined them. You may be asking yourself HOW in the world is it possible to ruin boxed cupcakes where all you have to do is add three simple ingredients? I'll tell you how: Forget to add one of those three ingredients. Oopsy. Yes, that's right. 1-1/4 cups water is missing from these cupcakes. And the sad part: I didn't even figure it out until I took the cupcakes out of the oven and saw they were brown and caved in at the centers. Hmmm...what could have happened here? (as she looks to the left and sees the cup of water that never made it to the recipe). Again, oopsy.
















Flopped cupcakes notwithstanding, this year's birthday was a much bigger success than last year's. Last year, the poor kid's first birthday was not even acknowledged until the month of June. Hey, I was busy, ok? I forgot. Another oopsy. Nevertheless, I tried to make up for it by using this year's birthday as an excuse to have MY friends over. Worked out quite nicely. Thanks for coming Pam and Polly, and for bringing your brood and your husbands (strategically not pictured, but useful for taking out trash and turning off gas grills). Is it just me, or do all three of us look like we went a little crazy with the blue eye shadow? None of us looked that way in person (no, really, we didn't), but for some reason it looks like someone played with the "street-walker" feature on Photoshop. 'twasn't me.

Alien Sightings

I always knew it! I always knew that kindygartners were evil alien creatures masquerading as cute little squishy 5 year olds. LOOK AT THEIR GLOWING ALIEN EYES! This makes me laugh every time I look at it. These are shots of Olivia's kindergarten graduation yesterday. There were so many flashes going off in the place, you'd think Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were somewhere in the vicinity. I'm happy to report neither was anywhere in sight.

















Livvi gets her diploma from the principal...and a photo opp with Mrs. J. We love Mrs. J!

















As a side note, we've spent the last week or so battling the wonderful stomach flu thing that is "going around" (really, isn't it always going around??). Poor tiny Lucas has had serious issues in his southern regions over the last few days. I took his pants off and made him sit on a blanket with a towel in the middle of the living room in an effort to save my house-is-on-the-market carpets. Yeah, I know, good luck with that. Anyway, I set a bowl next to him, as if he'd happily pick it up and vomit into it if the urge hit him. I can be delusional at times. Next thing I know, he's using the bowl as a hat. Well, at least it makes for good blog photos.

















Last but not least, I discovered today that I have quite the little poet in my oldest daughter. She made this cute little butterfly, and on the back wrote a poem for me. I just have to share it because I thought it was rather good for an 8 year old. Hmmmm...I wonder where she acquired her knack for rhyme-busting. I'll have to think on that.


Soaring, soaring up above
You the little bug I love.

Flying, flying in a meadow,
Seeing colors like pink and yellow.

How I love the way you glide,
my sweet, sweet little butterfly.
--------------------------------

Isn't that so cute? I was impressed.

A Mother of a Day

I had a nice mom's day. The kids and I had a pretty tough morning (daddy pulled out of town for his out-of-state move, and the kids were a bit unraveled by it at first). So we decided to make it a good rest-of-the-day and enjoy each other's company. I continued with my mom's day tradition started last year and took some photos of me and the kids. I did some playing around with special effects on them, and I think they turned out kinda cute for self-portraits. A couple of them ended up with Hallie being cut off (oops, love ya Hal), but other than that, not too bad.

We also decided to take a drive to Patagonia and play at the dinky little park there. It was all fun and games until---you guessed it--Hallie did a lip drag on the play equipment and it was time to pack it up and head home. She took a nasty spill and was pretty traumatized. We just can't take Hallie to any out of town parks (reference our trip to the Grand Canyon last year and her major accident in the parking lot as we left the park we played at in Flagstaff). You may notice that Hallie and Ben are absent from the park photos. I never got a chance to take any of them before Hallie did her neat little trick. Anyhoo...I think the kids enjoyed the day, and I did, too. I love my kids and wouldn't trade being a mom for anything. Happy Mother's Day!

Posting Potpourri

I'm being emailly harassed (emailly=by email) by certain members of my fan club who are wondering why I've not posted in a while. This post will serve as a means of throwing them a bone. We'll call it a potpourri of insignificant events and photos.
The breakdown: Some pics from our recent evening of fun and debauchery at the girls' elementary school carnival (good job Debbie, Holly, Lisa, and the rest of the PTO); Ben looking cute asleep; Lucas looking cute in a non-gender-specifc cowperson hat; Jacey doing her finest Kristi (token Baptist) imitation with the popular pucker (how'd I do, Kristi?). So if you've ever wondered what posting potpourri looks like...wonder no more. It's a hodge-podge of the non-stop, endless fun that IS the Reynolds' daily life.

LOVE the scowl on Livvi's face.