Andrea is 33

I celebrated my birthday more than a month ago, but I just realized I hadn't posted about the celebration my sweet girls prepared for me.

Seth was hunting that week of my birthday. When he realized he'd be gone for it, he tried to tell me he'd rework his schedule to be home for it, but I told him it was fine if he was hunting on my birthday. To make up for it, he ordered my present early, and by the time my birthday rolled around, I could already play several songs on my new ukulele.

The girls knew I share a birthday with Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, and when they realized that I'd be turning 33 — the same age Frodo turns at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring — they knew I needed a hobbit birthday bash.

Rebekah, Miriam and Analee with the hobbit hole birthday cake they decorated.

Close-up of the cake. The sprinkles made it very gritty.

The balloon Analee decorated.

The balloons Miriam decorated.

The front yard where the festivities were held.

Playing a game of "Pin the nose on the hobbit," which Miriam had prepared.

More "Pin the nose on the hobbit" shenanigans.

Winnie is 3

Gwendolen turned 3 on Sunday, but because we were on our way back from General Conference, we celebrated her special day a day late.

It took her a while to figure out how to hold up three fingers, but she got it, by golly!

First, we had dinner with grandparents, cousins, aunts and an uncle. Grandpa Scott had volleyball practice and Uncle T had work, but all the other Idaho Falls relatives came.

Pepperoni pizza was her dinner request. We also had an assortment of veggies and fruit salads.

Then, we had cupcakes.

 Analee received a Disney Princess cupcake/cake recipe book years ago. Winnie had picked out her cupcakes from there months before her birthday. She was happy with how they turned out.

Watching Miriam place three candles in her cupcake.

Blowing out her candles.

Then we came inside to unwrap presents.

Winnie had so many helpers that it was hard to get good unwrapping pictures.

A happy birthday girl with a plethora of presents. She received a princess phone from Miriam, a homemade comic book about Twilight Sparkle and Elmo from Analee, handmade bracelets from Rebekah, a Mega Bloks pirate ship and princess dress from Seth and me, a pink crocheted purse from Aunt Jessica, an Elsa doll from Aunt Rachel and Uncle Justin, an Ariel Barbie and clothes from Grandma Susan and Grandpa Dennis, a panda bear backpack from Grandma and Grandpa Scott, and a copy of Go, Dog. Go! and a stuffed dog from Grandpa Wirkus.

What do older sisters do when the little sisters and cousins are playing with birthday presents? Apparently they take refuge in the piano and read their books.

Getting a hug from Grandpa Wirkus before he goes home.

To see more fun birthday pictures, start here.

Analee at General Conference

As per our family tradition of taking newly-turned-8 daughters on a Conference trip, we had the privilege of taking Analee to the 185th Semi-Annual General Conference in Salt Lake last weekend. We left the other girls with Grandma Susan and took off Friday evening to get to our hotel in downtown SLC.

Saturday morning, we walked to the TRAX station and rode to Temple Square where we walked around for a while (I had hoped to go to the newly renovated Church History Museum, but they don't open until 10 on Saturdays) before the morning session of Conference started.

 

Seth and Analee checking out the "Helping Hands" exhibit in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Analee had read about it in the Friend magazine, and she wanted to see it while we were there.

Looking out the window on the 10th story of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Sitting on Seth's shoulders so she can see/hear the sister missionaries talk about the inside of the Salt Lake Temple using the model in the South Visitors' Center.

We started listening to Conference outside, then tried finding three seats together in one of the theaters in the North Visitors' Center, then gave up and sat on a bench just outside the building.

Analee taking a break from listening by sliding up the handrail.

During the closing of the final talk, we walked over to City Creek where Analee chose Chinese for lunch. We took it with us to Pioneer Memorial Monument Park for a picnic.

Analee playing around the Brigham Young statue in the park.

Then we took Ana on a hunt through the Salt Lake City Cemetery to find her ancestors and the Latter-day Saint prophets buried there.

Prophets

Clockwise from top: Joseph Fielding Smith, John Taylor, Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, Willford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith.

Brigham Young (in the Pioneer Memorial Monument Park), David O. McKay, Howard W. Hunter, Spencer W. Kimball, Gordon B. Hinckley. We also saw the grave of Harold B. Lee, but apparently I forgot to take a picture of us at it.

I tried finding out where the three most recently deceased apostles are buried in the cemetery, but I never did.

Ancestors

Last time we went to the Salt Lake Cemetery, we looked for and found nine ancestors' headstones. After some more careful research, we discovered that our children actually have 18 ancestors in the cemetery. We looked for all of them and found 16 (Thankful and Platt Banker were the exceptions).

 Here are the pages we took along with us so Ana could know more about the people she was looking for:

 Harlow Redfield, Asenath and Homer Duncan, Maria Dangerfield, Job and Harriet Neal, Lee and Emma Miles, Jemima Neal.

 James and Isabella McGhie, Alice Strong, Jacob Strong, Maren Jorgensen. I neglected to take pictures of Ana by Henry and Ann Grow.

After the cemetery, we drove back to the hotel to drop off the van, and rode TRAX in to the Clark Planetarium because, hey ... we had some time to kill before dinner.

Seth using the cold decals to see a design in the infrared screen.

Analee looking at meteorite bits.

Seth checking out a moon rock.

Then we took Analee to Tucano's and ate meat. Lots and lots of delicious meat. (And stuff from the salad bar too.)

The next day, we checked out of the hotel and went back to Temple Square to attend our session of General Conference.

Tablet selfie in the Conference Center.

We watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse (Mack Wilberg is amazing, and so is his falsetto when he's showing the ladies how to sing), followed by Music and the Spoken Word, followed by Conference. Analee worked on her Conference packet, and I took notes in my copy of James E. Talmage's Jesus the Christ.

It was a unique experience being able to hear from three new apostles during this session.

Seth and I both noted how President Monson started his talk out strong, but started relying on the sturdiness of the pulpit the further in he got. I actually closed my eyes during the latter part of his talk and prayed he'd have the strength to finish. Seth said he offered a silent prayer as well. We noticed the screen showed that as soon as the prophet said, "Amen," the video cut to an extra wide shot of the whole Conference Center. In person, we saw President Uchtdorf and President Monson's helper (bodyguard?) quickly step in and take him by both arms back to his seat.

Despite the ailments of age and his decrease in physical strength, the Spirit testified to me that Thomas S. Monson is still a prophet of God and as spiritually strong as ever.

The rest of Conference continued without a hitch, and we went straight from Temple Square to our van and drove the rest of the way home.

To see more pictures of our trip, start here.

Star Wars party

Considering Star Wars is the best thing ever, I consider it a tragedy that I didn't put more effort into my ensemble for the public library's Star Wars party. But alas, between shuttling a girl to a friend's birthday party, picking up prizes for the elementary school's raffle and dropping off a photo CD at someone's house, I didn't have time to make ears or find a walking stick. So I just wore my Yoda shirt.

But my girls were Star Wars-ified and fabulous!

Winnie as Wicket the Ewok. She was so dang cute, a random lady asked to take her picture.

Miriam as Princess Leia.

Rebekah as R2D2. She worked very hard to make that mask out of cardboard, tape and paint.

Analee as a stormtrooper. "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

After eating snacks, playing Hoth freeze tag and making pool noodle light sabers, we posed for some photos.

At least Seth and I had T-shirts that fit in with the theme, right?

Gwenism #11

While listening to a Disney Classic CD in the van.

CD: "There may be something there that wasn't there before."
Gwen: What was there?
Andrea: Something that wasn't there before.
Gwen: Hm. (Thinks about it for a minute.) Maybe bugs were there.

Mishaps

It started with breakfast on Friday.

I opened the cupboard door to get out the cereal bowls when Analee's hot chocolate mug fell from the top shelf. It smashed into the counter. A shard flew up. It cut my left wrist. I exclaimed, "Dangit! Dangit! Dangit!" as I pushed the gaping cut back together and asked Seth to gauze/tape it up.

I sported the gauze and tape to the FAME meeting I was in charge of, then drove to Redicare to get three stitches.

I made it a point to turn away during the shots/sewing.

The downsides? I have three stitches in my wrist. It hurt a lot. I couldn't play volleyball today.

The upsides? I get to sport some of the super cute Scrabble Band-Aids I bought the other day. (My current one says "OWIE.") It doesn't hurt nearly as much any more.

The second mishap of this two-part series happened Sunday. Seth had barely left for Island Park to spend a week hunting. The girls and I walked over to my parents' house to visit. The girls were sliding around on their hardwood floors in slippery socks (they call it "ice skating") when I heard a loud bang. I turned in alarm to see Analee holding her face and crying. She had a bloody nose. And a good chunk of her front tooth was missing.

Her big, beautiful front tooth. A permanent tooth.

 See the tear running down her cheek? Poor girl.

After getting the other girls off to the school bus the next morning and dropping Winnie off with my dad, I drove Analee in to the dentist to see what we could do to fix it. They were so good to squeeze us in, and everybody was so sweet to Analee.

She's now sporting a big filling on that tooth, and you'd never know it from looking at her.

The downsides? She won't be able to bite into an apple for fear of pulling the filling off. Both her front teeth could "fail" (dentist talk for "die," I learned). She made need a root canal or two in the future.

The upsides? Even though the nerve of that tooth was exposed for a good 12 hours, she said it didn't hurt that badly. She got to keep her "space nose" from the happy gas. She got a balloon AND a prize.

The moral of the story: Keep us Grovers away from anything remotely dangerous. Like cupboards. And floors.

On second thought, roll us up in a mile of bubble wrap or give each of us a giant plastic ball to roll around in.

We're all Fancy Nancies

Whenever I dress up with the kids and park the car in the library parking lot, I feel a little panicky. "The themed party is really today, right? What if I got the time/date wrong? I'll look ridiculous going into the library like this."

I think that's how Seth felt today going to the library's Fancy Nancy party. But times 100.

Don't believe me? We took photos at the house before going to the library.

 

 

What a manly man, Seth is. As his wife, I can assure you that he has never worn women's clothes before. But when the library said, "We're having a Fancy Nancy party!" our girls said, "Great! We love Fancy Nancy! We'll dress up in all our fancy clothes!" and Seth said, "Super! I'll join the party!"

So go to the library we did. And good times we had.

Although Miriam kept giving Seth this look while waiting for the party to start.

Rebekah's colorful hair. Aunt Jessica told her minutes before we left for the party that you can use washable markers in your hair. She went to town.

Analee working on her project.

Miriam's acrostic with fancy words.

Winnie's fancy box.

Posing with fancy props.

Posing in fancy poses.

While I was helping Winnie with her craft, I spied Miriam teaching Seth how to scarf dance. It was a hoot.

After the party, Seth rubbed off the makeup and changed back to his own clothes. And he spent the rest of the afternoon mowing the lawn, changing the oil in the generator, irrigating the lawn and using a heat gun to remove the tinting from his truck's windows. You know, manly things.

So I guess Miriam's pre-party lunch prayer was answered: "Please help us remember that Dad is not a girl."