Where all my tape goes

My Day after Mother's Day gift

Peter came home yesterday with this box.
Turns out he drove around for 3 hours on Saturday looking for it. Apparently he didn't understand that you couldn't just go into Target and buy one. Then by the time he found the Bosch distributor in Orem they were closed. Poor Peter! He's the man.


So here it is in all its glory. Oh the baking that I will be doing with this sweet thing. Peter said he was a little worried about getting me a domestic gift and I was like are you kidding? I'm way past that one. I'd have been thrilled out of my mind if he got me a vacuum cleaner. Not a mop though. No. Or a broom or some sort of cleaning agent.

He learned a lesson when we were engaged (for NINE months) and apart for a good part of that while he worked in CA and I was going to school in Idaho. I had my birthday and Peter sent me a cookbook. Remember in "Father of the Bride" when he gives her a blender? Picture that.
I love it when Steve Martin goes with the fiance to the bar and thinks he is going to be rid of him once and for all but ends up reassuring him instead. Then he goes in to talk to his daughter Annie suggests that her fiance he had no alternative motive. "He just thought you might like to blend something."


Peter asked me if now I will sell my Kitchen Aid. I said no, I didn't think so. Great for smaller stuff. But inferior. My friends and I have talked about how our husbands don't really grasp the difference between blender capacities/power/etc and why that is such a big deal to us, but I think it is probably just the same men and guns. I don't get why if Peter has a rifle he needs another one and then he explains to me how this one is different than that one.
I just look at him blankly and say, "Whatever. Fine by me."
Bonus points for Peter! Now I just need to find a moment to try it out because so far it has just been sitting there all lonely.

My Happy Mothers Day

This was a very nice Mother's Day for me. It was very relaxing and my family gave me presents:)

I came down this morning and Sarah had made this for the fridge. Very cute I thought.
Then Nathaniel played with the letters to spell things like "Bob is Mom."


Sarah gave me another window piece and told me how they planted them at school but they all looked dead because they didn't have any sunlight or water and she brought it home resurrected it.

We had the most fun with this card. When I opened it the Hallelujah chorus belts out really loud. John couldn't get over it and Peter kept coming up with new reasons to open it like, "Sarah is graduating from the 6th grade!" (open card) "Here's what we'll be doing on the first day we drop John off for kindergarten!" (open card) or "Look! Nathaniel took out the trash!" (open card.) Very entertaining. I got a puzzle of Leonardo DaVinci's "Last Supper" which is 2000 pieces. Oh dear.

Peter gave me this. Due to my woeful computer skills you'll have to read it sideways.



The point is that there is a gift coming for me in the mail tomorrow. Nobody was talking. I asked Nathaniel to give me a hint on the store they bought it from and he said it had doors. Have I already mentioned Nathaniel is like his dad and his mouth is like a vault? He will never divulge a secret. It's like they don't have the desire--I don't get it.
I'll update when I find out.

Flowers and other plants

I have this thing for tiny vases. I collect them.
I love to put them in the kitchen window.
On the left are the 10 raspberry starters my dad sent this week waiting to be planted.

I hit some yard sales for the first time in a long time this weekend and picked up these teeny vases from Japan. They are about an inch and a half tall so these flowers are very small.

So cute!

We had a freeze the other night and Peter brought the tomato & squash plants in--which are looking a little frost burnt but are recovering in the living room.

And I had to put a better picture of these flowers we got for Sarah.
They are gorgeous!!
I think I have enjoyed them more than she has! Bonus for me:)

Nature's wonders

Snakes in my kitchen sink
(or as the kids said, daddy snake, momma snake, and baby snake)

A couple of our favorite warm weather pastimes? Catching things like bugs, snakes, and lizards. And rocks--looking for cool rocks.
I let Rebecca take two snakes in a jar for show and tell. I got a call from her later that morning asking me to pick them up because after the teacher let her share them she wanted them to go. I'll call that "show and go." Hee hee.

We let them free later that day because I have no desire to keep a stinky snake for a pet but at least one those snakes will have an adventure story to tell his friends--like how John smuggled it into the car in his barrel of monkeys and so it got to go for a car ride around town and then after we put John to bed he took it back out of the jar and tried to drive it around in the dollhouse car and it crawled down into the car and we couldn't get it out and so Peter put it outside on the porch to crawl out in the night and then John cried himself to sleep.

Yesterday we took John to Bicentennial Park in Provo with our new water nets and caught minnows for over an hour. He could have been there all day--never has an interest in the playground there because of the pond. Most of the minnows died before we got home and then the rest of them were thoroughly examined by John and his friend Courtney. And had they lived, would have some stories to tell too.

Aladdin

There is Sarah--waaay in the back!

Isn't this the prettiest bunch of flowers? She did great!

Most memorable part? Wherein the boy who played Diago the parrot completely readjusted himself throughout the play. I was silently pleading for him to stop. Maybe no one had the heart to go backstage and tell him. Oh--it was painful to watch!! My grandpa thought it was hilarious.
Then there is Peter who can hardly sit through the half hour performance and plays on his itouch during all the scenes Sarah is not in. Really? Is that absolutely necessary? He is visibly cringing and uncomfortable when Aladdin and Jasmine sing together.
Never in his life, for any amount of money would he have ever, ever played a part where he had to do that. Nathaniel doesn't look any more impressed than his dad. If I didn't laugh I would just get mad. Boys. What can you do?

Peter's last year of 30's

Today is Peter's 39th birthday and as I looked for a photo I found these recent ones of him and Daniel. I think Peter is smitten by his nephew considering all the pictures he takes of him. Of course, we are all smitten with Daniel!

For his birthday I got him an IPod touch and the book "60 places to hike within 60 miles of Salt Lake." We went out for Mexican at our favorite place, Diego's Taco Shop, and then we went bowling over at Fat Cats. Nathaniel killed us in both games with a 161 in the first one, though really didn't need a whole lot more ammo for his inflated teenage ego right now.

While we were bowling I was trying to be goofy and I told him I was thinking about giving him a 39 birthday spanks and he said he might fall asleep before I was done. I thought that was downright funny.

Some of my favorite things about Peter:
1) His laugh is the best--ask anyone who really knows him.
2) He is a hard worker
3) He loves his family
4) He is a cute kind of nerdy, which means he loves his IPod Touch even more:)
5) Contrary to popular belief, he can be kind of sentimental
6) He supports me in whatever I want to do