the BEST birthday ever.

It seems like every year on my birthday, when I'm crawling into bed, I think "That was the best birthday ever!" and I think it will be hard to have a better birthday.

There was the first year that Dan I were married and we came home from church to our little Y-mount apartment and there was a brand new digital piano sitting in our living room. Nate-the-great had hauled it up the stairs, broke into the apartment, and had it waiting for me. That was awesome.

Then there was two eyars ago, when Nate, Tawna and Tami came to visit me. I was working as a substitute teacher, and got called in for that day. But when I got home, they had that huge chocolate cake from Costco and a new blender for smoothies. THAT birthday was awesome.

Well, I feel I had the best birthday ever, again.

I babysat for one of my friends and so I had gotten up earlier than usual to take my shower and make my bed before the kids arrived. Usually in the mornings, Michael will open my door and climb in bed for a quick snuggle. I was making my bed and I heard the little footsteps. He opened the door and said "Happy Birfday mommy!" Then he got a huge frown on his face and, almost in tears, said "Mommy...Michael..bed..." So we climbed in bed and had our snuggle. Then Chelsea came in moments later with two little presents in her hand, singing Happy Birthday. She climbed on the bed for our snuggle fest. Then they both gave me lots of kisses and hugs. That alone made it the best birthday ever.

When I finally made it downstairs, I found a chocolate cake and a message from Dan. I had no idea when he made it, but it looked delicious!



My little sister Tawna wrote me an awesome "ode" on her blog. She's so funny. :)
I got a call from all 6 of my siblings, which included the families singing Happy Birthday to me. For some I was not home, but now I can replay the message on my answering machine over and over, whenever I want to. :) Thanks guys!I got lots of e-mail , blog, and facebook messages from many friends, old and new. That was pretty awesome.

Dan had to work at the Continuing Education clinic at the dental school, so I got my favorite dinner, Bertolli's chicken parmesan, cooked it up and we took it up to the school to have dinner with Daddy.


After dinner, Chelsea and Michael helped me open my presents and then we had the cake and ice-cream Michael had been pestering me all day to eat. And it WAS as good as it looked. :)

Chelsea got me some much needed earings, and Dad has been collecting some of my favorite chick-flicks. YAY! Now I have something to watch while he's away at school and I'm home all alone. (ARe you feeling sorry for me yet?!)



For the past two weeks, Michael has been singing "Happy Birthday YOU!" to me. I tried to catch it on tape, but only got parts of it. I love how he sings Happy Birthday to the couch more than to his mom. :) His favorite song as of lately, is Twinkle Twinkle little star, or in Michael words: Finkle Finkle Tar! I think he'll probably be the next American Idol. He sings, he plays the piano, and he's absolutely adorable!

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Thanks everyone for making me feel special. I have the best friends and family in the whole world!

One...Two...Three....

Michael has learned to count to ten! Well...almost. You have to be playing hide and seek to get him to do it. I think he has a favorite number...."Sedden"

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I love it when he brings his little fingers out to help him count. It reminds me of the little boy in the movie "The Kid".

Piano Lesson

Chelsea and Michael are getting better at playing with each other...or rather, Michael is more accepting to Chelsea's motherness. Here she's giving Michael a piano lesson. I love the thin books they are sitting on as boosters. They were even singing the songs they were playing. It went something like "D! rest. D! rest D! D! D! rest."

The BEST part about being a mom...

is getting time to spend with my kids.

Chelsea's preschool has a special day where the kids get to invite a special girl to come to their preschool. Usually it's a mom or grandma, but it can be anyone. I got to be Chelsea's special someone. I went last year and was really looking forward to it again this year. It's only an hour long, but I love the one on one time with her and to see her with her friends. She has so many cute friends at this school! Lately, the thing to do at school is to "borrow" things from friends. I have a hard time with this because I don't want to be responsible for any one's stuff getting broken, but occasionally a necklace or hairband will slip my supervision and end up in her back pack. oh well. I just hope we've returned everything to everyone.

This was the day after the "accident" and many friends were concerned about Chelsea's face. One adorable boy, Brennan, carefully walked up to her and said "Chelsea, I'm sorry you got hurt on your face!" He looked like he was going to cry! It was so sweet!

This is the beautiful corsage Chelsea made me and she even put it on my wrist all by herself. After I received my name tag, she led me upstairs to the dining area where we had fruit, juice, muffins and cookies. It was so fun to see all the friends showing off their "special someones"

When we were finished with our snacks, Chelsea led me back down to her classroom where we played with play-doh. First we made spaghetti, and then she wanted to spell Grandma Hadfield's name. She found the letters and pressed them in the dough, and my job was to get the dough out of the cutters. We make an awesome team!

Then we found a huge basket of duplos so we built a house. We didn't have time to finish it because it was story time. Chelsea sat on my lap as we listened to her teacher read the story "I ain't gonna paint no more!" It's a super cute book...we might have to add it to our collection.

This is Chelsea's friend Mia. I always end up parking next to her mom when for pick-up time and it's hard to get the girls to stop hugging long enough to get in the cars. Mia is always smiling and is just such a cute girl. I'm glad she is Chelsea's friend.

Brooke is also a friend in Chelsea's sunbeam class. We were really excited to learn that they would be in the same preschool class. Separately, these girls may appear to be shy, timid, and reserved...but together....they're quite the wild playmates. Chelsea says their favorite thing to play in the gym is "Kitties". I would love to see that game in action. We've had Brooke over several times to play. I love to have her over because she is so good with Michael too. Some of Chelsea's friends won't let him play with them, but Brooke just treats him like another friend. That might explain why I couldn't get Michael to stop kissing her the last time she was over.



I hope we can find such great friends for Chelsea wherever we move too. It would have been fun to watch Chelsea grow up with these girls. And even though Chelse will probably not remember them in a few years...I have already seen their influence on her developing personality. Leaving friends will definitely be THE hardest part of our upcoming move. I'm glad I was able to be Chelsea's special someone for the day and look forward to many more mommy-daughter dates!

The hardest part about being a mom....

is seeing your kids in pain. I hate watching the tears stream down their face when they get hurt, or even worse, when feelings get hurt by a friend.

Yesterday, it was raining...again...and really started to pour when we pulled into the parking lot of our apartment complex. We had just picked Chelsea up from preschool. I told the kids to hurry inside so we wouldn't get too wet. (I never carry an umbrella. I think they're so much more of a hassle than they are worth!) Chelsea had her hands in her pockets to stay warm. She didn't quite pick her foot up high enough when stepping over the curb and face planted in the dirt. It was a scary sight, so I quickly picked her up but relaxed a little when she had no scrapes...just a little bit of a muddy face.

Chelsea has had a history of what they call "Breath-holding-spells". It usually happens when she gets hurt really bad, or when she's really tired and sensitive. She'll start crying so hard that she doesn't breathe, then kind of go into little seizures and then pass out cold. They used to happen quite frequently when she was 2, but she hasn't had them for a long time. After the fall, she started crying pretty hard, but she was breathing, so I thought she was okay. My hands were full of paintings she had done from preschool, so I tried to quickly open the door to our apartment. But, I wasn't fast enough.

The image of her passing out (hands still in her pockets) and face planting, again, this time on concrete, goes over and over in my mind. When I picked her up and saw blood, I knew we were had problems.
She scraped up the side of her face pretty good, chipped 3 of her teeth and really scratched up her gums. At first I thought she's lost a tooth with all the blood coming out of her mouth. We cleaned her up and then I just held her on the couch while we watched a movie. It wasn't until she started saying she was sleepy that I thought about calling the doctor. She normally gets really tired after these spells, but I was worried about a concussion.

So, we drove a half hour to the doctor (amazingly, traffic was awesome...right on the worst stretch of highway, in the middle of rush hour) and Dr. Palmer checked her out. When we were in the waiting room, and she was playing with all the toys, I knew she was okay...but somehow I still needed the reassurance from a Doctor. He had her do all sorts of tests, like alternating fingers touching her nose, and looking into lights, etc. I actually laughed when he wanted her to walk with one foot in front of the other, with the toe of one foot touching the heel of the other. When he said "Chelsea, can you do heel toe walking for me?" she jumped right up in her overly sized rain boots and started doing her tap dance step where you make two distinct tapping sounds with your heel and toe. It was excellent tap heel-toes, but totaly not what the doctor wanted. She was even chanting "Heel-toe! Heel-toe!" with her hands on her waste.

Dan was finally home when we got back. Lucky for us, he's a dentist! :) He checked out her teeth. He says we'll have to watch them for a few days to see if the nerves were damaged, but he thinks she'll be okay. Maybe she'll get a grey tooth like I did when I was little! :)

She was very brave through the whole ordeal and even gave me a smile. The Doctor was very impressed when he was cleaning the wound and putting ointment on it that she didn't even cry or put up a fuss. I love my beautiful girl and hope this is the worst we ever have to see her go through. :)

Grandma got married!

That's right! Dan, Chelsea, Michael and I drove to Seattle this weekend to watch 85 year old grandma tie the knot to 88 yr old "Grandpa Jerry". They have been friends for many years. In fact, when their spouses were still alive, they were all friends! All of Jerry's sons (7 total) came to the wedding, but his only daugther, who is currently serving a mission, was not able to come. All of Grandma's kids were there, except Aunt Carol who is also serving a mission. It was the first time that I had met some of the "cousins". Aunt Melissa was the lucky one who got to watch our kiddos while we went to the wedding ceremony. Here's a cute picture of Grandma and Chelsea in the waiting room.

Chelsea got to be the first one to hug the newly-married-Great-Grandma!



It was cold and rainy with threats of snow, but they still got some pictures taken. Notice what happens when they think no-one was looking? Ah-ha! I caughtcha!


We also took the opportunity to get some pictures taken. This is Michael's "Smile" face. Lovely....



Isn't Melissa so dang cute!?






The wedding reception was held at Grandma's church.


I think Grandma was very excited about the cake cutting thing, cause she kept asking if it was time for her to feed Jerrry the cake. "Not yet, Mom" was the answer. :) My favorite part was watchign Jerry down the rest of his piece of cake. He held it with two hands, like a sandwich...and minutes later...it was gone. :)
Because of Grandma's knuckles, she couldn't have a wedding ring. So she told Jerry about the expandable CTR rings. I wish I got a picture of the actual ring, but it was a little crowded with cameras. The ring is really pretty with flowers in pink, purple and white.

Michael did pretty good through the long day, but there's no questions what his favorite part was!


After the reception, all of Dad's brothers and sisters went to Grandma's house to talk and catch up. The newlywed's started off on their honeymoon in a car that was shoepolished by one of the Grandson's (On Jerry's side!) The back window read "Just married!" the driver said "I'm 88 years young!" and the passenger side said "I'm younger than him!" What fun!

Love this stuff!

***MANY MANY hours later...I've improved!!! :)****
96 words

Speedtest

93 words

Speedtest

Copy That!

When Chelsea was 2, Grandma and Grandpa Hadfield came to visit us in Portland. We took them to Powell's bookstore in Downtown Portland. This place is seriously huge. In fact, it is the largest used and new bookstore in the WORLD! It takes up and entire city block and stocks over a million books! Each floor or section has it's own color, purple for kid's books, red for hobby books, blue for fiction, etc. I think we got lost a couple of times...


Anyway, while we were there Grandma spoiled Chelsea and bought her several books. One was this one:

If you're not familiar with it, it's really cute, especially for 2 and three year olds. It has pictures of little kids doing facial expressions with a poem that goes along with it. The back page even folds out with a mirror so the kids can practice making their own faces. Michael is so funny when he tries to mimick the pictures.

I was trying to take a picture of Michael, but he wouldn't smile, so I tried the phrase in the book about smiling to try to trick him into it. Well, we got a little carried away. This book is so much fun!

"Silly faces are the best! Make one now, than take a rest!"

"Are you sad and feeling down, bite your lip and start to frown." Chelsea of course wanted to be in the action, so she joined us for our facial demonstration


"Can you really look suprised? Mouth wide open, and goggle-eyed?"

The only face Michael has a hard time making, is the sleeping one. :)ARen't you suprised to see ME in the pictures? It's hard to be in the pictures, when you're the one taking all the pictures. Guess this was my lucky day!

Easter Celebrations! (hiding face in shame...)

ARGH. This is what happens when you procrastinate too long. I had a lot of great pictures of different things we did for Easter that friends e-mailed to me, but I can't seem to find them any more. So, my dear friends...can you send me them again?!


I'm going to go ahead with this post, although incomplete, because if I don't do it now, it's not going to get done. It's already embarrassing enough that it's almost a month late!

Easter is our Easter Bunny's favorite holiday. He gets very tricky with where he hides the eggs. It's often several months later that I still find chocolate eggs in weird spots. For example, inside a cup, inside and buried in the flour container, or they might jump out at me when I open a cupboard door (or at my boss). We still have a reminder of last year's hunt on the wall next to the ceiling above our stairs. I'm still in awe that adult bunny's can jump over 20ft high on stairs to tape two chocolate eggs to the wall. But what baffles me more is how we will ever get them down before we move! (picture taken today...not last year....)

Michael was more excited about the endless chocolate eggs scattered throughout the house, than his Easter basket. But once we showed him his new smart trax engine from brio, he was lost in playland for several minutes...a record for Michael.



Chelsea was very excited about her goods. She got some fabulous pink sun glasses, a new game for her leapster, and play doh

The week before eater, my awesome friend Abra hosted two separate classes on how to make panoramic sugar eggs. I remember getting some of these from my Grandma Spong when I was little, so it was fun to have the flash back of memories. Most of these pictures are not mine, and since I lost the ones sent to me, I had to steal some from their blogs. (Hee Hee) It was a lot of fun learning how to do these and I even bought the mods for them so I can make my own next year.




However, as much as I love sugar, I think I'm going to try out the chocolate shell ones... Here is the inside of my egg. You can't really tell, but it's a bunny in a carrot patch. You can buy all the decorations (i.e. bunnies, flowers, butterflies, carrots, etc.) at the local cake decorating story called the Decorette Shop, so No, we did not make them ourselves!


Unfortunately, tragedy struck as I was packing all of my stuff to walk out the door to go home. Graceful me tripped on my own feet, and my egg smashed on the table. There was a loud gasp and then a horrified silence. The frosting was no where near solidified and so the top popped right off and a corner broke off. My friends are so awesome that they offered to give me the ones they had made. So sweet! But I was still proud of my efforts and the inside wasn't too bad, so I took my egg home. Here is the aftermath of my clutziness...



Finally, a few dental student families in our ward got together and had an Easter egg hunt for our kids at the church. We were going to have it at a park, but it had rained all morning, so we moved it to the church gym. But when we got there, it was sunny and gorgeous, so we moved it to the front lawn of the church. Midway through the hunt, it started hailing! But of course, in a few minutes, it was over.


I think we had a great Easter and what made it so fun was sharing it with so many friends. Now, I just need those pictures to put in my scrapbook so I can always remember the fun we had! (wink wink...and YOU know who I am talking too)

Snow?! Portland? MARCH?!

Okay, I know we're all experiencing the same phenomenon with weather these last few weeks, all across the country, so this won't be all that shocking of a post. First there were reports of blizzards in Chicago, then Utah, and now Portland gets to be part of the statistic! This last weekend was weird! It would be completely sunny and then all of the sudden it would hail like crazy! Never snow, just these fluffy balls of hail! When we got out of church at 6:00 PM, the ground was almost white with these little balls. Dan had to run home to get our pot luck dish for the "linger a little longer" dinner with our ward...and he got a little distracted. When we finally got home, Chelsea had a new friend in the freezer.

Artists at work...do not enter!

What is it about walls being the preferred medium for kids to do artwork on? What's wrong with paper? Last week there was an art show at our house. We had masterpieces on the wall, doors, computer screens, piano, microwave and TV. Chelsea and Michael creater their masterpieces with crayon, marker, and of course pen and pencil. Thank heaven for Mr. Clean Magic Erasers! Chelsea was the main instigator in these drawings, and after repeated time-outs and privlidges taken away, we knew we had to get extreme. We took away her leapster, doll, doll stroller, bed-time sotry and song, and movies for an entire week. Tomorrow she gets them back. We haven't had any art work on anything but paper since. Finally, a punishment that worked!

But I had to laugh last night when I was putting the kids to bed. I finished Michael's bed time story and he asks "Chessie torie?"
"Nope, not tonight"
"Chessie trouble...Chessie color wahl..Chessie! NO COLOR WAHL! Color pepper!!!"
He just kept talking to himself about CHelsea getting in trouble because she colored on the wall until he fell asleep. But does he learn from other's examples? Heck no.

"Chelsea did it!"

This is what we hear whenever we ask Michael a question. It doens't matter the question, but whatever it was, "Chelsea did it." I don't know where he learned about the blame game, but he has definitly gone pro...

"Michael, are you ready for breakfast?"
"Chelsea did it!"

"Michael, what happened to your bed?!"
"Chelsea did it!"

"Michael, where are your shoes?"
"Chelsea did it!"

Occasionally, "Mommy did it" or "Daddy did it" but usually it's Chelsea's fault. Poor girl. Usually she's innocent.

And he's usually making this face too.


Gotta love em!