DA's First Soccer Game

DA has started soccer at last. We got him all decked out for his first game on the 17th and of course the uniform drowned him...he didn't seem to mind, but the shorts literally kept falling off.

We got to the field and one of the hottest days of the summer so far turned into what felt like November. It was SO cold! Thankfully we had DA's jacket. He was a little miserable in the cold. (P.S. If you look really closely, he has a bruise under his left eye. He got clobbered about half-way through the game, another reason he looks a little miserable.)
He cheered up pretty quickly though when he wrapped up with Mom in the zebra blanket.
For everyone who isn't close enough to come or who wasn't there, here's some live action clips. Unfortunately, Jake wasn't filming when DA got his first (and only) goal of the game. Our team lost 1 to...I lost track, but it was a lot. Sad, but we'll do better next week!

DA was able to kick it in several times for our team and he saw a lot of action on the field. His coach was really good about giving all the kids lots of playing time.

This was a hilarious pile-up you only see in pre-school soccer.

Giving the other team a cheer at the end of the game. They were all a little bummed they lost so badly, but snacks cheered everyone up. Gotta love the simplicity of kids!

Happy Birthday...to me!!!

It was my birthday a little over a week ago. It was fabulous (for the most part)! The morning started with a surprise gift from my boys. Jake got me a Pong (sp?) chair from Ikea. I've been wanting one for the last three years! It's lovely. And it's now in the best spot in the house. Jake then went to work and Link and I had breakfast. I left the room for a little bit and got birthday present #2. Link's breakfast ended up all over the wall, table and floor. Happy birthday mom! Later DA and I went shopping. We ended up getting soccer shoes for him and nothing for me. I thought it was my birthday? Hahaha! He needed them (next post) and I don't need anything other than my boys, so it was a good outing with my son.

Jake only worked half a day, then DA and I picked him up and went to lunch. After lunch I got a massage, which was very nice, while DA went to Grandma Colleen's house and Jake finished up planning for the afternoon. He called me after the massage was done and asked if I could get some quarters. He wouldn't tell me what for. Hmmmm, mysterious...

When Jake picked me up, we went to the store for water bottles, then he took me to Thanksgiving Point. My wonderful BIN, Brett, gave us free passes for the Gardens and a golf cart. We had so much fun! The golf cart made it that much more fun. We zipped around the gardens, fed the Koi (that's what the quarters were for and it was a blast!), explored the Secret Garden, smelled the lilacs, visited the huge waterfall, and generally enjoyed ourselves. After we left the garden, Jake took us to eat at the Harvest restaurant. It was delicious! I want the recipe for the finger potatoes. I've never had such good potatoes in my life. Wow!

After we ate, we took some down time to go see a movie, then headed back to Grandma's to pick up our bug. DA planned a surprise with Dad and Grandma, so when we got there, all the kiddos hid and surprised me with happy birthday's, then we had my most favorite cake in the world. If you've never had Ricotta Cake with fresh strawberries and whip cream, you don't know what you're missing. It's a piece of heaven every time I bite into it! Love!

It was a long, but lovely afternoon.

Me on the golf cart enjoying the breeze and the view from the top of the waterfall.

Feeding the Koi. The orange and white one in the middle was a monster fish! He was easily three times the size of most of the fish there. So cool!

My wonderful hubby enjoying himself.
Yay for birthdays!

Have a Laugh!

DA has been really into drawing pictures lately. I'm loving it. Featured below is Aunt Rachael's family: Aunt Rachael, Uncle Brett, and DA's three cousins.

After he gave me the picture, he then went on to explain it. This is Uncle Brett:

This is Aunt Rachael:

This is Cousin L:

This is her little brother, Cousin D2 (who DA calmly informed me was missing an eye thanks to the aliens):

And this is the alien (whom I have fondly named "The Carrot"):

"But where is cousin D1?" I asked him.

His response, "He was kidnapped by the aliens."

Maybe that's why Aunt Rachael is grinning from ear to ear.

From My Sweethearts

Jake came home with a surprise from him and DA a few days ago. To celebrate having a girl, he brought me flowers. And they are beautiful! He told me DA had known about daddy picking up flowers for a couple of days and was almost bursting to tell me. How does a four-year-old keep a secret?

I don't know, but I was thrilled he did. Orange and yellow lilies from my sweethearts! Just beautiful. Made me feel so special.

It's Official!

Baby is officially a girl. I couldn't be more happy that she's healthy and growing well, but having a girl is going to be beyond awesome. I'm thrilled! I love my little DA, but I've been a bit outnumbered around here. Time to even up the score.

Interior Design FAIL!!!

Not many people know, or at least remember, I have a BA in Interior Design. Yes, I do. And I didn't come by that dang degree easily. I worked my tail off to get it and practically wrecked my health and sanity in the process.

I had a fabulously awful experience trying to get a job in interior design later and ultimately failed, thus setting my life on a different (and I think better) course all of which I won't get into. But I have come to the conclusion that my degree (and thus all that work I put into getting it) is practically worthless compared to real life experience.

Case in point: I went to IKEA a few months back and came across a couple of lamps I absolutley fell in love with. Literally. I tried walking away without them at least three times because I wasn't there for lamps. I was there for curtains. I failed. In more than one way, but we're just going to discuss the lamps today. I really couldn't leave without them. They were simple, pretty, inexpensive, and I just knew they would be the perfect addition to the decor in my living room.

I got home, put in the luminaires they called for, set them up in their perfect places, turned them on, stepped back and...almost cried. And not in a good way. I'm mortifying myself in sharing this.

Problem #1: Scale. They were tiny compared to the rest of my living room furniture. They sat ten inches high. That's it. They didn't even peak over the arms of my sofa. That goes beyond the realm of "Akward," across the land of "what were you thinking?" and lands smack dab in the middle of the island of "Oh my heck! That looks ridiculous, kill me now!" Don't roll your eyes, there is such a place, and I've visited it on many, many occassions. Go ME!

Problem #2: Function. Ever had the experience of your best friend telling ghost stories in the dark with a flashlight uplighting their face? It isn't the best way to show off your features, especially in everyday conversation...in the living room. The lamps are globe lamps, meaning they don't have a stand or a shade. They're a spherical piece of glass that sits on whatever surface you put it on and the lightbulb is inside. That means their light, for the most part is directed up and out rather than down and out like a normal lamp. Not exactly functional when you want it to perform a normal lamp function. But it was something I really liked about them until I realized the unique cast it gave to features when light was directed in that way. When I got home. And tried to have a normal conversation in their light. Oh joy.

Problem #3: Function. Again. The only luminaires these lamps can use are pretty small. So small I had a hard time finding them the first time around. After searching for them among the lightbulbs for a good half hour, I asked a sales clerk where to look and he directed me to...the nightlights! This was after I had bought the lamps. Oh joy, again! The light they put off is slightly brighter than a nightlight, but only slightly. Go me, again!

The best part about this is that all of these problems deal with stuff you learn about in Design Basics, which is literally the FIRST interior design class I took in college. And even though I graduated with a great GPA and understood all the theories of interior design, I still fail in real life. It really is true that no amount of education can make up for lack of experience. Yay!!!

Thankfully, I have since been given several lamps that work wonderfully in scale and function in my living room. I want to re-do their shades eventually because the shade parts are old and ugly, but the lamps themselves are quite beautiful, and who can say no to free.

My two simple, pretty, inexpensive lamps I couldn't walk away from have found their way to more appropriate uses. As nightlights. And I still love them.


Aren't they so pretty? How could I say no?

Updates

It's been a while since I last posted, so here's the 411 on the Sullivan Fam.

I'm still pregnant. I am 25 weeks along, we think it's a girl. That theory should be confirmed or debunct tomorrow at another ultra-sound. I haven't been sick, which is a blessing, but the exhaustion is killing me. I've had a lot of restless nights lately and a lot of contractions which have been hard enough to wake me up and keep me awake for a while. Crossing my fingers I won't be put on bed rest due to pre-term labor being a real factor. Oh joy! But baby is healthy and growing well, so I'll count my blessings.

I've been spring cleaning and have found that throwing things out is incredibly liberating. Not that I'm a packrat, because I'm not even close, but throwing away items that just aren't used (like baby clothes DA never wore, they still had the tags on), worn out, or broken is a burden lifted I didn't even know was there. It makes me really wonder why people hold onto things, especially for years and years. Stuff that sits in a box without being touched for more than a couple of years just takes up valuable storage space and mental and emotional space you could be sharing freely. Can someone tell me what the point is in keeping it? Because I know how awesome it is to get rid of it.

Jake is finishing up this semester. Design Day was a lot of fun and his team's robotic arm recieved some good attention. He is headed into finals next week, working like a mad man, and generally comes home exhausted, but at least he's home. He was also called as the second counsellor in the Bishopric recently, so add lots of meetings to the already full agenda and he keeps busy. He loves it.

DA loves the sunshine when it's out, and drives me crazy when it's not, but that's half the fun of being four. He's growing like a weed and has jumped two sizes since Christmas. I took him into the Doctor for a child wellness check up just before his birthday. He was in the 90th percentile in height for his age, and he was below the chart for weight. He's a skinny bean pole. Doc says that's okay because those statistics are based on a nation of children that are becoming gradually more and more overweight and not to worry about my son. DA's generation is actually considered obese, so the fact that he doesn't have any fat on him to speak of, is a good thing. He's healthy, happy, energetic, and in front of the curve in learning, so weight isn't an issue at the moment. I'm not worried and I actually find it rather funny. Isn't skinny what this nation is obsessed with? Yet, apparently my kid being skinny could be seen as me not feeding him. I can hardly put enough food on the table to keep him satisfied. He eats like an elephant. The only difference between him and the majority of kids his age is he eats all the healthy stuff instead of a continual diet of junk. He loves fresh fruit and vegetables, rice, beans, potatoes, pasta and water, we don't use milk for the most part (I'm allergic and he could develop the allergy fairly easily), he doesn't like meat and eats it sparingly, he likes candy, but prefers real food when he's hungry. He knows what's good for him and what he feels good eating, so he isn't afraid to tell you he just doesn't want something. Now my rant is done.

DA got a new bed frame for Christmas (thank you Fred! We love it!), but we just got the matress for it this week, so he hadn't slept in it until a few days ago. He LOVES sleeping in a big boy bed. The bed has five drawers under it, which makes for some incredible storage space and it's tall enough that I can fit my food storage buckets under it with a couple inches to spare. That means it's also too tall for DA to get on it without the assistance of a step-stool. He feels like he's in a tower when he climbs up. Pretty awesome!

Recycling has come to our neck of the woods and I am thrilled. DA is the best at it and reminds us all the time that the stuff we're about to toss in the trash without a thought is recyclable. He keeps us on our toes.

That's all my brain is ready to spew forth at this time, so farewell for now!