Horticultural Dreams

There is something you should know about me...I love a good daydream. Life as a mother of four oftentimes requires most of my head space nowadays. But every once in awhile I find myself slipping into a nice little escape of the mind.

I had the opportunity to go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City earlier in the month as we were passing from Park City, Utah to Boise, Idaho. I am always so amazed and inspired by all of the beautiful flowers and flora and fauna surrounding Temple Square. Deliciously soft, decadently green grass. Blooms in more variety and abundance than you can imagine. Reflecting ponds with clean, smooth water. It really does just feed my soul. Every time I walk through there I find the thought, "This must be what heaven is like." slipping across the back of my forehead.

I saw a picture the other day of a mother of a friend's backyard garden. It was beautiful and looked straight off the pages of a magazine. I longed for such a thing in my own life, but was whomped back to reality rather quickly. Why you may ask? Because I am the equivalent of the Horticultural Grim Reaper. My grass...brown, weedy and full of fire ants. Flowers...I know not to waste my money, I would just kill them. House plants...I have to buy the kind that can go a month without watering because I inadvertently turn into the cruel warden that denies them their much needed water.

It's not that I try to be neglectful, but I learned living in our place in Oregon (which was four acres of plants, plants, PLANTS!!!), that kind of flora and fauna takes a lot of flippin' time, expense and energy. I don't want to say I am lazy, but I am lucky to keep caught up on all the laundry that needs to be folded around here and keep the crumbs swept up from under the breakfast table. But still it irritates me, my inability to coax beauty out of a growing thing.

I read a passage this morning by Sarah Ban Breathnach though that gave me a good chuckle. It was almost as if she had been spying on me. She said "Gardeners who creatively toil in the rich soil of imagination, like myself, often end up surrounded by plants that look as if they had been tended by Morticia Addams."

It made me feel a little more at peace with myself, knowing there is a time and season for everything. Now is the phase of my life where the growing things I encourage are my children. So unless I become fabulously wealthy and can afford a cottage behind my house where a happy, full-time gardener resides; I will have to be content with cultivating the rich soil that grows the daydreams of my mind.

Brynna's Seventh Birthday - Kani House

***WARNING!!! FIVE MILLION PICTURES AHEAD! IT'S EITHER POST THEM ON HERE OR GET LOST IN THE SHUFFLE - SO WE ARE POSTING THEM ALL!!***

 Yesterday was Brynna's 7th Birthday and we decided that some proper fun was in order! Some people are all into party planning and all that jazz, but truthfully it makes me want to break out into hives. Too much pressure to make everything perfect.

 So I told Brynnie rather than a big hulabaloo where I run around like a crazy person, to pick just one of her good friends to spend the day with and we could do anything she wanted. She agreed that sounded like a pretty good idea!

I love Ivy's face in this picture!

 She of course picked her best buddy Ivy, whom she has known since they were both just a few months old, to celebrate her special day with. These girls are a hoot togther. I think one of the things Brynna loves most about Ivy is that she loves being silly about as much as Brynna does! As you can see, there was no shortage of silliness this day!

Maryn had a pool party to attend soon after we left, so she came along for lunch and had fun contributing to the crazy face contest!

We started out our day with our birthday tradition of doughnuts and chocolate milk, but agreed unanimously that our taste buds must not be what they used to, because it just felt like SO much sugar so early in the morning! (Yes, we know doughnuts and chocolate milk are sugary, but even Brynna said it was just so sweet!)

  Then Brynna said she wanted to go to Crossfit with me to workout after breakfast. So we showed up and lo and behold Ivy's mom had brought her too! So the girls warmed up with the group and were great, little running buddies together. 

  We had originally planned to pick Ivy up around lunch time, but the girls were having so much fun we decided to just let them spend the entire day together and so Ivy came home with us.

 The girls played outside while I got showered up and frosted some cupcakes and then it was off to lunch! Brynna is a little seafood lover and had been craving some sushi. Since I wasn't sure this was every seven-year-olds cup of tea, we decided to compromise and go to one of our favorite Japanese Steakhouses, Kani House, where Brynna could have her sushi and Ivy could have hibachi.

Chopsticks up the nose...niiiice!

 The girls loved it and at one point Ivy even said "I love this place! I want to work here when I grow up!" I told her to start practicing her knife and egg-spinning skills! ;)

Soon enough, our bellies were full and we were ready to head out onto the next leg of our BFF day of fun!

Brynna's Seventh Birthday - Ears Pierced

 There is something you should know about Brynna. She is my child who swore up and down that she was never, ever getting her ears pierced. So imagine my shock a few weeks ago when she came to me and said that she was ready to get them done and wanted to do it on her birthday. I told her my rule always was that her and her sisters could get them pierced whenever they were old enough to want it for themselves. So we planned on making it a birthday wish come true.

She was all ready to go and sat down in that chair, swallowed hard and said she didn't want to do it anymore. I told her she didn't have to, but was she sure about her choice. The lady who did the piercing was great and told Brynna she would show her everything she was going to do and if she still didn't want to do it, she didn't have to. So Brynna watched, decided to go ahead with it and then came the moment of truth...

 

 The child did not flinch, whimper, or even say "Ow!" she literally said "That didn't hurt at all!!"

 I was so proud of how great she did and she loved her new, pink flower earrings.

 Ivy is waiting to get hers done on her 8th Birthday, but we didn't want her feeling left out of the fun, so the girls picked her out some pink, butterfly clip-on earrings for her to wear too. They also picked out a Best Friends necklace to wear together and got matching dress-up make-up kits....You will see the blue eyeshadow aftermath later in the day. ;)

 Two cute girls!

 Crazies!

 Best Buddies!

 The ear piercing experience went so flawlessly that we decided we were up for more fun! So the girls and I decided to keep an eye out for matching BFF shirts. We lucked out finding some at The Children's Place that even had one of Brynna's favorites on them...monkeys! Then as we were getting ready to check out we saw some cute hats that were on sale and the girls were in love. They REALLY wanted matching hats too! I told Brynna that I am pretty much a mean mom 364 days of the year, so since it was her birthday she could do whatever she wanted! That was a very good answer for her. The girls were so sweet and must have each said thank you a dozen times a piece.

It made me so happy seeing them having fun and enjoying the one-on-one time with each other without siblings or other distractions getting in the way. It was all about them and it was so much fun! Next we jetted off to pick up Maryn from her party and we were off for more eating...

Brynna's Seventh Birthday - La Parilla

It had been a few hours since we had eaten and Brynna had said she would like La Parilla for her birthday dinner. So we picked Maryn up from her friend's pool party, ran home grabbed Justin, Lauryn, Devyn and Brynnie's presents and scooted over to grab some of our favorite quick, Mexican grub.

 Her sisters' present to her was a big bag full of all kinds of summertime trinkets from the dollar store. Brynna just kept pulling and pulling and pulling more stuff out of the bag! Pool games, floaties, jump rope, balls, bubbles, goggles, you name it! She was in hog heaven! We just won't tell her how far you can stretch $15 bucks there! ;)

 Devyn must have gotten a spicy chip. That's a definite deer in the headlights look!

 Lauryn was so good natured about all of the hullabaloo being about Brynna. She didn't fuss, complain, or get jealous once all day. She was just so happy for her sister!

 Brynna had gotten money from Grammy & Gramps, Nana & Papa and Aunt Jill. So adding another $7.00 from Mom, Dad and her sisters elated her! She was feeling rich!

 Love notes!

 Brynna opening her present from Mom & Dad....what could it be?!

 A new foal for her doll Jenny! Maryn got one for Christmas and Brynna decided she wanted one too for her birthday. Now their dolls can do horse duty together!

 Can you see the girls broke into their new make-up kits on the way home from the mall? I told them the rule was no leaving the house with make-up on. But since it was a special birthday day, I had to shelf mean mom and let them do what they wanted! ;)

 Sisters!

 Brynna had mentioned that she DID NOT want anyone singing to her because that would be so humiliating! (Do you think she is my daughter?!) ;) I mentioned to her if she was sung to there was usually free ice cream or something involved. That changed her opinion pretty quickly and so through the whole meal she kept giving me the earnest eye as if to say "Mom! Do they know it's my birthday?!"

 Right before we left she heard some clapping and singing behind her and before she knew it a big sombrero was plopped down on her head!

 She loved it and hated it all at the same time, but was happy about the birthday dessert!

We had to woof down the treat though because we were running late for one more surprise of the day...
 
**Don't forget to check out the last birthday post on the next page!!**