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A Special 60th Birthday Surprise Brunch

My beautiful mom turned 60 this month, so her six children (and their spouses) pulled off a surprise birthday brunch!

Because who would expect a surprise party at 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday?

My sister was in charge of finding an excuse for bringing mom to my house at the appointed time. She said she needed my help scrapbooking her Australia pictures, which meany mom needed to keep Keira occupied and safely away from the paper trimmer. Ever the devoted grandmother, my mom was perfectly willing (and totally clueless). 

She had no idea this bunch of hooligans was waiting in my living room to pounce on her.

Of course, right when Travis opened the front door, Keira said, "I have presents for you!" But mom still didn't clue in until she walked around the corner...

...and right into the arms of her adoring grandchildren.

We devoured a Brunch Strata that was to die for, baked just that morning by my sister-in-law Suzanne. Ham, mushrooms, zucchini, minced garlic, green pepper, cream cheese, half-and-half...need I go on?

And it was quickly followed by the best yellow cake I've ever baked OR eaten, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen. (But I substitued the sour-cream chocolate frosting in the recipe for one that included exactly two ingredients: whipped butter and 12 ounces of melted semi-sweet chocolate. Otherwise known as diabetes in a bowl.)

Then we surprised her with 60 individually wrapped gifts! Each of the six siblings was required to bring 10 gifts. The point was the experience of opening 60 gifts, more than what was inside. 

Some gifts were more substantial (a coffee table book or a salad spinner) and others were simple (a can of soup or a handwritten card).

The kids took turns giving grandma the 60 gifts, waiting patiently in line for their turn.

One gift included cheese curds from Gossner's Cheese in Cache Valley—a family tradition since 1973.

And several of the gifts looked a little something like this.

My middle sister, who lives in California, watched with her kids watched via FaceTime, broadcast to her iPad from my iPhone (held by my littlest sis pictured above).

Now that the party is over and deemed a success (thanks in part to the fact that my father, who is terrible at secret keeping, was not told until the night before), my very favorite highlight is the series of portraits I took of mom with each child, grandchild, and in-law who attended.

This is quite a crew.

(There are six vitally important family members not pictured, but we will catch them on our next trip to California, or their next jaunt to Utah.)

And, of course, this being my blog, I can nominate the very best picture of the day as this one:

This picture melts my heart like 12 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate in a double boiler. You'd almost think they were biologically related, wouldn't you? 

I feel so, so lucky that she is my mother, that she lives so close, that she has aged so well (please let those genes pass on!), that she's easy to surprise, and that she has always been the most selfless, kind, gentle, and service-oriented person I know.

Here's hoping this apple hasn't fallen too far from that tree.

Look Who's 2!

Subtitle: How to improvise when you didn't plan any part of your daughter's party until the DAY OF her birthday.

This is probably the second-to-last year I'll be able to get away with that. Keira had no idea what was going on for most of the day. But by the time she's 4, she'll probably be on to me...

And possibly by the time she's 4, she'll no longer be terrified of her birthday candles. Granted, they were ridiculously long AND they were trick candles, but (inexplicably) they were the only candles I had on hand.

What kind of first-time mother would forget to buy birthday candles for her daughter's 2nd birthday? The same mother who was in Wyoming until 2 days before the big day, was a nutcase trying to keep the house clean enough for showings, and had just spent 8 hours the day before rescuing a project for an unnamed family member who was heading straight for a panic attack. Disaster averted. Birthday put on the backburner.

Being both a devoted improviser and a terrible judge of time, I decided the morning of that I'd make homemade chocolate ladybug cupcakes from scratch, invite all local family members over to celebrate, and do all of the gift shopping, too, while also meeting a work deadline and being housebound during Keira's 2.5-hour nap.

Yeah, right.

Some of those things got done, but the cupcakes were truly terrible. A little bit hard and sunken in the middle. (Can I tell you how excited I am for the brand new double ovens in my new house? On the other hand, I will no longer be able to blame baking disasters on my appliance...)

Because I was running out of time before the family members arrived, I had to throw out my plans to make homemade frosting that was good enough to compensate for the crappy cupcakes. Instead, I pulled out a can of Duncan Hines buttercream, scooped it into a bowl, and colored it pink.

Then, just minutes before everyone arrived, I decorated exactly two of the cupcakes to look like ladybugs, arranging the unfrosted cupcakes and all of the topping options around them. I announced, "It's a decorate-your-own-cupcake party!"

Truthfully, most of us just munched on the toppings anyway. At least it looked cute and somewhat intentional. The four store-bought red-velvet cupcakes definitely elevated the display.

As for Keira, she couldn't have been happier. A frosting girl through and through, she never eats the cake part anyway. 

These guys didn't seem to mind, either. When you're a kid, sugar is sugar. 

As for the gifts, they would have been wrapped in grocery bags if not for the fact that Buy Buy Baby offers free do-it-yourself gift wrapping (if you don't mind having logos all over your gifts). I didn't mind, and neither did the birthday girl.

She loved her little shopping cart from her cousins, which had the quirkiest collection of fake groceries I've seen yet. Not only was the turkey the same size as the lemon, the boxed foods included milk, chocolate, flour, coffee, corn flakes, cream puffs, and borsch (aka "borscht"). Yes, some of these are fairly common pantry staples in the continental U.S.  But Ukranian beet stew? Can it even come in a box? 

She was also quite proud of her new trike. The new polka-dotted vest was my favorite gift of the evening, but I fear she won't wear it again because of the way it pokes her in the neck when she sits down. How old does she need to be before I can teach her that sometimes we all have to suffer just a little for the sake of fashion? ;)

All in all, it was a memorable day, and I definitely made it harder than it needed to be. Lesson learned! For now, anyway. I'll bet you $100 that I'll be telling some variation of this same story when Keira turns 3. 

Note: I redeemed my baking reputation by making three fabulous loaves of zucchini bread the next day, and I even substituted half of the oil with yogurt and cut out 1/4 of the sugar. And I did it just in time for the home inspector to do his walk-through of the house with the new owner, proving to them both that the 1958 vintage built-in oven does actually work (while simultaneously filling the home with a lovely, inviting, please-don't-notice-any-flaws aroma)!  

Tuesday's TED Talk: The Power of Vulnerability

 I'm feeling ambitious today about my new job responsibilities, now that Ella Publishing Co. has a parent company. (Everything's going great except for that unreasonable curfew. *eye roll* Parents. Who needs 'em. ;)

One of my hopes is that the new EPC/BPC partnership will free up more time for my poor, neglected blog. And so far, it looks good. On to today's topic...

One thing that's been a big part of my life lately is the huge library of TED talks: "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." TED stands for "Technology, Entertainment, Design" and also boasts the tagline "Ideas worth spreading."

I'm about to spread some of those ideas in my own little way, once a week, on Tuesdays.

One of my very favorites is by Dr. Brene Brown, titled "The Power of Vulnerability," which has been viewed 5.8 million times and is absolutely worth every minute you devote to it today.

 

My Takeaways:

• I love the phrase "lean into the discomfort," which Brown picked up from the social-work world. It's natural to turn away, brace ourselves, and hide when we feel uncomfortable. But that keeps us from connecting at times when either we OR the other person is in desperate need to connect.
• To be connected, you have to be SEEN as you really are, which means allowing yourself to be vulnerable.
• To live wholeheartedly, you must live with courage, compassion, connection, and vulerability.
• If you're not gentle and compassionate with yourself, you can't be gentle and compassionate with others.
• While vulnerability is the source of pain and loneliness, it is also the birthplace of love, joy, and creativity. And you can't numb one side without numbing the other.
• And the biggest lesson, the one that I want to absorb into my whole soul and instill into my daughter every minute of her life (and my stepson, although he's 18 so he already knows everything :) is this:

"You are imperfect and wired for struggle,
but you are worthy of love and belonging."

These are life-changing concepts, people. And I'm delving into them deeper by reading one of her books, The Gifts of Imperfection (which incidentally, for you scrapbooking folks, has a promotional blurb from Ali Edwards on the back cover!).

Yeah, I'm a bit late to the Brene Brown party. I stopped by her blog years ago, in a more cynical and flippant time in my life, and it felt a bit too New-Agey to me back then. But now, I can't get enough. She is real. She is authentic. She is grounded. She is funny. Four of my very favorite qualities.

 

A Personal Aside

My husband, Travis, and I have found a new solution to the 45 minutes (or more!) we often spend browsing through Apple TV or Netflix to find a movie we're both in the mood to watch at the same time on weekends. It is stunning how rare it is for us to just sit down and fall into a movie we both want to watch. It always takes much haggling, much negotiating, and much debate over who got more points for the last movie we watched together.

Him: "I better be getting serious points for watching this movie; this is totally a chick flick!"

Me: "No it is NOT. Let us examine the baby-to-gun ratio in this film. There have been exactly two babies and at least five dozen guns. So it is a dude movie. So I get the points for watching it."

Him: "BUT if you factor in the kissing to explosions ratio, there have been five kissing scenes and only two explosions..." No one ever wins.

I'll be in the mood for drama when he wants a comedy. Or he'll be in the mood for a documentary when I'd rather watch a British period romance (which, let's be honest, is any time of any day).

So if we find ourselves starting down the movie preview rabbit hole, we pull out our iPhones and browse for a new TED to watch, which we can push instantly to our TV monitor, thanks to Apple TV. Most TED talks are only 10-20 minutes long, and we've realized that we'd rather have our minds blown four times in a row, on four diverse topics, than spend an hour waffling over the available movie choices.

So what about you? Are you familiar with TED? What's your favorite? If you have a favorite or two, please include links!

*Note:  accidentally published this instantly instead of in the a.m. And rather than unpublish it now only to republish it tomorrow, let's enjoy a bit of Tuesday on Monday, okay?*

Take Twelve Photo Challenge: July

This month, I couldn't resist trying TWO different approaches for my Take Twelve photography challenge and making two layouts to commemorate the day.

First, I decided to follow one of the challenges outlined in the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit and set an alarm on my phone to remind me to take a picture every hour on the half-hour. No matter what I was doing, I stopped, grabbed my Nikon, and snapped a picture.

Here's the layout that resulted from this experiment.

I kept the design simple. Just a strip of butterfly patterned paper (with some butterflies carefully trimmed out and added on top with pop dots), plus label stickers, and doily sticker, and a clock stamp.

Here's the left page closer up. (Click image for larger view.)

And the right page. (Also click image for a larger view.)

 

I found that as I was taking photos every hour, it was capturing a nice overview of our day. But there were lots of scenes in between those alarm bells that I couldn't resist snapping on my iPhone, via Instagram. Here's the layout featuring my 12 in-between Instagram photos.

This page is clean, graphic, and simple. I stamped a Making Memories journaling stamp eight times and trimmed around each one (while watching an episode of Mad Men, of course, since I watched four seasons of the show in less than a month. Can you say obsessed?).

Then I chose two patterned papers by Echo Park, added an orange washi tape border, and built little title accents with orange Thickers stickers, a small heart punch, and gray Jillibean Soup letter stickers. (I LOVE the Jillibean Soup Alphabeans Cardstock Stickers, which are a fabulous size, come in upper and lowercase and have several of each letter, plus numbers!) I used Glossy Accents by Ranger to make them dimensional and shiny, like the orange 12 stickers are.

Here's a larger view of the left page. (Click image to view larger.)

And here's the right page.

 

And I can't forget my sister-in-law, Suzanne, who also tried something new this month with her Take Twelve project. She printed her photos, handed them to her 13-year-old and 10-year-old daughters, and let them make the page. And she chose to scrapbook photos from throughout the month, rather than photos taken specifically on the 12th. Such a fun way to involve the kids in the project!

Summer

Awesome: Two blond cousins, 10 years apart, one from Alaska and one from Utah, showing up to the kiddie pool in matching Old Navy swimsuits, quite by accident.

 

Awesome: Waiting for a large pepperoni at Rock Creek Pizza Co. with my niece, Riley, and starting an impromptu Doodlejump tournament, while we sipped a Diet Dr. Pepper/Lemonade mixture out of two straws in a shared styrofoam cup. FYI: Styrofoam is very easy to write on with ball point.

 

Awesome: The fact that Riley and I could both claim victory. I achieved the highest single-game score (15,023), but Riley won 8 out of the 10 matches.

 

Not awesome: Wildfires. Utah has been on fire for much of the last month. This is the view from my front yard of a recent fire in the next county over.

Awesome: Summer.

Five Photos for Friday

My first moustache! Here's a fun idea to try for summer: take all your kids (or your nieces and nephews or whomever is around) to the dollar store. Have each kid draw another kid's name out of a hat, and then everyone divides up in the store to buy a $1 gift for the person they drew. (They have to keep the person they're shopping for secret until the big gift reveal.) We did this with my nieces and nephews, and they loved it. The best part is the revealing of the gifts. My niece got a set of fake moustaches as her gift, so we put one on Keira, which she most decidedly did NOT like.

 

Hanging out with cousins "D" and "Bock," as Keira calls them. Don't tell him I told you, but whenever no one was looking, little "D" would plant a kiss right on top of Keira's head or give her a secret hug during their 3-week-long visit from Arizona.

 

Keeping relatively quiet at The Corner Bakery. I say "relatively" because every few seconds, she'd yell "Mommy!" to make sure I was paying close attention to her mad coloring skills.

 

Mimicking Jovie. Or maybe Jovie is mimicking Keira. Either way, it's cute. We're not exactly sure how to discourage Keira from climbing into Jovie's dog kennel. 

 

Enjoying not one, but two popsicles on the "banket" in the back yard. Sitting on the "banket" is her favorite thing in the world. It's the first thing she asks for every morning. 

Bonus! Two More Photos! :)
In other news, I have some new products from Stampin' Up! in my hands that I cannot WAIT to play with. But I'm going to have to wait, since I'm skipping town for about 10 days while my husband holds down the fort.

I love these textile-inspired prints. And the Bright Blossoms stamps, with different vases and flowers I can mix and match—so many possibilities!

And the Summer Smooches fabrics? I think I'm in love. Did you know Stampin' Up! offers fabrics? So fun!

I may drag these fabrics along with me, in hopes that I find time for some crafting on the road.

What products are you excited about this summer?

Graduation Day

I half expected to be bored for 3 hours at my stepson's graduation yesterday, as I was at my own high school graduation 18 years ago. Let's face it, I was even bored at my college graduation 4 years later. But in both cases, I was one person in a sea of identical mortar boards, filing onto a vast stage with 700+ other students for a 5-second handshake, diploma handoff, and hurried snapshot.

But yesterday, Jeremy had the good fortune to be one of 92 students filing onto an intimately lit stage, and 20 of them either spoke or performed. He graduated from the Academy of Math, Engineering & Sciences (an early-college charter high school), and the ceremony was held on the campus of the University of Utah in Kingsbury Hall.

I was inspired by the students' bright, fresh faces. Their hope for the future. Their ambitious plans. I felt acutely that not so long ago, I was just like them, bursting with big plans and excited to see what life would bring me next.

If I could go back and talk to myself at age 18, I would do my best to convince me that I'm capable of more than I think. That I should grasp onto every opportunity presented with both hands. That I should never let fear and insecurity hold me back from my potential, as it did too many times. And that's what I hope for Jeremy, too, although figuring it all out for yourself is an important part of growing up. (Wouldn't it be nice, though, to relive those young-adult years with the confidence and self-assurance you gain as you age?)

It was so heart-warming to see him standing on that stage. He has officially closed one chapter of his life, and he's more than ready to move on to the next. I hope life will be good to him.

Good luck, class of 2012!

 

p.s. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that beneath that serious and elegant gown was a decidedly worse-for-wear Metallica t-shirt.

p.p.s. Notice that I did not say "graduated high school" (an error I heard just this week from a newscaster) but instead said "graduated from high school." I wrote all about that in 5 Grammar Tips to Make You Sound Smarter from a few years ago.

 

A Take Twelve Family Adventure: May

One thing I love about the Take Twelve year-long photography challenge is that I have a reason and a deadline, once a month, to take pictures of whatever is going on that day. It's so easy to get busy with life and forget to pick up my camera very often. But on the 12th of every month, I'm behind the lens all day long.

On May 12, my brother's family was in town from Arizona for a dance competition for my 13-year-old niece. So Keira and I spent the day at Lagoon.

Journaling reads:
I spent so many hours at Lagoon as a child. It epitomizes summer for me. I was thrilled to share it with my daughter for the first time. She loved her first ride on Bulgy the Whale, despite being overdue for her nap. We were there for cousin Haylee's power tap competition—me, Keira, grandma Janet, Dan, Alli, Suz, Haylee and Breanna.

And here's a close-up of Keira riding Bulgy the Whale. Cutest thing ever! The ride was moving pretty quickly at this point, so I'm amazed my Nikon captured such a clear shot in sports mode.

And now for my only relative who finished her page this month by the deadline, my sister-in-law Suzanne. Since we were together most of the day on the 12th, we borrowed each others' pictures, so some of these shots may look a little bit familiar.

It was fun to have a buddy to actually scrapbook with this time around. Suz and I scrapbooked away in my office, while her kids entertained Keira in the next room. (And I taught my nieces how to heat-emboss, which occupied them for literally hours!)

Looking for more ideas for how to scrapbook pages that feature 12 photos? Check out the 12-photo layout ideas on the Ella blog. I was in charge of doing the write-up this month, so you'll see my page over there as well.

I love the month of May. I love looking forward to summer. I LOVE having family in town. What are you loving right now?

Anniversary, Interrupted

Our plans for an anniversary getaway were interrupted by a sick little baby, who, when the 24-hours-in-advance deadline arrived to either cancel or keep our reservation, was the sickest she had ever been. Fever, cough, lethargy, near constant whimpering. It was heartbreaking, really. So we called the doctor, cancelled our plans and cocooned in our house, passing her back and forth every few hours, trying to catch naps on our "off" shifts.

But the next morning after her very worst day, Keira awoke happy and rested. She had even slept through almost the whole night and had eaten a hearty breakfast. And so, we improvised. Grandma was called, Keira was in great hands, and we headed to downtown Salt Lake City for a little day trip.

We had a perfect day, after all. We didn't have a plan. We just wandered and talked. We had lunch (German fare), shopped for watches and shoes, went to an afternoon movie, and then had sushi for dinner. Travis joked that we had eaten only "Axis food" that day, apart from the Scottish chocolate, and that this particular day would never have happened if it were 1947. :)

As we walked around downtown, going in and out of shops and up and down the quiet Saturday streets, I set the goal to photograph all the letters in "E-I-G-H-T  Y-E-A-R-S" as we spotted them on signs, on tiled floors, on the side of a truck, and even in a railing that was shaped like a "T." Travis humored me, and often even helped.

As I look at my collection of letters, I remember exactly where we were when each picture was taken. And since I looked for the letters in order, it outlines the trajectory of our day, from "E" (found on a compass in a watch shop) to "S" (on the sign of a little bistro next to The Oxford Shop). 

Some of the best memories happen when our carefully laid plans go awry. I think this day will always remind me of that.

Eight years down. A lifetime to go. I can't wait to see what happens next.

 

 

Thankful For

My baby girl and her pigtails.

My new KitchenAid mixer that made these a snap to make for Thanksgiving!

Lovely place settings at my sister-in-law's house.

Grandma Lucas's famous mashed carrot potatoes and homemade turkey gravy.

Delectable sweet potato casserole (recipe here) and stuffing.

My contributions: buttery crescent rolls and this pear-gorgonzola-bacon-candied-pecan salad that is truly "salad crack" (as tipster Melissa Kaiserman aptly called it). I could eat it all day long.

My boys and my girl.

A roomy kitchen for the Thanksgiving meal. "Roomy" is not a word I've ever been able to apply to my own kitchen.

A baby who actually ate some of the items on her plate—just before throwing the rest on the floor. :)

This candid shot of the teenager who becomes more and more reluctant to be photographed as the years go by.

Pumpkin pie.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!