Sean’s birthday!

Sean just turned FIVE yesterday.  I can hardly believe it!  I asked him what kind of party he wanted to have and he chose a Thomas party.  He wanted one cake, balloons, more balloons and more balloons.  He also literally had 35 people on his list of people he wanted to invite including his teachers.  My favorite person on his list was “the guy with the blue shirt.”  I had to reign him in though and made him choose only a few close friends and his favorite friends from preschool.  Then I set out to make his party as Thomasy as I was willing to go.

I used my snazzy Cricut and made Thomas invitations.  I thought they were pretty clever:

Also, I made a Thomas cake.  I found “Thomas at Sea” from “Misty Island Rescue” on amazon.com for about $6.  So I based his cake on that:

I even made my own buttercream frosting instead of buying store bought frosting.  It was delicious.

My only other Thomas decoration was the tablecloth.  Imagine my surprise when I drove up to the park and realized they haven’t put out the tables for the spring yet.

I had brought packing tape to tape the tablecloth to the table so it wouldn’t blow away.  Instead I used it to tape it to the concrete. lol I had brought the presents over in a box, so I used that box, covered with a blanket, to put the cake on.  It worked out.

Here is Seany blowing out his candles:

I used my checkerboard cake pan for the cake.  I thought it turned out pretty well.

Enjoying some cake:

Sean opened his present from aunt Lorie first.  As you can see, he was SO excited:

“It’s just what I wanted!”

Bubbles from cousin Michael.

Grandma MacGregor gave Seany a G.I. Joe jet.  That thing has pretty much been in flight since I took it out of the box.  I dare say he liked it.

Seany has also been begging for a pillow pet.  However, I’m not willing to pay $19.95 for a pillow, no matter how cute or fun.  I found some knockoff brands on amazon for 8.  That I can do.  So of course I went with green, Sean’s very favorite color.  I was actually giddy when I clicked “complete my order.”  He loves it.  And my other kids are jealous.  Watch Emily’s face in this video. lol  (btw, aunt Lorie, I know what she wants for her birthday… lol)

One tradition my family always did was we got to pick whatever we wanted for dinner on our birthday.  Sean chose chicken nuggets, so that’s what we did.

Happy Birthday my 5 year old Seanbear.  I love you!!!

Chore Chart

Emily: “Hang up coat and backpack?  Why is that on there? lol”

Mom: “Um, because you never do it.”

Yesterday, about 20 minutes before the girls got home from school, I came up with a spur of the moment brilliant plan.  Make a “chore chart” for all of the things I have to remind/fight with them to do everyday.  Rocket science?  No.  But I had never done it.  I taped it up in an obvious place with a sheet of sparkly stickers right below it.  My girls were defenseless against the sparkles.

They came home, saw the chart, read the directions and excitedly went to work.  “This is going to be so fun!”  Emily even kept writing in more jobs for herself just to be able to put up a sticker.  It’s the first time I haven’t had to fight with her to get her stuff done.  The girls even helped the boys do their “chores.”

Today as they walked out the door for school, they both excitedly asked/begged me to have another chore chart up when they got home.

Who knew?!  Not holding my breath, but hopefully this will last…

75+ Valentines

 

“This one says email.”

“You + me babe??”

It cracked me up listening to my girls read the messages on the candy hearts.  Our project was a few weeks in the making, but it was so fun!  With my new Cricut (or Cry-cut, as a friend of mine would say), Liah, Emily, Sean and I set out to make a cazillion Valentines.

Here they are sorting the candy hearts into groups and filling the cool boxes we made!

The finished product!  I think we made 80 in all.  Aren’t they cute?!

Then of course, the writing of classmates names on the boxes…  Here’s Emily showing off her style:

…and Liah practicing for her photo shoot:

(Would you be impressed to know I didn’t pay more than $2.75 for a single thing they are wearing?!)

On Valentine’s Day, it is our little family’s tradition to have heart shaped pancakes.

…and last, but not least, the ever-anticipated Valentine’s package from Aunt Lorie!  A hit as always!  We also got super fun Valentines from Grandma and Grandpa MacGregor!  Thanks!

And here is a bonus picture of Addison that I thought Lorie would enjoy:

Happy February!

from 3 days to 10 years

This is Jeremy and I back was I was 12… I mean 19. Actually, this picture was taken 10 years ago this very month. In honor of Valentine’s Day, and just because I don’t actually have it recorded anywhere, I thought I’d share our how we met/engagement story. It’s a pretty good one.

On September 1, 2000, I met Jeremy. My roommate, who was from Mexico (Spanish), was dating a guy from Brazil (Portuguese). They had met at the English Learning Center at BYU and so their only common language was English, one that they were both in the process of learning. She was taking the missionary discussions (she was Catholic), and happened to be having one on this day. So I sat in on it, and it is a rule that the missionaries have to have a 3rd guy with them to be able to enter a girls apartment. Jeremy had just gotten into town from Washington from his brother’s wedding and was working on his Jeep in the parking lot. The missionaries came up to him and asked if he would sit in on a discussion right now. He looked at them like they were crazy for a second, then said sure, to give him 5 minutes to wash up. And so that is how I met Jeremy. He sat across from me in my living room and stared at me for the entire discussion. That wasn’t even a little bit awkward…

So then a guy that I did like stopped by my apartment during this uncomfortable experience and asked if I wanted to hang out. YES. I did. So I went with him, and it was even more awkward. This guy took me around with him to all of these various girls’ apartments that he was interested in. Awesome. That was a good time. It made me really mad because I was supposed to be at a party for someone’s birthday that I knew from my hometown. So I had missed that, for that. So, I was pretty annoyed when I got home. My roommate Summer (a different roommate; I had 5), on the other hand, was glowing when I walked through the door. “I have a very good story about you!” um, what? What does that even mean?

Turns out that Jeremy had returned home after the discussion (we lived in the same apartment complex) raving about the hottest girl he had ever seen (that would be me…), and Summer happened to be dating Jeremy’s roommate at the time, and was there when Jeremy got home. She asked him who it was, and he didn’t know, except that I lived in apartment 15. “That’s my apartment! What was she wearing??” Jeremy informed her that I was wearing a white shirt with overalls and I had really long hair (before you jump on the overalls bandwagon, consider the date… it was 11 years ago!). “That’s Amy! and I know where she is right now!” Actually, where I was supposed to be. Next door to Jeremy’s apartment, at my friend’s birthday party. Only I wasn’t there. But Jeremy didn’t know that, and he ran next door to find me, only of course he didn’t, and came back all dejected.

So Summer and I came up with a plan to have Jeremy’s apartment over for dinner, since she was dating his roommate anyway, it seemed safe enough. So Sunday night, we had them all over, and Jeremy spent the entire time talking to my roommate Lindsey about skydiving. Guess he wasn’t that interested after all. Oh well, I tried to give him a chance.

So the next day was Labor Day, and I went hiking on Mt. Timpanogos with a group of friends. I got back at 4 in the afternoon, exhausted, and there was a message on my answering machine. A long, random, minute and a half message…. from Jeremy. Basically, it said that he and his roommates, and his sister were all going to the movies and that he wanted me to come as his date. Um… ok? So I called him back and said that sure I would go. So we went to the BYU Creamery first and got ice cream, then went to see Jackie Chan, “Shanghai Noon.” Then afterwards, he walked me to my door and asked if he could see me again. I said I guess... lol… I really wasn’t interested. I walked inside and rolled my eyes.

From that day on, he was at my apartment EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Were we dating? No. Was I interested in him? No. Could I even stand him? No. Did I make any indication that I liked him? No! In fact I was kind of mean. But he didn’t pick up on any of it. And he would get upset if any other guy would talk to me. Which annoyed me even more.

Fast forward about a month. My parents came up from California for parent’s weekend. Also because my Dad had a business meeting. I was in the BYU marching band (don’t judge me… I’m a musician! and it was awesome anyway!), so my parents came to see one of the football games and watch me in action. They took me out to dinner and I was telling them about this guy that would just not leave me alone. We had even passed him at one point, and I had said, that is the guy I was telling you about. Well my dad instantly got defensive of me when I was telling them about Jeremy when we were out to dinner. “He sounds like a stalker to me!” My dad commenced to tell me all of these self defense moves, such as keeping my keys between my fingers, etc. I had to laugh a little because, as obnoxious as Jeremy was, I knew that if I ever said anything really mean to him, he would have been totally hurt, and certainly didn’t require any self defense moves.

So that night, I went over to their apartment because Summer had told me they were all going over there to watch a movie. So I went with her. Only Jeremy wasn’t there. And for the first time ever, I cared that he wasn’t there. After a while, he did come home, and I actually wanted to talk to him. When I got home that night, I was talking to Summer in our kitchen and I just said “I’m so mad! I like Jeremy and I don’t want to!!” But I also informed her that it was really annoying because he never actually asked me out, he was just. always. there.

So the next day, I was doing something in my kitchen, and Jeremy literally runs into my apartment, totally out of breath. Summer had literally just told him that “Amy might actually be interested in you if you’d ask her out once in a while.” At that moment, he realized that he hadn’t, and RAN over to my apartment and asked me out. And because I was inexplicably interested in him, I said yes. So the next day (October 1st), we drove up to the Salt Lake Zoo, and when we were driving back, got rear-ended. We were stopped behind a long line of stopped cars and a teenage girl, who had just gotten her license a week earlier was driving home from a Dave Matthew’s concert with like 87 other teenagers in her dad’s car, not even paying a little bit of attention and full on smashed into the back of us. Coincidentally enough, the song that was on the radio was Pearl Jam’s “The Last Kiss,” where it says “the screaming tires, the busting glass…” and at that moment is when we got hit. Then right after that was “I’ve seen better days…” I just had to laugh.

So Jeremy and I spent the next 8 hours in the hospital at the ER. It was so busy. People kept coming in that were shot and other crazy things, so we let them go on ahead. After we had been checked in, two of my uncles came to check on me and give me a blessing, and next to me is this guy on a gurney in a neck brace with a severe concussion singing Jingle Bell rock. Yep, that’s the guy I’m with. lol That song has never been the same…

So the next morning, I went to church with Jeremy (we were in different wards) since his meeting time was later than mine, and we hadn’t gotten home until 4am from the hospital. And it was a fast Sunday. Jeremy got up, and still with a concussion mind you, bore his testimony. He talked all about this girl that meant so much to him and she could have died last night, etc., etc. Keep in mind that I was in no way his girlfriend yet. I was so embarrassed. I started sinking lower and lower into my chair, especially when the girls in the row in front of me were like “he has a girlfriend?? who’s his girlfriend?” and started looking around.

So later that day, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and something in me made me say yes, even though I don’t know why. Why did I start liking him? I don’t know! The only thing I can figure is that it must have been the opposition from my dad that made me realize how much Jeremy cared about me and that I was being a jerk.

Then 3 days later we were talking and we decided we wanted to get married. Yes friends, you heard me right, 3 days. How in the world could I go from despising someone to getting engaged to someone after only 3 days? The only way I can describe it is that for some reason it just made sense. As soon as we talked about getting married, it was as obvious as reading the directions on a pop-tarts box. (yes, I did just make that reference) I didn’t need some lightning bolt to tell me to remove pastry from pouch. It just made complete sense to me.

I think probably one of the main reasons I subconsciously fought against Jeremy was because I had just broken up with my boyfriend that I was in love with, only a month before I met Jeremy, and I was still getting over that. I didn’t want another relationship yet. But I had decided that the next person I would date would be someone who loved me for me and would be willing to do anything or give up anything for me. And as soon as my dad started talking about how Jeremy sounded like a stalker it occurred to me that Jeremy was that guy I had prayed for. Not only that, but God had literally delivered him to me on my doorstep. How much more of a sign do you need?? As soon as I accepted that, I fell in love with Jeremy (he was already in love with me… lol)

So the fun part… was telling my parents that I was engaged. Jeremy called and asked my dad if he could marry me. Keep in mind that my dad had just given me self-defense tips against this guy 5 days before. My dad’s only response was “I’ll call ya back.” To this day, he has not called Jeremy back on that subject. My mom called me a little bit after that, and she was always very supportive of me getting married, but the best part was half way during our conversation, she says “wait… isn’t that the stalker guy??” He is not a stalker!

Also, what was fun was that weekend informing my aunt and uncle that I was getting married to Jeremy and they were like “Isn’t that the Jingle Bell Rock guy?” Awesome.

About 11 months later, we were married on August 22, 2001. This year will be 10 years for us! Crazy! What’s really crazy, is how crazy that sounds to get engaged to someone after only 3 days. At the time, it made total sense, but as a parent, wow. I would have flipped. And imagine being my dad, and a guy that you think is a stalker calls and asks to marry your daughter?? I wouldn’t have called him back either. But 10 years and 4 kids later, we’re doing great!

Is he quirky? Yes. But he is my quirky guy. And I still love him. He who has no quirks, cast the first negative comment… lol

Happy Valentine’s Day Jeremy. I love you!

It’s hard to believe this kid ever gets in trouble…

Look at those eyes!  Lisa Landoni just took preschool pictures last week.  Look how cute Sean’s turned out!  She did such a good job!

Isn’t he so handsome?!

And then when I was putting it in his frame, I found this gem:

This is my little Seany at 6 months old!  Isn’t he so cute?!

(…and it’s a really good thing….) lol

Addison loves to sing

Addison loves when I sing to him.  I always try to get him to sing along, but he always stops the second I start singing.  Just this week, he finally figured out the concept of singing at the same time.  His latest obsession is “Jingle Bells,” or “Jingle All the Way,” as he calls it.  He started singing it at bedtime, and I joined in with him, and all of a sudden, his face lit up as he discovered the joy of singing with someone!  So, he requests it about every 30 seconds now.  I love this kid!

“Jingle All the Way”

MacGregor Family Christmas

(long post warning, with half a cazillion pictures…)

I can’t begin to tell you how much I love my family.  Growing up being the 3rd of 6 kids (2 girls, 4 boys, all of us close in age) was not always a picnic, but as adults, we are a good time!  It is so much fun when we all get together.  We made the trek down to So. Cal. which took us 23 hours total drive time, encountering ice, snow, white out conditions, and massive rainfall.  But we made it there safely and it was worth the drive to spend 2 weeks with my family.  I kind of time warp when I am home.  I sort of forget that I have a life outside of Ridgecrest, CA when I am there with my family, even though I haven’t lived there since June of 1999.

We stayed with my sister at her apartment while we were down there.  We had a blast playing games and watching endless Psych episodes on Netflix after the kids were in bed. The night we got in, my cousins from Las Vegas were waiting at my sister’s house for us!  I didn’t even know they were in town!  I haven’t seen them in I can’t remember how long.  But I know I haven’t spent any significant amount of time with them since I left Utah when Liah was a baby.  It was so fun to see them, and even though I sound like an old lady when I say it, I really can’t believe how much they’ve grown!  They’re teenagers now, which is so weird.

Here we are all playing Encore the night before they left to go back to Vegas.  It was so fun!  (which, despite some rumors, is one of THE funnest games out there.  And yes, I know “funnest” is not a word)

(Liah, Lorie, Marissa, aunt Annette, Aubrie, aunt Karen, my mom , Kylie, me, Ian and Kristen)

I felt bad that you can’t see Kylie’s face in the picture, so here she is in all of her teenage glory.  Isn’t she cute?!

The family just hanging out, wishing it was Christmas…

My girls finally got to meet Aunt Emily, who married my brother Gavin this past May.  My Emily was not too thrilled with me for not taking her with me when I went to the wedding in May.  But I think she made up for lost time by attaching herself to aunt Emily for the majority of the trip, whether aunt Emily actually wanted that or not… lol.  sorry, can’t help it when you’re popular…

Classic Emily…

One of the things that time warps me when I’m home is my old toys.  Here are Liah and my niece Serra playing with our old Lite-Brite!

Another happy thing about going home was the absence of ice and snow.  My kids were so excited to get to play outside in the spring weather.  (It was still a little cooler than I’d hoped, but I will take 60s over 20s any day, hands down.)

I absolutely love this kid.  Isn’t he cute?!  He is 2 1/2 this month, which is totally weird.  (side note: I finally graduated him from his crib to his toddler bed last night.  I did it all on my own.  He is loving his new found freedom, but it still makes me sad that my baby is growing up!) 

This shot is actually from Christmas Eve.  We went to my Grandma’s house (my mom’s mom) like we used to every Christmas Eve when we were kids for our annual ham dinner with my mom’s famous (and ridiculously delicious) potato salad, and of course the not so pleasant, but traditional rice pudding which has one hidden almond in it, and if you get it, you win a prize (29 years running, never won, friends, not once).  My sister in law, Christina won, and it was her first time.  We’re not bitter. And then of course the Nativity reenactment and singing of Christmas carols.  This is Addison “sitting” on his chair during the performance.  I think I was more entertained by him during the play.  He was hilarious.  He was pretty noisy saying things like, “My not have to be ki-et” and pointing at the fan on the ceiling, “How dat get up der?”

Liah was Mary this year, which she has been reminding me all year that it was her turn to play Mary this year.  Apparently though, back stage, there was a little drama on Liah’s part that she didn’t want to do it anymore because her veil kept falling off.  A couple safety pins later, and problem solved, and diva Liah was back to being thrilled with her role. (and there’s my grandma!  Isn’t she cute?)

Emmy was a shepherd, and a gorgeous one at that.  One of her shepherdly counterparts may or may not have been picking his nose and eating it throughout the entire performance. (*gag*) lol

Christmas eve…. see the presents filling up the entire side of the room?  That’s what happens when 18 people get together for Christmas!

Christmas morning….

The deal was presents no earlier than 6am.  My girls had been awake for at least 2 hours prior.  Liah was literally bursting at the seams with anxiety for when she could head down the stairs (yet again, time warp… the moments before we could check out our presents felt like an eternity!)  We all camped out at my parent’s house, so we would all be together Christmas morning.

Seany on the other hand, had to be woken up, which did not help his demeanor… but you can’t miss Christmas!

The girls got a CD player and an mp3 player.  Even though they hadn’t asked for it, they were thrilled!  Santa felt as they are getting older, they don’t really need any more toys.  (and have no fear, Santa is a bargain shopper…)  (and I haven’t heard the words “American girl” since Christmas eve…)

Addy and Sean both got Legos, or as Addy would say “Yegos.”

Emily got a David Archuleta CD (who is apparently her boyfriend, btw, even though I’ve tried to convince her that he is too old for her, although she’s been in love with him since she was 3) and Liah got a Taylor Swift CD (I caught her choreographing one of the songs with Emily in their room last night… lol).

Addison’s one request for Christmas was “nak-pish,” or goldfish crackers, for those of you who don’t speak Addison.  Good thing Santa came through.

My neice Serra got a cash register from Santa.  Everyone’s presents had to be scanned before we could move on to the next one. lol.

Oh, reactions.  Here is Liah opening a peace sign necklace from aunt Lorie.  I think she likes it…

For my brothers, I decided to give them all gift baskets that I put together with things I got couponing/deal hunting and I embroidered towels to line the baskets with.  I thought it was genius.

(Kim B., you will appreciate this one) Here is my brother Nathan’s toothpaste transfer kit (ask me sometime… it’s a good story)

Brandon and Christina got a BBQ night kit.

Ian and Kristen got a pasta night kit.

and Gav and Emily got a Home Improvement kit. (they just bought a house that they are constantly doing projects on)

Here they are in all their glory.  I was very proud of them.

Emily got “Sing Along with Barbie” from aunt Lorie

Addy got fruit snacks, and boy was he excited.

My kids are obsessed with a computer game called “Funkeys.”  (or “monkeys,” as Addy says) I ordered a ton of them off of ebay for really cheap.  Oh were they excited.

Gavin got my dad a present from dollar tree, and then a receipt for the present from dollar tree, and then a framed picture of his dog, Max.  So, so hilarious.  (not funny, you say? Also, another good story.  Ask me sometime.)  Probably the best part of the picture was the caption “Ruv ru rampa” on it. lol.  Nice one, Gav.

My grandma MacGregor was always the “favorite grandma” growing up when it came to presents.  You always knew you could count on her to give you what you asked for.  A few years ago, Emily said that Lorie was her favorite grandma.  lol.  This year, Lorie tipped my mom off on what the kids really wanted, and my mom was determined to win back the title.

And she did.  The girls both desperately wanted glitter balls, which I had no intention of getting them, and they knew as much.  Addison got puzzles.  He is a puzzle building fiend.  He will build the same 24 piece puzzle over and over and over (in the same hour) and not get bored with it.  So grandma added a few more to his collection.  He loves them!

It was Sean, however, who gave the reaction my mom was dying to get.  He has been asking for a green Zhu Zhu pet.  His wildest dreams finally came true Christmas day, thanks to the favorite grandma.

Yes! It’s just what I wanted!

My mom and I got Lorie a bread maker.  I dare say she loves it!  I made her a little recipe book with the recipes I use in my bread maker.  I used to think bread makers were cheating, but since I got mine from my neighbor’s yard sale a few years ago, I am a believer.

Ian is always good for a laugh when it comes to Christmas too, from the fake severed foot (sick, by the way) in Jeremy’s stocking (or the coal in my dad’s a couple years ago) to the Red Rider bb gun he gave Nathan.  Awesome.

We of course had our traditional Christmas breakfast spread of cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs and sausage.  Yum.

Later, Lorie and my girls made a ginger bread Christmas tree.

I thought Addy’s position here was hilarious.

Sunday night, the day after Christmas, we had a sort of memorial service for my Grandma and Grandpa MacGregor with just our immediate family.  We each took a turn telling our favorite memory of Grandma and Grandpa.  My grandma was famous for always telling exactly what she thought (for instance, she thinks babies look stupid with pacifiers in their mouths and told me as much when Emily was 8 months old, with a pacifier in her mouth) and my grandpa was famous for his dry humor remarks that still make us bust up just thinking about it.  We each got a copy of his record that he made (he was a songwriter, too!) and we all played our instruments to a song that his Dad used to sing.  It was an evening of tears and laughter.  I sure miss them.

One of my best friends from high school was in town over Christmas break, too!  Since Sean had contracted pneumonia and a sinus infection at the begin of our trip, we weren’t able to get together until the week after Christmas. (that was “fun” by the way… the only positive side to that was how docile he was on the way down…) 

We hit up the rocket park with our kids, which no longer has a rocket, because it’s considered “dangerous” (which it may or may not have scared the lightning out of me when I was a kid, but still!)…

…until some creepy hooligan guy started talking to us about how much he liked the “holi-holi-holidays” and we relocated to Upjohn park…

 

4 are hers, 4 are mine and 1 is her brother’s

Keri and me!

(yes, I am holding 278 jackets and a glitter ball)

I also got to see another one of my best friends from high school, Kimmie!  We didn’t get a picture, but here is her daughter Danica and my Emily, who are pretty close in age.  They had a blast playing together in the balls at John’s pizza.

Jeremy and I weren’t sure if we would stay the full two weeks, but I am so glad we did.  It was so much fun.  New Year’s eve made it all worth it anyway.  Listening to my brothers do SingStar on the play station was. Hil.ar.ious.

Here they are doing an all-falsetto version of “The Final Countdown,” sporting their pink mullets.  I thought I was going to die.  I told you we were a good time.

Between shopping trips, lunch with all the girls, movie theater with Grandpa (we saw Tangled… it was so cute!), date nights, and countless games of Smerx and dominoes, it was such a good trip. 

One week later and I still can’t believe I’m back.  Time to get back to real life… whatever that is!