Give me Five!

So yesterday marked Sage's official 5th birthday which meant it was time for a family celebration! She was so good and patient knowing she'd have to wait until after church to open up her presents which is a lot to ask of a five year old but she did it! It didn't help matters that I had yet to bake her a cake and needed some more time after church to get that done but thankfully I was saved by the doorbell and our wonderful home teachers Dan Willis and Carter Williams stopped by to drop off a special birthday cupcake for Sage which distracted her enough that I was able to get the cake done without too much complaining! We really do have the best home teachers!!!



Sage had already indicated first thing in the morning the order she'd be opening her gifts and since Ty had done something in the morning to upset her, she kept her promise of no longer opening his present first and started with the big one from mom and dad! Thankfully she was thrilled with her Barbie cruise ship which seemed appropriate for this year! If it's good for us, it's good for Barbie!!! Next Sage opened the Kinectimals xbox game that she had gotten from Grandma and Grandpa. (Well actually they had sent the money and I bought it for her knowing that although she had never heard of it, I was betting she'd be happy with it plus she now has an Xbox game she can call her own!) As you can see my creativity fizzled when it came time for this cake but at least I was able to stick to the "flower" theme...




Then each of the boys hustled out to the garage to get their presents. They both returned with a bouquet of flowers for Sage. Connor went with pink roses since pink is her favorite color and Ty went with sunflowers since that is her favorite flower. And finally it was time for Sage to open the much anticipated present from Ty, a barbie blanket that he had knitted all on his own. This was something he had worked very hard on and the excitement on his face as he watched her open it was soooooo sweet! Apparently because we live in a place where it rains a lot, the school tries to come up with indoor activities for the kids to do during recess. I guess there was demand for knitting so a classroom was dedicated for kids to work on their knitting during recess. I'm still not sure if it was out of the kindness of Ty's heart that he felt compelled to knit something for Sage or if it was more about hanging out with a class full of girls but whatever the reason he won over the hearts of plenty of the teachers when they learned he was making his sister a barbie blanket...



So there you have it! Another year gone by...

April showers bring May flowers and with the May Flowers came Sage...

Happy 5th birthday to our sweet Sagie! She kicked off the weekend with her friend party on Friday. This was the first year that we really had to narrow down the birthday invitee list which I hated having to do but between neighborhood, school and church friends it would have been a bit overwhelming had we invited everyone she plays with so we kept it manageable inviting 7 girlfriends and her buddy Cole from next door.

There is something fun and sweet about decorating and preparing for a girlie party. We've covered Elmo, princess, and beach themes in the past so being that her birthday is in the spring, a flower theme seemed perfect. Thankfully, mother nature was in a good mood and once again came through with a beautiful day which is truly amazing considering all this bad weather we've had. I probably just jinxed us for next year but every single one of Sage's birthday parties has had perfect weather!

I have to admit I was quite thrilled with how these cupcakes and kabobs turned out. I also realized that making banana bread cupcakes is much less messy, a bit more healthy, and much more delicious!!!



Craft time! So I probably should have waited a couple years before having the kids paint flower pots. I had shown them how to make cute flowers, butterflies, etc. with their fingers and markers but in the end they just enjoyed smudging paint all over them! Then they decorated sticky flower cutouts with tissue paper!




The girls enjoyed playing in the back yard for a bit but sadly Cole was a bit shy around all these girls. He preferred hanging out with his mom and me inside!



Poor Alyssa hadn't been feeling good the days leading up to the party but wanted to stop in for a few minutes. We were so glad she was able to join in if even for a short period of time!



Time to sing...



Sagie loved every one of her presents. So much so that she had to pull everything out of it's packaging within minutes of everyone leaving. Thanks to the generosity of all her friends she will not be bored anytime soon! I also have to mention how cute it is that for the past three years Annie insists on bringing Sage a dress for her gift and every year Sage is thrilled with what she picks!

The week about mom...

Well, what a treat it was to go to Sage's preschool for Mother's Tea. She was so excited for me to taste the muffins the class had been busy making and give me my present. The room was decorated so beautifully, the food was yummy, the gift adorable but the best part was that they had asked each child a few questions about their moms and had written down their answers to share at the tea. Gotta love when they ask your daughter "If you had lots of money what would you buy for your mother?" and your daughter says "a new porsche". Hmm, I think that's more along the lines of what your dad would want... Clearly there is some sort of disconnect between what Sage thinks of me and reality. She also said my favorite food is carrots and bacon. Have NO idea where that came from. She did get my age right but another favorite was "I know my mom loves me because she..." and Sage responded, "I'm her favorite kid in my family. She hugs me". She also said "While I'm at school, my mom looks at the pictures on my wall and types on the computer..." Good times at the tea party!!!




I just realized I am a terrible mom and didn't get a photo of my darling bottle cap pin and magnet! whoops! Next it was on to Mother's Day! I love Mother's Day. My favorite part is seeing what darling things the kids make at school. Each grade level does the same thing so this year it was poetry from the boys. Nothing like reading sweet poems written by your children. After spending the morning at church, the kids each gave me beautiful bouquets of flowers and Jack slaved in the kitchen making his family favorite...quesadillas and even going as far as to make me my absolute favorite thing...angel food cake! I'm happy to report that after a couple failed attempts trying to get the kids to eat angel food cake with me (since Jack refuses to waste his calories on a fat free cake) the kids have finally seen the light and now they too love angel food cake! It was a great day!

Each year when this day rolls around I am very mindful of what a difficult day this can be for some. I for one was not a fan of this day for many years. Of course I loved celebrating my own mom on this day but wondered if I would ever have anyone celebrating me as a mom, calling me mom. Nothing is worse than attending church and listening to them ask all the mothers to stand so they can publicly be acknowledged and given some token of appreciation for their role as 'mom' while you suffer in silence wondering if the day will ever come that you get to stand with all the others. I'm so glad our ward is sensitive to this and acknowledges all women on Mothers Day because indeed, mom or not, all women play a motherly role in the lives of those around them. I do believe it takes a village to raise a child. Many times it's with the help of kind neighbors, friends, church leaders, etc. that we are able to accomplish our role as 'mom' each day. I try to be mindful of all the wonderful women I know, mom or not who should be celebrated on this day.



Unfortunately I didn't get a nice photo of me and the kids before Sage and I had switched out of our clothes but in the end who cares...I got a photo with me the ones I'm so grateful for! Happy Woman Day!

Where is the time going?

So it's already the beginning of May and I just realized it's been since March that I wrote an update. That's not good since this is my journal! I'm blaming it on the the bad weather that we've had. Clearly it's been affecting me! Seriously how often does one experience sun, rain, hail, sleet, thunder, lightening, wind, and snow in one day? Welcome to my life!!!

Well, here's a run down of the past few weeks:

Pinewood Derby: Well, let's just say that we were in the top 10 and leave it at that! And yes, there were more than ten cars participating...lol! We have yet to figure out the magic tricks that make up a winning car built with only the generic parts that come in the box but I can say each year Jack puts in fantastic effort. In the end he swears it comes down to buying all the "goods" online. The last two years I've begged him not to spend the big bucks to buy the expensive tools, wheels, etc. that he says are absolutely necessary in order to build a competitive car because I really felt it came down to luck in the end. This year I was finally convinced otherwise when our friend Philip spent a small fortune on what turned out to be a first place winning car! I was skeptical to see if his son's car would really outperform all the other cars and sure enough it did. I will never live that down. So in the end, I guess the magic recipe is the "online marketplace". I have yet to figure out why they chose cub scouts as the time to do pinewood derbies. I mean how many of the cub scouts actually do even half the work? I can say this year our boys did almost all of it and that's what made me so proud of them. They even did most of the cutting! Sadly I neglected to get a photo of them with their cars but I did get a couple of them racing. In these photos both the boys cars took first but as the night progressed, they sunk down the ranks a little but they didn't care. They were thrilled with their results. Ty named his car the "Diamondback" and Connor named his the "Grave Stone".



Easter: I think we'll go back to celebrating Easter in Utah. Being that we went away in Feb. and are going to be heading out again in a few weeks, we took a break from our traditional spring break trip to Utah...BIG MISTAKE! Never again but we didn't let our gloomy weather ruin our Easter festivities. The skies actually cleared on Saturday, just in time for our homeowners association Easter egg hunt which the kids always enjoy!




We spent Easter at our friends the Fuller's home which was fun and filling!!! After eating and cleaning up everyone came back to our place to do Dance Central and Jack's ego was killed when Heather Smith was able to kill him with her background in dance! After everyone took off we did an Easter egg hunt in the house and the kids finally dyed some eggs.






Speaking of Scouts: The boys have been doing scouts for over a year now. It's no secret that Jack has never been a fan of the scouting program and of my four brothers, not one of them went on to become an Eagle Scout so clearly there is no real excitement surrounding scouting in our family but we do encourage the boys to participate when the schedule allows. This past week the boys got their Wolf badges at the monthly pack meeting. With that comes a pin for the mom. The boys were very excited to turn my two pins (since there are two of them which means I get a pin from each of them) into a new set of earrings! This photo was terrible of me so I purposely made the color all off but you get the point! Here I am modeling my new earrings...



So that's a brief rundown of the past month! We are in full swing with baseball season so I'll post photos of the whole season in one entry. For obvious reasons, many of our practices and games have been cancelled this year but we are optimistic the good weather will be arriving any day... I won't hold my breath! Ha!

Finaghty's St. Patty's Day 5K

So this past weekend our community hosted a 5K run. Our friends the Sundwall's coordinate the local runs and always do a remarkable job. The course is beautiful, it's always well put together, and the community comes out in full force to support it. The day before the event Ty mentioned to me he wanted to run in it. I neglected to do anything about it thinking he probably really wasn't that interested but he was determined to run in it and on the morning of, jumped out of bed excited to participate. Jack called our friend Sean to see if it would be possible to add Ty and within a few minutes Ty was dressed, numbered, and excited to be doing his first run ever! Now when he woke up he thought he'd be doing the much smaller 1K but according to Sean that race was for "3-4 year olds". Thank you Sean but that is a bit insulting since I don't know that I would be able to even finish that one... so away Ty went on the 5K. I watched him as he lined himself up at the front of the start line, Jack greeted him mid way through as he passed through the intersection that Jack was directing the runners through and then I got to see him as he came across the finish line. He made it in 34:08 which for his very first race I was pretty impressed with. To be honest I thought there was a possibility I'd be the last one standing at the finish line but nope, Ty was far from the last one to cross. We are so proud of him!!!

The "B" sports...

Hard to believe basketball season has already come and gone. It wasn't one of the more memorable seasons for the boys. They lost as many as they won which was a far cry from football season but a good reminder to them of what it feels like to win some and lose some...



So now baseball season has begun. Being that most practices in the past couple weeks have been cancelled due to sideways rain, wind, and muddy fields, it's hard to believe we'll actually watch a baseball game anytime soon but we are optimistic. We're also hopeful that the year of "kid pitch" brings about all sorts of excitement on the field. We're really excited about the coaching staff being that they are two of the boys' football coaches and two people we really love. Here's to the LA Dodgers!!! Photos to come soon...

The boys make it to see the age of 9! Halfway to adulthood...

As sad as the boys were to leave the Disney ship and come home, they knew it meant getting their presents from Grandma and Grandpa and us, plus a few shorts days later they'd get to celebrate with their friends at their official birthday party. Here is how the week of celebrating continued...

Finally after being packed away since Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa's birthday gifts to the boys got to make their debut! As you can see, they were quite the hit. And yes, the sombreros are also still quite the hit...



In addition the boys each got an xbox game from Jack and I which they were tickled pink over. I have to say we are blessed with kids who are very easy to please. If I remember correctly, they each got one beta fish last year and were happy as clams about that! Thankfully those fish lived to see their birthday this year too but not because of all my work at making certain they were taken care of while we were on vacation. Oh yes, I completely forgot about them, not only forgetting to have someone feed them while we were away but also forgetting to feed them before we left. Yep, that's right, while we were busy misplacing our waistlines on the cruise, these poor fish were dieting like they had never dieted before... Thankfully they were alive when we returned and I told the boys that was the best gift they could have received...

Next it was their friend party which took place yesterday. We booked the community pool and they had fifteen of their closest friends join them for a private swim party. The kids loved it, I had no mess in the house, and everyone came home exhausted. Thankfully the kids made me feel good and loved the cupcakes...




The swim team:



The party room! The best part about this party was the no clean up policy. You just remove all your personal stuff and they do all the mopping and wiping after you're out... I LIKE!




Normally I like to include a photo of them with all their gifts but this year the most popular gift was a gift card. They got some fun gifts but clearly they are getting older. The days of fun toys have passed by! I can hardly believe that the boys are nine! Someone stop the clock...