Birthday week!

I'm sorry for whoever still reads these posts!  My new way of doing family history is to take pictures all week and then remember what happened during the week as I post them.  It makes for rather long posts...

Monday:

Pace hit his head on the oven and as he cried, told us "you should have put that somewhere else!!!"

At dinner, he lunged at Nolan with his fork, and the way Nolan groaned and grabbed his eye, we were sure that Pace had stabbed his eye out.  That got a quick, very worried reaction, and we found out that Nolan was okay, but Pace felt bad and started crying.

Nolan comforting:

Tuesday:

I found a job for Pace that he enjoyed:  cleaning cat hair off of the porch furniture from some neighbor cat that has found our deck😠😠😠:

Pace usually sticks right next to me during the day and gets anxious if he finds himself in a room all alone, so it was fun to watch him from the kitchen window as he pretended that he was a robber (as he later told me):

Should I be worried that he always wants to be "the bad guy"???

I picked up Maddie at noon and we went to Hermiston to a new orthodontist.  When we moved here, we had her braces all paid off, but went for a consultation with an orthodontist here in town who said he would take her on for $2000 more.  It has become very apparent that he doesn't know how to deal with the brackets that she has and he can never get her hooks to stay on for more than a day so that she can wear her bands.  That, and the tantrums that he throws every time he has to deal with her caused us to look elsewhere.  Turns out, that her care has back-tracked and he really didn't have any idea what he was doing....sigh.  Incredibly aggravating. She may truly have a million dollar smile by the end of this!!

Caden was requesting more pictures of her, so I took these.  I said "babe" for this one:

...And "zombie" for this one:

He and Kami get a kick out of horrible pictures...😄

We had a great evening with cousins, as Leslie and kids came for dinner. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures!  We love them and love when they can come!!

Wednesday:

I woke up another year older!  Shawn took the day off and it was the best day ever!!  We started it out by heading to the gym together:

Cardio and legs day:

Stretching it out:

Went home and got ready and then went to lunch at Roosters:

He and the kids spoiled me rotten with dinner and cake and lots of great thoughtful gifts before the boys headed for scouts and the girls and I went to mutual.  One of my very best gifts was having these letters show up in the mail from Kami and Caden!  It meant so much that they planned ahead and remembered their old mom:

Shawn got me an amazing foot massage machine and I guess it got everyone going on back scratching and everything else pampering-related.  These two spent about an hour taking turns scratching each other's backs with a back scratcher:

Thursday:

I watched Lexi Foust all day because she just got her tonsils out and her mom had to work. Pace was thrilled that he got to watch T.V practically all.day.long. I didn't get to watch the boy's first track meet, but Shawn sent me these pictures. Abram has a great arm and threw even further than Nolan, getting first place!:

Nolan jumped 11'1" in the long jump, which I am pretty sure was first place too.  Maddie says the high school girls jump 13', so he's doing great for his age!:

They also got first or second in their other events, but no pictures.  They have a program here that the kids who do track can earn an "iron man" award for trying every event, and the boys are determined to get it!  It's going to be busy around here through track season!  Isabelle hasn't started meets yet, but will next week.  Maddie has about two per week, but so far all of them have been canceled because of rain, and now the boys will have a meet every Thursday, plus getting everyone to and from practices. Busy, fun times.

Friday:

Pace woke up looking pretty tough after falling during a chase the night before.  Also he was having a hard time waking up happy and that added to the look:

I sometimes irreverently take pictures of him when he prays. He doesn't leave anything out and gestures with his hands and everything while he explains things to Heavenly Father :

I've been enjoying this bed with spring flowers in the front yard.  Fun to see what comes up in the yard, since I had nothing to do with it:

Pace climbing in a tree while I weeded a bed in the back yard:

Saturday:

We were excited that Tia and her kids came to visit for half of the day!  We don't get to see them much now that they live two hours away in Condon, Oregon.  Again, I failed to get pictures😒It was good to catch up and for the cousins to keep up with each other!

Later, after Shawn and I went for a walk all over town, Maddie met us at the door and asked us to come listen to her latest piano piece, "Waltz in A minor" by Chopin.  She has worked hard on it and it's sounding great!: