The fifth birthday.

As many of you will know, Alexa does not like cake. We made a cake for the candle and for the rest of us to eat. Alexa is still a little uncertain about the whole candle thing too. When you think about it, this is understandable, we have this odd little ritual of baking her a cake once a year, and putting a candle in it, then we sing to her and blow it out. We only put one candle in because she is a little worried by it.

There is the exceedingly unflattering photo of me blowing out the candle for her. (When she blows she holds her nose and spits a bit, which we thought would not add to the flavor of the cake.)

And then Alexa got to have strawberries while we ate her cake. She opened her presents and played with them and cried when she had to go to bed. Carolyn and Penny came for the party, so we had a nice time.

Yesterday was also the last day of school, a sad day for mommy and Alexa!

A little party.

We had a little party for Alexa's birthday on Friday. She gets a little overwhelmed with too many new people. Tayler wanted them to have matching dresses for convention, and so they brought Alexa a beatiful dress as a gift. She also received a book, which she loved! Carleen knows her well!

Tayler and Alexa got to ride horses at the same time as a special birthday gift, and we got to see the newborn Welsh pony.

I wanted to take him home with me, he is so cute.

General Business

I haven't written here in so long, so I'll try to update a little. Here is Alexa in her cute Sunday clothes.. I am not sure why we hadn't put her glasses on yet. If I stand her on the piano bench she holds still long enough to take a picture. She seems to have hit the terrible two's or three's now that she is almost five. Every time I ask her to do something she runs the other way. She now has angry crying fits when David leaves for work, or when I deny her something she wants. You know the kind, where they go limp and fall on the ground and pull away. I am trying to do the thing where you give her two choices, so that she feels more in charge, but sometimes it's hard to think of two good options.

She still goes to therapy, once every two weeks, speech therapy and occupational therapy. This picture is just her playing on the ramp and stairs, I am not sure why she is carrying the pull rope.

We had a big garage sale and sold all the baby stuff. It was a relief to get it all out of the house.

I have been making scones right and left. Rhubarb scones mainly. Thanks for the recipe Holly! Here it is.

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

6 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together and cut in

1/2 C butter

then stir in

1 cup milk

1 egg

If it is really hard to stir at this point I add a little extra milk

Then stir in whatever you want, fruit, chocolate chips, coconut

Drop onto a lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 400 for fifteen minutes.

If you like (and I do) ice with a little powdered sugar/milk glaze.

Also I have been very into making lemonade lately. They have good lemons at the coop and I have made two pitchers of lavender lemonade and one of raspberry. Both delicious!

Lavender lemonade

1/4 to 1/2 cup dried lavender

1 Cup sugar

5-6 lemons

Make tea with the lavender, allow to steep for 10 minute, strain into the lemon juice and sugar, dilute to 1/2 gallon approximately

Raspberry Lemonade.

Make the same way, minus the tea and dump a pint of raspberries in, mash them against the side of the pitcher with a spoon, and then let the whole thing sit in the refridgerator for a day or so. The raspberries sort of dissolve into the lemonade and make it so wonderful!

I got to lope/canter at my horseback riding lesson Tuesday. I am not sure if those two are the same thing..(Carleen?). I wasn't terrible graceful at it, and thus am very sore in the part of me that hits the saddle. I love it though, so fast!

We have the big meeting at the school today to decide where Alexa goes to school next year. This has been a very paperwork laden process, and seems sort of ridiculous, but we should get it finished and figured out today.

Another busy weekend.

Doug and Cherie were kind enough to invite us for supper Saturday evening. They live sort of out in the country and have a big yard that was fun for Alexa to run around in. Caitlyn enjoys playing in the dirt..

And on Sunday morning we went to Willamette University for Carolyn's graduation from law school. It was sort of a long ceremony, but Alexa entertained herself very well playing with Kalin (a family friend of David's family.)

And then we went to Carolyn's place for lunch, raced back to get to our gospel meeting, and went home and cooked a celebration dinner for the family. Alexa loved having two Grandma types to play with..

I am not very good at the candid shots, so you'll have to bear with me.. This is Bea and Lloyd, David's aunt and her husband from Texas.

The Little Gym

I mentioned in a previous post that we were doing gymnastics at a place called The Little Gym. I can't say enough good things about this place. The staff is friendly and helpful, and the big thing I love is the noncompetitive focus. They aren't training kids to be professional gymnasts, they are teaching them playground skills and beginning sports skills. Alexa just needs to try to use her body in new ways, but it doesn't matter that she can't do half of the activities-no one cares. They encourage her to try, but don't worry too much when she gets distracted and wanders off..the other kids do their own thing some of the time too. If there is a branch near you I recommend them without reservation. I have linked their website in the beginning of this post.

More Arizona pictures

Here are the last of the pictures from Arizona. I tried to just pick out the best of them. So here we go. This is my brother's wife Chloe.
My mom, with Aiden (my brother's son), and the back of Andrew's head. (My stepbrother's son)

My brother Cody. (Whose artwork is shown on the website link I have listed to the right.)

The whole circus. You know how fun it is to get a group shot!

Aiden again, being adorable. He looks so much like Cody did as a boy.

Simone, my brother's daughter.

Aiden again..still gorgeous.

My cousin Melissa, with Cody's youngest, Avalon.

And Alexa, in her swimming outfit.

Wish I looked that adorable in my swimsuit!

Some Arizona vacation pictures

We are still in Arizona. The night before we left I got a fever and was sick all day Saturday. I took a lot of ibuprofen to stay functional. When we got to Casa Grande, I went to the hotel and slept, while Holly took Alexa to convention. By Sunday morning the fever was gone, so we went to convention. Alexa did pretty well, although she has continued to have a horribly snotty nose. It was pretty hot Sunday, and by the time lunch was over Alexa was acting like she didn't feel well, she just wanted me to carry her around. She was really red in the face, so we decided to take her home. We went to Holly's apartment and took her swimming.

Monday evening Mom, Alexa and I went up to Prescott. On Wednesday morning we had breakfast at the Hassyampa Inn, an historic motel in downtown Prescott with Suzie and Thelma.

And I got to visit with my best friend from high school, Melody.

Then we came back to Phoenix, stopping at the outlet malls to play in the fountains.

And Alexa went to spend the night with Nana and Poppa, while I took Holly out to dinner for her birthday.

It was very odd to be separated from both David and Alexa, I felt like I was having a slumber party or something, but it was really nice to get to visit with Holly uninterrupted!