Happy 35th Birthday—to me!

So, it was my 35th birthday this week, and it was nice and pleasant—I’m pretty casual about celebrations—I mean, just look at my cake:



We had pizza for dinner from Barro’s (not to be confused with S’barro’s—my favorite authentic pizza place in New York City) which was pretty good, but not my favorite. We had cake and Cherry Bordeaux Chocolate ice cream.

Amanda made me some new pajama pants, which I didn’t take a picture of, and she got me the 2-disc set of the “Back to the Future” soundtrack, as well as some new computer speakers (with a subwoofer, for when we listen to “Music and the Spoken Word.”…”And the spoken word by Lloyd NEWELLLLL [RUMBLE-RUMBLE]!!!!”)

Then on Saturday, we went to Amanda’s favorite place: Goodwill (on their 50% off Saturday!) and I got some CDs for $1.50 a piece (4 CD’s of waltzes and polkas by Strauss, as well as a Wagner CD.)

In non-birthday news, Joel started cub scouts, and Amanda’s been working with him to hurry and get him caught up on things. Here he is all dressed up:



In a couple months, the 6th Graders have a chance to go to Nerd Camp…Uh, I mean “Science Camp.” (So, why do schools come up with all these fancy activities for the kids then charge a fortune for the kids to go to them??!?! It’s a racket, I tell ya!) Maddy’s pretty excited.

Maddy’s been learning the clarinet this year, and has also been having to purge out all the “new math” she was forced to learn in Utah so she could use the tried-and-true traditional math here in AZ.

Abe’s been helping Amanda around the house while the kids are at school. He even gives Elliott his pacifier when he’s upset, though he keeps his distance:



Elliott has discovered the stairs, and can climb them really quickly…needless to say, we have them blocked off with a large tote most of the time. He also enjoys taking rides with Joel:



The kids are in the process of figuring out what to be for Halloween. We know Elliott will be Dumbo, since we’ve already had the costume for a few years. Abe’s thinking of being Iron Man, so he might be getting a costume for his birthday. Joel can’t decide between Spider-man, Luigi for Mario Brothers, and Captain EO.

This year is a little annoying, because Halloween is on a Sunday. Plus, the elementary school thinks the 6th graders are too old to dress up, so Maddy can’t wear a costume to school. Hopefully the ward has some sort of Halloween party/trunk-or-treat. At one point, we were considering doing the Trick-or-Treat Party at Disneyland in place of normal Halloween festivities, but at $54 bucks per person for 5 of us, it just isn’t in the budget this time around. I hate Halloween anyway, so if it were up to me, I’d just buy the kids each a bag of candy and let them chow down.

A week or so ago, Amanda took the 3 older kids to the Tempe Historical Museum, while I stayed home with Elliott and watched “Shutter Island" (which had some fun melodramatic elements in the filmmaking, but was ultimately pretty uninteresting). They thought the museum would be pretty lame, but they actually had a lot of fun. They got to harvest fruits and vegetables and put them on a truck (child labor is awesome!), they got to play in a football stadium, got to see themselves on a TV camera, and got to put their faces on a mosaic. They also got to email themselves e-postcards:





So that’s about it for now. We feel like we have to trudge through September, which will hopefully go as quickly as August did, then once we hit October, the rest of the year will be a breeze:

October will be filled with General Conference, Science Camp, Amanda and Abe’s birthdays, Amanda’s mom visiting (probably), Fall break, our Disneyland trip, and Halloween.

November will bring Joel’s Birthday and Thanksgiving and "Harry Potter 7 part 1."

December is all about Christmas (including paid time off from Christmas to New Years!) and “Tron: Legacy” and “Tangled”.

Let’s end with a picture of one of our healthier desserts: Fruit Pizza!