Happy Birthday to Rachie Roo!

We've kind of inadvertently started a random tradition in our family...birthdays are not 1 day long, they last the entire month. Sometimes you just can't fit everything you want to do into one day, and that's just fine :) Rachel turned 3 yesterday, but we've already had 3 celebrations and are planning a fourth.

On Sunday we had dinner and cake with my family. The cake is another story...

Richard and I decided to go to the temple on Saturday, and we planned to hit up Cold Stone and Allen's on our way back to get an ice cream cake and groceries for that night (grill party with the Drews) and for Sunday's dinner. We left the house just after two, making it in time for the 2:40 session. Or that's what we thought, anyway. I went my usual route from the locker to the name station, only to find that there was a huge long line stretching in the opposite direction. So that slowed me up just enough to where I almost didn't make it in time for that session. But it didn't even matter...apparently a ward had taken that entire session's capacity, so we waited for the session at 3. This would normally be fine, but I was nervous about Reuben wanting to be nursed around 5 and I wasn't sure we'd make it back by then. I calmed down and told myself that I was doing what I should be, and God would take care of Reuben :) Which was good, because there were more hurdles, as it turned out. While I was in the name line, I talked to a couple of sister missionaries, and found out that they were headed to Japan on Monday. They said their entire district came to the temple one last time before they headed out. Pretty cool. So when we got into the room for the session, I saw about 10-20 Japanese boys and my heart just melted. They all had their headsets on, listening to the session in Japanese, and we actually had to pause the session twice because some of them forgot some key parts and had to have them done over again. So that slowed us up a little bit too. Another event played into our lateness, that being that for some reason the sisters had left gaps when filling in the seats, and the sweet old officiator lady started filling them in with ME. So I was in seat number 2. The men's side didn't have this problem, so Richard was in the 4th or 5th row back, behind all the cute little Japanese boys. So when it came time to move into the Celestial Room, I was the second one in. I sat near the men's entrance and waited for Richard. Usually the men come in in a pretty steady stream, about one every minute or so. These guys came in one every five minutes. As it turns out, the Japanese elders didn't speak any English, and believe it or not there were not any temple workers who spoke Japanese. So getting them through took a lot longer than normal. But then Richard finally made it, and it was wonderful. I love being in the Celestial Room with my husband more than just about anything in the world. We had to cut our time short, however, as it was already 5:20 and we had our errands to run. I called Aja once we got out of the temple and found everything to be hunky dory at home, so I just quit worrying and we went about our errands. I was a little worried that Cold Stone wouldn't have the cake we were looking for, and we'd have to stop at Baskin Robbins and possibly Wal-mart to find what we wanted, but Cold Stone had the perfect cake, and it wasn't as terribly expensive as we were expecting. So off we went to home, and the rest of the evening was fantastic.

So back to Sunday. We made burgers and fries for Rachel's birthday dinner, figuring she loves fries and we had all these burgers waiting to be grilled. We also made a fruit salad, and I sliced and plated a lovely dish of tomatoes. That's what ended up in front of Rachel, and that's about all she ate for dinner lol. I love that she loves tomatoes :) After dinner we brought out the cake with candles and everything, and she knew exactly what to do. Then my parents brought in the gift they had bought for her, a tricycle with a purple helmet, and we went outside to play with that for a while until we all froze. So that was birthday celebration number 1.

On her birthday I tried to explain things to her and get her excited, but there wasn't much we could do that day because the car was in the shop and I wouldn't be able to get it because I worked that afternoon. Mornings tend to be our out-and-about time. But I tried to get her excited about being three, and we were planning to give her our gift that evening. Trying to make the day special for her turned out to be really difficult because she was soooooo naughty! I wanted to spoil her all day long, but she was so rotten that she ended up being punished most of the day. Whatever. You can't choose the day your kids behave, right? Anyway we had a yummy dinner that night as well, and then I suggested we have ice cream for dessert. Then we gave Rachel her gift from us, an easel with a white board on one side and a chalk board (which we found out doesn't work) on the other. She LOVES it. Unfortunately she drew all over her arms today with the marker and lost her privileges for a while, but she'll have another chance to enjoy it later.

So today was her real birthday celebration. The car was finished while I was working on Monday, so I planned to go for a run in the morning with the kids to pick it up and then we'd just go straight to the mall from there. It's exactly two miles from our house to the car shop, so I weaved a little to make it three. I was nervous that I wouldn't make it the whole way, because my legs had become weak sauce over the winter, but I did it! And as a bonus, Reuben slept the whole way. The poor guy has been sick, and he took about 5 naps today. I think he'll finally feel better in the morning. So we got to the car and loaded up to go to the mall. The first thing we did when we got there was head over to the train stop, but the train was out, so we played on the playground for a few minutes until it arrived. Then Rachel got to ride on the "chugga choo choo train" and she loved it. She's been obsessed with trains for a couple weeks, and since I couldn't find her a purple one like she wanted, I figured going for a ride in one would be the next best thing. Reuben liked it too :)

After the train ride we went upstairs for some lunch, and Rachel requested we get pizza. Their kids meals are huge, but she ate almost the entire slice and enjoyed her juice. She kept saying "This is a really yummy lunch!" which made me happy :) I wanted to take the kids back to the play area, but we were nearing nap time and hadn't finished our festivities of the day yet, so we we took off. I then took her to a hair salon and she had her first ever hair cut. She looks so cute! Her hair has been kind of difficult to manage lately, not only because of the scissors incident 6 months ago but because it's never EVER been cut, so she still has her stringy baby hairs and everything is different lengths. Well, not anymore. She also has a small amount of bangs, but those will grow out soon enough. She really enjoyed it. And after that I got her an ice cream cone at DQ and wow, I don't think she was expecting anything that fantastic.

I know she's only 3, but I hope this day was fun for her. I hope she remembers it for a while, and I hope she felt special. We'll be heading up to Logan this weekend to have celebration number 4 with Richard's family, and that will be extra fun for her because she'll get to see her cousins.

I sure love my girl :)