I feel Old. So Old.

For some reason this birthday I officially feel old.  It might be because someone referred to me as "middle aged."  Which, um, hold the presses...34 is NOT middle aged, thank you very much.  Maybe it is because Macie told me today, "Mom I have bad news.  You are just gonna keep getting older and older and older and older...and then you are gonna die. And go to heaven. "  Thanks Macie for that cheery thought.  And now I would like to give a small diatribe by how frustrating I think it is that our society honors youth and beauty above all else in women.  And that people start talking to you like you should be lying about your age once you hit the age of 30, because I guess 30 is the official start of "you are old and decrepit" stage of life.  Well boo on that. Two thumbs down.  I think I am having a mid life crisis .  Maybe I need to go buy a sports car.  Nah, I don't really care about cars. Maybe a $300 purse.... Anyway if everyone (all none of you reading this), could put in the comment section the following: "You are________ (please fill in with one of the following adjectives: young, hot, super hip, the picture of perfection.)" I would really appreciate it. 

 I mean look at the "34" on this cake... I think it totally illustrates just how young, hot, super hip, and the picture of perfection, that I am. My children made me this cake.  I was gifted the cake box mix a few days ago by one of Don's realtor friends,(sidenote: where the heck does the apostrophe go in that sentence.  I think I must have had chicken pox the week in school where we talked about apostrophes) who brought over boxes of just slightly expired food from a hoarder's house. Yum.  I've seen "Hoarders." And the one thing I learned from that show is you don't eat food from a Hoarder's house.  I've actually learned a lot more things from that show.  Like some people can't throw away rotten pumpkins. And also, clothes saturated in cat urine, are not necessarily useless. I've also learned that you don't need less stuff, you just need more space for your stuff.  So if you run out of closet space, your bathtub, bed, and kitchen counters are perfectly acceptable places to store gasoline and 2002 Happy New Year hats.

 My kids also gave me about 20 bags filled with napkins, pennies, and small pieces of nonsensical shapes of paper.  I take that back. Macie said they were "mountains." The best part about it all was getting to clean it all up!  My best present though was  the guitar Chloe made me from a shoe box and rubber bands.

My kids are pretty amazing creatures.  I appreciated all their efforts to show me their love.  And even if everyone else thinks I am old and decrepit, my kids think I am pretty spectacular.

Pictures from Stacy's wedding

Easter

 Oscar is over 9 months now.  Bald as ever.  He is crawling and into everything.  He started out with his army crawl and he has moved into normal crawling. I miss his army crawl. It was amazing to see how fast he could slither around. He was super fast.  Now he has moved to standing up with support and climbing onto everything he can.  Walking is in his very near future.  He loves eating.  He is my best eater so far.  He will eat anything.  And he takes such joy in being fed.  He will go to anyone and just loves anyone who will pay attention to him.  He is taking swimming lessons too and enjoys it *most of the time.  we love him.

 I made this chocolate torte for Easter. It was a 2 day process.  It wasn't a perfect presentation, but not bad for my first time using a springform pan.  And I even tried to decorate the top. All in all, it wasn't a total flop.

 I was very proud of myself. So I took too many pictures.

 Here we are at Julie's house, Easter Sunday.

Chloe left this note for the Easter Bunny, she wanted the Easter Bunny to not forget about Troy and Lyla.

 This past month we have had a lot of fun.  For instance, last week I met up with my old High school chum (btw, gilbert blythe died last week, I just thought of that because of the word "chum," and I am seriously still depressed about it. And it makes me feel ancient. And my birthday is next week. which also makes me feel ancient. And our 10 year anniversary is tomorrow, which also makes me feel ancient. And Chloe is getting baptized next month. Which also makes me feel ancient. Bottom line. I feel ancient).  Anyway, it was so fun to catch up with Kristi. She is one of those friends where we can always just pick up where we left off from the last time we saw each other, which was like 2 years ago.

 Macie has been saying some hilarious things lately.  She has been begging me for a week to cut a slit in her Elsa costume so she can look more authentic. So I finally did because I was tired of the incessant begging.  I would like to thank Disney for making a Disney princess with some sex appeal, it really makes my life easier.  When she thought I wasn't watching, she would sing and act out the part in the song that goes, "Here I stand..."  (That would be the part in the song where Elsa stamps her foot and shows off the high slit in her dress).  I am pretty sure this was the main reason she needed the slit in her dress.  So now she can act out the song with more accuracy.  And I sewed the slit a little further down, because it was a little too high.

Also..last night Macie and I were having a little bedtime chat, and she got to talking about dying.  Yes, dying.  Let me tell you just how much I love these conversations.  I love talking about existential thoughts with children.  It is super easy.  I love being asked questions that are extremely depressing and difficult to answer.  Amidst the morbid conversation, she still managed to say something totally hilarious.  "I don't want to die! I don't want to dig a big hole. And put myself in a treasure chest! And then be put in the hole!"  Morbidly hilarious isn't it?  She thinks a casket looks like a treasure chest.  The whole thing is so creepy and funny and I just can't even talk about this anymore.
Later that night, we had moved on, and Chloe was telling us some story she made up about fairies and stuff,  and Chloe recently has been using this phrase "You see..."  I have noticed it for a few months. I have no idea where she got this phrase, but she uses it almost as frequently as she uses the word "and."  As Chloe is telling us this story, she throws in a "you see" and Macie whispers to me, "Mom? Why does Chloe always say 'you see'?"  It really made me laugh.  Only to myself of course. If Macie knew I thought she said something funny unintentionally, she would blow a gasket.

 Chloe had to write a paper on who she would pick for President of the United States. I was flattered that she chose me.  I wasn't her first choice, that would be her cousin Paloma, but I came in a close second.  She said she could only think of 1 reason Paloma would make a good President, but she could think of a few for me.
It reads:
"Would you like to have a really great president? If you do I think you will like my mom. I believe my mom would be the best president.  First she is smart. For example she knows 113+15! Another reason is that she is funny. In fact she sang the song wrong and it made me laugh so hard! Finally she is nice. An example is that she brought straws home for me and macie. All in all that is why I believe my Mom would be the best President."
That Chloe... she is mine.  All mine.  

 In other news, Macie passed a level in her swimming class which means she earned a medal. Awhile back,  Don told her she would earn medals for passing levels, in an effort to improve her attitude towards her swimming lessons.  She said, "shiny medals?"  So the encouragement worked.  Well she finally earned her first medal.  And her reaction was priceless.  She said to me, "Mom...this medal is not so shiny."