May Celebrations

After December -- for Christmas of course! -- May is my favorite month of the year. We get to celebrate Mother's Day, my birthday (the big 25 this year!), and Landon's birthday all within one week. So here is an account of all the fun =)

Mother's Day morning we went to church and Landon gave a lesson for junior highers on mothers and how they reflect the supportive, nurturing nature of God. For his opening act, he interviewed his own mother on stage and she got to tell a bunch of stories from Landon's childhood. The kids loved it and a couple times people asked me, is that true? Did that really happen??? Yes. Yes, he did write a story in elementary school about his mother chaining him in the basement when he was bad and giving him only bread and water causing the teacher to ask the principal about possible abuse. Yes, he did reprogram all of the junior high principal's speed dials to call pizza hut after sitting in there for detention. It was a little intimidating to hear Landon's mother tell these stories again, now knowing these are the genes going into my two dear boys =)

After church, we had lunch with Landon's parents and exchanged presents. They gave me a cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld all about hiding pureed fruits and vegetables in normal meals like pancakes and macaroni and cheese. It's perfect for Trenton, the anti-vegetable kid. Show him anything green and he says, "EEEWWW" with the standard nose crinkle. I'll let you know which recipes are a success.

When we got home, Landon surprised me with Enchanted and Hairspray on DVD. Enchanted is one of my new favorite movies, so if you haven't seen it, definitely rent it. The songs playing on my blog are all from the soundtrack too. We watched it that afternoon and Landon liked it as much as I did, even if he won't admit it! It really was a relaxing, fun day. . . and then for some reason everything unravelled. The kids were cranky and hungry and Landon had to go get gas for the grill before we could make dinner. Things were tense and I was starting to lose the glow of the day when I heard the two boys spontaneously laughing together and I couldn't help but laugh with them:

Trenton and Sawyer saved the day as only kids can do. For every frustration and every tear-your-hair-out moment, there are a dozen of these to make up for it. So, thank you Trenton and Sawyer for making me a mother AND for making me enjoy it. (We didn't remember to take pictures until right before bed.)

That was Sunday. Monday the week started and I still didn't have a present for Landon's birthday on Friday. He loves the outdoors so I decided to surprise him with a day trip to Sedona. Then on Tuesday, I remembered he was going to a baseball game Friday night with Scott and I didn't want to have to worry about getting home in time. Last minute, I changed our day trip to Wednesday. It would be on my birthday, but Landon was taking the day off and I just assumed he wouldn't have anything planned. Then, I had this great idea to reserve a helicopter tour of Sedona for his present. He still talks about the one we did in Hawaii, so I knew he would love it. I called to book the shortest, least expensive tour and they didn't have any available. The lady tells me she has the deluxe (meaning most expensive) tour at ten or eleven. I start to decline and she tells me, "Wait you didn't let me finish. What if I tell you I can give him a seat on the 35 minute deluxe tour for the price of the 13 minute roundabout tour?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I booked it right away and immediately called Amber to tell her about my great deal. I was giddy with excitement knowing this would be the best birthday present I had ever given Landon. What I didn't know - while I was planning his surprise trip for Wednesday, he was finishing details that had been in the works for a couple weeks for my surprise party that night!! My call to Amber caused a whirlwind of calls between Amber, Ashley, Anne (my brother's girlfriend), and Landon all trying to get their lies straight so I wouldn't catch on while also trying to find a way to get us home in time from a trip that Landon wasn't supposed to know about! Our friends did great!! Both surprises went off without a hitch and we both had the enjoyment of giving gifts the other never expected. That night at my party, we all compared stories about who said what when and laughed at how it all turned out. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of the party, but here are a bunch of pictures from our trip to Sedona.