Happy Birthday to Me!

One of my new year’s resolutions is keeping up on the blog – we do pretty well most of the time, but every so often we get behind a few months and it’s rather overwhelming to try to catch up on photos and stuff (but I am glad to have it all done whenever I do get it up to date). So, I thought I’d write a quick post.

Michael and I enjoyed a really nice night out together for our anniversary this year. We got to go to a Japanese hibachi restaurant – the food was good, but the show was the really fun thing. The chef right at our table was amazing – cutting food, throwing it in the air, having flames shoot up from the grill right in front of us, tossing rice balls into our mouths, etc. It was quite fun. (Although we did feel a little sorry for the elderly lady at the next table – the other chef through about 10 rice balls at her face before giving up and moving on to the next person). Then we had some free movie tickets that we had gotten from saving up codes from a bunch of cereal boxes several months ago, and we went to see Tron, the most recent movie that Michael’s brother, Al, has done the digital lighting effects for. We quite liked it. The only problem is I think I’m officially getting old: I fell asleep in the movie theater – can you believe that? It wasn’t a boring movie or anything, I just closed my eyes for a second, but when I opened them the movie was only a few minutes from the end (Michael didn’t notice me sleeping because of the 3D glasses – afterwards he asked what I missed, and told me I must have been asleep for about 15 or 20 minutes). Oh well, I guess we’ll have to rent it from redbox later on so I can see the rest. It was still a nice anniversary for us.

Then this weekend we had a fun night out again. A couple from Michael’s work, Janett and Steve, got some tickets for all of us to go to the Rochester Symphony. We met and went out for Korean food before going to the theater, and Steve insisted on paying for everyone – so generous! The orchestra was doing this special show where they show the old Bugs Bunny cartoons and the orchestra plays the music along with them. It’s pretty cool – the conductor gave some history about it, and I guess that in the 1920s and 30s the Warner Brothers studio had their own orchestra for the movies they were making, and they composed new original songs for each of the 2,000 cartoons that they made. Pretty impressive. The concert was enjoyable, and the theater itself had recently been restored and the architecture and decorative details were exquisite. So, thanks, Janet and Steve, that was a really fun night out. We’ll have to get together again soon.

The kids have all gotten over their illnesses – no more strep antibiotics at our house! But Courtland has been especially fussy for at least the last week or so, and hasn’t been eating nearly as much as normal – we realized that his 2-year-old molars are coming in. There are big bumps on both sides, and he’s just been having a hard week. Every once in a while, though, we do get a glimpse at the normal, happy Courtland and it’s so fun to hear him say more and more words (other than “No,” [which means both No and Yes]). Some happier tooth-related news: Kolby has his first loose tooth! It seems that his little friends the same age were starting to loose teeth at least a year ago and maybe earlier. He has been very careful what he eats – slicing up his apples and cautiously eating popcorn. So we’ll see what the tooth fairy brings.

So, I turned 29 today. Our church moved from an 11:30 start time to 9am – I’m not too fond of having to get everyone up at 6:30am to get ready for church, but I do have to admit it’s nice to have all afternoon free to relax after church. Michael started the birthday celebrations early yesterday by making dinner and cleaning up the kitchen (and making a birthday cake, which I’m not supposed to know about) all by himself (with some help from the boys), while he insisted I stay out of the kitchen. So I had several hours to do some genealogy research, and I was super excited to finally find my 4th great grandparents, John Joseph Dick & Eleanor Butcher (the grandparents of my great, great grandpa, Courtland Oliver Dick, who our Courtland is named after). I still have to sort through all my research notes, but I plan to post more info about them on my genealogy blog sometime this week hopefully, if any relatives are curious. While I was instructed to stay downstairs, Daddy and the boys were upstairs for quite a while doing something secretive. :) And then when we had dinner and for my birthday Michael got out the nice china that we got for our wedding (we haven’t gotten it out much lately because of the likelihood of something getting broken with all the little kids, but the boys did great and Michael wants to use the china more often now – maybe it’ll become a Sunday night tradition?)

And this morning I was woken up by Daddy and the boys with breakfast in bed. Michael said that Kolby and Camden had come up with the idea of making and omelet and bringing it to me in bed. Michael woke up Eli and Isaac who were still asleep, and they all brought it in singing Happy Birthday to me. (Then Camden and Eli sat and watching me eat so they could put away my dishes when I was done, while Kolby went down and prepared breakfast for Eli and Isaac). It was a really nice morning, because instead of getting up to feed a bunch of hungry kids all clamoring for attention, I came downstairs having already eaten and most of the boys had already eaten, so I was able to just sit down and give Courtland a holdie on the couch, then read some books to the boys. That’s a nice start to the day.