30+2 = Good Times, Tons of Pictures and a Train Cake

I think this will be my longest post ever. I don't have that much to say, but there are about 45 million pictures.

The big double birthday party was on Saturday night in Tucson. It was a smashing success. Spencer, Ginger and I got up on Friday morning and drove to Tucson to do all the shopping. Michael came down after work. After I bought all the ingredients I did some crazy from scratch cake baking and decorating- 24 dark chocolate cupcakes, 10 strawberry cupcakes, 6 strawberry train cars and 1 strawberry train engine. Spencer has never really had chocolate before. I think there were a few chocolate chips in a cookie he had once and maybe a few sprinkles on a scoop of ice cream, but nothing totally chocolate.

Isn't this the best face you have EVER seen?

Needless to say, he is a big fan of chocolate.

The train cake. It took 3 hours of baking and 3 hours of decorating. But at least my son can never say that his mother never made him a cake. The train cake on display with the cupcakes.This is not the first (nor will it be the last) family picture that involves a toothbrush.
Anyone celebrating a birthday was allowed to be part of this picture. Notice the overalls. They lasted 10 minutes and then Spencer shimmied out of them.It's not like I made a special trip to Osh Kosh B'Gosh to buy them and then made a special trip to a fabric store to buy an iron-on train and then ironed it on and then bought a conductor hat to go with the ensemble so that Spencer would look cute with his train cake or anything.
Spencer with his guests, Lilly and Zac Yager. Ethan and Shawn, my friend Kristi's 1-year-old twin boys, were also there but we somehow managed not to take a single picture of them. Chelsea, me and Laura. We're all 30 now (well, we will be after Saturday). Crazy! Baby Zac. He was baptized earlier the same day and is probably the holiest person to ever attend a party at my parent's house. Laura and me Spencer is obviously disgusted by something. Perhaps his shoes?
My dad, Ian, Nathan and Kendra. Blowing out candles. Michael had to help Spencer a bit. The beautiful Yager girls.Michal's mom and aunt Linda. My handsome boys. Lotsa presents Cool salt shakers from Chelsea. Spencer was actually able to help unwrap stuff this year. It was fun to watch. James. He actually took most of these pictures. Thanks James. The new motorcycle trike. It was a fantastic day made special by all of our family and friends. What a great way to bring in my 30's and Spencer's terrible, er, wonderful 2's.

The Birthday Party

As all of you know (because I've mentioned it about a million times), Spencer was born the day after I turned 28. My 28th birthday was spent in labor, although I didn't realize it until 11 pm when I was told I was being admitted to the hospital to deliver a month premature baby. My 29th birthday was spent making about 14 miniature car cakes for Spencer's first birthday party. Oh, and then Ginger ate 3 of them right before the party started.

This year, since I'm turning 30 (which you already knew because I've mentioned it 750,000 times), I decided my birthday needs to be important too. Spencer and I are having a double birthday party in Tucson this weekend and a night out with friends next weekend on my actual birthday. Such is the double life I lead with half my "people" in Pima County and the other half of my "people" in Maricopa county. If you want to get really technical, I guess it would be like 42.5% Pima, 42.5% Maricopa, 5% Pinal and the remaining 10% split amongst Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada. Sorry if we're friends and I forgot your state.

This is the invitation for the party. If you can't read it, it says: It's a Double Birthday Celebration! Top: Spencer 9/6/07 Right: Natalie 9/5/79

I hope to have some fabulous pictures to share after the party. I have a new dress. Spencer has new overalls. I will be spending the majority of Friday making a train cake with at least 6 cars and an engine. And a bunch of "from scratch" cupcakes. Yep. I'm crazy.

Sneaky Sneaky

Look at what my sneaky father-in-law did while I was at work today.

Now the living room is totally complete. Thanks Papa!

Rooms that are ready for the big unveiling

We've been in the new house for 11 days. Thanks to my slightly neurotic and obsessive compulsive ideas about unpacking and a lot of hard work on the part of me, Michael, my mom and Michael's parents....... more than half of the house is totally done.

My father-in-law and I spent all afternoon and the better part of the evening hanging pictures. None of the walls in this house are painted, but I think the pictures bring a little color to the palette.

The entry way

The living room

The living room from the other direction. The only things missing are the 4 square, metal pictures that will be hung above the entertainment center. They're a pain in the *ss to hang though, so I cut my father-in-law some slack. The dining room The dining room looking into the family room. The kitchen is on the left. It is 98% complete but still messy on the counter because of the various projects going on. Pictures will be coming soon.
The family room and the office area (in the corner). If you look closely at the computer screen you'll see my blog. How trippy. Looking at a picture of the blog on the blog. The family room looking into the dining room/living room.

Ginger's little nook

The hallway. The first door on the left is a closet. The second door is the guest room. The thrid door (that you can't see) is the laundry room. At the end of the hallway on the left is the play room/den and on the right is Spencer's room. The first door on the right is the bathroom and the second door (that you also can't see) is the master bedroom. The hallway/entryway area by the master bedroom. I thought it would be a perfect area for some toy and shoe storage. This is one of Spencer's favorite spots.

I'm Baaaaack!

I don't know that I'm to the point of new posts daily just yet, but you won't have to wait a week to hear from me again.

We've been in the new house for a week now. There is still a lot of work to be done but the house is at least livable. And my standard of "livable" means no boxes. That is true for the following rooms: kitchen, family room, dining room, living room, guest room, laundry room and den/play room. It is not true for these rooms: Spencer's bedroom, the master bedroom, both bathrooms and the garage. I also have nothing hanging on the walls yet. That is unacceptable. I hope to remedy that by tomorrow when I leave Michael and his dad with a long list of to-do's. Once I feel like it is blog ready I will post some pictures of the new house.

In the mean time, we took pictures of the empty, Maricopa house. It was very bittersweet to take these. It reminded me of taking pictures when we first bought the house, before we moved in.

The dining room and living room

The bay window in our bedroom Spencer's room
The kitchen
The family room. Look at how NASTY that carpet was (but only on the areas where we walked around the furniture). Click on this picture to enlarge it. Spencer looks like he's about 14 and Ginger is demonic. Spencer found a bag of his old, outgrown clothes yesterday. He insisted on putting on his winter jammies. It took a lot of stretching to get them snapped. This is in the den/playroom. He was very proud of himself

A new update

I don't have any pictures for this update because I haven't taken a picture in a week. That is very unlike me, but hey, I've been busy.

We moved all the boxes into the new house on Saturday. We hired movers to move all the funiture on Sunday and started living there Sunday night. We were there for 2 days before Southwest Gas came to turn the gas on. It's a good thing it was 108 degrees outside otherwise the cold showers would have been obnoxious.

I stayed up until midnight on Sunday, 4:30 am on Monday (and yes, got up and went to work 3 hours later), midnight on Tuesday and 1 am on Wednesday and Thursday unpacking. I cannot STAND living out of boxes. The main parts of the house (kitchen, dining room, living room and family room) are done. The bedrooms and bathrooms are still messes. No pictures have been hung. The garage is a level 4 catastrophe ( I just made that up. I don't think catastrophes have actual levels).

We have no phone service, no internet and no cable TV. Those are being hooked up next week. THANK GOD. I feel like I'm living in pioneer days. Or at least 1996. We're actually in Tucson at my parents house right now. We came down to go to Chelsea's birthday party tonight. It was nice to have a little break from the constant packing and unpacking that has been my life for the last 2 weeks.

I would like to be totally unpacked (except for maybe the boxes of winter clothes) by my birthday in 2 weeks. Think it can be done?

Oh, and one more thing. I saw the hand surgeon on Friday. He said I don't need to have surgery immediately. I can wait until I feel like the pain and weakness is really, really impacting my life. I'm not quite there yet, since the pain and weakness is intermittent. Yeah!

Ready, set, update

Our incredible and amazing friends came and helped us move all the boxes today. One more day of living like this and I would have been moved in a straitjacket.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Maryellen, John, Amy, Josh and Sandy. And thank you, thank you, thank you Michael's parents. They moved boxes, helped with Spencer and took us out to dinner.

Before

After

The movers come to move the furniture in the morning. My brother Nick is coming to help too. And Ginger comes home tomorrow! We'll be sleeping in the new house tomorrow night.