You say it's your birthday ....

Birthdays are awesome at the Mayfield house. We love to celebrate! Haley woke up bright and early on her birthday -- as in 4am early. She was way excited for the festivities to begin. Paige treated her to a special breakfast (she even made her a name plate for her chair) ...... and then we waited in agony for her party to begin. Time definitely doesn't fly when you're waiting for the fun to start. Just ask Haley. Finally the time had arrived and so did her friends. Cute girls .... Eliza, Naomi, Sara, Robin & Sydney. Good times at Build-a-Bear ahead -- they were giddy with excitement.We had one very energetic party hostess (doing the bunny hop to the next station)........ the girls were able to help fill the stuffing machine ........ and everyone put extra hearts into Haley's stuffed bear. But not before giving the hearts extra kisses and rubbing them on their own hearts for extra love.Choosing one outfit for their animals was by far the hardest part. Decisions, decisions ....Success! Cute girls, cute animals. What was making them smile so much, though??Christian will do anything for a laugh. He makes one ugly little girl. I'm just sayin' ...Then we took all 6 girls and 6 bears in their bear condo's to lunch. Quite the little parade through Gateway.Meet the newest member of our family -- Chocolate (aka Cocoa).Back to the house for gourmet cupcakes (made by my high school friend, Kim, who has her own little business now. What a cool business to have, don't you think? And the presentation!)HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Haley girl!

My Haley

Haley was baptized on her birthday which, in her words, made her birthday "totally awesome." She's been very serious about her baptism, actually. She wanted to make sure she was really ready and knew what this decision would mean for her. She and Mike had lots of good talks about it and she had him quiz her on things so she'd be ready for her interview with the bishop. So Haley. :)She was baptized with 2 of her friends, Ashlyn and Megan. These 3 girls were all blessed on the same day as babies and were baptized together, which Haley loved.She had lots of family and friends there to celebrate with her. Grandpa Mayfield and uncles Brett, Nate and Paul helped confirm her.I'm so proud of you, Haley. You are such a unique child and I'm so priveleged to be your mom. You have so many great things ahead of you and I'm excited for the ride.

Just helping

I've been painting our moldings in preparation for new carpet. Elle always wants in on the action so I gave her a paint brush and let her have at it. I mean, who cares if paint gets on the old carpet, right?And yes, that's exactly where some of it wound up ....Cutest darn painter I've ever seen.

A gift

Haley turns 8 tomorrow. It'll be a big day -- a party in the morning, her baptism in the afternoon and a David Archuleta concert tomorrow night (she doesn't know about that last one). Her best present from me, though? I'm going to sneak into her room right now and clean it all up so she wakes up to a fresh, clean room. You know how you give the types of gifts you'd like to receive? Yeah, this is one of those. Fact is, though, she's like me that way. She likes order but has to share a room with her less orderly little sister. She'll appreciate this gift. Trust me. :)

Good times ahead

Elle is officially in a big girl bed (as of an hour ago anyway). My baby is growing up. :{ She spent the first half hour jumping on it and wouldn't let any of the other kids on it at all. Eventually, they were all sitting on it and playing. As if they don't all have beds of their own to sit/play on, but whatever. Now she just needs bedding and the headboard to arrive and we'll be set. Let the fun times begin .... repeatedly putting her back in bed when she starts climbing out, and playing that game over and over for a few weeks 'til she gets the hang of it. Here's hoping for a smooth transition.

That's sigusting!

I need to paint our entire upstairs (walls, baseboards, doors, moldings) before we get new carpet in a couple of weeks. So I started cleaning baseboards this morning. Sitting on the tile in our entry while I cleaned, I noticed how disgusting (or sigusting, as Paige used to say) the grout was looking. So I started cleaning that, too. Nasty before and after pictures....Ta da!!
I had just been assuming that the grout was grey. Funny how I can overlook so much dirt. Clutter, not so much, but dirt can build and I don't even notice.

Tile clean, check. Back to the baseboards and moldings. Painting tomorrow? At least I don't have to tape everything off. I can drip paint on the carpet and it won't matter. :)

Ummm, yeah ... This is the place.

Since retirement, Grandpa has been taking grandkids on various outings. He's taken my youngest girls to Antelope Island and to Wheeler Farm. Last week, we all went to This Is The Place State Park at the mouth of Immigration Canyon. There is a lot more to see and do there than I remember from years past. We rode two trains, went in some of the pioneer buildings, bought candy at the General Store, rode horses and were able to hold and pet some baby animals. We'll definitely have to go back with the big kids, too.The girls were a tiny bit hesitant to touch the animals at first but quickly got used to it and were reluctant to leave. It helped that they were baby animals and not the big mama types. Poor things need a pet, don't ya think?Elle loved riding the horse right from the get go ....Paige not so much.OK ... not as bad as she thought.Indian Village is the newest addition.Pretty cool place. Thanks again, Grandpa!

Preschool programs and other drama

This is Pam Wing -- quite possibly one of the best preschool teachers around. We love her. Three of my kids have gone to her preschool and Elle is already signed up for 2 years from now. Pam teaches because she loves to, not because she has to. That's huge.Last week was Paige's final preschool program. The kids sing a sampling of songs they have learned all year. I've been through this progam twice before and can now sing along myself. All of the other parents loved hearing me sing along, I'm sure. It's all good.The child has some facial expressions, that's for sure. And while Paige "oozes with personality" as Pam would say, her little friend Kamille takes the cake....She's the 2nd one from the left. Kamille has been in several plays and is definitely at home on the stage. Something upset her just before the performance so she decided to perform as little as possible during the entire thing. She kept that exact facial expression and didn't sing a note, while doing all of the actions half-heartedly. It was like she was saying, "I'll do this because I know I'm supposed to but I'm not happy about it and I won't do a stand-out job." Little did she know that she stole the show anyway.

The other drama that has been happening all year long involves Paige's best friend, Cameron.Paige adores Cam. Can you tell? She loves him so much that she doesn't want to share him with anyone else, which becomes a problem when you have 10 other kids in school with you who just might want to play with him, too. Enter Keaton ....Cameron and Keaton are friends, too, which frustrated Paige almost the entire year. She called Keaton her "worst enemy" and would report to us at dinner that she'd had a wonderful day when Keaton was absent or that she'd had a horrible day because "my best friend went home to play with my worst enemy!" Drama, that child. She was finally able to come to terms with Keaton by the end of the year and decided that he wasn't so bad after all. We haven't had a 3-way playdate or anything yet but we'll see. Baby steps.

After it was all over, Paige said to me, "Wow. I'm growing up so fast." Yes you are, cute girl. :)

Road trippin'

Last week, the kids and I hopped in the car (more like shoved our stuff and ourselves into the car),... drove 10 hours across the great plains of Wyoming and through the ginormous towns of Thermopolis and Meeteetse, finally to arrive in the wonderful town of Red Lodge, Montana to see the best nana & papa around.My cowboy dad and awesome 2nd mom, Shirlee, come down to see us far more often than we get up there to see them. So it was high time for a road trip. We had such a great time just being there with them. The kids adored their 2 dogs, Duffy & Bonnie ........ loved following nana around the greenhouse/room,
... and loved seeing the horses right next door. Look at my city kids out on the ranch. :)Easily Christian's favorite part was shooting the bb gun with papa, and eventually the girls got into the action, too. My dad is a gun guy and most of his grandkids have had a chance to shoot some type of gun with him at some point.We went to the local zoo, which is actually a rescue center for orphaned and hurt animals. The best part of that outing was Paige announcing on the way there that she wanted to see a "ferocious bunny rabbit." That phrase alone made us all laugh but when you add her inability to say her r's (a fewocious bunny wabbit), it was even funnier.Those are real dead mice by the owls. One had its head bitten off. Even Christian wasn't so sure he liked seeing that.What does a bear say, Elle?This little moment made me cry. Seeing all of my kids with my dad who's in the fight of his life right now. I love you, dad.The kids thought it was great riding around in the back of papa's truck.We played at the park...... and drove to the top of the Beartooth Pass, which heads down into Yellowstone if you keep going.My beautiful Haley at the top of the pass.The kids LOVED the hotel more than I expected they would.Every time daddy would call, Paige would tell him excitedly, "Dad! You should see this place! We have TWO queen beds here!" Clearly, my kids don't get out much. We swam every day and I appreciated having free breakfast every morning. Especially loved maid service. Gotta get me some of that at home.

The drive wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had feared either, thanks almost entirely to modern technology. At any given point during the trip, one kid would be playing the Nintendo DS, one would be listening to an iPod and the other 2 would be watching a movie on the portable DVD player. There was still a fair amount of good old-fashioned fun (coloring, playing with Barbies, reading) but I was amazed at how well everyone did during the long drive. Elle would occasionally get antsy so I would try to divert her. "Look, Elle! A cow!" She'd grumpily reply, "I hate cows!" "Look, baby - horses!" "I hate horses! " Cracked us all up, which I'm sure wasn't the response she was going for.

Other memories: rummaging around nana's kitchen while she was at work to make cookies, showing the kids Remington Ranch (dad's vision and their first home in Red Lodge), making bubble beards with the foam in the hotel's hot tub, shopping with Shirlee in the boutique'y shops downtown, good old-fashioned fried food at the Red Boxcar, Paige asking why I was forcing her to "break the Sabbath day" by suggesting we go swimming on Sunday (she's apparently the morality police), the kids choosing Macho Man bubble gum cigarettes for daddy, giant blueberry pancakes, being pulled over for speeding by a Wyoming cop while Paige asked, "Why were you breaking the law?" (again with the morality police!), my inability to find a fountain Diet Coke in the entire town thanks to a Pepsi plant being up the road, getting up close and personal with a buffalo, having cart blanche in the toy aisle at nana's work (surprisingly hard to make a choice when given so many options), watching the branch president's eyes bug out of his head when he saw a new family walk into church and considering the possibilities as we increased their numbers and then seeing him deflated when he heard we were just visiting, squeaky toy games with the dogs, and just loving and hanging out with nana & papa. We love you guys! Thanks for a great time.