29 is divine

1999- provo, utah. opening birthday presents with my mom at my grandma's house during my freshman year of college.

2009-leaning on a kitchen counter that i scrubbed clean in my own house next to a cake that i made with my own two hands. red velvet with a brownie layer in the middle with cream cheese frosting and melted chocolate chips on top.
happy birthday to me!

being that birthdays are a time to reflect i made a short list of lesson's i've learned:

1.make sure you know the exact time a final exam is given. even if it is only your aerobics class final. having to retake an aerobics class is a little embarassing.

2. looking good really is the best revenge.

3. marry the guy who tells you that you are the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world. that should be a no-brainer. don't waste any time at all on the guy who says that you need plastic surgery on your perfectly adorable nose.

4. forgive yourself for dating so many losers.

5. if one bowl of ice cream is good, then a second bowl is always twice as delicious.

6. diaper changing is an art form.

7. it's not against the law to like yourself. it actually feels pretty good. flaws and all.

beckspeak

about the time that big T and i were married, he commented that my family has it's own language. he has labeled it beckspeak. at first i balked at the idea. pshaw! everyone speaks like us! we are just a normal family with normal terminology. however, after having to explain to big T the definition of several commonly used words and phrases, i realized that we truly had created our own language. sort of like j.r.r. tolkien and his lord of the rings elf language, but WAY more useful. if you are a beck kid, you have certain words in your vocabulary that make sense to only you and other beck kids. you may not use this language everyday, but if you are around another sibling, these colorful words and phrases will pepper your vernacular. for your reading enjoyment:
the beckspeak dictionary and phrase book! family photo edition

WORDS
car fix-it-place- autobody shop
hair cutter place- salon
hangabur- hamburger

frosted mini wheats cereal- frosted bullets

kix cereal- moth balls

grapes- tooters

ticky- a ticket

jacky- a jacket

poopface- a term of endearment

jerkface- we don't like someone, but we don't want to be too mean(adding the suffix softens the blow)

TB- tired bottom. as in, " wow, i totally have TB from sitting in the car for 6 hours."

ookalaki- word of unknown meaning and origin. used by my brother david on many occasions. a multi-purpose word for when nothing else works.

PHRASES

olive juice- i love you

stink pot city- something smells horrible, also, my sister heather's nickname.

happy bird day- sort of like your birthday but not your actual birth day(thomas contributed this one so he's not completely immune from beck speak.)

hello tokyo?- the action of grabbing the nearest phone and asking the person on the other line if they also felt a rumble. almost always associated with embarassing a person who has just passed gas.

who popped the popcorn?- also a gas related question.

now we're cooking with gas!- not flatulence related, a phrase that means we are finally getting things done, also, everyone is understanding the concept.

whooo doggy!- attention! i have just heard good news. something pleases me.

PEOPLE

jerkface mitchell- neighbor two houses down who always yelled at my brothers for walking on his grass.

the boob- mr. bubalo. a neighbor and teacher at the local high school.

roboblob- mr. robichaud. the orchestra and band teacher at the local high school. 4/5 beck kids experienced class with this man. none of those kids still play band or orchestra instruments.

the leep- mr. leeper. junior high band teacher. he claimed that he "yelled because he cared". he once yelled at me so bad that i went and cried in my locker. i never even had a class from the man.

chrispix- neighbor kid with an unfortunate name.

stan the man- a neighbor who was also a living cigarette. he smoked probably 5 packs a day. he had a ferret named budweiser. it was impossible for him to mow the lawn without taking off his shirt.

the naked guy- neighbor who was completely unaware that his windows were open and that kids were playing outside while he was changing his clothes.

wuff faced lady- a neighbor who resembled a wolf. and some of the neighbor kids couldn't say wolf and it came out wuff.

don't you wish that you spoke beckspeak too?

4 score and 36 cupcakes ago

a birthday was had.

candles were lit

guests were invited

games were played

prizes were fished for

cupcakes were consumed. smiles all around
and tons and tons of buttercream frosting was consumed over a 2 week period.

these were for his school friends/primary class party:

and these created for his preschool class(i stayed up WAY too late watching step up whilst making them. but totally worth it. that movie is high school/dancing/criminal record genius. it's like watching girls just want to have fun, boyz in the hood and strictly ballroom all at once.)

and this for his grandparent's party at chuck e cheese(plumber pant heaven). do you see the theme? reagan is afraid of snakes, but wanted a snake birthday cake. sssss

and of course this wacky one for heather just because i can't resist a cookie cake with an embarassing childhood nickname.

should i start a baking business? mediocre cakes by heidi? imperfect pastry perfection? contemptable delectables? artery clogging cakes?

the day of reagan's joint birthday school friends/primary friends extravaganza, weather started like this:
and then progressed to this:

it was great. we all love snow. in spring. when we should be wearing adorable gold metallic gladiator sandals. that were purchased WAY back in january. in the hopes that warm weather may come soon. hurray for winter. hurry back. we need more reasons to cry that we couldn't have our easter egg hunt outside. when only the weekend before it had been 70 degrees. i love a good practical joke mother nature!!! haha, you got us good!!!

adios from some fun moms:

break it down again(no more sleepy dreaming)

conference weekend is one of my favorite weekends a year. for real. general conference is the biannual meeting of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. it is broadcast from the conference center in salt lake city, utah to churches, stake centers and homes and on the internet to people all around the world. it is nothing short of complete awesomenes. a long cool drink of spiritual refreshment.

conference saturday breakdown:
8am saturday- wake up with almost no voice. it is barely below a squeak and just above a whisper. make the BEST WAFFLES ever for breakfast. seriously. homemade waffles are the bomb dot com and are totally worth the minimal effort. i can never go back to bisquick again.
9am- laze about the house doing chores and cleaning syrupy faces.
10am-peruse for new curtain ideas on the internets. discover the "perfect" panels.
11am-start watching the saturday morning session of conference.

i must admit that i wasn't listening to most of elder hale's talk. i was sitting in my recliner, positioned for listening to the speakers, but my mind and my eyes were staring at the window. the day before i had gotten the motivation i needed to take down the awful curtains in our living room. i have disliked them from day 1, but i haven't done anything about them because that would require decision making and i am not a home decor decision maker. however, something elder's hales said struck a chord with me. he said quoting 2 Nephi 10:51,

"Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken dlilgently unto me, and remember the words which i have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither be corrupted..."

oh, gee. i tried my best to ignore that admonishment. i don't consider myself a greedy person, but i certainly do love to get new things. so, i pondered a bit more about it. and then this morning i put the sheers of the old curtains back up. let's not get crazy. i'm not about to put the gloomy, dreadful brown curtains of death back up, but i can at least put up with plain cream sheers for a while, or until my dream curtains are clearanced. perhaps i can get them for my birthday.(in t-minus 22 days.)
LESSON LEARNED-you can never get enough of what you don't need.

6:30pm-while the menfolk went to the Priesthood session of conference, my mother and i go shopping for an upcoming birthday. (whose birthday you ask? my birthday! april 28th, remember?)

9:30pm-WAAAAY after bedtime, scarlett and i bonded over ice cream. straight from the carton. a pair of pants i want so badly to fit, did not and i needed to nurse my ego back to health with some ice cream straight from the carton. it was a wonderful way to spend time with my darling daughter. and a terrific habit for her to develop!

cheers

four years ago, right after reagan was born, thomas had a big internship in atlanta for 7 weeks. i scoured the internet for months leading up to this big adventure so that we could fine a suitable apartment for our family, including a screaming, poopy newborn and a crotchety, old dog. not many people are very excited about leasing an aparment for such a short amount of time to this somewhat lethal combination for a reasonable amount of money in downtown atlanta. after much effort and disappointment finally i happened upon a website called sublets dot com. this "apartment" was advertised as a two bedroom lake front basement apartment with a short commute to downtown. considering that we had zero other options, we signed a lease with our new "roomates", as they referred to themselves. that should have been our first indication of incredible and unparalled weirdness.

the lake view:

the high style family room/hippy commune with real wood burning stove.

our groovy bedroom full of beatles memorabillia. being a huge beatles fan, i thought this would be a plus. it was not. it's plain creepy sleeping in a room with 26 collectible plates and the faces of john, paul george and ringo staring at you from every poster, dish and surface. it was like living in an episode of "that 70s show".

the second bedroom(term used loosely) was actually a closet full of star wars and battlestar gallatica memorabillia with no ceiling and a giant water pipe running through it.

bobby, our roomate. part-time bag piper player. full-time hippy weirdo.

our very own in house band and "stage". "stage" referred to any part of the room where the instruments were. when we signed the lease they agreed to move all band equipment out of the way. we should have clarified. out of the way to our roomates was 1 foot closer to the wall than they already were.

the bar/kitchen where i mixed up reagan's bottles. it was like living in cheers.

it was an unbelievable experience. i got pretty good at throwing darts while making dinner. oftentimes thomas and i would have romantic evenings under the glow of the neon heineken lights. i got pretty good at making dinner in the first microwave ever made and i was nothing short of addicted to drinking shirley temples by the time we left. we probably owe them a bottle of grenadine.

what we learned:

1.we saved a whole gob of money by living there so it was worth it.

2. it kept us humble.

3. there is no such thing as a short commute in atlanta.

4. thomas and i both have a good sense of humor because this whole experience was hilarious to us.
5. any place we lived after this was an improvement. we could have lived in an old converted school bus or a teepee and been fine.