29th birthday greatest hits

since i am not one to humbly let my birthday pass with minimal mention, a birthday recap:

this is what i look like when people sing to me. it's hard to look gracious when you just want to stick your face in the cake.

this is what my husband looks like when i don't let my kids blow out MY candles. you can't blame me if my quick and powerful lungs were to much for them to compete with.

the relighting of candles for the kids ceremony. dinner with the whole KC fam damily sans thomas plus katie.



my mom had a special surprise for me in one of my gifts...

...oh! to be 17 again.

picture this: it's 1997. spice girls are playing on the radio. but i wasn't listening to them. in my teens i had developed the musical interests of a 45 man. i loved the beatles and led zepellin and creedence clearwater revival. (i still go crazy for classic rock.) i wore bell bottoms and shopped at thrift stores. i carried a huge orange tote bag made of woven hemp. i drove a 1982 buick skylark. color-weather-beaten gray. and yet, somehow, by some miracle, i had a boyfriend! GASP! here's the proof. this picture was found by high school boyfriend's mother and was given to my mother a few weeks ago. in my hand are a small stack of love notes. lesson to all of you: even that weird girl you went to high school turned into a normal person.

birthday cake from my mother

birthday cake from my husband

birthday cake that i made for myself.
one cake is never enough. but, the 5 pounds of pure frosting fat that i gained during my birthday week certainly were. the best gift to yourself is always well-earned and thoroughly enjoyed weight gain.

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.

meet the becks

as many of you may know, the twin cities of moorhead, minnesota and fargo, north dakota have been battling flooding from the red river for several days now. my brother and his family live up there and they have been chronicling on their blog their day to day activities as they prepare for flooding or emergency evacuation.
what started out for me as merely checking their blog to make sure that they are alright has turned into a daily ritual to find out what lengths they have had to go to insure that their family and their home is safe. it has been quite the inspiring experience for me. their daily posts have detailed their individual efforts and the contributions of their entire community to protecting their city. situations like this really remind me of how incredible humankind can be. difficult situations truly bind people together.
read it and find out what kind of amazing dedication steve and sarah have(i taught steve everything he knows about being awesome). i think they are such a great example of hard work and love and i am so grateful that they have been safe thus far in this trial.
meet the becks

vampyromania

stardate: march 21, 2009
mission: obtain twilight special edition dvd
accomplice: rochelle

first stop was border's. rochelle and i chilled took pictures and checked out new releases. 20 minutes before midnight, a borders employee announced for everyone to line up according to bracelet number. puzzled, we asked the nearest goth bookstore employee how we obtained said bracelet. apparently the last bracelet had been passed out at 10am that morning. upon hearing this crucial piece of information, we booked it out of there and i drove like a cullen to the nearest store.

lucky for us the nearest store selling twilight special edition dvds was my favorite place on earth(and yours too, admit it!) wal-mart!!! wal-mart at midnight on the weekend is the nearest thing to a lake of fire and brimstone that i can think of. sometimes i wonder if the prison parole bus just drops people off outside.

i took this picture under the guise that i want to show how long the line was. i was number 252. but really, this picture is to point out this creepy kid who was in line in front of us. has his skin ever seen light of day?

better yet was the people who stood in line behind us. this little clan had the filthiest mouths i had heard in a long time. every other word was effing this or effing that. the f-word makes my ears want to bleed. i was incredibly tempted to point out that their misuse of the f-word as an adjective, but from the sounds of it, i was also going to have to explain what an adjective is. there wasn't enough time left in the day for that lesson.

a successful purchase.

saturday night there was a small celebration at my house. deleted and extended scenes were viewed. blood was sampled from champagne flutes. our appetites were whet for new moon. here's to november 20, 2009!
here are the party people who also love to watch ridiculously awful yet compellingly fantastic movies. even more awesomely bad was watching it again on sunday night with the director's commentary. the only good thing about the twilight movie is that when you start at the bottom of the barrel of movie making, you are practically guaranteeing that new moon movie has to be exponentially better.

all this vampire talk got me thinking about some really important issues. if i ever am forced into driving a van(pray it never happens), i am definitely getting this as a vanity plate.

interstate love song

over the weekend thomas and i had our first opportunity to take an over night trip sans children in a LOOOONG time. it was heaven on earth to be away from those darling little monsters, if only for about 20 hours.

i picked big T up from the bright lights of downtown...

and we headed to the slightly less bright lights of winter quarters, nebraska. i always say that the best way to reconnect with your spouse is to take a road trip with them through the middle of nowhere. we laughed. big T drove. i napped. we ate at the ABSOLUTELY WORST sonic and mcdonalds on earth in the same 10 minutes. we sang along with the radio.(don't worry paula, you aren't the only one who wishes we could open the windows when i start singing.) we listened to the stone temple pilots greatest hits. we fell in love again listening to interstate love song. we discussed the band's merits and we pinky swore that we would never become addicted to heroin as it not only destoys bands but other important things like families.

our accomodations were at the mormon trail motel. i tried to find some photos online before i booked the room but i was unsuccessful. i don't think the proprietor had heard of this "internets phenomenon" yet. a vacancy at this palace? shocker.

behold, the only photos of the mormon trail motel available online. our luxurious accomodations:

we enjoyed all 6 channels on the TV and BOTH pillows on the bed. we felt like pioneers and we agreed that staying at this resort would become a family tradition.

the sign in the daylight: please note the fine establishment located next door.

the hotel exterior:

we enjoyed some time at the winter quarters temple.

the winter quarters temple is located next to a pioneer cemetary from when early latter-day saints were forced out of missouri into nebraska. over 600 saints died here from elements, illness and exposure in the winter of 1847.

i took this opportunity to bawl my face off. few things can put your life into perspective like visiting a place inhabited by people who gave their lives for the gospel of Jesus Christ and religious freedom. i promised myself i would be less of a whiner about my little problems.

mourn not for those who peaceful lay their wearied bodies down

who leave this frail and mortal clay to seek a fadeless crown

bowchickawowow

last night i washed el presidente's heavy winter coat. this morning i took it out of the dryer and it put on him before leaving for the gym. i dropped the kids off in childcare and thought nothing of it when reagan wanted to continue to wear his coat while he was playing with the other kids. this is not unusual for him; it is a great coat. i had an excellent workout and i was able to enjoy the fantastically vacuous new show on the style network called "running in heels". it is pure cat fights and other drivel in the fashion world so you know it is destined to become a new favorite. after running i finished up by stretching and chit chatting with my geriatric boyfriends tom and dick. afterwards, i checked the kids out of childcare and we drove home. as i was removing el presidente's coat, i noticed something small, black and satin stuck to the velcro square at his collar. upon further examination it was definitely something small, black and satin....and personal. it was an item of clothing that doesn't get worn very often around these parts. it was not a quilt square. it was not a hankerchief. not a scarf either. and it was not a bra. if you were one of the childcare workers, would you have pointed this very visible item out to me or would you have just rolled with it?