Mormon Bloggers

My son is seven today.  It’s a significant year being the last one before he will get baptized.  In our church. children are baptized when they turn 8, which we believe to be the age of accountability – when they are capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong.  We believe that children are innocent.  Of course, they do plenty of things that drive us bananas, but they don’t really comprehend what they’re doing.

My son has been talking about his baptism for the last two years or more.  Today, one of the first things he said to me was that he is almost old enough to get baptized now.  When a person gets baptized in our church, they are taking Christ’s name upon them, and when they are confirmed, they receive the Holy Ghost and become a member of the church.  He says he is especially excited about receiving the Holy Ghost.  He will spend this year preparing more for this event.  He has the physical preparation down – he is now a pro at going under water.  He just needs to work more on the spiritual aspect of it.

He is a sweetheart.  He is a very sharing boy and says that tonight when he opens his presents, he wants his sister to help him because he thinks it would be fun for her.  I don’t know many kids willing to do that.  He begged for a sister for two years and now that he has her, he has been the greatest brother.  She is 11 months old now and the novelty still hasn’t worn off for him.  He constantly protects her, finds ways to make her happy, and finds joy in every little thing she learns to do. 

Last week when we went to Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party, he got 5 suckers with his tickets and said he was going to save two for his dad.  Again, I don’t know many children who would do that.  Most kids I know would want to keep it all to themselves.  I am proud and fortunate to be his mom.

I’m off to give him the best birthday I can despite today being the hottest day Seattle has ever had.

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Last night was great!  We were invited to my friend’s son’s first birthday party.  I can’t believe it’s been a year since I called her to ask if she wanted to go swimming and she said, “I would, but I just had my baby today!”  I didn’t know the number she gave me was her cell phone, so she was in the hospital and absolutely did not sound like she just had a baby.  She always sounds like she’s in a great mood no matter what’s going on.  She is amazing and such a sweet mom too – one of these people who inspires me to be a better person.

Once again, she impressed me.  I had no idea she was so good at making cakes.  The cake she made for her son was so wonderful, I could hardly stand to see them cut into it!  And it wasn’t just the cake, but these cute little doggie cupcakes that went with it.  Having attempted activities about half as hard as this, I could tell it must have been a ton of work.  I’ve seen some very skillfully decorated flat cakes, but it was shaped like a fire engine even!  I have no idea how she did that.  I was so impressed, I forgot momentarily that I have talents of my own.

My daughter turns one next month and I can pretty much guarantee her cake will not be anywhere near as cool.  But her party will be great in a lot of ways.  I’ll have to put my own talents to good use.

I never seem to tire of enjoying other people’s talents, especially the surprise talents of friends.  I know a few people who think they have none, but that can’t be true.  We all have them.  It can be as simple as the cheerfulness my friend constantly exhibits or the ability to make people laugh.

What are your talents?

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It’s my husband’s birthday and despite his protests, I’m making his favorite cake again that his mom always made him.  It’s cherry chocolate cake.  It’s one package of dark chocolate cake mix, I think a couple eggs, a can of cherry pie filling (this is where it starts to sound unappealing to me), and some almond extract.  Then you mix it and bake it for 30 minutes and make an icing of melted chocolate chips and a little butter, then drizzle it over the cake.  The icing is great!

So my husband doesn’t like it that I make him the cake when no one else wants to eat it.  We’ll live.  We can have ice cream or something.  It’s his birthday and he should have his favorite cake.  I like to do little things like that for him.  If I make hamburgers for dinner, I saute onion for him when he’s the only one who likes it.

I really wanted to outdo myself this year.  Last year I was pregnant at this time and I spent the whole day cooking up a storm and did the dishes at least three times.  My husband actually likes lime Jell-O salad and there’s one that his mom would make.  I spent the whole day cooking foods his mom cooked, starting with some sausage egg puffs in the morning, I made his cake during the day, prepared the lime Jell-O, and then for dinner we had creamy taco casserole.  The year before I sent him to Alaska to see his best friends.  They hadn’t been together in Alaska for about 20 years.

This year I don’t feel like I can top those birthdays now that we have another baby, but I am trying my best to give him a good birthday.  I’m cleaning the house and my friend offered to watch the kids while we go out.  I think I’ll take her up on that! 

It will be a fun night.  We’ll watch some movies (the ones the kids are giving him) and play some games.  I better check on the cake now.

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I’m 34 today!  Today should be wonderful.   One of my best friends is coming up from three hours away because she wants to watch my kids and send me and my husband out for dinner.  I never realized that she loved me quite that much.  I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Being outnumbered by all the boys in this house, today I am making all movie watching decisions.  Yes, if they are in the room, they will have to watch The Princess Diaries, Little Women, and possibly Pride and Prejudice (which my 6-year-old calls Pride and Poo Poo).  I suffer through Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Bob the Builder, and other boy shows all the other days of the year.

I’m going to have a nice long shower with no one bothering me, possibly take a nap, do a little shopping by myself with my birthday money my mom gave me, and tonight we’ll play some board games together.  I’m even willing to play Pirates of the Caribbean Life to thank my sons for suffering through my girl movies.

My mom took me to lunch yesterday and we had a great time.  My two kids we took with us were angels, the food was delicious, and we played Sorry with my youngest son before Grandma went home.  She also bought all of my boys fun jammies that light up, which was like a gift to me because I love to see the excited look on their faces.

I’m going to set some goals for myself.  This is going to be the year I finally get this place decluttered and make an organized space.  This is going to be the year I write a book whether anyone wants to publish it or not.  For the month, I am going to finish the story I started writing about the week my first son was born.  I am also determined to become self-reliant and finally get out of this apartment.  I don’t care anymore if we have to rent a house.  At least we would be in a house.

I’m grateful for my life.  It has been great, full of interesting and wonderful experiences.

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We got a new Relief Society presidency (Relief Society is our women’s organization and each congregation has a presidency) a few months ago and they started a fun tradition of having a monthly dinner for anyone having a birthday that month.  I could’ve sworn October was my birthday.  And November.  December too.  January just had to be my birthday! 

For real though, my birthday is this month and I finally got to go to our Relief Society president’s house to enjoy some good company and delicious taco soup (actually, two kinds) with all the toppings you could want.  We had a woman come who is new to the area and raising her niece (who lost both of her parents due to domestic violence many years ago – her father killed her mother) and she is amazingly positive despite everything she has been through.

Three of us came with babies and our friend’s sweet daughter kept them entertained for the most part.  It was fun to watch our babies interact with each other and compare their different personalities.  Several times the other women relieved us of our mothering duties by walking around with them.  That’s always an uplifting experience.

My friend who I have over for dinner every month, she came along too and shared part of her conversion story.  It all started when she was staying with her aunt and uncle and because they told her she couldn’t go outside without adult supervision (because she was accident prone), she decided to run away.  Her cousin followed her to keep her safe and they ended up being noticed by a nice family who took them to a “play” in Palmyra, New York after feeding them dinner.  They took them back to her aunt and uncle and she was so excited about the play, she asked if she could get her punishment over with so she could tell them about it.

For days she did nothing but talk about it and her aunt and uncle finally took her to see it again.  It was our church’s pageant that is put on every year and she said she believed every word was true.  Her parents thought she was too young to convert and made her wait.  Through the years she investigated a lot of different churches and after many other interesting experiences was led to the church again and baptized.

It’s absolutely fascinating when she tells it.  I can’t do it justice!  The women missed the most amazing part of the story, which I will share later.

We all had good laughs, including when another friend shared how her son reacted when she said if anything ever happened to her and her husband, he would go to live with Grandma and Grandpa.  He said, “I’m going to go pack now!”  Apparently he loves it there.  A little too much.

We had a wonderful time and it was great to get to know each other more.  Why can’t every month be my birthday?

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My baby boy is turning 5 tomorrow!  I can’t believe it.  Today I have a lot of preparations to do, including figuring out what I’m going to do for his cake.  I never buy those really expensive theme cakes with the two-inch thick layer of butter cream frosting.  First of all, no one really wants to eat it.  Second, it’s way too much money.  Why spend any money on cake no one wants to eat?

Usually I can find some kind of decoration to go with the theme, but my son’s request is Transformers flavored frosting.  I asked him if he wants chocolate cake.  No, he wants Transformers cake.  Vanilla?  No, Transformers.  Ice cream?  No, he just wants Transformers cake.  I asked aloud what Transformers frosting would taste like.  My cousin answered, “Metal.”  Wow, this is sounding so delicious.

I am embarrassed to say, when my older son wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cake, I was too cheap then to order a good one, but I couldn’t find any decorative candies with that theme or anything.  So I cut up a Ninja Turtle plate and stuck it in the cake as a decoration.  How lame am I?  He loved it though.  Hahaaaaa!  I wonder how long I’ll be able to get away with that trick?  I am not talented enough in the art department to pull off decorating with frosting and have it actually resemble whatever characters my kids want.

I tried really hard when it was my husband’s birthday to make him a camouflage cake.  All right, it did resemble it, I guess, but it looked pretty unappetizing and the fact that I couldn’t get that pattern down indicates that it would be a disaster were I to attempt frosting robots.  A friend of mine has the gift, but she is bombarded with requests all the time.

I try to make up for my sad cake making skills with entertainment.  When my oldest son turned 4 and we had very little money, I suddenly had the idea to fill his room with balloons while he was sleeping.  It worked great and when he woke up, he yelled, “MOM!!!  DAD!!!!  THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!!”  There were over 80 balloons in there that I blew up with my very own lungs.  I think my singing skills came in handy.

We’ve done the balloon thing a couple times since then and it’s always a hit.  Really tiring, and our fingers start to bleed from tying so many (I really should get some clips), but worth it when you see the look on their faces when they wake up.  Another time we hung streamers all over the place, creating sort of a tunnel.

Feel free to steal my ideas.  Not sure if anyone else has ever done that, but I sure like to tell myself that I am the only parent who has ever shoved a bunch of balloons into their kids’ room while they’re sleeping. 

I’m off to the store while Grandma has the almost birthday boy for the day!

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