Success!!

I officially threw Quinn a surprise 30th birthday party, and he was officially surprised!
It all started with our friends, the Hwangs. Quinn and Yushik were both RAs at BYU-Hawaii years back. When we moved into our new ward, we discovered that Yushik and his wife Jennifer are in our ward, and the two guys had a happy reunion. And then...Jennifer invited us to a surprise party for Yushik. All I can say is, it was awesome. She and her sister had prepared an amazing spread of finger food, and Yushik (who goes by Caleb so I'm going to start calling him Caleb now) was totally surprised! I thought how special it must have made him feel that Jennifer had gone to so much effort just to surprise him and bring his friends together to celebrate his birthday. I was inspired. I had already asked Quinn a couple weeks earlier if he wanted to have a party with other people or just do something as a family for his birthday, and he'd said he'd be fine with just hangin' out with the family. So I knew he wouldn't be expecting a party.
My first rule in the planning was that I wanted everything on the table to be food that Quinn could eat. This meant everything would need to be homemade from scratch and would take some time. So I made a spreadsheet (I'm in love with Excel. I make a spreadsheet for everything.) of all the food I wanted to make and when each step of preparation would need to be completed in terms of the times Quinn would be out of the house at class. It was utterly exhausting, but the food plan worked out and everything turned out pretty well! That's kind of a big deal for me because there was a period of time when we were trying to figure out Quinn's food sensitivity in which I had a food-breakdown (something similar to a nervous breakdown, only food instead of nerves), went on cooking strike, and vowed never to cook for guests again.
Caleb and Jennifer, having served as my inspiration, also facilitated the surprise. Our Stake Relief Society conference was conveniently on the same day, so some of the food that I had to make when Quinn was home I took over to Jen's and told Quinn it was for the Conference. Muah-ha-ha! Then, I didn't want Quinn to think he was going to be away from his studies for too long, so we decided Caleb would get him out of the house for an hour and half. Caleb concocted a brilliant plan. He asked Quinn to help him go to his in-laws' house to pick up a crib (they're expecting a month before we are). About a half hour into the drive, Jen's dad would call and say so sorry but they needed to reschedule, so they'd turn around and come home. Caleb threw in an incredibly nice touch where he told Quinn that his mother-in-law loved Japanese food and they happened to be near a great Asian food market. So they went there and he had Quinn pick out all his favorite Japanese foods so Caleb could "give them to his mother-in-law", but then Caleb gave it to Quinn as a birthday gift.
There were a few little bloopers in the day or two leading up to the party, so I was sure Quinn had started to suspect, but when he walked in the door and everyone said, "Surprise!" he told me he was so surprised that he felt like he was in the twilight zone for a few minutes--but a good sort of twilight zone. There were 3 couples from our last ward 4 couples from our current ward, plus all their kids, so we had a full house (meaning full little apartment). It was so much fun to have everybody there chatting and eating and enjoying each others' company! The kids were all happy and played together so well, which always makes things more pleasant for the parents.
Minsun made an A-MAZING chocolate angel food birthday cake, and we had plenty of food. (I was really worried about having enough because I threw a baby shower for a close friend once and there wasn't enough food and it scarred me for life.)
Here's Quinn blowing out his candles (well, faking it because I was too slow with the camera when he was really doing it).

And here's some of the food -- the rest we hadn't set out yet when I took the picture. Jennifer and her sister had made cute little labels for the food at Caleb's party and I thought it was adorable so I totally copied her.

And here's a "30" poster I made using pictures of Quinn's life. I really just thought of the idea to try and cover a bare wall since we didn't bring much out with us for this temporary stay in DC. But it turned out to be a fun thing to have up. Thanks for emailing me the pics Tanya!


All in all it was an incredibly fun night, and I was so happy that Quinn was so surprised and happy! He told me later it was the best birthday he's ever had! Can't beat that!

I love Valentines Day

I know this is a little late, but I just have to say...I love Valentines Day! I haven't always loved the day (because when I was younger I just felt sorry for myself on that day if the guy I liked didn't suddenly realize that I was the girl of his dreams). But I've always, always loved the treats! Who doesn't love cinnamon hearts and cinnamon lips and juju hearts and big, soft, heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting and all kinds of chocolate? Who?? Ok, maybe my hips and thighs, but they're not technically a person so they don't count as a "who".
Anyway, I think I started to like the day and not just the treats one year in college when I broke up with a boyfriend like 2 days before Valentines so I wasn't really feelin' the love. My two roommates and I decided to watch the looooong version of Pride and Prejudice all night long, and invited some ice cream and chips and dip to join the party. When we finished the movie at 5am it was snowing outside, so we put on our shoes and went for a jog in the snow! It was so fun! After that my attitude sort of changed and I started to think of Valentines as a day about ALL the people we love and appreciate (like good friends) and not just a day that's only good if someone considers you the girl (or boy) of his (or her) dreams.
In accordance with that new perspective on Valentines day, Quinn and I have a tradition (though I confess we dropped the ball this year) of making or buying V-day treats, leaving them with hearts taped to the door, and doing knock-and-runs on Valentines to a few people who might need a little reminder that they are loved. We have had some serious adventures with that one!
Another great V-day memory for me is that Quinn and I spontaneously got engaged on Valentines Day (the decision to get engaged wasn't spontaneous, just the fact that it happened on Valentines day). Here is a picture of us on the Y Mountain in Provo right after getting engaged.

Here's the surprise at my carrel at the law school he left for me earlier that day.

Those are some great V-day memories.

This year I invited some of my beloved girlfriends over for a Valentines Day lunch a few days before V-day. I made red velvet cake balls and--my favorite--sugar cookies with pink frosting for dessert, complemented with lots of my favorite valentines candy. (I forgot to take a picture of the actual meal. Oh well, dessert is the most important anyway.:) )




It was so fun to get together!

On Valentines Day Quinn and Caitlyn and I went to a Lebanese restaurant and had an A-MAZING meal. It was even more pleasant for the fact that Caitlyn very happily sat on my lap the whole time and totally loved the food, too!
So Happy (late) Valentines Day everybody! Don't forget to share the love far and wide next year (and next year we won't drop the ball on that).

BST

It stands for Baby Signing Time. But in our house we refer to it as BST because if Caitlyn hears those three words together in the same sentence (and sometimes even if she hears any one of those words in a completely unrelated sentence), she starts signing "Baby Signing Time" like crazy, asking to watch one of the DVDs. We're glad she loves them but we try to keep her TV viewing time to one 30-minute DVD a day, so we have to be careful about when we mention it.
My mom and dad bought the DVDs as an early Christmas present last November when Caitlyn was about 15 months. After one week of watching the first DVD only once a day, she was doing all the signs. It was GREAT! She could tell us she was hungry or needed a drink, and could tell us she wanted milk, water, a cracker, a banana, or that she was happy, sad, hurt, or had gone potty. We were sold. Instead of crying and throwing tantrums because we can't understand what she wants, she can usually tell us exactly what she needs. So when she cries we just say, "Can you show me what you need?" And she'll stop crying and sign what she needs or how she is feeling so we can help her. Of course, sometimes she asks for something she can't have right then, and cries when she can't have it. And sometimes she's just downright grumpy or teething. So it doesn't eliminate ALL crying and trantrums, but a LOT. And a lot is a heck of a lot better than none!
I've been meaning to film her signing for a long, long time, so we finally did it and here she is. (She'd just woken up, so she's a little less energetic than usual.)


Other words she can sign include "more, finished, sleep, drink, eat, tree, leaf, sun, book, friend, phone, stop, go, wait, please, thank you, sorry" and a pretty good variety of other words. Hopefully she'll start talking sometime in the near future (more than yes, no, bye, and daddy), but for now we're LOVING the signs.