Birthday

We celebrated Shawn's birthday today.  It was a busy day with lots of running around.  We opened gifts in the morning and then sent the kids off to school.  I went with Shawn to work this morning for a few hours.  I sat in the waiting room and read a book until he was done.   After he finished working we did some shopping and went out to lunch.  We spent the evening running the kids around to gymnastics and soccer and then finished with a Red Velvet Cake for dessert.

For Shawn's birthday this year he got some new work clothes, a list from Liv with the 10 things she loves about him, and a painting.

One of the things we quickly learned when we moved in our new house is that we didn't have any art to hang on our bare walls.  So we started looking around, trying to find something that actually means something to us.  There is a lot of amazing art, but we wanted it to be meaningful to us.  

We got this art of the place we were married, The Salt Lake Temple, a few weeks ago for above our fireplace.  We love it!

Years ago Shawn saw a painting, it's called The Doctor by Sir Luke Fildes.  For some reason this painting really touched Shawn.  The artist was commissioned to do a painting for a family and they wanted him to choose the topic.  The artist had an experience previously when one of his children was sick and eventually died.  During this experience he was so touched by the compassion of the Doctor who helped their family through this time and that is what he wanted to paint.  

The picture shows a doctor in deep thought looking at a sick child.  Shawn say's this reminds him of what he does each day.  He sits by the bedside of small helpless babies and worries and thinks about what he could do to help them.  In the back corner of the picture is the mother with her head down on a desk in grief, and the father standing behind her trying to be strong, but with worry in his eye.  It's a beautiful and very meaningful picture for Shawn and I.  So I knew that I wanted to get it for him for his birthday.  The problem is that this painting was done in 1890, and prints were not in current circulation.  I was able to find a company that would hire an artist to recreate this oil painting.  I ordered it in the largest size we could and when it arrived I took it to get frames.  It's beautiful and Shawn loved it.  

I can't wait to hang it up in his office!

We survived this past weekend in Madison at Liv's meet.  She did wonderful and got her best all around score yet.  She had a lot of fun hanging out with her gymnastics team at the hotel.  Cole and Ethan did their best do tease all the girls.  

You can see them hanging around with the girls in the pool :)

Ethan accidentally ordered his first coffee this week.  It was funny, he ordered a caramel drink, thinking it would be a hot chocolate with caramel.  But it was loaded with coffee, so we had to send it back.  He was really embarrassed after he realized what he ordered.  It was funny.

Cole is a feisty little soccer player on his indoor team.  I have parents (most that I don't even know) stop me all the time and ask if I am Cole's mom.  They all tell me how much they love watching him play.  He's crazy!