My Baby is 3!

After Ethan's birthday party, all Sophia could talk about was how she wanted a party with a "bouncy house". I knew there was no way I was getting out it, when she woke up every morning asking if it was her birthday and telling strangers everywhere, that she "was having a party with a bounce house." Of course, I didn't have to ask what kind of party she wanted. I was happy to hear that that they made a Dora bounce house!

I decided that a short, early birthday party would be the best at her age! Some thought I was crazy to have eight 3 & 2 year olds over, without parents, but I decided I could do anything for an hour. With a bounce house, food, cake, and presents, the time would go quickly and Sophia and the others would have a great time!

A week before, we filled out Dora invitations and I drove her to her friends houses' to deliver them. She was so excited as she was realizing that her party was getting closer.

The day before her party, we went to the store and ordered her cake, and bought the party favors and put the bags together. She wanted to give them out that day, and didn't quite understand the concept of her not getting one!

Ben and I put the streamer's in her doorway the evening before, (which is beginning to be our family tradition). I was excited for her to wake up to them, but in the morning I found her sleeping with Boston. Once the kids woke up, she came downstairs and opened my Mom's endless amount of gifts. You would think she was her only grandchild by the amount of gifts that kept coming out of the bag! After the kids went off to school, and I finished working out, we spent the morning decorating and getting food prepared.

Since the party was at 11:00, I had to prepare a little lunch, but I decided to make it easy and healthy. I made these PB&J's. I cut the grape jellies with the Dinosaur cookie cutters and strawberry with hearts.

I also had a fruit platter, and a couple bowls of trail mix. Once everything was ready, Sophia waited anxiously for her first guest to arrive.

Once her first couple of guests showed, they started on the jumper. Once everyone showed up, they started eating lunch. Of course, while I felt like I needed to feed them something, I should have known better. They just wanted to play, and they hardly ate half of what I put out.

They moved back to the jumper for some time, and then we moved onto presents. That was probably the most hectic part of the party. All the kids wanted to see, and there wasn't enough room, and then when she put the opened presents on the floor, kids were wanting and trying to open them.

After presents, we sang Happy Birthday. I didn't really think about photography, when I planned the party. Usually Ben and I take turns, and just think how hard it is to rally 8 kids, light a cake, and get pictures of it all. With that said, once I got the kids back to the table, I noticed Sophia was missing, and found her half way through the kitchen carrying her cake. Dora had fallen off, and a chunk of frosting had made it to the floor. Once I got that under control, and got her outside, I had to light the cake twice, because the candles went out before I got my camera ready. Once I did, it ironically took her a few tries to blow them out.

Oops! The wind blew them out!

Try #1

Try #2

#3

Sweet Success!!!

I passed out the cupcakes, and had wipes ready. Most of the kids licked the frosting off and then went off to play. The party was over before I knew it. Sophia had a GREAT time, and it wasn't hard at ALL. It was like nursery with a bounce house, presents, and cake! I'm glad I went for it, and threw her a party! She still talks about it, and has fun opening a different gift every couple of days!

Later that evening, after Boston's football game, we went out as a family to celebrate. We went to Fridays, and they sang to her and brought her ice cream. Doesn't she look so old here? My baby isn't a baby anymore:(

Easter in our PJ's

This Easter didn't feel the same, since we spent it in our pj's, in the Family Room watching conference, instead of dressing up and going to church. It was definitely easier on my budget, though. (No Easter dresses, etc. if your wondering why?) The kids woke up about 7:30, ready to get their baskets. This year we tied different color string to the kids baskets. The string started from their room, and went all over (including outside, through garages, etc) and ended where we hid their basket. The kids had a lot of fun following their string. Of course, Sophia's was the shortest and easiest and led behind our holiday tree. Bostons led to the basketball court (we got him a new basketball), Aubrie's was on the front patio, and Ethan's was up in the swing set.

After the basket hunt, we had a big breakfast and watched conference. An hour after the first session, our neighbors came over for an Easter egg hunt. It's amazing how fast 8 kids can find 90 eggs.

After the hunt, the neighbors went home, the kids had a small lunch, and then we put Sophia down before the second session.

The kids did really well during the session. They sat in the family room, and at the kitchen table (which is basically our family room) and worked on their Conference packets. I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel!!!! Even Sophia did well the first session. There were a lot of great talks, and I look forward to the conference Ensign so I can review!

An hour after the second session, our neighbors came back over for Easter dinner. We had ham, potatoes, salad, my yummy strawberry cake, etc. It was very casual, and the kids had fun playing. It was perfect! I'm not very big on china and linens. Pulling out my glass plates and glasses is fancy for me. I don't even own a table cloth for my table, and I like it that way!:) If the food is good and the company is good, that's all that matters! A nice relaxing day to celebrate and focus on the Savior and his great sacrifice.

April Dance Competition

Aubrie had her first Dance Competition of the year. Her studio did very well. The teachers got several awards, and most of the dances placed. Aubrie was happy and excited just to be there. My Mom went with us this time. It was held at the Downtown Hyatt Regency. It was hard to see all the performances since they were in the ballroom, and there was no stadium seating. Luckily, we we could see Devney's (her studio) performances, as the front rows were saved for parents, while their dancers performed. My Mom had a good time watching them, as did I. We got there at 9:00 am, and were done by 2:30.

My Three Little Piggies

Here's what your kids can do with a left over palate of pavers....build themselves a house of bricks! While a wolf couldn't blow it down, it interesting how it kept migrating up our basketball court and increased in size each time. Last night we finally had a huge clean up pow wow, which took us quite a long time. While it seemed like a fun creative idea for them, at first, I'm not sure I would suggest it. When it comes to building and Ethan, I'm always a sucker!

Ethans Zoo Report

For two weeks Ethan was preparing for his zoo report by picking an animal, researching and writing about it, and creating a habitat, from a shoe box, to display it in. Ethan picked a King Cobra! The teacher was very specific that they were to make these THEMSELVES. Of course, that was a bit hard for my micro managing personality, but Ethan did well. He painted the inside of his box and then cut out clouds and trees from construction paper. Then he gathered grass and glued it to the bottom. He also glued twigs from some our plants along the back, used rocks and a small piece of wood he held down with duct tape. I did help him with the Cobra. We printed a picture and then glued it to card stock and cut it out. He took pipe cleaner and attached it for the tail. He was very proud of his creation.

The entire Kindergarten displayed their boxes in the cafeteria, for all the parents to come see. They all sat down at tables and had their reports in front of them so they could answer questions. Though Ethan's wasn't the BEST ( obviously some parents couldn't help themselves), you could never tell by the huge smile and gleam in his eye as he anxiously anticipated every person's reaction to his box as they walked by! What a great idea. I love his Kindergarten!

April Fools!

Ok....So another April Fools day has not gone to waste around here! I was stressing a little about what jokes I was going to pull this year, because nothing was coming to me! I'm sure that sounds silly, but it's one of my favorite days! It's the day I have free reign to be mean! Luckily my fun friend, Tamzen, called me the night which must have sparked something, because I had some doozies! So here's just a few...

I texted 3 of my friends pretending I was texting Ben (but accidentally sending it to them) that said something like,

"I'm so sorry for fighting this morning. I just love it here, and will miss all my friends. But I will look at the silver lining of things, like finally being able to wear my sweaters, having a sabbatical from family, etc. I love you and will follow you where ever you want to go", etc, etc!

Well you can imagine the texts I go back.

They went a lot like this,

"Ummm, I think you meant to text this to Ben. Whats going on?" or

"Ugh, are you moving? I'm so sad". One of my friends, Trina, thought it meant we were moving to California. I don't know where sweater wearing fit into that. I think she was just hoping!

Another joke I played on my friend Holly. She lives in Texas, but is possibly moving. We have been foolishly hoping that we could live by one another again someday. So I texted her telling her Ben's business wasn't doing well, and that we were looking at a job in Dallas. She fell for that one. I couldn't' believe it, because she is the biggest trickster of them all.

The biggest doozie was a conspiracy with my fellow April Fooling buddy, Tamzen. We collaborated to trick her husband. I had accidentally texted him the night before thinking it was Tamzen's number, which set up our joke perfectly.

I texted him, making him think I was tyring to text Tamzen, telling her that an old (mutual) friend of ours was in town and wanted to come over for lunch. That sounds harmless, right? Well he is a guy. When he got the text he thought I was trying to pull one on Tamzen, so he just kept texting things back like, "It's just two friends having lunch", etc. I kept raising the stakes, saying things like, "Well, he said I looked good, etc!" Finally, he realized that this could possibly be real and told me to call Ben. Tamzen told him the joke was on him, and that we were both in on it!

Thanks Tamzen for our fun April Fools Day many, many years ago at BYU that has fueled my joking streak for all these years! Nice to finally collaborate again!

A night with an Old Friend!

Last Tuesday, I get a text from an old friend that he had invited me (on Facebook) to a concert he was doing in Gilbert. When I finally got on Facebook and realized it was family friendly, we dropped everything, and headed out to Gilbert to see him.

Ben and I hadn't seen him in 12 years. He was in my ward my Sophomore year, and always brightened up our apartment with his singing and piano playing. My Mom came to visit once, and she thought he was the coolest guy. He has amazing talent. His songs are very catchy, and have a lot of feeling and emotion in them.

The kids loved his performance, and were excited to get signed posters, etc from him! He told them he hated practicing piano when he was little, but was glad his Mom made him! Thanks for that plug, Kevin!! We bought a couple of his CD's and they have been playing in the car since! You should google him! (Kevin Burdick) You can listen to his music before you download it!

Thanks Kevin for the invite, and making us feel like we just saw you yesterday!

Its nice to know...

So the other day Aubrie is outside playing in the backyard, with her brothers, and then she suddenly comes inside and starts putting my eggs, that are in the carton, away in the egg bin. I'm thinking, "That's random!" Then she proceeds to cutting up the egg carton. This is what she made with them. When I asked her where she got that idea, she said, "The Friend!" It's nice to know that she remembers what she read in there:)

Ethans Zoo Fieldtrip

Ethan had a field trip to the zoo last week. He was so excited. He kept going over all the things he needed; "Mom I need sunscreen, and I need to wear my class shirt, and I need a sack lunch, and don't forget that you are coming!" I wonder how many time Ms. Nebel drilled them on that? He was so excited that I was coming on the bus with him, and so was I. Like I said before, I like being with my kids on the bus on their field trips! It's another window of their life I get to see first hand!

When I got on the bus I was surprised to see that there were several people from church there. It was nice to chat while the kids played. Sometimes our chatting took over supervising as the teachers started telling our kids to sit down, etc. Ooopps! We Mom's don't' get as much socializing as we need I guess!

When we got to the Zoo, we had free reign to go and do whatever we wanted, except rides, gift shops, etc. A friend from another ward, who has a son in Ethan's class, came too. So our two groups paled around!

(Ethan took this picture. He was so funny, calling everyone over, and then positioning us just right. He is my creative leader!)

The trip was short, but perfect, since it started to get hot as we were leaving. The kids had a great time, and I enjoyed checking out the new aquarium! We got to pet some sting ray and starfish, feed birds, see a peacock open his feathers (not pictured), pet and feed a giraffe, and had a special treat in the monkey area; a new baby monkey! Sooo cute!!!!

1st School Carnival

The week after Spring Break was a little crazy. Besides parent/teacher conferences the PTA was preparing for the first school carnival that Saturday. I spent one lunch selling tickets and wristbands, and also volunteered to run two of the kids teacher's booths. (That was wordy!) Anyhoo, my Mom came and helped with Sophia. They had several raffles, a lot of games, and rock walls, jumpers, etc for those who purchased a wristband. I didn't buy a wristband for Sophia, because she was too little, but the games kept her occupied. She kept winning most of them, too. There was one where you had to roll a ball just right to get it over a bump, and not roll back. There were these older boys who kept trying it over and over, and then when Sophia did it she won on the first try. The boys couldn't believe it. That was actually Aubrie's teachers booth. I had to work it later that day, and I had fun with it. It was usually the little kids who did the best, because they didn't roll very hard.

The kids all had a fun time, but we were all ready to go by the time it was over; it was hot! I can't believe this is the only picture I got. Oh well!