Zander turns 5

Zander turned 5 on April 10, 2013 and we celebrated with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party.  We had a lot of fun coming up with decorations and games for this party.  Zander had a big guest list and had several friends not be able to come.  We still had a good time with the friends that could come.  They ate pizza, had ninja turtle cupcakes, did a cake walk kind of game with pizza boxes, and of course, opened presents.  Grandma and Grandpa O were here the weekend before his birthday so we had a little mini party with them so he could open the gifts from them.  I can't believe my little man is 5!  He is such a joy to our family.  I am grateful for his quirky sense of humor and his exuberance!  If something excites Zander you will definitely know about it.  He has a very strong will and I pray that we can guide him in the right direction so he can be a force for good.  I know he was sent to us with that strong will for a reason.  I love him SO much!!

Ninja Turtle Cupcakes

Maybe he will learn how to pose for a picture for his 6th birthday!

Enjoying some pizza in true ninja turtle fashion

Cake walk with pizza boxes

The Gifts!

Ready for opening!

Ninja Turtle decorations

Easter 2013

I love carrying on traditions from my childhood with my children.  Coloring Easter eggs is one of those traditions that I have great memories of and hope that one day my kids do too. In addition to coloring Easter eggs this year, we celebrated Easter with a ward dinner and Easter egg hunt, and by getting visited by the Easter bunny who left Easter baskets for the kids.

Happy Birthday Dave

We celebrated Dave's 34th birthday Avengers style! 

Sally Sparkle

I am a little ashamed to admit that I totally jumped on the bandwagon this year and decided to have an elf on the shelf for our kids this year leading up to Christmas.  She is a little doll that supposedly is watching you for Santa.  The story is that the elves go to the North Pole every night to report to Santa and come back every day to keep watch.  We told the kids she can't be touched or she would lose the magic to get back to the North Pole.  Our elf on the shelf was a girl (the only one left at target) and the kids named her Sally Sparkle.  They each picked a name and that is what we came up with.  We made her do some crazy things at night and the kids would wake up each morning and look for what she had done overnight.

Getting in the chocolate chips

Decorating the tree with underwear

Dumping a load of magnetic letters

Turning the milk green

She knows the real reason for Christmas!

This was fun for Dave and me to do for the kids although it got to be a little tricky trying to think of new things for her to do!  Next year we will have to start a little later in the season!

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012 marked the first Christmas spent in our new home.  It was so fun to have room to put up our decorations and even have 2 Christmas trees!  I keep having moments where I feel more and more like my mom.  This time it was because I made the downstairs tree have all the mismatched homemade ornaments on it and the upstairs tree had matching ornaments and was a little more fancy.  That's the way we always did it growing up.  Now hopefully I can create the same kinds of wonderful memories for my kids that my parents did for me.  We enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner, read the Christmas story from the bible and opened the traditional Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve.  Santa brought the kids a trampoline so they had to wait a few months to actually get to use it.  This was kind of a strange Christmas for me because I had to leave late afternoon to head to Salt Lake City.  I had to fly out early the next morning for my niece, Janelle's, wedding.  The weather was iffy so I decided to play it safe and stay at my brother Darin's house in the Salt Lake area instead of risking driving the canyon in the wee hours of the morning.  When I got back all the new toys were put away and even six months later when I am cleaning I come across things that I didn't even know we had since I was gone when it was taken out of the package.  All in all a great Christmas with my cute little family.  Love being with them so much!

Decorating the upstairs tree

First view of Christmas morning

Christmas Pajamas

Haylie's 7th Birthday

Haylie celebrated her 7th birthday on December 1st.  She has always been one to really get into the actually party, and the planning for it.  She loves a good theme party and this year she chose to have a Rio party from the Dreamworks movie that came out a while back.  It was difficult finding things for it so we went mostly tropical.  It turned out great and we had fun even with 9 six and seven year old girls running around. I can't believe that I have a seven year old.  She is growing up in to such a sweet and funny girl.

Haylie wanted brownie and ice cream cupcakes.  They ended up a little messy.

Thanksgiving

We have made a bit of a tradition of going to my parents house for Thanksgiving, especially since we have moved to Price and have a pretty easy drive to get there.  This year we got to spend the holiday with my parents Mel and Irene, my brother Darin, my sister Alyson and her family, and my niece Janelle and her then fiance Heath.  We had a good time spending time together and enjoying one another's company.  We also enjoyed tons of delicious food.  So much comfort food!!  We were also starting to create a book for my mom for her 70th birthday which led to a late night with Alyson and I have way too much fun with the photobooth feature on my iPad  I love my family so much and love having the opportunity to get to know them better and to let my kids get to know them too.

Dad making the traditional Sunday night popcorn.