Chuck E. Cheese's

Since Sarah had a big party for her birthday, we went to Lagoon the day before and saw fireworks on the Alex's and Lucas's birthday, Sarah got a huge horse barn and the boys both got bikes, we decided we should do something special for Audrey since she wasn't having an actual party or getting anything real big. What else? On the Saturday before her birthday, We went to Chuck E. Cheese's! Now, we didn't actually reserve the place and have a "party" there, we just went as a family. The kids all had a ton of fun and Audrey was just in heaven. Here a bunch of my favorite pictures from that excursion.

This isn't the best picture, actually none of these pictures are that great, but I loved the expressions on Alex and Lucas's faces in this one, so I posted it anyway.

This was one really EXPENSIVE pizza! Of course, we got game tokens, drinks and a ton of fun with it. And the pizza was actually pretty good. And everyone is actually looking at the camera. That's a rarity.

This isn't just a bad picture; it's terrible! But here's Sarah and Lucas, my little TV stars! They were standing in front of a blue screen and their images were projected onto whatever was on TV at the time. At this time, it was a coke commercial.

Hugging Chuck. I couldn't get my camera to take the picture when I actually wanted to. It took 3 kids hugging Chuck E. before I got one of the actual hug instead of seconds after. This one was right after Lucas hugged him. Apparently, he thought that was pretty cool.

He was so excited about it that he went back for more later!

Sarah, doing her favorite thing. Riding a horsey!

She gave Audrey a ride with her the next time. They could steer the horse and make it jump on the screen by moving the reins and pulling the saddle hilt. It was actually pretty cool. And Sarah was in heaven, of course.

"Hellllp!"

And the prize at the end! If any of you have been to Chuck E Cheese's lately, you'll remember that the number of game tickets it takes to get anything from the prize rack is outrageous! This one took 500 tickets! A simple dum dum size sucker was 10! Anyway. Sadly, this ball lasted less than 24 hours. It was deflated and had a couple of holes in it by the next afternoon.

Audrey had just finished her sucker in the car. She was so tired that it didn't even register to her that I was telling her to smile.

And she's out. Probably 2 minutes after leaving the parking lot.

So were Alex and Lucas!

We had so much fun celebrating Audrey's 2nd birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's. Happy birthday cutie pie!

Happy Birthday Audrey! - 2009

August 9th is Audrey's birthday. She turned 2! Happy birthday sweetie! Since we were going to church on her actual birthday, I decided to make Audrey a matching dress and princess hat to wear to church. Here's how it turned out. She loved it. I also made Sarah a dress to match. Hers was pink, though with the pink and white gingham sash instead. I neglected to get a picture of her, though.


I don't know what it was about squirt guns yesterday, but Audrey had one in her hand pretty much all day long. This is after her nap and before her little party we had. She's shooting Papa. "Psheew!"

And of course, the cake. Cookies for those who don't like cake, and cake for those who do! Princess themed, of course, for our little princess. This one was super easy, by the way. Not as much work as you'd think for a cake.

Here's the birthday girl playing with her favorite present: Lip Smackers lip gloss. She's such a girly girl. She got princess dress up clothes, a doll, lip gloss, nail polish, two books, a stuffed lion (from Sarah) a bubble blowing machine, two books, and a few other little things. All girl, for sure.

Happy birthday my sweet baby! My "baby" is two now! Wow.


Oh, and I almost forgot. It was our anniversary yesterday, too. 7 years. We had this little cake after lunch to celebrate. And that's about all we did to celebrate. I think we'll go on a date later. And we've decided that we'll just celebrate our anniversary a week later from now on. Audrey can have her birthday. I guess that's what I get for going into labor on our anniversary! The day no longer belongs to us. Happy 7th anniversary Jeff! I love you!

Happy Birthday Alex and Lucas! - 2009

Yes, I know. I'm slow. We've been busy. But better late than never. The boys turned 3 this year, and it was a super fun birthday. They played outside all day with the family, we got to roast hot dogs in the back yard and eat cake. Plus, they got some pretty neat presents (photos to follow). All in all, they had a good day. Happy birthday boys!

Here's Alex's excited face. He was about to open presents.

Here's his face after opening practically each one of his presents.

Lucas was just as excited through the day, but just a little less expressive.

Poor little Audrey. She just couldn't understand why she wasn't allowed to open presents, too! "First, Sarah gets a bunch of cool stuff. Then Mama. Now Alex and Lucas? When's my turn??" Your day is coming, my dear. Just wait a little longer.

I'm so upset that I didn't think to get out the video camera for this one. Here's the boys' faces while running to thier next present. (see below) Alex actually screamed, "Ahhhhhh!!!" He sounded like a little girl; he was so excited.


And here's what they were running to:They're carrying the bags that they opened inside with their brand new helmets in them. They opened them up and said, "Cool!" but didn't realize that they were going to get spiffy new bikes to go with them! Alex's bike is a Spiderman bike, and Lucas's is a Transformers one. We let them choose which ones they wanted, and they both chose for themselves. Surprisingly, there was no fighting over the same one. Way to share boys!

Since Alex has a brand new "cool" bike, he politely gave his old one to Audrey. Actually it was more like, "Here you go, Audrey!" as he hurriedly pushed the bike over to her, and ran (and I do mean "ran") back over to his new Spiderman bike. She didn't care, though. She was ecstatic that Alex would even let her touch it, much less ride it.

I think she was so in shock, she didn't quite know what to do with it, so she just stood there for a minute soaking it all in before getting on.

And, of course, the cake. Dinosaur. By request.Anyone notice anything out of place? Leave it in a comment and I'll tell you if you're right!

Unfortunately, they thought my coconut-laden palm trees had "poop" on them! Ehh, I tried.

Last, but not least, here we all are waiting for the Pleasant View Founder's Day fireworks show. It's always on or around the boys' birthday. If we ever move anywhere else, they're going to wonder why we stopped doing fireworks for their birthday! I guess we'll just have to never move! Yeah... we'll see. Since it doesn't get truly dark until almost 10pm, Audrey zonked before she actually got to see any fireworks! Oh well, maybe next year little cutie.HAPPY THIRD BIRTHDAY BOYS!

Cuteness and Cake

Sarah and Audrey are becoming the best of friends lately. Sure, Audrey bugs Sarah sometimes when she takes her horses and runs away giggling, or when she tries to wear Sarah's favorite shoes (It's starting early, I know), but they really do enjoy playing and laughing together. Audrey tries to be just like her big brothers and sister. She follows them around copying everything they do all the time. She also copycats everything they say. They sure love each other!


Here the kids are enjoying an afternoon of painting. Audrey just had to see what that yummy looking green paint tasted like.

And cake! This is the birthday cake I made myself for my birthday girls' movie night last night. It was fun. We talked, ate, played, laughed, and watched the movie Sneakers with Robert Redford. It was fun to hang out with some good friends and relax a while.




The grub. Mmmmm....

Happy Birthday to Me! 2009

I actually had a few days' long celebration for my birthday. It so happened that the ward campout fell on the weekend of my birthday this year. Friday night we got to go across the canyon to a campground our Elders' Quorum reserved for the ward. We got there early and enjoyed a couple of hikes as a family.

This is random, but can you believe this?? This is my not-quite-two-year-old daughter trying her best to be just like her older siblings. She got these princess underwear on herself. The do belong to her, by the way. She's right around the corner from potty training!

Back to the birthday:
Off we go to find an adventure!

We found some water. Fortunately, the water was far enough away from the gathering space so as not to pose any kind of threat to wandering children. And they did wander... a LOT. Good ol' outdoors!

They got tired and started crawling. Whatever.

Done crawling. Time for some help up the last leg of the trail! And maybe some water.

The view from our campsite. It was so beautiful and peaceful.

Off on our second hike! It started out as a drive to keep the kids entertained (the games that were supposed to be played didn't exactly turn out as planned... we had to improvise). But then we found a trail leading to the "Waterfall." So we hiked it. Off we go again! Over that log!

We made it! It was beautiful. A little scary because the trail was steep and there was a rocky embankment down to that waterfall. But it was pretty.

And we're back! Everyone really liked it. A few bumps and bruises along the way, but we all made it back in one piece.


After dinner, we hung out by the campfire. Here's Sarah's first attempt at roasting marshmallows. I think she had more fun sticking things into the fire than actually roasting the mallow to eat it... obviously.


Day two:

The cake.

Can you tell what the kids' favorite movie is this week? Jeff did a good job replicating the two towers in the Lord of the Rings movie for my cake. And it was chocolate. Mmmmmm..... chocolate.


The kids really liked singing Happy Birthday to me. They were very excited to give me my presents they picked out, too. Cute.

Blowing out my candles. Where's the other 22?

Cheese!

I think Lucas and Audrey really enjoyed Papa's cake, too.


It was a really nice birthday. I went shopping for a good portion of the day all by myself. I got a few things for my birthday, came home and had cake waiting, and had an enjoyable evening with Jeff after the kids went to bed. We watched a movie and I painted my nails (desperately needed. See blowing out the candles pictures...). I went to bed relaxed and ready for Sunday. Happy Birthday to me! Thanks to everyone who made it special.