Wrestling with Uncles

We had planned on going to Utah once this summer... we ended up going 3 times.  Once for a random planned vacation, once for Jason's grandpa's funeral, and then a third time for a great opportunity to go through the temple with a dear friend (more on that later). 

 

Well this last trip (the temple one) was short and sweet - just for the weekend - but as a happy accident (that seems to happen every time) Katie was there from Las Vegas with her kids and BOTH my little brothers came one night.  Our kids rarely have had both of their uncles in their lives at the same time - with missions and work and school and marriage - they usually only have one uncle at a time... and OFTEN get them mixed up - having no idea who is who.

 

So when they got BOTH uncle Michael and uncle Daniel - the insisted that they have a wild wrestling match.  And that they did!

Noah's Birthday

Noah is 6.  I feel like Noah has been 6 for at least 8 months.  His birthday is so late that he was in first grade as a 5 year old for almost a month.  All of Noah's friends had already turned 6 so he was SO EXCITED to finally have his birthday. 

 

After much consideration he decided that he wanted a "Lego Movie" party.  I thought that sounded easy enough.  The plans were to get a projector and watch the movie on a big screen in the backyard with "Lego Movie" cups and popcorn.  Well... they actually don't have any Lego Movie party merchandise, so we had to make our own invitation - and we ended up with Spiderman cups - but in the end no one minded. 

 

For the cup cakes he wanted Emmitt.  I knew I couldn't pull that off - but I did think I could pull off a few random Lego Man heads.  I think I did alright.  Noah thought I did great!

We decided to decorate the cake pan with several of his favorite Lego guys.

 

Noah's invitations said, "everything is awesome when you are 6!"  He thought it was so cool.  When he knocked on the door to hand out his invitations, he opened the envelope, showed them the invitation and read it to them.  And then sang the song, "everything is awesome when you are ... 6" and then laughed hysterically.  It was adorable.  He was also insistent that he only get Legos for his birthday, after SEVERAL talks he finally agreed that he would not tell anybody that, unless they asked AND he would be happy and say thank you with what ever he got.  In the end he did a great job about being gracious... but we did return everything non-Lego and went to Target and bought 50.00 dollars worth of Legos - I haven't seen him that happy since we went to see Thomas the Tank when he turned 3.

 

Sadly on the night of his birthday it was raining - so the movie in the backyard was cancelled.  To try and make it still as cool as possible we pushed our couch to the wall and brought down all the mattresses, pillows, and blankets from the kids' rooms.

It was a great night. 

Temple Trip

Almost once a week the girls and I head to sprouts to get our weekly produce (I spend about 30 dollars on produce each week... just in case you were wondering).  The temple is just one block over from Sprouts - so if there is time - we often head over there.

The girls wanted a picture in front of Jesus.  I said, "say cheese" and Megan said, "wait, I want to take a silly picture, because if Jesus were here I think he would want a silly picture with me."  I couldn't argue with that logic - so we got a silly picture! 

 

 

I am sure this is not a wadding pool - but... they have never gotten all of the way in... so I think this is ok.... right?

 

 

Pioneers



At the zoo they had a covered wagon with some oxen statues.  My girls almost died with excitement.  Megan is enthralled with the pioneers and asks to hear pioneer stories all the time - especially the Martin and Willy hand cart stories.   They all needed lots of picture being in a real covered wagon.

Zoo

For Madison's birthday family activity she chose to go to the zoo.  I use the word chose pretty liberally - truth is persuaded.  Our family got in free that day because it was the Bert the Hippo's 50th birthday and anyone with the name "bert" in their name got in for free.

I am glad we got to go to the zoo - it was an activity we enjoyed in Utah that we hadn't done in Denver yet.  But truth is I think that phase of life is passing us.  The boys didn't really want to go and even when we were there they didn't love it, and after about an hour they wanted to go home.  The girls loved in though - I guess that is why the boys are in school and I am still home with the girls - they enjoy different things.  I made a comment to Jason in the car that I don't know how people with kids farther apart keep all their kids happy... maybe they don't.  I had to drag my 5 and 7 year old to the zoo for my 3 year olds birthday.  I can only imagine if they were 16 or something and actually had a car and other plans with friends that they were missing it for.  Even with our kids being so close in age we are starting to see a divide with the younger kids and the older kids.  We kind of hoped we would avoid that - but I guess we are not so lucky.  :) 

Madison's Birthday

My baby is three.  So I guess I don't have a baby anymore... or even a toddler... I only have kids.  We normally don't do friend parties for turning three - only family ones.  But since we don't have any family here we had a very simple, short, friend party with some little girls and their moms.  Actually Madison doesn't really have any friends that are her age right now.  She was torn between a Princess Party and a Minnie Mouse party.  So in the end we combined them.  A Minnie Mouse cake with all the girls wearing princess dressed.  She loved it.

The two princesses.

 

They really wanted me to dress up like a princess too.  Megan had found my wedding dress a few day earlier in our spare room closet and tried to insist that I wear it to the party.  We settled on an old prom skirt.  :)

The crew: Zoe, Madison, Jordan, Megan, Lucia,

Alaynia, Aspen, and Ava

 

We played one party game: duck, duck, goose.

 

Opened presents

And had cake:

 

It lasted 35 minutes.  It was perfect.