2-29-12

{Thanksgiving Point Museum of Ancient Life}

...and Farm Country

...and hot chocolate before bed...

2-28-12

{Apple Prints with the Preschoolers}

2-27-12

{Happy Birthday, Riley!}

Riley's special day started as she was awoken by her four sweet brothers. Then Ricky and Trent quietly left early for school and work. They took a detour by Vista Heights and decorated Riley's locker inside and out. See the little pillow behind Riley? That is the flag that comes inside every pair of Toms. Last Saturday after our shopping trip, she quickly filled it with pillow stuffing, stitched it up, and made a pillow out of it. Clever girl...

To celebrate as a family, I planned on making Riley's favorite meal, Penne Rustica. This recipe makes a ton and it's not good leftover so this morning I told her to invite her friends over for dinner. Not an official party and no presents, just dinner and cake. Of course, her cute friends came and some of them brought gifts. (stinkers!) They hung out and talked while I got dinner ready. I sent Brant around with the camera to catch a few pics...

Then, they stalked a few boys on Facebook. They were seriously cracking me up with their comments: "He's so cute... He's so righteous... Look at his biceps... He even spends time with his family..."

Then, Riley's Beehive leader, Jilyn stopped in to drop off a sweet gift. She brought her favorite candy Red Vines and the cutest scarf. Riley is excited to be a Mia Maid but she is so sad that she won't have Jilyn and Jen as her leaders anymore. Jilyn has really been like an aunt to Riley - always positive and encouraging her in everything she does. And here are the girls chatting over dinner...

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

2-26-12

{Pizza and Cupcakes for Sunday Dinner}

The pizza sits ready to be cooked... not my Grandmother's Sunday dinner, but it will do for tonight.

2-25-12

{Birthday Toms}

Riley is the birthday girl on Monday! Yay!!! Finally 14! I am so excited to celebrate this special girl of mine. She told me several weeks ago that all she wanted for her birthday was a shopping day with me. No party, just clothes. And a pair of Toms. Actually she got two pairs, but she bought one herself. So we shopped all day... two pairs of jeans, several shirts, a sweater, a scarf, socks, and shoes. She's ready to turn 14 now. :)

2-24-12

{Slam Dunk}

Didn't know Lance could do that. Wow. Here we are at Neptune Park on this beautiful "blue" day.

2-23-12

{Just give that boy a muddy trail and Jeep and he's happy.}

This might be my favorite picture that I've taken in a very long time.

2-22-12

{A birthday and Mardi Gras package from our Alabama Grandma}

This package arrived today from Ricky's Mom. Ricky texted her this picture of the kids opening it to tell her "thank you" and to let her know we got it. It wasn't until she texted back a special message to Lance that we realized how sad he looked in the picture. The four kids on the left have birthdays within the next month, but Lance has to wait all the way until June for his birthday. And that's a long time when you're seven. :( Not to worry, though, there were plenty of Mardi Gras goodies for everyone and he perked up when he tasted the peanut butter moon pie.

2-21-12

{Happy Mardi Gras, y'all!}

Tonight we celebrate with a Cajun meal for dinner, two king cakes with apple cinnamon and cream cheese filling, and a Relief Society Sisters trip to the Mount Timpanogos Temple...

2-20-12

{Happy President's Day}

On this President's Day holiday, we are excited to have a little dusting of snow on the sledding hill behind the school. Enough to sled on, anyway. So, we joined the rest of the neighborhood for a little sledding fun...

2-19-12

{King Cakes to share with the neighbors}

Why make one king cake when you can make two or three or four? The one on the left is a special delivery for our friends with whom we keep trading the 90's style plate back and forth. They swear it is our's but it REALLY does belong to them.

2-18-12

{Cleaning Day}

The top of our entertainment center gets so dusty and is a common resting place for balls and other objects that frequently go flying through the air at our house. Today Riley climbed up there, rescued the toys and balls, and vacuumed it nice and clean.

2-17-12

{A perfect night for a campfire}

Actually it's just a firepit fire in our driveway. But it was a perfect night for it. Meet the neighborhood rednecks...

2-16-12

{Time for a haircut}

Lovin' my almost 16-year-old who still lets me cut his hair.

2-15-12

{A duet with the very talented Rylee S.}

My Riley has a cute friend also named Rylee who is a talented violinist. I was honored a couple of weeks ago when Rylee's mom called me and asked me to accompany her on the piano when she participated in the Alpine School District Solo and Ensemble Competition. She played beautifully and scored all superior ratings for her performance. Rylee's mom snapped this picture with my phone after the performance. It's the only one I've got, so sorry about the blur.

2-14-12

{A sweet Valentine's Day surprise from my thoughtful Valentine}

I think this picture pretty much sums up Valentine's Day this year. It was a busy one. A party in the morning for my preschoolers and a party for 5th graders in the afternoon. And right in between I was surprised by a special UPS delivery of these beautiful roses. Ricky knows that my practical side thinks that flowers might be a slight waste of money. Not that I don't love them, I just think that there are better ways that we could spend the $$ that we could enjoy together. He pulled together some Coke Rewards that he had been saving and ordered these for me anyway. I was so happy and touched by his sweet gift. And I've always wondered what a dozen roses would look like after being shipped. Well, they arrived perfect and beautiful and made me feel so special on that busy day.

Each year, we involve the kids in our celebration of this special Day of Love. See, Ricky and I date pretty often so we like for the other 5 essential parts of our relationship (TRBL&G) to get to feel special, too. Ricky always takes Riley out on a special date and I get to party with the boys. On this night, however, to save gas we decided to all ride together to the District where we would part ways for dinner, then meet back up to ride home. When we got there, nobody really had a preference of where to eat, so the kids decided that we should just all eat together. We decided on the Wings place across from the movie theater (which, interestingly enough we have the exact same restaurant in our little town) and had a fun meal all together. By the end of the night, though, it was probably good that we traveled someplace where we didn't know anybody because we didn't make it out of there before Gavin lost his dinner all over the floor on the way to the bathroom. Nice. Just keepin' it real...

2-13-12

{Getting ready to spread some Valentine's Day cheer}

2-12-12

{Happy 5th Birthday, Gavin!}

Gavin is super-excited to be 5 and old enough to start school next year. He wanted a monster truck cake and described to me something similar to what is pictured above. I baked and frosted the cake and the rest of the boys decorated it. They were pretty happy with their masterpiece. After church Gavin insisted on wearing one of Brant's t-shirts so he would be comfortable. I thought he looked a little white trash for his party, but it was important to him, so he got to wear the too-big shirt. We grilled hamburgers and decorated with balloons and Mimi and Opa came over to join in the fun...

Here they are playing a little birthday game of "See this finger..."

Happy Birthday, crazy little Gavin!

2-11-12

{A 5th Birthday Celebration for Gavin}

Gavin's birthday is tomorrow and since his big day falls on Sunday, we took the family to a new trampoline place in Lehi today to celebrate. We told Gavin he could pick one friend to take along and without hesitation he chose this cute little guy...

We jumped and played for an hour or so, then went for ice cream at the Thanksgiving Point ice cream parlor. It was there that Gavin opened the gift from his buddy and I think his face in the first picture says it all. What sweet friends. :)

In other news, we got "rolled" or "TPed" last night. Judging by the scarce amount of paper, the toilet paper bows, and the decorative rolls on the spindles of the rocking chair, I'd say it was a middle school girl job...

2-10-12

{Celebrating birthday #11 at Soldier Hollow}

To celebrate Brant's birthday we grabbed a couple of his friends and we headed up to Soldier Hollow for some tubing. It was a little cold, especially when the sun went down, but SO pretty and so so much fun. This is definitely and activity that we'll plan again. I didn't get many pictures of Brant because he and his friends took off right when we got there and we barely saw them after that. Here are Riley and Gavin on the lift...

And the rest of us at the top of the hill...

Lance really did not want to come with us. He was afraid he would be too cold and he didn't think it would be that much fun, etc. Well, for one of his runs I hooked my tube to the front of his and took this video of him...

After tubing, we came home and had pizza and cake. Brant designed this cake several weeks ago. He knew he wanted it to look like a sledding hill. So I made it, pieced it together, and frosted it and he did the rest. He was pretty happy about it...Brant is so excited to be turning eleven and we are happy for him. He is so pleasant to be around and we sure are happy to have him in our family... happy birthday to him!