Birthday BBQ Bash

These lucky birthday people have their birthday's with in a week of one another. Sam's on 5/18, Ashlynn's 5/27, Matt's 6/3 and Jessica 6/5.  So, this year we thought it would be fun to get together and have a our favorite BBQ food (kabobs) and have cupcakes that were chosen by each birthday person to share.  We also had our celebration on Memorial Day, so it was perfect to start the summer and to celebrate these wonderful people in our family.

Ashlynn is 7

Ashlynn is 7...Yahoo!!  She had her friend birthday party on Saturday and it was themed a "Backwards" Party.  All the party guests wore their clothes backwards, the party decorations were hung upside down or backwards, food was set up funny and our sodas were upside down.  We even had a backwards agenda:  handed out take home gifts first, had cake, opened gifts from friends, had upside down pizza, played games and lastly the kids played on the swing set outside.  So, if you look at the agenda we did it backwards from a normal party.  The girls thought it was so fun!
 
There was some creative backward guests like: braided hair and pony tails backswards, jeans and shirts backwards too.  It was so silly to see.

Ashlynn was so happy to finally open all her gifts.  She has been staring at her mailed gifts from her grandparents for last few days before her birthday.  She loves all her gifts!  She was also very excited to get a "Slushy Magic" from Carter.  She has been wanting one forever.  Ashlynn also enjoyed her phone call from her Grandpa Tom.  She was giggling when she got off the phone. 

Ashlynn is so lucky her friend Brooke got to sleep over and it was so fun.  Carter, Ashlynn and Brooke slept in the living room after watching a movie and having popcorn.  Ashlynn fell asleep early and Brooke and Carter stayed up late talking about funny things.  We loved having Brooke over!

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!! 

We love having you part of our family and making this life on earth so fun with your light hearted attitude.  You make us smile everyday!

A Red Table...

Who would of thought that dark red could actually cut it as a really neat color for a table.  Well, this was by last resort to save our 12 year old table.  Our poor table is the centerpiece of our home, and gets lots of use everyday from eating, homework, craft projects, parties, visitors and meetings held at our house, etc. We had sanded and re stained it two years ago and it was looking well used again so, we had to do something.  So, Matt stripped the old stain and clear coats off the table and resanded the table and accidentally sanded to the cork under the wood top.  I was so sad because that was the end of the table...there was nothing we could do but paint it or buy a new one, which I was all for.  Matt had mentioned that we should paint it the same color as our back splash in our kitchen.  I said "why not" it was worth a try.  Well, after tears of frustration over 4 days and 5 coats of paint and 3 coats of high gloss polyurethane here it is....it turned out looking very sleek and nice in our kitchen.  Our hard work paid off!! I am feeling much better and now we are glad to have our table back after a week of nothing but a empty space in our kitchen.   
 

 

We only painted the top and left the orginal wood color as the base.

This photo was taken after we refinished 2 years ago.

Ashlynn's Opera Performance

Ashlynn's 1st grade class performed an Opera song to a story about Pizza and how they wanted a bigger pizza.  There were Tiny Men, Mini Monsters, Pizza Workers, Captain and Miss Captain Donut.  Ashlynn was Miss Captain Donut.  Ashlynn's part was very important because her song part told the mini monsters that they could plant a magic seed and grow a big pizza tree.  She had a two person part where her and Captain Donut sang together so, Ashlynn held the microphone and we could hear them beautifully.  She was so confident and serious during the whole performance.  I was so shocked that she did not break character by being her silly self until after the show.  We all know that she can be silly.

Matt and Carter were at Baseball so Ashlynn invited her Aunt Tracy to come.  She was so excited that she could come watch her.  She felt very special! Thanks Tracy for your support! 

So Blessed...

What a great blessing it is to be a mother and to be a mother to these beautiful children.  I love that they are still young, still need me and most of all love me even when I fall short of meeting their expectations.  I love to experience life with them and learn new things everyday.  The kids each made me fun things for me at school and at church.  There were so proud of the creations.    

 

Ashlynn's paper purse with kisses inside and a pot of flowers.  Too cute!

Carter's card holder.  Loved it!

   I love that we were all coordinating the color pink.  I love the color pink!

Matt also gave me some beautiful tulips that just screamed Spring all over the kitchen. The colors were so amazing!   

 

The season has finally begun..

We love baseball season...well most of our family enjoys it.  Ashlynn probably has a different opinion.  We just finished the practice games and are now headed into the real games that count.  Carter is now back to machine pitch.  He did machine pitch in 1st grade when we lived in Bountiful, but since moving to Layton machine pitch starts in 3rd grade.  Carter is back to his confident self with the machine and his fielding has improved since last year.  Matt is coaching their team again and we have a fun group of boys this year.  It is also a plus that we have had some great weather to play in...lets keep the snow and rain away for now.  It just isn't baseball season if you have to wear a winter coat and bring blankets to keep yourself warm.  Here we go Mets..lets play ball!  
 

 

Butterflies

 

The kids got a butterfly habitat for Easter.  So, we ordered our caterpillars and received them with in a week.  We watched them move around in their cup for a few days and one by one they each crawled to the top of the cup to set up to become a cocoon.  That step took about 7 days for all 5 of them to become a cocoon.  Then we transferred the cocoons into the butterfly garden and watched them wiggle away in their cocoons.  Then it took another week for them to hatch from their cocoons.  Those silly little things hatched so quick and we never got to see one come out of its cocoon.  We would leave for a while and come back and see a butterfly in the garden and they all hatched one by one.  Then, soon we had a indoor garden of 5 butterflies that loved to drink sugar water. 

We then waited for a sunny warm day and let them free in our backyard.  This was a neat project for the kids.  They want to do it again.