Their first dance

A couple of days ago I was watching Kimberly's kids. Since they have moved up here the kids have been together a lot and get along really good. I've been so happy with how they have become such good friends. You really never know, just because parents are friends doesn't always mean the the kids will follow. But in our case, they all get along great! So, on with my story about the other day. Sarah and Andrew are a year apart in age, both of them the youngest kids in the family. Now I feel the need to explain something....Sarah has three older brothers, as you all know, and she can hold her own. She's a little tough sometimes (most of the time) and when she can get away with it likes to be a bit bossy. Andrew has one older sister and we all know that girls can be a little "mothering" or that they like to be the leader. So needless to say he's probably been the one who's told what to do most of the time. Sarah has picked up on that totally! She likes to lead Andrew around, takes his toys, can be very pushy with him and sometimes not so nice either (I'm working on that part). I was sitting in my living room talking to Andrew when Sarah comes up to him, grabs him by the hand, leads him to a place more "roomy" and turns to face him. I wish that I could have heard what he was thinking. It probably went something like this "Uh-oh what's she doing now? Where is she taking me and why did she turn to look at me?" There was no music in the back ground but she started twirling around him and trying to dance with him. It was so cute! He was quite a good sport, although he didn't really look super happy about it. I will have to teach her at some point that the boys are supposed to lead and the girls follow.

The other thing she likes to do is hug him from behind. Can't you just see the love that he has for her?

I finally got a smile out of him. I'm pretty sure that it's because she wasn't touching him at this point.
Just so you all know, Andrew really does like Sarah. He talks about her and plays with her lots. I just didn't want you all to think that this stuff happens all of the time and I wanted to end this post on a good note.

Jacob's first "friend" party

Saturday was a good day for Jacob! He got to have his first real FRIEND birthday party. We let him invite 8 little boys....5 from his class, 2 neighbor boys and 1 from kindergarten. On Saturday morning I was a little bummed out because we had only heard from 2 little boys that they were coming. I knew Jacob would have fun no matter how many were coming, plus Kyle (from kindergarten) was coming and that was very exciting!! I was still just a little bummed that not more were coming. The party started at 2:00 and at about 1:15 I got a call from one of the moms who had forgot to call me to RSVP and was still wondering if it was okay for her son to come. "OF COURSE" I said, "he can totally still come". Something about that one last boy made me feel way better. It was kinda of nice only having 4 kids 'cause they got to play the Wii and I didn't have be so planned and organized. Here's the group of them....are they so cute? From left to right we have Garret (our neighbor), Ryan (a classmate), Jacob and then Kyle (the friend from kindergarten).

If you can't tell from the pictures, Jacob wanted a Star Wars party. It was a hit and all the boys had really cool goody bags (first time I have done those), yummy cake, Capri Sun and they had lots of time to play. Looking back at it all I think I'm glad that there were only 3 boys that came. It let me ease into the party scene a little :)







So, that's the end of Jacob's birthday. He ended up having 3 parties total....what a spoiled kid! It was so fun though. Now I've got just a little over a month to plan the next one....Sarah turns 2 in June!

The school party!

Here's Jacob's school party. Last year I had to take a store bought snacks but this year I was able to make cupcakes and take them. It was pretty cool. I didn't do anything fancy, just plain old cupcakes but the kids seemed to like them and it sure was fun. He got a pack of gum from his teacher and he seemed to think that was pretty awesome.
Here he is passing out the cupcakes. He got to pick a friend to help hold the plate. Pretty cool stuff when you are a 1st grader!
I don't get to visit Jacob's class as much as I would like to so I really enjoyed being able to spend a little time there. I took the rest of the kids and they all thought it was pretty cool to see big brothers friends. I still can't believe that he is 7. I really feel like it was just yesterday that we found out he was on his way and we were scared to death. Didn't think we were ready to be parents. He changed our lives more then we could have ever known and would never, ever change it for ANYTHING.

Oh and one more thing...he finally has his first loose tooth. I thought he may have lost it by his birthday but I'm sure I will be blogging about it soon....don't hold your breath though, sometimes it takes awhile.

Ben's 30th birthday party ROCKED!!!

This year Ben and I both turned 30, well actually Ben's birthday is tomorrow but by the time most of you read this he will be 30. I don't remember how much I told you about the party that he threw for me. It was a well pulled off surprise party. I am a pretty hard person to surprise because I'm pretty nosey. He did a great job at it. Well, I kind-of felt like I had something to live up to since his big 3-0 was this year too. I really had a tough time trying to figure out what would be fun for a guy and all his friends. A few days ago I mentioned our new addiction here and here. So I figured what better thing to do for his party but to have a "Guitar Hero World Tour Rock Concert" party. It turned out to be an awesome party!! We have 2 guitars, a mic and a drum set so 4 people could play all at the same time. We also had the party at our church which used to be a movie cinema with a big screen. It was so much fun. We played for 5 hours!! Needless to say my feet hurt and my fingers hurt and my voice was sore. I think Ben had fun too. Here's some pictures so you can see all the fun!!!

Wal-Mart bakery pulled out the best right here. I told her what I was doing for the party and she said "well the only thing that I can really do it make a cupcake cake shaped like a guitar", "Um, I think that will do just fine, Thanks!!"

Oh yes, I did make him wear a 30 button that had flashing lights and everything. He was such a good sport.

OK, these next few pictures are kind of hard to see some. A few of them are dark but it was best I could do in the Concert Hall!! But look at this first picture below.....see the big screen.

Here's the crowd....watching in awe :)

Well, that sort of sums up the evening. It was a great party and I think that Ben really enjoyed it and I had a great time too!

Kids, kids and more kids!!!

This weekend was the men's retreat for the guys at our church. Ben went along with close to 20 other guys. They just stayed one night and are due back this evening sometime. Yesterday morning my friend called me and asked if maybe I wanted to get together with her and her kids and one other friend and her kids. So we got pizzas, ice cream and brownies and a movie. The crazy part? There were 11 kids and 3 adults!! I guess you could say us moms were out numbered. Oh yeah, and one of the moms is also pregnant so #12 is on the way. It was so fun and our kids had a blast plus, it made our night without the men go by fast. All the kids get along really good and the older two girls were a big help. Here are some pictures of them watching the new Veggie Tales movie -- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. The kids LOVED the movie. I can't say that I watched it much, I was too busy eating brownies, drinking coffee and visiting with my friends, but the kids really enjoyed it.

This first picture is of the whole group. The four girls (not including Sarah) and the boy in the green shirt all belong to Mara, the boy in the black shirt by Jacob and the boy with the blue sleeved shirt belong to Cerissa and then of course there's my four.
Here's Zachary sitting with Kyra. He loves that girl!! She's such a good sport. She is the oldest of them all and plays so well with them and even helps with diapers and cleaning up. Thanks Kyra, you're awesome!!

This little boy is Chance. He was so into the movie at first, if you can't tell from the picture.

Here's Ayla, Luke and Emilyn laying on there tummies. They are also very intent....

It looks like Logan is really enjoying it here. I'm not sure what was going on but look at that smile.

Marly in this one decided that she would look at the camera. I didn't get a very big smile but I got a little one. In all fairness they spent all morning taking pictures, so here cheeks were probably sore form all the smiling that she had to do then.

I love this picture of Thad, Ayla and Luke. Notice Ayla's hair? She made it all day with the hair in pig tails and then pulled them out just in time for the picture.

So, Thad and Sarah are funny. I think that Sarah scares Thad 'cause she's always chasing him around our house. Uh Oh for me huh? Don't you think they look so cute together though?
I couldn't resist this one....she was saying her famous "cheeeeeese".

So that was our fun exciting pizza/movie night.

**If anyone wants an update on Dash...he is doing so much better. Yesterday at about 4:00 he totally perked up and seems to be in pretty good spirits this morning too. Now the problem is going to be keeping him calm enough to heal right.

First Silverwood trip

A couple of weeks ago we went to Silverwood with some good friends and their family. It was a blast! Our kids had never been before and Jacob and Luke are still talking about it. We had 9 kids ranging from 14 months to 10 years old and 4 adults. You could say that it was a little crazy but it was nice to split up some and take the little kids on some rides that they could enjoy.

We were so proud and a little surprised by our oldest boys. Jacob was tall enough to go on all the rides and he did all but one. The one that he chose not to go on was HUGE!! Aftershock was the one that he didn't want to try and I don't blame him. I was a little scared myself. It was really fun though. The first roller coaster that he went on was the Corkscrew. It was my first roller coaster too (when I was a kid). It used to be at Knott's Berry Farm in Southern California. He thought that was pretty cool. Luke couldn't go on all of the rides but he could go on most of them. It was so funny, one of the rides has a camera that takes a picture as you are going through one of the tunnels and you would have thought Luke was crying. He looks scared to death in the picture but he loved it. Zac couldn't go on any of the roller coasters and it made him cry. I think he would have gone on all of them if he could have. He's one brave little sucker.

I took a few pictures. We were pretty busy trying to get as many rides in as we could but I got some.

Here's their first ride. They thought it was great...until the "big" rides.

Here's Zac and Chance thinking that they are pretty cool riding by themselves.
Zac decided to take a nap. I'm not real sure how he did but he did.

Here's Marly, Jacob and Chance waiting for their turn. They were all so patient between rides. Luke being goofy!!

There is also a water park at Silverwood. We didn't spend a lot of time there because the weather wasn't all that great. It was just a little chilly. Here are some of the boys playing in the wave pool.

We can't wait to go back again. If any of you want to come and go there we would love to go with you. Like I said, the older boys want to go back as soon as they can.