Anna's Birthday

Suzanna had a great time with her friends at her birthday party. We went swimming, played dress up, painted crafts , and did the usual dinner, ice cream, cake and presents.

I think it was my favorite kid's party yet--probably because the guests were so great, and also because I had fun preparing all the girly stuff!!

Anna helped me decorate her cake like a purse. The candles are hiding the licorice handle in this picture, but we both thought it turned out cute. And it sure was easy to make =)

Family Barbeque

My Uncle Loren and his family came down to visit from Utah, so lucky us, we got to join in a barbeque at my Uncle Dale's house in Gilbert. We loved visiting, eating and playing in the pool with everyone!

Sam and Tyler became great pool buddies late in the evening. They had a great time doing their cannonballs and robot moves into the shallow step of the pool.

My other kids were pretty happy, too!

Brendon had some smooth jumps off the diving board =)

And a hot tub too!?! My kids were in heaven. Thanks Uncle Dale and Aunt Suzanne for hosting! We had such a great time!!

Say what you want about Tolleson...

... But they sure put on a long fireworks show for the Fourth of July. So long in fact that my kids were bored by the end of it, wondering when it was going to end.

Maybe they just have short attention spans =)

And I didn't take any pictures. But did you really need to see us sitting in our chairs slurping Slurpee's in one of the many generic warehouse parking lots in our area?

I guess I could have taken a picture of the lovely security guard who was nice enough to let us stay to watch the show. Or of my kids dancing because after all that slurping they were in need of a restroom.

Good times.

Ty's birthday and sneaking out

I missed Ty's birthday while away at girls camp, so we had a very small celebration when I got back. Small because we were all just glad to be together again, and small because we couldn't invite any one else since Ty got the chicken pox. What a nice present, huh?

He's one of the lucky 20% that still get the pox even though he had his immunization.

Even though the poor kid was totally missing out on a real party and only got cash for his presents here at home (he did get some great presents to open from his grandparents the week before), he still loved his little celebration. He can't wait to be well enough to take his money to the store.

And luckily, he doesn't seem to be bothered at all by his "chicken spots" as he calls them. I've only caught him itching twice, and he's been his usual self--except that he's taking longer naps. What a bummer, huh?? =)

My other kids are a bit frustrated that we're a little home bound and that no friends can come over, though we did break quarantine a little yesterday to meet up with my best friend growing up who was visiting from Virginia. Don't worry--I didn't bring Tyler. I left him home napping with Brendon and snuck out with Anna and Jonathan to meet up with her cute family. We had a great (and very short!) time. I only hope it's not another two years before we get together again.

And since I didn't even think to snap any pictures of us yesterday, I thought I'd share an oldie from our graduation oh so many years ago.

Super Girls Camp

Girl's camp was awesome.

I had a fabulous time, and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to be there for the whole week. I can't say thank you enough to Phil who took off work to take care the kids. They all had a great time camping and playing with grandmas, grandpas, and cousins while I was away. Wish I had pictures of them....

Our stake theme was the mutual theme for this year, Be Thou an Example of the Believers, so our girls came up with our fun ward theme of the Tolleson Super Examples. We had fun making up a super hero skit, super hero shirts, super hero cheers for each morning, and discovering our super powers within each night at devotional. So much fun.

And I absolutely loved how focused this year's camp was on spiritual things. My favorite part was the cabin mom meeting each day where we had scripture study led by a member of our Stake Presidency. Loved it!

So even though I've been saying for months that I couldn't wait until girls' camp was over, I'm a little sad now that it is. I loved being there with the girls, getting to know them, playing fun games, hanging out with other great friends/leaders, learning new things in the scriptures, and just being away from my normal routine (cooking...cleaning...kids...cleaning...cooking...kids). I only hope that I can go again next year, and do things even better now that I've learned so much.

I am not sad to be back to my shower, though =)

Brendon's Birthday

Okay, so I absolutely cannot stand to look at the pics of the cats every time I get on the Internet anymore. So even though I really should be doing a million things besides this, I'm blogging.

Two weeks ago we had Brendon's water war birthday party at the splash park we love. It was a beautiful overcast afternoon/evening. Almost too cold for the water war....

We filled up over 650 water balloons (I lost count near the end) to help entertain all the boys. I thought we had a lot of balloons--tubs and tubs full--but they were still gone in no time. The boys played with their water guns after the balloons were gone--we formed two teams, put a line of paint on each boy's arm, and they tried to soak the other team until their paint came off. The last boy with paint still on their arm wins. Make any sense? They had a blast, but I feel bad that the "washable" paint turned out to not be so washable. I'm sure there's a lot of parents who hate me now =) but the boys loved it!

Here's a picture with Jonathan's arm painted.

Ty probably threw the most balloons. He'd been patiently waiting for days as we filled them up.

Brendon totally scored on presents from all his friends.

Brendon had to fake blowing out his candles--with all the wind, there was no way my lighter would work. And he doesn't love cake, so we just put his candles in a melting ice-cream sandwich.

Nate and Damon getting some of the water balloons.

I think the boys had a great time, and I know Brendon did.

We're so excited that Brendon's eleven--and such a great eleven-year-old kid!!

New Additions

Pinkerton

And Mitzi

Yep, Cats.

Never thought we'd actually get them, but an opportunity came to help out some friends and make my kids and husband happy all at once.

How's it going with cats, you might ask?

Well...

The cats are slowly getting used to my wild boys.

Phil (aka the cat whisperer) won them over nearly right away. If only we all had his skills.

Suzanna hasn't met them yet, since she's off playing with Grandma this week.

And the cats and I tolerate each other for now. There have been a few "accidents" and lots of cat hair. We'll see if love blossoms later once we're all a little more used to each other.