A Birthday Day!

Dakota's Birthday Pool Party

My little boy is turning 7. Wow. His actual birthday is this Thursday, but Greg will be out of town. So, we celebrated with some of his best friends last night. We kept it simple - real simple. Mom (me) ordered pizza from Pier 49, and Em made the cake. Dakota wanted the cake to be a surprise. She made him a golf cake. As you can see she made an awesome big golf ball. What you can't see is the "hole" where it reads "Happy Birthday Dakota". Golf is by far his favorite sport. It doesn't hurt that he is so good at it. He makes golf look easy which is so unfair to the rest of us.

After pizza, cake, and ice cream, we let him open his presents (as if he needed any more toys). More noise of the house - thanks to whoever gave him the sword that's super loud. Kris? j/k

We headed up to the Poelmans' pool after our bellies were full and played. They've recently added another waterslide, so we had options!! The kids and the grown-ups all loved it.

It was a fun birthday party! Thanks to all our amazing friends for making it extra special for our little boy! We love you!!

Look who's 38!

All I know is Doug's a good sport. No matter how you look at it. I have never seen a man be so sweet and willing to cooperate with us women when it comes to picture-taking. We went out to dinner last Tuesday night for Doug's birthday.

Doug wanted Sushi - Em convinced him he wanted Texas Roadhouse BBQ. The rest of us were glad for that. We got right in (Em called ahead), and had a wonderful dinner. No birthday would be complete without a few presents, so the boys surprised Doug with some new shoes (BJ picked them out so they were Pumas of course) and a couple of fun t-shirts.
We all had a great time. We love our get-togethers, and a birthday is as good of an excuse as any to do just that.

Welcome Doug to being 38. Now you are finally as old as Greg.

We love you, and happy belated birthday!

Kris' Surprise 30th Bday Party!

Well, we pulled it off. I'm not exactly sure how we did it, but we did. Beej had been talking to me about this party for weeks, it wasn't until a week ago that he finally sent me the "hot list" of who to invite. I quickly sent out email invitations and followed-up with phone calls to make sure everyone knew about the party. Originally BJ and Kris were supposed to be in Florida for a business trip. That didn't pan out, so we had to get creative. Instead, they went up to Park City for the night and came back the evening of the party. Fortunately (and I'm not quite sure how) Kris didn't catch on to the party. We tried several times unintentionally to give it away. BJ and I had been texting back and forth about the party. Kris was snooping around on his phone wondering who She-ra (his "name" for me) was. Before she could read the texts, he deleted them. Then, cute Kathy (her mom) called me one evening to see if I'd gotten the pictures for the slideshow. Kris was sitting right next to me when Kathy called. She looked at me in panic, "Is that my mom?" Kathy had never called me before. Kris thought that since she'd forgotten her phone that her mom was trying to track her down. Numerous things like that happened leading up to the party, but each time we dodged the obvious. BJ wanted to do something extra special for Kris on her 30th, and I'm just thankful I could be a part of it. It was a great night. BJ counted as many as 44 adults and who knows how many kids. We had enough food and fun for everyone. Sheena, Sara, Emily, and I rapped "I want to be like Kristalyn C" for Kris to the tune of "We like the cars - the cars that go boom" by L'Trimm. I'm sure only a few of you out there know that song. Then BJ had a extra special version of "Nice Nice Baby So Old So Old" prepared for Kris. She had to sit on the hot-seat while he rapped away. I'm still hoping to get the video uploaded to the blog. It's something everyone should see at least once. He did a great job and the lyrics were hilarious. He missed his calling as a white rapper - that's for sure. We love our cute friends the Chandlers, and we are so thankful her party was memorable! Love you guys!!!

Parties and Easter Eggs

Last night we headed back to Sara and Colby's to celebrate Baden's 2-year birthday. Just look at how proud he is with all the attention he's getting! He was right there waiting to blow out the candles and with a couple of tries, he did just that.
After dinner and cake and ice cream, Sara sat the kids down for a quick Family Home Evening lesson while Em, Kris, and I hid the eggs in the backyard.

We armed the kids with headlamps and flashlights, and away they went. Some of the easter eggs glowed in the dark while the others reflected light. The kids had a great time searching for the hidden eggs in the dark. We decided that this would be an annual tradition.

So the eggs are now neatly put away in storage and await the next Monday following Easter when we'll do it all over again!
Another exciting mentions:

Aftyn had her toes painted for the very first time
Sheena brought her husband - I think his name is Darrin (just kidding Darrin)
Colby slammed my picture taking and blogging to no end

By the way - prove Colby wrong. If you are a friend of a friend, drop me a note. He seems to think the only regulars on our blog are our friends in the pics. I'll show him!

Pics from Greg's Party

Parker's Pool Party at the Poelmans'

Parker turned 8 on Sunday, and last night we got to celebrate his birthday with him up at the Poelmans' pool. We joined the Chandlers, Poulsens, and the Browns (minus Darrin - dang it!). All our kids are the same age, so they had a blast.

I don't know who had more fun - the kids or the grown-ups. We all strapped on helmets and went down the slide - holy cow is that thing fast! Then we ladies climbed on our husbands and had ourselves a wrestling match. It was a great time.

Can I just say that I truly have some of the neatest friends? I feel so lucky to have such amazing friends in my life who love to play - just like me! They mean the absolute world to me, and I am so thankful for them!!!