Katie's Tinkerbell Birthday and Halloween

I'm not gonna lie...it kinda stinks that Katie's birthday is on Halloween.  I don't know why the doctor couldn't have waited another hour to deliver her so she would have been born November 1st instead.  Oh well.  The little stinker wasn't due until December 7th anyway so we were just glad she was okay.

From this...

To this

She wanted to have a birthday party with her friends this year so I let her invited her preschool class to her party.  She had 8 of her friends come and 5 cousins and her brother and sister so there were 16 kids total!  Surprisingly these younger kids were much more well behaved than the 8-year old group for Brandon's birthday.



 
 She wanted a Tinkerbell birthday so I made a pin the Tinkerbell on the flower game and we went on a treasure hunt for Tinkerbell's lost treasure (glow in the dark bracelets) and we had a Tinkerbell pinata.  I made her a Tinkerbell cake that I think turned out pretty good.  She loved it and the fairies are stampers so she gets to keep them and make pretty pictures with them :)  I just can't believe my baby is 5!

For Halloween this year Brandon was a ninja and Emmy and Katie were both Barbie princesses.  What a surprise...not really.  The girls were super excited that I put make up on them before they went trick-or-treating.  We also went to a trunk-or-treat/chili cook-off at church and we went trick-or-treating to the local businesses in Windsor.  Let's just say we got PLENTY of candy! 

My Three Stooges

The Loot

I made these cookies for a party for their dance class

and I was Flo from Progessive

Oh, and I won the chili cook-off at my husband's work again this year and I won the chili cook-off at church the next day :o)  This chili recipe is a 6-time winner!

Brandon is Baptized!

Brandon got baptized this last Saturday and it was such a wonderful day!  It was so nice to have so many family and friends there to celebrate with us.  He was sooooo excited for his big day.  I am SO PROUD of him!  Way to go bud!

Brandon is 8! Beyblade Party!

Okay so I have NOT been very good at blogging lately.  Oops!  We have been super busy with Brandon in 2nd grade, Emily in 1st grade, and Katie in preschool.  Plus soccer and dance classes and volunteering at the school and serving at church.

My little buddy turned 8 years old today.  I can't believe my first baby is already 8 years old.  It kind of makes me feel old.  He is such a good kid.  He is my peacekeeper at home.  He does such a good job of making other people happy.  I don't know what I would do without him helping me out.  I am so proud of him!  I love you Brandon!

He wanted a Beyblade party.  For those of you who don't know what those are, it's basically spinning tops that battle each other and the last one spinning wins.  They are very popular with his age of boys.  I made him a Beyblade battle arena cake because that would be easier than trying to make a cake look like an actual Beyblade.  He loved it.  The boys all had a great time.  They played with the Beyblades and then played soccer until they kicked 3 of our balls over the fence.  Good thing our neighbors have kids too, right?

The Beyblade cake I made

And the Beyblade cupcakes I made

Having fun playing with his friends

Emily got her face painted at a party last weekend so I had to paint Katie's too.

The Best and Worst Camping Trip EVER!

Last week Douglas and I took the kids camping at Jackson lake for 3 days.  We were going to go to Flaming Gorge for a family reunion for his family but that kind of fell apart so we went to Jackson Lake instead.  My father-in-law let us borrow his boat, which was very nice of him.  We had fun but things didn't exactly go as planned.  It seemed like everything was going wrong for a while!
When we first got there on Wednesday evening (by the way, we left WAY later than we were supposed to...but that wasn't my fault) it was pouring down rain.  Nice, right?  So there we were, huddled under the shelter over the picnic table with a swarm of wasps trying to stay dry.  I suggested we have peanut butter sandwiches for dinner because of the rain but my hubby insisted that we cook hotdogs over the fire so as soon as the rain let up a little we were standing outside in the rain roasting our hot dogs.  Not exactly MY idea of a good time. 
The rain finally stopped about 9:30 that night so we put up our new tent in the dark, but luckily they make tents so easy to put up anymore it wasn't a problem.  Then we had to get the kids ready for bed so we walked to the bathroom facilities to brush teeth.  (Jackson Lake has nice bathroom facilities with running water and flushing toilets and a shower, but we didn't use it because that would be cheating).  Anyways, I was helping the girls brush their teeth when I hear some strange noises coming through the window.  Then I hear Douglas tell Brandon, "Brandon, catch more, hurry!"  Hmm...suspicious.  Suddenly they throw open the bathroom door and throw in about 15 toads all for our enjoyment.  Thanks.
The next day the wasps weren't as bad but there were biting flies that were nibbling on our legs all day long.  Kind of annoying.  We were able to go out on the lake for a couple hours in the morning and we were the only boat out on the whole lake.  It was nice!  The kids had a great time tubing and Douglas got a chance to wakeboard for a while.  When it got close to lunchtime we tied up the boat close to camp and went to get some sandwiches and take a break.  However, when we got back to the boat it wouldn't start.  Of course we didn't realize that until I pushed the dumb thing out quite a ways so I had to jump out and tow it back to shore again.  My hubby was NOT a happy camper at this point. 
We left the boys to work on the broken-down boat and I took the girls back to camp to hang out for a while.  A couple hours later he said he had the boat running again so we ventured back once again.  The boat did start but when we got out to the middle of the lake we realized it wasn't running very well at all so we better get it out of the lake while we had the chance.  He pulled it a little closer to shore and I had to jump out and swim for it.  Then I had to walk back to camp and get the truck and trailer so I could drive over to the dock to load up the boat.  My hubby was still not a happy camper at this point...but we went to the swim beach and had fun splashing around and building a sand castle.  
On our way back to camp from the swim beach Katie accidentally stepped on a cactus in her flip-flops and somehow she ended up with some cactus barbs in her foot.  Wow can that girl scream!  You would have thought she was being tortured to death!  I held her down on the picnic table and yanked them out and then she was fine.  Then the kids helped me make some dutch oven pizza.  YUM!
The next morning I was thinking my hubby would just want to go home but he was sure he had fixed the boat this time so we ventured out on the lake once again.  The kids got to go tubing again and every time we would stop the boat for something everyone would jump off and go swimming for awhile.  Of course my crazy hubby would be jumping off of the top of the wakeboard tower, but that's just his style.  He got another chance at wakeboarding but after a while the boat stopped accelerating.  Luckily it didn't die and we were able to get it back out of the lake again.  We were kind of bummed but we were glad we had another chance to get out on the lake. 
Back at camp the kids were playing in the tent when Brandon started jumping around screaming.  Apparently a small hornet had gotten down his shirt and was stinging him all over his back.  Luckily, this mama never goes on a camping trip without some children's allergy medicine so he was feeling better in no time.  We went back to the swim beach, carefully tiptoeing past where a huge bull snake just slithered across our path, and spent a couple of hours playing in the water until it was time to make dinner.  Douglas finally figured out what was wrong with the boat and got it completely fixed but it was too late to go back out on the lake.  When we got back we saw that we had neighbors in the campsite next to us for the first time.  It had been nice being all alone but they seemed nice enough...at first.
They had a brand-new jet ski that they put in the lake and in the first 2 minutes got a rock sucked up into it.  Then this idiot was pounding the rock in farther instead of hitting it out.  There was only supposed to be 6 people to a camp site but they had about 10.  They stayed up until almost 2:00 in the morning arguing over who was more drunk, whose gas smelled the worst, who slept with who, who had slept with more people, and anything else they could think of.  They kept bragging about how they were going to be the first ones on the lake in the morning because they were getting up at 5:00 in the morning.  Then they decided to turn on music at midnight to pump up their party.  I felt sorry for the little boy with them.  That poor kid needed to go to bed.  Our kids were asleep before their party started so it didn't bother them but Douglas and I couldn't sleep.  I was ready to go over there with the axe and take care of business but Douglas wouldn't let me.  I tend to get a wee bit grouchy when I want to sleep and someone won't let me.  He wouldn't even let me go punch the most obnoxious girl in the face. 
Well, they weren't up at 5:00 in the morning.  We were up at 6:00 and started packing up to go home and since "quiet hours" were officially over and decided that we could be as loud as we wanted to be.  I told Emily she could sing as loud as she wanted to :o)  We got everything packed up and decided to go out on the lake one last time since the boat was finally fixed.  The only problem was the kids were completely worn out.  They swam around for a few minutes and went on a tube once but then they just wanted to sit in the boat.  Katie even fell asleep on the boat!  So Douglas and I played for a little bit while the kids rested and then we decided it was time to go home. 
It was about 11:00 when we got out of the lake and much to our surprise and enjoyment, our "neighbors" that kept us up all night were holding up traffic on the dock with a boat that wouldn't start and they were hogging both sides of the dock and wouldn't move out of they way so people were screaming at them and yelling all kinds of not-so-nice things at them.  I couldn't help but smile.  When they finally had enough brains to move over to one side we were able to get our boat out and go home.  It was an exhausting trip!  Now we are going camping again this weekend for our annual camping trip at Hermit Park with my family.  But, the company will be much better this time and we will be sleeping in a cabin so I'm already loving it!

Home Sweet Home?

Our "shelter" from the storm.

Emily

Fun on the tube!

Katie

My Little Fishies

Colorado Springs or BUST!

We had a fun "staycation" in Colorado Springs again this year.  There really is so much to do there!  We took the kids to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to feed the giraffes because they were begging to go.  They also got to pet a baby Wallaby, which they thought was pretty awesome! 

This year we went to the Olympic Training Center, which was really neat to see.  Douglas ran into the USA wrestling team and said they were HUGE!  I ran into a wrestler from the Czech Republic and I have to agree that those are some big boys!  I certainly wouldn't want to get one their bad side. 

We also went to The North Pole for the first time.  The kids thought it was the coolest place ever because there are over 2 dozen rides and they can ride ALL of them!  Plus, they got to see Santa and make sure he's keeping track of what they want for Christmas ;o).   We only had a couple of rides left to go on when it started pouring rain though so we left but we'll catch those rides next time.  We were absolutely soaked by the time we got to the car.  We were almost dry by the time we got home 2-1/2 hours later. 

The kids loved going miniature golfing too.  But I'm not so sure that everyone else at the golf course loved my kids' golfing...turns out they're kind of dangerous when they all have golf clubs in their hands. 














I think one of the best parts of our trip was the fact that our hotel had a water slide in it!  We had to spend a couple of hours at the pool everyday.  I think Douglas liked it even more than the kids did.  He threw himself down the slide so many times he came home with whip lash and slide burns on the tops of his feet.  Maybe he'll learn to not be quite so crazy next time...but probably not.  All in all it was a great trip!  Next year I think we're going to try to do Disney!  YAY!

Emmy's Pinkalicious Party!

My sweet little Emmy turned 6!  I can't believe it has already been 6 years since she joined our family.  I ended up having an emergency C-section at 37 weeks with her because my uterus was going to rupture but thankfully everyone was just fine.  She was by far my easiest baby, which was a good thing since we found out I was pregnant with Katie when Emmy was only 5 months old.  She is my quiet child who is very emotional and puts her whole heart into everything.  I love how she wants to be the next Hannah Montana while being a princess, a teacher, and a mermaid.  She brings so much joy to our family!  We LOVE you Emily!

Emmy's favorite books are the Pinkalicious series so she wanted to have a Pinkalicious party.  I thought that was a great idea.  We had to have pink decorations, pink food, a pinkalicious dress, and I made the cake and cupcakes to look like the ones in the book.  It was great and all of the kids had a really good time.  Between playing pin the cherry on the cupcake, doing a scavenger hunt for glow-in-the-dark bracelets, and getting candy from a pinata, they were quite happy!  Emily said it was the "best birthday ever."  

By the way, if your girls like Pinkalicious make sure they have checked out www.thinkpinkalicious.com for fun games and you can print out fun activity sheets.  

Here is the cake and cupcakes to go along with the Pinkalicious theme.  They were easier to make than the huge castle cake I had to make for her last year!

Enough kids for ya?  There were only 18 kids in my house :o)

YAY for getting Silverlicious!  Now Pinkalicious, Purplicious, and Goldilicious have a new family member.

Oh my gosh!  Were they really all sitting quietly for just a minute???

Grandma and Grandpa got her the Pinkalicious doll to cuddle with while we read the books.

For our "pinkalicious" treats we had watermelon, pink popcorn, strawberry wafer cookies, and marshmallows, pretzels, and animal crackers dipped in pink candy coating.  YUM!  Pinkalicious deliciousness!

What a cutie!  LOVE that girl!

My Little Sister Got Married!?!?

I can't believe my little sister is married now...she was only 9 years old when I got married.  That makes me feel old :o(  Oh well.  It was a beautiful wedding ceremony in my parents' yard overlooking the Rocky Mountains at sunset.  The reception came together wonderfully, which was good because we were all kind of stressing out over it all week.  We had a lot to do to pull it off but we all worked together and got it done!  She made her own bouquet and flower arrangements, and I must say she is really quite talented at that.  She also made some beautiful jewelry too!  Patti and I made the flower girl outfits and everyone pitched in to get the house and yard ready to go.  I made the wedding cake, cupcakes, and grooms cake.  My parents are so lucky to have so many wonderful friends who were more than willing to help out! 
Hannah looked gorgeous in her dress and Andrew looked great in his tux too.  They are so cute together!  It was a great night had by all!  I'm glad that I was able to be a part of it.

Dancing the Night Away!

Last week my girls had their big dance recital.  They were absolutely ADORABLE!!!!!  Katie was by far the best in her class at shaking her booty, but then that doesn't really surprise me.  She loves to show random people at the grocery store how she can shake her booty.  Emily did a great job but one of the girls kept moving into her place so she had to keep moving the other girl around.  It was kind of funny.  I'm glad she didn't have a total breakdown because she is by far my most emotional child.  They both did great and it was fun to see how much they have learned over the last year.  Afterwards grandma and grandpa took them to Wendy's for a treat.  It was a good night!  I only have a few pics because my dad still has most my pics stuck on his camera but I'll get them soon :)