Nicole's 20th Birthday

Well yesterday our Nicole turned 20!!  I can't believe it.  Time goes by so fast.  Nicole is still in Provo at BYU but luckily it's only a half hour away.  It's reading and finals week so no way could she get away to come to the house to celebrate her birthday so we went to her.  It turns out that Steve and Erica are both pretty sick with colds so just Steph and I could celebrate with Nicole.  We arrived at Nicole's apartment to pick her up and then we headed to our favorite Mexican place there.  It's called El Mexal, it's our families favorite Mexican place to eat (it looks dumpy on the outside, it's in a little stripmall place next to a laundromat/tanning salon, but it has excellent food).

Here's a picture of me and Nic at dinner.

After dinner we stopped at the grocery store for ice cream and then went back to Nic's apartment for cake and ice cream.  She wanted white cake with white frosting with coconut on top.

And here she is making a wish and blowing out the candles.  (here's a confession, we forgot to take a picture so we had to reenact it after we'd already cut into the cake, bet you couldn't even tell, haha).

A picture of Nicole Steph and 3 of Nic's roommates, Heather, Jamie and Ally.  I'm glad they were there to share in this fun moment with us.  Seriously, we had a lot of fun talking and laughing and me and Steph trying to understand college humor.  (I hope you guys had fun playing your kite game after we left)

I'd say Nicole looks pretty happy here :)

After cake Nic opened her presents.  She only got a couple of things, you'll see why in the next picture.

Nic's laptop died and what college student, or anyone for that matter, can survive without one (ummmm, apparently I can cause I don't have one :(  So we bought her a new laptop for her birthday but gave it to her early when she came up for Easter/Conference weekend.  I can honestly say she was really happy.  She even wrote on facebook that she has the best parents ever.  No kidding, I'm glad she can see that (actually, Steve and I have the best kids ever).

Happy Birthday Coco Bear.  I loves you tons.  Thanks for being one of my favorite BFF's.

IT'S BIRTHDAY MONTH AT OUR HOUSE

Yup, that's right, April is a big Birthday month at our house.  It's starts on April 13th, Stephanie's Birthday.  Funny story.  So Steph was born on the 13th and Nicole was born on the 14th, only 3 years apart.  When Steph was little, I'd say around 4 or 5 years old.  She used to tell Nicole that she was older than her because her birthday was before hers.  That would make Nicole so mad, but it was kinda cute, just cause little kids don't understand the date concept.

So, yesterday Stephanie turned 17.  My baby is growing up, however, I do still call her baby.  Here are a few pictures from her birthday.  While she was at school I made these little ball thingys out of tissue paper, an idea Erica and I saw on Studio 5.  She's going to hang them in her bedroom, since her bedroom is brown and pink.  They were easy and turned out pretty cute I think.

At our house when it's your birthday you get to choose what we should have for dinner.  Steph would have chosen spaghetti cause that is her very very favorite, but we just had it last week so she chose Chicken Cordon Bleu casserole instead.  After dinner Steph got to open her presents.  Here she is with Missy (or Wissy as Kylie calls her).

And a picture with Kim (the cat) in it.  Kim is such a brat, she really isn't a snuggly cat, very stand-offish.

Steph got lots of clothes this year.  She and I went browsing at the mall one night and she showed me things she liked.  The very next night Steve and I went to the mall to buy a few of those things, of course I could barely remember the things she showed me that she liked.  But she told me that I did a good job.

After present opening we had cake and ice cream.  Steph has been telling me for several months that she wants a tie dyed birthday cake.  hmmmmmm.  I've been thinking about it all that time, how can I do that?  I finally decided to do white frosting and put drops of food coloring on it and swirl it.  It didn't turn out the best, but I think next time it will.  The trick, use very very little food coloring, it goes a long way.

Steph making a wish and getting ready to blow out her candles.

Blowing out her candles.

It was a fun day.  Happy Birthday Stephanie.  I love you tons and tons.  You're a doll and one of my BFF's.

SATURDAY WITH ETHAN AND KYLIE

Today has been a really good day.  It's been busy and has gone by so fast.  We started the day at 9:00a.m. going to the Church for a big service project.  Here's a picture of me Ethan and Kylie while I'm working on a quilt.

 

And here's Erica and Steph.

 

After the service project we had lunch.  Here's some pictures of Ethan and Kylie eating their ice cream.

 

  

After Kylie's nap, Grandpa, Nicole and Kortney (Nic's roommate)  took Ethan and Kylie to Cabela's to look at the fish.  Of course they watched Nemo in the car to get them excited for the fish.

 

  

Ethan, with Nic, trying on a Davy Crockett hat.

 

Here's Ethan with Kortney.  You know what, Ethan really likes girls.  Especially teenaged ones.

Friday with Ethan and Kylie

Dinner will almost be ready and bedtime is about 2 hours away so I decided I should hurry and blog about today.  It was a pretty good day considering that Kylie woke up this morning at 5:00.  She would not go back to sleep.  So, finally at 6:00 I just got her up and decided we'd see what was on Nick Jr.  Of course as we were walking past the stairs she yells down "Ethan, where are you?"  I was so glad he didn't hear her, he didn't get up until 7:00.  Let's hope that tomorrow isn't so early. 
This morning Steph caught a picture of Ethan and Kylie when they were sitting under the table together.  She said it was so cute because they were having a little conversation with each other.

 

Kylie loves to try Grandpa's shoes on, or anyones for that matter.

 

Here's Ethan, Grandpa, and Kylie working on a puzzle together.  I hope Brit and Shared don't notice what's on TV in the background.  haha

 

While I was writing this post Ethan came in and wanted to take my picture.  He did a pretty good job I'd say.

 

Then Ethan wanted to take a picture of his foot, of course.

Thursday with Ethan and Kylie

Wow.  It's hard to keep up with the blogging.  Especially when the computer that I load all of my pictures on and blog on is in the room that Kylie sleeps in.  Yesterday, Thursday was a really good day.  The kids were so good.  Here's a picture of Ethan with a new shirt on.  One day, when Steph and I were at Old Navy they had toddler size Rock Band Shirts.  As most of us know, Ethan loves to play Rock Band and Guitar Hero, so we just had to get him this shirt.  He was more excited with the tag that was attached to the shirt.

While Kylie was napping Ethan and Erica played on the computer.  It was so cute.  They had so much fun together.  Ethan wanted to make sure that Erica always had a turn.

 

By the time Steph gets home from school Ethan and Kylie are sick of us and are so excited to see her. 

 
 

Kylie loves to look at Steph's glasses.

 

Ethan loves to sit as close as he can possibly get to Steph.

 

Here's Kylie in her new shirt and pants.

 

Bedtime.  We kind of decided that it's fun to sit on the couch in the living room and read about 3 books all together.  Hey Brit and Shared, you can't really tell in this picture, but we did end up pulling the couch away from the stair railing, it was just too stressful.  That should make you feel better.

I'm sorry to report that absolutely nothing exciting has happened.  Kylie has gone to timeout a few times for hitting Ethan, it's really so cute.  Here's a picture of one of those times, I think she actually enjoys it.  Ethan had 2 go to timeout twice today too and he also seems to enjoy it.  If anything timeout gives them a chance to chill for a minute.

 

Here's Erica and Kylie playing toys together.  Ethan and Kylie love it when Erica will sit down on the floor and play with them.

 

Here's Ethan with his favorite girlfriend, Steph.  If Ethan is missing you just have to find Steph and that's where he'll be.

 

Yesterday while Kylie napped Erica and Ethan put some puzzles together.

 

Today while Kylie napped Ethan wrote on the chalkboard.

 

This is where you'll find Kylie most of the time.  She love, love, loves, Grandpa.  If Grandpa leaves her sight she says "oh no, bampa, oh no, bampa" and then she goes looking for him.

TENDING ETHAN AND KYLIE

This week we're tending Ethan and Kylie while Britney and Shared have a much deserved and needed vacation alone.  I'm excited to be able to blog about them and all the fun we're going to have with them.  So today was our first official full day with Ethan and Kylie.  They both started off the day by getting up at 6:30,   this is normal waking time for them but definitely not for us :(  Hopefully in the morning it will be better but I'm not planning on it.  Here are some pictures we've taken already.

This is a picture of Kylie eating dinner last night.  Pancakes and popcorn.  She liked it.  Although you can't tell that by the look on her face.

                                       

               

Here's Ethan and Kylie sucking on some limes.  Ethan really liked it and insisted on sucking the juice out of the whole thing.  Giving them limes was not my idea, Ethan saw me cutting one and wanted to eat it.

 

For lunch the kids had grilled cheese sandwiches, fishy crackers and banana slices.

While I was making dinner Grandpa took the kids outside to play since it was such a nice day.

 

  

 

For dinner we gave the kids twinkies.  JK.  We gave them twinkies after dinner.  They really liked them.