OOPS, MORE ERICA BIRTHDAY PICTURES

I totally forgot to put these birthday pictures on.  So one of the highlights of the summer was in July my Dad planned a little family reunion.  Jeffrey came from Washington, Roger and Katheryn and family came from Pennsylvania, and Bruce, Jamie and family also came from Pennsylvania.  And then we were so lucky to have Britney, Shared, Ethan and Kylie drive down from Washington to be here too.  I am not normally a picture taker so I totally forgot to take my camera on the days that we all got together.  But Steve did remember to take his camera the day we celebrated Jeffrey and Erica's birthdays.  In years past we always had birthday celebrations for the girls with family birthday parties.  The grandparents and whatever aunts, uncles and cousins were around would come.  Well, it just so happens that Erica's birthday is on July 12th and Jeffrey's birthday is on July 14th, so we would usually have them blow out candles together at the extended family birthday celebration.  And that's exactly what we did this summer at our family reunion.

Here are some pictures getting ready to light the candles, lighting the candles, and blowing out the candles.

CONFERENCE WEEKEND

I have a lot of good memories from Conference Weekends from the past.  When my mom was alive many many times we would get together with my Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins on Saturday night.  Everyone would bring potluck and we would eat and then the men would go to Priesthood session together while the women and girls stayed home and would work on quilts together.  This year our family decided that we would carry on the tradition.  It was me, Steve, Erica, Nicole, Stephanie, my Dad, my niece Rebecca and Kortney and her husband Clayton.  (Kortney was Nicole's roommate for 2 years at BYU).  We had some serious fun.  First we ate spaghetti for dinner with Steve's famous spaghetti sauce, then the guys went to Priesthood while us girls tied a Halloween quilt for my cute niece Rebecca.

When the guys got home we had a dessert bar.  It was tons of fun sitting around the table eating, talking and laughing a lot.  Thanks to everyone who was there for making it a memorable Saturday Conference evening.

Here's Erica ready to eat.

Clayton, Kortney, and Nicole.

Before we ate.

After we ate.

 There's a package of saltine crackers on the table because we thought it would be fun to do the "Saltine Cracker Challenge".  In case you don't know what that is, it's where you try to eat 6 crackers, and swallow them in 1 minute without taking a drink.  Nobody was sure how many actual crackers you had to try to eat in the challenge but I just looked it up and it's 6.  If I remember right I think Clayton ate 7, none of the girls got past 5 and I only ate 3.  It was hard not to laugh while we were eating them.

 Erica is 25 years old this year!

I feel pathetic.  I haven't posted since April, now it seems to overwhelming, but I need to do it.  First things first.  Erica turned 25 on July 12th.  It was an especially fun birthday this year because Brit, Shared, Ethan and Kylie were here on account of a family reunion that my Dad put together. Here are some pictures of Erica opening her presents.  Kylie was very involved and very excited, she handed Erica her presents and then was excited to see what she opened.

OPENING PRESENTS

And here is a cute picture of Ethan with Erica as she's opening a present from her Visiting Teacher.

CAKE MAKING

Erica and Kylie had fun watching me make the cake and frosting.

And Kylie especially had fun licking the beaters.

BLOWING OUT THE CANDLES

And last but not least, blowing out the candles so we can eat the cake.

Happy Birthday Erica, we all love you so incredibly much.  Thank you for being in our family and being the perfect example of love and patience

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.