Katelin turns 4

Sunday was Katelin's birthday. We took her to Stake Conference and later in the day to Seminary Graduation. She was great about it all. We just partied in between each event.

Here's what she woke up to.

The Hello Kitty cake by her daddy, of course. :)
She was excited to find this Tinker Bell kitchen. It's so cute. Burke found it on clearance after Christmas, so we've had it for a while. It was nice to finally give it to her.
I love watching her open up the presents. She's just so sweet. I can't believe she's 4, really!
This is how she shows everyone how old she is. She has to hold down that thumb, or it just doesn't work. Hahaha. She chose cheeseballs and Reese's cereal for her treats for her b-day. We let them choose a chip, cereal, what dinner they would like and how they would like their cake decorated. We shared the cheese balls with her friends the day before, but I had to set them out anyway. :)

After Stake Conference (in Moab) we headed over to this cool park for a yummy picnic lunch before we headed home. It was a beautiful day!!! I wanted to take Katelin's 4 year old pics on this bridge, but she wasn't having it right then. She had gotten hurt earlier and it spoiled her mood. So I just took what I could get. We'll have to go out again soon and get some of her cuteness.

No face, it was grumpy. haha.

Cute, just hide the face - that works. :)

Then she had had enough and left with her arms folded and walked away. Cute girl.
When we got home and were ready to do the cake, she was all smiles and told me I could take her picture now. THANKS! :)

She LOVED all of the calls from ALL of her Grandparents. It was wonderful. Thanks for making her day special! Really fun.

Katelin's friend party

I decided to do a friend party for Katelin this year for her #4 b-day. I did one for the other kids when they were 4 so why not?! It was really fun. Seven little ones came and we partied. :)

We decorated with Hello Kitty pink stuff and number 4's. Really cute and fun!

I put a baby picture of her out that I love, her favorite cheeseballs, Kool-aid in our fancy punch bowl, and yummy cupcakes that I decorated MYSELF (Burke thought my friend decorated them since it's not something I do much - hahahaha, I had to laugh).
Here's a close up, it's just a large marshmallow sliced with sprinkles on it, when I told him that he said "Ooooohhhhhh" He thought it was frosting. Come on! I can do cute stuff! He usually decorates the cakes in our family, so I understand. :)
While we were decorating, Kaiya took a bunch of pics of random things. One was this of Katelin, I thought it was funny and so did she so I had to share our star-nose Kate.

I had this shirt for her and decided to use some of my heat vinyl to add a 4 and a princess crown to it for her to wear at her party. I think it turned out pretty cute.

We played a balloon game where I turned on the music and they threw the balloons up in the air until the music stopped. Then they would grab any balloon and Kaiya would close her eyes and shout out a color, whoever had that color of balloon got to pick a prize out of our prize bucket. They each got a couple by the end of that. The other game was a group bingo game. I printed two each of different coloring pages online. I spread out one set of them on the floor and the other set I gave to Kaiya. She would pick a picture and show it to one of them and they would get a block and set it on its match. When they got a bingo we would yell BINGO and then everyone got a prize. Then we ate cake and cheeseballs with punch, opened presents, visited out chicks and we were done! WHEW! Great day!

I was trying to get a picture of them all together, but the girls went to one side and the boys to the other. So here's the girls...

...and the boys. :)
Glad she had a fun friend day. :)

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Jeremy's birthday is May 13th. This year we decided to write notes to Jeremy and put them in balloons to send to him for his 37th Birthday! I thought it would be more personal for the kids to feel a bit more connected with him. They were exited when I told them the plan. I put the notes into the balloons before they filled them up with helium. I had to take a picture of their notes before we sent them away. Here are their notes.

Kaleb's: (simple and sweet)

Kaiya's (if you can't read the bottom part - it says - "I don't know if you are looking at me, but if you are please send a note to me.) I love that. :)

Katelin's: (Kaiya drew the one on the right for her and Katelin drew the balloons on the left for him)

Everyone else wrote on the balloons, cute! Mom carrying all of the balloons.


The kids marched around with their balloons until we were ready.
Porter was not having his face in the picture! I love how his balloon says Porter, so we know it is him.
And we're ready.
And there they go...up to Jeremy. :) I'm sure he enjoyed all of his heartfelt notes from us.

We watched them for a while as they went up and up.




Happy Birthday Jeremy, WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arches field trip

I got to go on Kaleb's field trip with him on the 12th. I'm really glad I was able to go. Burke took the day off and had fun with the girls (Kaiya wasn't feeling so good, so she stayed home and enjoyed dad time too). We went to the Arches - it was for the 3rd and 4th grade. Here's some pics of our trip:

They had these papers they had to fin certain plants and things. The third grade was really into it, the fourth grade - not so much. It was funny to see the difference in grades.

Kaleb's third grade class with Mrs. Nelson. She is such a GREAT teacher!!! We have loved third grade. I wish she could just move up with them in each grade. She wishes too, it's been her favorite also. She tells them she doesn't want to let them go. She's so sweet.

The kids have this ongoing fight to give each other bunny ears in the pictures with their fingers. So most of the pics look like this: (so cute)
One place had tons of sand and the kids loved it. They all took their shoes off and dug and jumped and ran. I'll have to remember that place.
Look how little this opening is! Kaleb said he didn't care to go in. Ha! I think I've rubbed off on him too much.
More bunny ear fun.
Everyone at the end of our trip.

Mother's Day

I wanted a picture with all of my kids before we headed out to church. I don't seem to make it into a lot of our pictures, because I'm the one taking them all of the time. So I had a request and Burke delivered. Done. Picture with my CUTE kids. I love them so much!!!!!!!!

After church the kids wanted to decorate for me. So I was sent to my room (which was nice - I love time out!) and when I came out there was this: and hearts ALL OVER the house. It was adorable! Burke got my cricut out and cut out all of the letters and hearts for them and they went to town taping everything all over. Burke also made all of the meals, it was wonderful!!!

Then Kaiya ran to the fridge and did her spelling magic and said "mom look!" She's so sweet.
Later we went outside to play with the chickens. Sometimes Burke will let them out to roam in the yard. They love watching them. I do for a while and then I just enjoy watching my kids and Burke instead. They are so cute!

OK, here are the chickens. They are getting so big. This is the first batch we got.
This is one of the second batch we got a week later. We have 11 total.
I love watching them shew them back into their home. Hahaha!