"American Day"

Hope was very excited about the 4th of July this year, only she called "American Day." For a few days before, any time we were driving she would always point out the flags and other decorations that people had in their yards and ask why we didn't have any. That is right. I do not have any 4th of July decorations. Her excitement for the holiday of which we had no plans and no decorations made me feel like one heck of a disappointment to my children. The night before the 4th Hope got so excited that as she lay in bed she told me all the things she had planned for the following day. She said she was going to make everyone a flag. True to her word, she woke up early and immediately wanted to draw.

She did make one for everyone. I guess all those afternoons "singing to the flag" in kindergarten paid off, cause that an awesome one. I am very impressed with her stars. I still can't draw a decent one.

Out of the blue, Ben decided that we should go up to the West Bountiful parade. I don't like parades. I don't think I ever have. Once in my early 20's I got pegged in the forehead by an overzealous candy thrower and that pretty much sealed the deal. I mean, that tootsie roll could've put my eye out! Anyway.
Hope insisted that she have an "American shirt" for the "American Day." So here she is looking festive in her American Day attire, and Eden in her pigtails that lasted only about an hour.

 Turns out that West Bountiful throws a decent parade with zero overzealous candy throwers. Actually, I do think there was one, but he missed me and narrowly missed Whitney who was standing behind me so I'm okay with that. :)

There were horses that had been painted like the flag and some that had stars painted on their rear (buttock?) that Hope said looked like a cutie mark, which is the little symbol on a My Little Pony. They got lots of taffy and a few of those dangerous tootsie rolls and then we went back to grandma Verla's house for lunch. We spent a few hours visiting with her and aunt Whitney and Hope gave me a preview of her teenage years with this...

 playing on aunt Whitney's phone.

That evening the girls finally got to do sparklers and Pop-Its. They were concerned about holding a stick that was on fire, but soon got the hang of it and we went through a few boxes of them.

 The people in our neighborhood put on some pretty amazing firework shows. There were fireworks on the streets in front of us and behind us. We couldn't decide which way to turn our heads. Being surrounded by fireworks is pretty cool (and a little scary given that it had been so dry prior to the 4th). After watching outside and being eaten by bugs we moved into the back bedroom to watch for a while more. It was nice sitting in the quiet dark with my little ladies and their daddy watching fireworks that were so close.
What I thought would be a disappointing American Day actually turned out quite wonderful. The only time I saw disappointment in my girls' faces was when they were told they had to go to bed. If Noah would've been here I dare say it would have been perfect a American Day.

The Bosley's

Autumn and the boys got to come to Utah for a couple of weeks for a visit!



 

Las Vegas With the Maxwells

This past weekend Ben's brother, Ian, celebrated his 21st birthday in Las Vegas and Jeff was generous enough to make sure we were there to celebrate with them. The girls have never met their aunts Amanda and Emily. They only met uncle Ian and Grandma Patty once, and they always love to see grandpa Jeff, so they were very excited.

We drove, which we were a little nervous about with Hope and Eden, but they did surprisingly well. There were no complaints from Hope and Eden only had one real outburst on the way there and one on the way back. We were thinking they might sleep for at least a couple of hours, but no one slept on the way there (besides mom cause I was sick and yes, okay, driving makes me sleepy) and Hope and Eden took only a short nap on the way back. Noah had some new books to read so he was fine...until when we arrived home and he learned that he had to get back in the car and drive another hour and half to Grantsville. He was pretty upset about that.

It was dark when we got there so Las Vegas was quite a sight as we drove up to it. The kids were amazed at all the lights and the cool buildings. Then we got to the strip and pulled up right behind a driving billboard with three fully clothes women who wanted nothing to do with anyone being advertised. Imagine the extreme opposite of what I described and then imagine my horror of having my 11 year old son in the back seat. The spiritual assault of the city was pretty smothering until I was talking with Ben about it that night and realized that I just can't let all the bad stuff get in the way of all the good and that it is better for our children to be exposed to this kind of thing with us (so we can talk with them about it), than being exposed on their own or with their friends. Amazingly, the only thing Hope had a comment about was a guy dressed up like a Transformer on the side of the street to which she said, "They have weird people here." Of all the drunken half-naked people surrounding us, she chose that to focus on. Thank goodness! Noah had more of a problem ignoring the "sin" part of the city, but hopefully when he looks back on it, he will mostly remember family and a lot of cool buildings.

The kids thought our hotel room was awesome cause it had hide-a-way beds and two rooms. They ran around till dad decided to be a party pooper and told them to stop. 

The next day, Eden found one of her favorite things about Vegas - the complimentary soap. She carried around till she unwrapped it and I took it away, then she was off to find another...which she did...several times.

When the girls met Amanda and Emily they both became really quiet and just stared with smiles on their faces. I could tell they thought their aunts were beautiful. Right away Hope seemed to want to make up for lost time and be around them as much as possible. She held Amanda's hand for quite a while, walking around the hotels and asking her LOTS of questions.

Aunt Emily and Amanda were both great sports about it, and it was nice to see the girls getting to know more of their family. Hope was very impressed with Grandma and Grandpa's hotel. It had beautiful gardens with ponds full of huge Koi and some flamingos!!! All day and the next morning Hope kept saying she wanted to go back to Grandpa's hotel.

*Grandma Patty, Grandpa Jeff, Noah, a flamingo, Hope, Eden and Daddy*

I know what you're thinking, "Wow, she actually posted a pic with her in it...and her eyes are closed." Well, if I were going to be picky I wouldn't have posted it cause of my ginormous rear, not the closed-eyes...but I need to just get over it. Besides those points this is a very cute picture of my beautiful little family. Eden was trying out some funky new camera faces that day, as you can see.

There was also a big bird cage inside with parakeets in it that the kids thought were cute. One of them tilted it's head all the way over to one side and then back again several times looking at Hope. She thought this was adorable. Okay, me...I did, it was freaking precious and when I think about I still want to say, "awww."

In another hotel there was a big fish tank where we stopped to take some pictures.

Eden and Grandma Patty had a conversation about the statue in the water. During this trip we have learned that Eden does not care for statues. The fact that this one was sunken in a fish tank may or may not have helped. We'll see.

I posted this second shot because I LOVE Noah's pose.

In the next hotel we saw gondola's in a big indoor river. Eden loved the boats and kept saying she couldn't reach it.

There's little sunshine with her hair in her face. On the days she doesn't want to wear a barrette, her bangs fall in her face and are long enough now that she has started to chew on them.

Then we saw a beautiful Chinese garden.

It was wonderful to spend time with the Maxwells and get to know them better. We definitely need to do it more. Especially since the girls are saying how much they miss everyone already. Thanks to Grandpa Jeff for making sure we got out there and to Uncle Ian for letting us celebrate his birthday with him. We love you guys!

Hope's 4th Birthday

We celebrated Hope's 4th birthday in Texas this year! It was extra special because we got to have her party with my family that we don't see very often. Hope really enjoyed being around all of her family.

The Decorations & Carousel:

Ben and I put up purple streamers and got a few purple balloons for the kids to play with. Hope thought this was really cool.  Then most of us went to the one of the malls there in Houston where there was a two story carousel. We rode it a couple of times and then walked around and Hope got some cool pink sandals that she doesn't like to wear. :)

The Cake:

Since January Hope has been telling me that she wants a Tom & Jerry birthday cake. Since her birthday isn't until August I thought for sure she would forget and change her mind. No, she reminded me at least once a week from January til the day of her party. Of course Ben and I were going to make one, until we decided to go to Texas. It would've been too much trouble being out of our element and with so much other stuff going on, so I finally convinced Ben to order one. We ordered a Cinderella background and found the Tom & Jerry ornaments at Hallmark. I know Ben was disappointed, but I think Hope thought it was great and she really liked having the little figures to play with after the cake was eaten.

She really only wanted the frosting anyway, which we got to coordinate with her favorite color and the rest of the decorations which were purple. Love her dimples in the bottom pic where she is blowing out the candles.

Presents:

Everyone spoiled Hope with presents and she loved every minute of it. Luckily, we were able to fit it all in our luggage for the plane ride home. Thanks for all the presents!!! I would list everything that she got but I am afraid I will miss something. I will just say that it is obvious by the pic in the top left that she is very pleased with all her gifts!

My happy little Sunshine.

She is already talking about what kind of party she wants for her next birthday. At least she knows what she wants.

Noah's 10th Birthday Party - Zelda

***Let me preface this by saying that I feel a little guilty about posting Noah's birthday (which isn't really until Wednesday) before posting Hope's (which was August 5th). My only excuse is that all her bday pics are on Ben's work laptop and we keep forgetting to transfer them. No need to worry! It is one of hundreds of tasks on my mental "to do list" that is swimming wildly in my head. I'll make the post sooner or later.***

The planning for the party began exactly one week ago. Why? You ask. Simply because I have been so preoccupied that I didn't realize how quickly time was flying and that in order to have a celebration for Noah and his friends it would've had to have been last weekend. First thing I did was get on Facebook and ask for help. "How do I turn Noah's party into a life-size video game?" My ever witty brother soon answered, "Fill his room with bats and have him kill them with a boomerang." Once I finished laughing, I realized that I could do that to some extent; I would just find a pinata. This was the first idea for the party. Other siblings and mommy dearest gave me awesome ideas and called me several times trying to help. I can honestly say that this party would have been a complete disaster or never would have happened if it weren't for my family and Ben. So to them, THANK YOU!

The kids all arrived together, which was both a relief and weird. A relief because they were about ten minutes late and my heart started hurting thinking about the possibility of everyone being a no-show to my child's birthday party. Weird, because....it was just weird that they all showed up at the same time. First, I explained that this was a Zelda themed party and asked if anyone was familiar with the game. More relief...they were all familiar. I handed them each their homemade drawstring bags which contained a compass, a rupee, and an ocarina. Pretty proud of myself for sewing the bags. This was my second sewing project and granted they didn't turn out perfect, they were recognizably a bag. Next the kids told me whether they wanted red or blue potion which was funnelled into an a cool little potion bottle. Brian and Autumn helped with the dispensing of the potion since I was making a huge mess. Thanks guys! They also got a slice of pizza and then they all ate and Noah told them about his many adventures with playing Legend of Zelda.

Once everyone was full the adventure began. I gave them each a Bremen mask which Ben and I made from a mask, a feather boa, spray paint and a sharpie. I think I had to tie just about every one's mask on, as you can see from one of the pics they were having some difficulty doing it themselves.

 The first dungeon was Skulltulah's House. They needed to wear their masks as they ventured through the big spider web so that they could rescue bugs from the web. To open the gate to Skulltulah's house they had to play a song on their ocarina.

Dodongo's Cavern was next. I explained that they would find their power bracelets by killing the bat. Noah went last and after a couple of whacks candy and prizes...and power bracelets went flying!

The power bracelets had to be worn in order to accomplish the next task, which was target practice with bombs at Arbiter's Ground. I filled enough water balloons for each kid to get two bombs and they took turns throwing their bombs at the target (which Ben made to look like the Triforce) until their bombs exploded. One of Hope's bombs was exceptionally strong and survived many many throws at the Triforce. Finally daddy threw it way up in the air and when it fell it exploded and all the kids thought the grass crater that it left was very cool.

I don't know what was so cool about it, or why I felt the need to share the picture of the grass crater, but there you have it.

Caleb also had a resilient bomb. In the bottom right corner you can see Brian showing Caleb how to throw his bomb way up in the air.

The last "dungeon" was City in the Sky. Ben placed boards around the yard and dug a trench in the sandbox. The kids had to collect all the boards and build a bridge across the trench to get to the Triforce (the cake). However, I didn't communicate my intentions well to Ben before he dug the trench and the objective got a little lost. The kids still had fun though and I am just relieved that we were able to pull it off in a week.

Next, we sang Happy Birthday and had birthday cake. I was disappointed with how the cake turned out, but it was a learning experience and when Noah first saw it his face lit up and he said "Awesome!" That made me feel good because I thought it looked like a mess.

Last was presents. He got a race track and a couple of cars for the track, an AirHog rocket, and a Nerf gun with darts. From Uncle Brian's family, Brian's old comic books which Noah thought was amazing and kept making comments about how old they were.

It was a great party and hopefully a very memorable one for Noah. I have decided that these kind of parties will only occur on my children's 5th, 10th, 13th and 16th birthdays. With a big celebration for their baptisms around their 8th....but that doesn't count since it is technically not a bday party. They can have family parties in between and dare I say I am excited for the next "big" bday party. Which will be next August for Hope's 5th birthday! I think I will give myself the entire year to plan and prepare for it instead of just five days. :)

***This picture was after he opened the present from gpa Bosley, a laptop and a wireless mouse from Aunt Cheryl's family and a laptop case from our family.***

Happy Birthday Noah! You are LOVED!!!