Birthday Party

Noah has never had a birthday since we moved to California. He has had family parties, but never a friend party. This year I finally got my act together and we had the party. Noah planned it. He wanted to play outside, have dinner, watch "National Treasure" and have cake and ice cream. Sounded easy enough until I decided to make a really cool cake for the party.

I envisioned what this cake would look like and then got to work. During the whole process I realized what I should have done differently to make it better and decided maybe I should have stuck to just a square shape cake with frosting on it. When a friend came over and asked what it was I knew I was in trouble. The end result turned out OK and the kids could figure out what it was. Damon laughed when he saw it, but since he kept out of it I didn't care about his opinion.

It was a fun birthday party and I am happy to saw Noah's birthday week is officially over. I am beat today. I am sure my insulin levels are all messed up today due to all the cake that was eaten yesterday. Someone had to eat all the shavings and I was the only one around. I am sure by tomorrow this sugar hangover will be gone, but as of right now I feel horrible. My kids are worth it though.

Birthday!

Nothing marks the passing of time more than your child's birthday. Once you reach a certain age birthdays seem to stop having meaning. When your child celebrates a birthday it means another year has passed. Which in turn means, you are actually getting older as well.

Today Noah celebrated is 10th birthday 10! How did that happen? It honestly feels like last year he was just starting Kindergarten. How time sails by. I wish I could figure out my scanner so I could put some pictures when he was first born. (grrr.)

Noah has certainly has had a long lasting birthday celebration. It started last week at Disneyland. Then it continued today with ice skating with friends, cupcakes with the baseball team and a little family party where he was showered with gifts and phone calls. It will continue tomorrow with donuts at school (the first day back) and lastly a birthday party with friends on Friday.
Ice skating was pretty funny to watch. Only one of the boys had ever been. They all finally figured it out in the end. The boys were all cold and tired by the end. We decided a trip to In N Out burger would warm our tummies.


Damon asked if he thought we were doing a bit much, but to that I say, "You only turn 10 once". Next year won't be nearly as exciting. It's just 11. Happy Birthday to our Noah! We love you!

Not sure what's up with the underlining of the thing. If only I had paid more attention in my computer class in college where we learned how to write html code. (sigh)

Weekend Fun!

Friday night we got together for an adult dinner at a friend's house. Our good friends, the Larsen's, who moved away last year, were in town. We had a great time together eating and laughing. It's just like they never left. The food was so good. Thanks to the Rose's for hosting the dinner. We hope the Larsen's can move back to Zion eventually.

Saturday night, after a day of baseball, ballet and cleaning, Damon and I hit our onDemand channel and watched Sherlock Holmes. It was an interesting take on a classic book series, but we were both entertained. I love onDemand and may never go back to blockbuster again.

Disney Again!

It's surprising, but we actually hadn't gone to Disneyland in almost 2 months. Hard to believe. We did our annual spring break pilgrimage to the Magic Kingdom this week. It was a lot of fun, not to crowded and perfect weather. We stayed at our hotel, the Park Vue Inn, and enjoyed 2 days of fun. We ran into lots of people we knew. Daddy joined us on Wednesday night and the Shoff's met us there on Thursday. Lily did the whole thing with no stroller. Well, almost. She was in Scott's stroller for a little bit. We are very proud of her.

I told the hotel that we were celebrating Noah's birthday and they showered the room with stuff for him. They had balloons, candy, a Disney shirt, and a cake when we got into our room. They also brought us a welcome basket of water, fruits and sparkling apple cider. What a treat! We love our hotel there.

Since our passes are about to expire we had a special treat this time and had lunch at the Blue Bayou. It was a lot of fun for the kids who have never been there. They loved being part of the Pirates ride. They thought it was funny how dark it was inside even though it was lunch time outside.

Daddy surprised the kids by meeting us at the hotel later that afternoon. We went back to CA Adventure and then to Disneyland to ride some rides with him. The kids are way into pin trading right now. It is a lot of fun for them to find pins and trade with the workers. It's kind of funny to watch too.

On Thursday Daddy had to go back to work, but the kids were excited to be at the park with the Shoff's. We had a great time. Adam and Noah were both chosen to be Jedi's at the Jedi training Academy. We had a yummy dinner at Rainforest Cafe and got a Volcano Cake for Noah's birthday. Lily and Scott are finally tall enough to go on the River Rapids. It was so much fun to go on it. We laughed and screamed the whole ride. I ended up soaked. Lily really loved the ride and it was so fun going on it all together. My jeans still weren't dry by the time we got home. We stayed a bit longer than we should have, but everyone went home happy. It's amazing that with two days there we still didn't do all that we wanted to do.

The kids are exhausted, I am exhausted, but we had a lot of fun. It was a good way to end the week.

Busy Bees again

I am so behind in blogging. I am behind in laundry, I am behind in working out. The Easter candy isn't really helping in that category. The front part of the house in always tidy, but the back half, mostly my room, is very neglected. I am never in it until I go to bed and I don't feel like cleaning it. The kids go to school in 8 more days so I figure I just need to hold out til then.

We had some fun this weekend. Friday we bought all the stuff for the Boy Scouts spaghetti dinner. Then we went to the movies and saw, "How to Train your Dragon". It was cute and the boys really liked it. After we got home we tidied up the house a bit because we were having a neighborhood kid party.

The party was a lot of fun. These crazy kids play together every day and organize their events all by themselves. They have nicknamed themselves the "tree kids". We made pizza and they got to roll out their dough and pick the toppings they wanted on it. After that Noah got my ipod out and started a dance party. I was laughing so hard watching these kids make up dance moves like the brain freeze. After that they watched "Phantom Menace". They took a break in the middle of that to have dessert and do more dancing. It was fun having them all over and hanging out. I really hope these kids all stay friends as they start to go through the harder parts of growing up.

Saturday was so busy. We were home for about an hour from 8am-8:30pm. We had baseball, ballet, a baptism up in Redlands and the spaghetti dinner and variety show at church. What a hassle that all was. We are very glad that it is over. Hopefully this next week we can have a bit more down time. (I don't think that phrase is in my vocab.)

Thursday Field Trip

This Thursday took our family in separate directions. Noah was invited by our neighbors to go to Legoland with them today. The rest of us drove up to Anaheim to visit with some friends who were in town from Phoenix.

Kelly and I have known each other since we were 4. We went to the same preschool together. Then we were separated by schools. We didn't meet up again until we were seniors in high school where we both ended up life guarding at the same pool.

So we drove to Anaheim and had lunch at the Reforest Cafe. It was so fun see Kelly's new baby. She has two boys and a girl just like me. We then went back to their cool suite and the Grand Californian. Of course their isn't enough time to sit and chat in a day, but we made the most of it. It was almost like we were back in Kel's family room hanging out and eating ice cream. It was always ice cream. Good times. This time there were more kids running around. It was a good day.

Since we didn't go to the park we did a little shopping. The kids got some disney trading pins and lanyards to hang them on. The love them so much already.

Easter Weekend

With Spring Break/General Conference/Easter all happening on the same weekend we decided to make a pilgramage to Zion. ya right! We drove to Utah to be with Damon's parents for Easter and to attend a session of conference in Salt Lake. The boys, including Damon, had never been. We drove to St. George, spent the night, left Friday for Provo, leaving Lily with Nana, and spent the night and Pookie and Aaron's.

We loved running around BYU and seeing all the new buildings and remembering the good old days. The boys think it is great that they can get Jamba's while on campus. We ran into the boys babysitter from Portland as well as Damon's cousin's kid.
Saturday morning we drove up to Salt Lake to attend the Sat. Morning session of conference. What a great experience that was. It was freezing. We aren't used to anything below 50*F. We ran into friends from San Diego. We also got to be in the same room with the Prophet and all the leaders of our church. It was an amazing experience. The boys were quite done with it after an hour though. They suffered silently which their parents were grateful for.
We met up with Dara and Brian on the way back to St. George. That night we decorated eggs and had some yummy Chinese food. Sunday brought the Easter Bunny, more conference, yummy food and family. Oh and an egg hunt in the back yard. We took the kids on a walk around Nana's neighborhood too. That is always fun.
Our drive back on Monday was uneventful except of the wind and rain. We are glad to be home, but glad we could make that short trip up there.

Look at that face. She is such a poser. Love my Lily flower though!