It's My Party...

Today is my 34th birthday.  Yikes, am I really that old? Really? Yes, it's true.  I'm just trying to go with the flow.  And if I live to be 100 (as I plan to) then my life is just over 1/3 of the way done.  So, c'est la vie. Anyway, I didn't really want to blog to lament the fact that I'm getting older I wanted to blog about how cute my kids are because as Matthew told me this morning after he apologized for not getting me a gift he said that the best gift he could give me would be to be a good person since I am the one who gave him life. Too true. And so sweet. And Colby sang me "Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday" all by himself.

Then Owen and Rex unveiled this beauty:

 It's a lego creation that they built, h b m, it stands for Happy Birthday Mom!

 Then Gracie gave me her gift, a memory box.

 Dang these photos that won't rotate! Why will some do it and others won't!?

 Leave it to Gracie...

 I can store all my special keepsakes in here.

I feel so loved today, the kids all want me to have a special day, they let me sleep in with minimal interruptions- they even waited so patiently to eat their breakfast since we had donuts and they couldn't eat them without me.  I love these kids, they are my best gifts!

(I'm sad that Kris had to miss all the festivities, I'm glad he went and got the donuts this morning before work.  He has to leave for work at 6:20 and I sure didn't want to wake up at 6 on my birthday, or wake up all the kids for that matter. Love you, Babe!)

4th Fun

Let me just start off by saying I was so depressed that we weren't in Rexburg this 4th of July.  Like majorly depressed.  It's so hot here and I'm so pregnant and I LOVE spending the 4th in Rexburg, I love a small town 4th of July celebration.  So, as dismal as I was we managed to gear ourselves up and have a little fun.  On Saturday evening we went to downtown Mesa to take part in their celebration for the 4th.  They had tons of slides and jumpy castles set up for the kids and I was afraid there would be masses of people but there weren't, and I was afraid we would be melting hot but it really wasn't too terrible, especially once the sun went down.  In the end we managed to have quite a good time.

Here's a prego photo, I haven't posted any so here you go, 38 weeks and counting...

(I can't believe how blond Gracie's hair looks.)

I get so annoyed when I can't get the pictures to turn the way I want them to...

Owen and Colby on the slide.

Rex

(sorry for the crappy photo quality)

Gracie and Colby

The kids had lots of fun on the water slides.

Matthew

We found a nearly empty corner that had a perfect view of the fireworks, it was awesome!  I was really impressed by what the city of Mesa put together.  We were so glad we went.

We love this land!

And I may or may not have promised the kids that we would go to Rexburg next year for the Fourth of July (or maybe the whole month of July, if only I could figure out a way to make that happen, any ideas people?)

Swimming Summer

We've been doing LOTS of swimming this summer, almost every day.  We are very happy to have a community pool in our neighborhood and the kids enjoyed a couple of weeks of swimming lessons where they each improved greatly on their swimming skills.  We'll have them turned into Arizona water babies before long.  Every Friday after the summer movies we've been going over to the Bergen's for a little swim/pizza party.  This particular Friday happened to be the week of Rex' and Ren's birthdays.

 The newly three and five year olds and almost all the cousins (who live here).

 Everyone enjoyed the cupcakes Kindra made (I probably could've eaten 5)!

Then we called cousin Mia in Idaho to wish her a happy birthday since it happened to be her birthday on that very day.  Wish she could've been here to help us celebrate!

Number 5 is Alive!

Rex turned 5 in June and he was pretty excited.  I love my little Rexy and I'm really sad he's old enough to be in kindergarten now, I hate how fast time flies.  He's lovable, fun, friendly, laid back, sweet, and smart.  He especially loves anything to do with numbers.

Enjoying his birthday donut. (They get their love of maple donuts from their dad, yuck!)

We celebrated with a little family party at Chuck E Cheese's, as you can see he was pretty excited.

We were glad Granny and Pops could make it.

He seemed more excited to get this water gun from Gracie than to get any of his other presents.

The boys.

The kids raked in the tickets, apparently they found a game with a glitch and scored a billion tickets. More than they've ever had before, they had lots of fun picking out their prizes and the guy at the counter was super nice and patient :).

The big present. Maybe once summer is over he'll get a chance to actually ride it.  (Kris and I have this thing about bikes, in Arizona you get bikes for Christmas because it's perfect weather for riding. In Rexburg it doesn't make any sense to get a bike for Christmas because you won't be able to ride it for another 4 months. And it looks like Rex shouldn't get a bike for his birthday in AZ because it's just getting hot enough that you don't want to be outside anymore unless you're at the pool, lesson learned.)

The birthday cake. It was a store bought ice cream cake and I thought it was pretty gross, another lesson learned.  At least the kids enjoyed it.

Happy 5th birthday Rex!

Last Day of School

The kids had their last day of school on May 26th. Which I was so grateful for because by this point I was just flat out exhausted from all the end of the school year festivities (it didn't help being 7 1/2 months pregnant). 

Here's a pic of them on the first day of school.

And here they are on the last day (just to see how much they've changed). Funny, Matthew's wearing the same shirt. I think Colby's changed the most!

Matthew graduated from elementary school.  Which to him was kind of weird since he took a step backward when we moved here, he'd already been to middle school last year and had to go back to elementary school.  Poor Matthew.  But, onward and upward to junior high.  Eeek! Do I really have a 7th grader?!?

Way to go Matthew! It was a difficult year as far as moving and adjustment and change but he survived and his grades were awesome! 

He had an excellent teacher, Mr. Monette.  He did a lot to help him survive the year.  He is a teacher who goes the extra mile and really cares about his students.  I'm so glad Matthew had him for a teacher this year.

Rex and Colby had a blast at the end of the year splash party for preschool.  They played, played and played some more in the water with all their school buddies and cousins.

What a crazy year!  It was just a relief knowing that we had all survived.  I'm so proud of the kids for being so strong and doing so well in school in spite of all the changes and upheaval in their lives.