The "Birthday Girl"

Lauren has enjoyed the title of "Birthday Girl" for an extended amount of time this year. The birthday celebration started in Texas, where she got a special date with Grandma. Grandma took the birthday girl to Build-a-Bear where Bella, the pink unicorn was chosen. The next day she woke up to pink streamers (nice work, Grandpa!) and was treated to Lucky Charms (Grandpa also made a special trip to the store for those). We celebrated with Phil and Ashlee, whose gift helped to accessorize the beautiful unicorn Bella. To top off the TX celebration, Ashlee had made a very special Build-a-bear cake, complete with a beautiful tiara and gown. Lauren LOVED it! The smile on her face was priceless as everyone sang to her.

Lauren and her pink unicorn "Bella"

Ashlee's Amazing Build-a-Bear cake

Monday was her "real" birthday, as she called it. At the crack of dawn, her little face was right in front of me whispering, "Mom...it's my birthday!" So much for suprising her with breakfast in bed. It ended up being breakfast in our bed, which she thought was pretty special. Then she got to open her presents. She loved her pet hospital!

Birthday Breakfast in Bed

One of the highlights of this day was getting the royal treatment at preschool. Mrs. Hammer gave her a birthday crown, and she got to do some very important jobs, including holding the flag and counting her friends. At snack time, everyone sang to her as she grinned from ear to ear. That night we ate at Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, and had ice cream cake--what a treat!

The Birthday Girl at Preschool

After waiting almost a whole week, the day of her party finally arrived. We decided to do a cooking party, as this is one of her favorite activities. She had a few specific requests: she wanted an obstacle course, each person to have their own cake, and she also had cute ideas about the aprons and the goodie bags, too. This was her first time to have a "friends" party and she helped to plan and host it just like a pro! Here are a few pictures of the fun:

The cute little hostess
(Natalie helped me make the aprons--
In other words, I pinned, she sewed! She's amazing!!)

Cute Birthday Friends

Lauren's "obstacle course" included blindfolded popcorn scooping!

Decorating her own little cake

Making a Wish!

What a fun week (or more!) of celebrating our little princess. Lauren is truly a blessing to our family. Her kind, loving heart and cute personality really add sparkle and sunshine to every day. Among many things, we love that she likes to be helpful, is concerned about others, and makes friends easily. We know this year is going to be a great one for her!

Spring Break, Texas Style

Spring is one of the best times to visit Texas, and this trip had been a long time coming (2+ years) which made the visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house even better. Here are some highlights, in (a ton of) pictures, of our wonderful, power-packed trip to the Lone Star State.

Just like old times... A Welcome Home Cookie Cake!

Easter Egg decorating and cookie decorating with Aunt Ashlee

The (early) Easter morning egg-hunt

A thunderstorm was threatening, so as you can see, our first priority was finding eggs,
not cute outfits or hairdos for pictures.

A quick getaway with Brad to San Antonio

My cute cousin with her cutest twin girls, The Alamo, the Riverwalk, setting up for the Glenn Beck Tax-Day tea party, too bad we had to miss all the action!

Trying to get pictures in the bluebonnets

This was not our best photoshoot. Andrew just stomped around the whole time.

Having more fun than humanly possible
with G&G while Mom and Dad were away
at Oil Ranch and the Blue Bell factory.
(Yes, that is Andrew riding a horse!)

Visiting the Space Center
Caleb got to help with the "Life in Space" demonstration

What a memorable trip! Although we packed in lots of fun activities, some of the best times we spent were just being at home in the evenings with Phil and Ashlee and Todd and playing games and chatting. Brad happened to mention that we should make it a Spring Break tradition, and I think Mom and Bob are going to hold him to it! We love Texas!!!

Birthday Weekend

When we celebrated Brad's birthday a couple of weeks ago, we called it, "Birthday Weekend" because we celebrated for three days. Caleb asked if we would celebrate his birthday for as many days, and I told him "probably not." Little did he know that his birthday would be celebrated for even more days--starting with his April 1st surprise party! It was a bit of a test of endurance for me, but definitely a fun Birthday Weekend for our cute eight-year-old....

On Friday, he got to share his favorite homemade oreos with his classmates after they sang to him at school.

(Just imagine a picture of cute Caleb beaming while his friends are singing Happy Birthday!
Unfortunately I had one of those dead battery moments--grrr!)

Saturday morning he had breakfast in bed...
Then he opened presents...

And then he went to his baseball game ...

(he got the game ball for great defense and two awesome hits--one into the outfield!)...

Then he chose Red Robin for lunch...

Luckily the singing servers didn't embarrass him!

Then he watched General Conference at home...


And finally that night he finished his "Feature Creature" project (He chose Meerkats)...

(too bad we didn't document this cute project, he worked so hard and did a great presentation!)

On Sunday he got to eat his favorite Angel Food Cake with family and friends.

Whew! This was a whirlwind of a birthday, but what a great excuse to stop and celebrate (and spoil) this cute guy. He deserves it! We sure love our Caleb.

April Fools!

Caleb turns eight on April 4th. He was so excited to get to have a "friends" birthday party this year. We decided to have the party at Super Franks on Saturday, April 4th. He was excited about having a party on his ACTUAL birthday. Little did he know, we were planning a little April Fool's prank for him this year. When he got home from school on April 1st, I explained that Lauren and Andrew were at Natalie's house, so we needed to go pick them up. He reluctantly got in the car, and brought a book along after I told him we were going to make a couple of stops. We went to Michaels for a minute and then I drove to Super Franks. He was still reading, and completely oblivious to anything. When I told him we needed to run in there for just a minute, he got out of the car, not even realizing where we were. When we got to the door, he asked, "why are we at Super Franks?" I told him we needed to check on our reservation for Saturday's party (we didn't even make reservations for Wednesday's party, but he seemed to buy it). As we walked in and started looking around, I walked towards the arcade and saw the party set up, but no one was there. Then we got closer, and his friends and Dad jumped out from behind the table shouting "April Fool's!" "Surprise!" "Happy Birthday!" They were perfect! I wish we could have captured Caleb's expression. His face went white, he looked weak, and he seemed just shocked and confused. Then he asked, "My party's today?" and I joined in the chorus of "April Fools" and "Surprise!"

The boys went nuts, running around and jumping on Caleb. At last we got them to join us at the table, telling them they had to play a game in order to earn tokens. The game was "Fool or Fact", which was a little quiz about Caleb and his favorite things. Caleb read the questions and the kids held up cards that said "FOOL" or "FACT" depending on their guesses. They took this very seriously and Caleb was a strict enforcer of the rules.
Here a sampling from the quiz...I thought I would stump them, but they actually got most of them right.

April Fool or Fact?

• The first rank in boy scouts is BOBCAT (Fact)
• “Be prepared” is the scout oath. (Fool)
• I don’t like ice cream. (fact)
• The Pokemon “Horsea” can use its black ink to draw pictures or issue warnings (Fact)
• Mace Windu’s lightsaber is purple (fact)
• In the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a robin leads the children to the beavers. (fact)
• This party is the best April Fool’s joke anyone has ever done on me! (fact)

There were about twenty of these. Caleb did not like the last one! When the game was over, I pretended to tally the scores, and then said, "April Fool's, you all get 25 tokens!" We doled them out to help them stretch out the fun, but one boy burned through the first allotment in about 45 seconds flat.

The boys played lots of games, and we basically had the place to ourselves, which made it easy to keep track of everyone. They golfed in the neon jungle mini golf course (lit by black light so everything glows). Since they were the only ones there, they got to play each hole a few times and didn't care much about playing the right way or keeping score. Once the balls started flying through the air, I could tell it was time to move on to the next activity, so we went downstairs for food. They gobbled up the pizzas and then played more games until it was time for presents and cake. One boy tricked Caleb by wrapping a rock. The look on Caleb's face when he opened it was priceless. He also got a present wrapped in toilet paper!

For the final April fool's gag, we had hot dog and pizza cakes--I thought they turned out pretty realistic, even though they were made with twinkies, frosting and candy. Caleb tried to blow out his candles on the hot dog cake, but of course they were "trick" candles--haha. Before I knew it, the boys got into their goodie bags and started playing tricks on one another with squirt rings, chewed up "gum", fake bugs, etc. They are at the perfect age for this kind of stuff. I was so happy we pulled off a fun April Fool's party for our Caleb, who loves to play jokes and tell jokes. Happy April Fool's Birthday, buddy!