Birthday's and Turkey Day!

 

 *This was written way back in November but I couldn't get my pictures to load. I finally sat down and figured it out so it may seem out of context. But I wasn't about to write this post all over again!

 

 

 What a week we had! Lane turned 6 years old. Since he has never technically had a birthday party I figured this would be a good year to have his first. He did have to wait a day because Sunday was his actual birthday. He seemed content with his donut breakfast and presents and a ninja birthday cake at Grammy and Papa's that night. The following day we invited 2 of his friends and cousin Randon to go bowling then eat at Chick-fil-a! It was a perfect party plus no mess at my house so I loved every second.

 

A little Lane info for my journaling sake.

-He has size 2 shoe and size 7 pants!!

-Is picking up on reading and addition in school like a champ.

-Still loves to watch channel 8 in the mornings, even though I'm sure he has seen

 every episode of each show a bazillion times.

-Favorite song on the radio is You Don't Know Your Beautiful from One Direction.

 

 

Sunday night party at Grammy and Papa's

Notice his ninja cake. I am queen of sticking a toy on the top to make it "themed".

 

His party with friend Griffin, cousin Randon, friend Cooper and Rusty!

These boys HOUNDED the chicken nuggets. I was shocked and amazed. I thought they would be more interested in playing than eating. I was wrong. I bought 3 different rounds of nuggets. Even after cupcakes and ice cream cones they were still asking for more food. Boys. Doing Little Caesar's $5 next time!!

Rusty had his 3rd birthday 6 days later. This is one of my favorite pictures of him. Big chunky cheeks and his adorable comb over. It is a mini version of what he looks like now.

His Lindblom cousins were in town so why not go to the park for pizza and playing to celebrate!

No need for a pinata, just drop a box of nerds on the ground and the crowd goes crazy! They were like chickens fighting for little specks of grain.

Later that night there was a gathering at the Goodman's so I brought cupcakes and called it another party.

In between all of the birthdays there was Thanksgiving! I am starting to think this week of November is going to beat out all of the Christmas madness. Mental note, no more babies in November!

We spent this year at Pioneer park. Yep, we are ghetto-fabulous. It was a reunion year with my Grandmothers side of the family. It was fun because all of my out of town siblings were here. Minus missionary David.

I never got any pie on Thanksgiving. Sadness. So the next day while the boys went to the dunes I whipped up four:)

I can't really say whipped. It was an all day baking event and I probably would have been better off buying frozen pies at Walmart as far as taste goes. But I got my pie in the end and that's all that matters.

SOCCER!

 

 

 

Lane played on his first soccer team, the Hot Lava's! He loved every second of it and I am pretty sure this kid will eat any up any sport he gets in contact with. Time to find me the mother of all lawn chairs. I am thinking something that rocks, reclines, shades and comes with a foot rest. And weighs only 5 pounds.

 

You can't see but they are giving the other team some friendly intimidation before the kick off.

 

 



 

 

He literally made about 8 goals every game. He is a very good player!

spirit tunnel

This was the last game and he is receiving his trophy. I had to add this because I want to remember how shy this boy is. He hates public attention. Can we say Casey Jr?

 

It was a great season! Now I can say I am officially a SOCCER MOM!

 

 

Valerie and Jake!

 

 

Casey's youngest sister/sibling got married last week!

There are 7 kids in his family so what an accomplishmet for his parents.

Valerie and Jakes wedding reception was absolutely beautiful.

The perk to being last at getting married is that you are the favorite aunt!!!

When Casey and I got married there were only 2 grandbabies...

 

 

This is probably my favorite pic of the night

 



 

 

 

 

It is kind of fun having everybody in the family married.

A litte fun fact.

        All of Casey's siblings and spouses went to Mt. View...

except ME! The only Jack Rabbit in the house.

They love me regaurdless:)

 

 



TOFW

 

 

I feel like kind of a loser that I have been Mormon my whole life and have never gone to Education Week or Women's Conference. Just EFY as a teenage punk and lets face it, you go to those more for finding and hanging out with cute boys and staying up all night 7 days a week eating fun dip by the Costco pack with your best girlfriends.

 

 

I still haven't made it to Utah, yet but I did get to go to Time Out For Women this past month. My mom is the best and treated my sisters (and Allison) to a fun filled weekend! Our best cousins also came along with us! We had a grand time shopping in Scottsdale then dinner at Grand Lux before the big Friday night kick off of speakers!

 

We even spent the night in Scottsdale. Double Tree has my heart forever. What other hotel supplies you with the best endless supply of chocolate chip cookies?! And then to wake up to a superb continental breakfast which beats out Denny's or Ihop by a long shot?

I even got to share a king bed with me twinner!

With no sleep we were up and at it for the first speaker at 9am.

We ate lunch at TGIF at Chase field and guess who sat right above us, Aunt Carla, Kristin and Ashley! What a coinc-i-dink!

Happy Halloween!

 

 

October Breeeak!

 

 

 

 

We spent half of our October break in, wait for it... Farmington NM! We got the strangest looks from people when we would tell them that was where we were going on vacation. It is not a typical destination place but we were excited to go see Stephanie and Travis' new home! The boys were more excited to see their long lost cousins.

 

 

Before getting in the car I made the boys run up and down the street to get their energy out. Thanks for the tip, mom!

 

 

 

 

We went to the Farmington kids museum where all 6 boys (Lane, Rusty, Collin, Weston, Craig and Casey:) played to their hearts content. Travis had to work or else I am sure he would have been in on the exhibits, too. 

These boys played from sun up to sun down. They have an awesome big backyard and in 60 degree weather why would anyone go inside? I can only dream of a big spacious backyard some day. Group baths is also a must.

Stephanie even got a sitter so the adults could go out to dinner in peace.

The next day was spent in Durango CO! It is only 45 minutes away from Farmington! We hopped aboard the Charlie Browns Great Pumpkin Express. We rode 30 minutes where they dropped us off at the pumpkin patch where we spent almost 2 hours doing all of the festivities. Can we say a kids dream come true!

We got to take home 2 souvenir pumpkins. Rusty had a hard time trying to find the perfect one for him.

I think I might make this for my own house. It is a pool full of corn kernels. A few kernels even made it home with us. They could have played in that thing for hours!

Back to the train depot.

We enjoyed the rest of the day in down town Durango walking into the shops. And riding horse statues.

And getting treats at the Rocky Mountain chocolate store.

And getting thrown into the big blow up Jack-O-Lantern.

 

 

It was such a fun trip. Farmington is actually not all that bad! Of course visiting family makes it better. I loved all of our late night chats. Stephanie making brownies from scratch at 9pm. Not having to break up fights from the boys for days because they were truly entertained by the company around them. It was all great!!

Getting our FALL on

 

 

It is hard to believe that fall is here. Even if we are still swimming . I hear that it should be cooling down soon. I will believe it when I feel it.

 

 Lane asks every day if Halloween is tomorrow. Nope, not quite yet. They both change what costume they want to be on a daily basis. Due to that I will be going to Party City 4 days before October 31st. Not too close to the Halloween Eve crowd but close enough to where they still have things in stock.  Then they can choose if they want to be Spiderman or Batman or the Green Lantern... or a ninja or a skeloton. Pretty sure Rusty will choose what Lane picks. That seems to be the common trend at our home right now.

 

 

I thought it would be fun to have a special Halloween after school snack. It was hard to choose which spooky donut they wanted so I solved the problem. One dozen, please! I liked the pumpkin spice donut the best. I would know because I tried all 4 of the seasonal specials. And when I say "tried" I don't mean one bit. Like more than half of the darn thing.  The jack-o-lantern glaze came in a close second. 

 

 

 

 I felt like a good mom with a plan for once and came home from our festive treat to decorate the tree all Halloween-y. The boys were way diggin it. I never let them help decorate. It drives me nuts. I also very not like (trying not to use the word hate) when they want to help me in the kitchen. When other moms say it is one of their favorite things to do with their kids I know they are lying. So point given, they were very proud of their tree and I'm pretty sure it was arranged about 20 different times throughout the evening.

I never have anything cute outside of my front door so I made this wreath. It didn't turn out exactly how I pictured but oh well. It will only be out there for 2 months anyway.

The big K

Lane started KINDERGARTEN this year! Leave it to me to blog about it a month later. He had been waiting all summer long for this. Seriously. The best part is that uncle Craig is in 6th grade at the same school! That has got to be a weird feeling for my mom. 

We went to meet the teacher the day before where he got to find his desk and color a picture about himself. Can you tell he loves to pose for pictures?

The big day has arrived! He was dressed and ready to go the second he hopped out of bed. Too bad he had to wait a few more hours since he goes to afternoon, half day Kindergarten.

 
He teared up when I walked him to his classroom but his teacher said he stopped the second he sat down. It has been smooth sailing ever since.

And this is how I find Rusty while Lane is gone. Enjoying his alone time with free reins of the remote!