Grace's Birthday Poster

 I had to quickly add this post ~ Grace made this poster for her birthday to bring to school.  She would NOT let me help her at all because "her teacher said she had to do it all by herself."  

I have to admit.....I wanted to help so, SO badly....and it took all my self control not to draw something on there for her.  I'm so glad I didn't though, because...

 

she did a great job!

These are a few of her favorite things:

 Her favorite food:  Ice Cream

 Her favorite flower:  Daffodil 

(she sounded that out all on her own.)

 Her favorite Magnets

 (she came up with that category all on her own...haha):

Green

 

 Her favorite Vegetable and Fruit:

Pea and Banana

 Favorite Color:  blue

Favorite Video Game:  Mario

 

 Favorite Toy:  My camera  (awww)

Happy Birthday Grace!

Well here's another year.  Grace officially turned 6 this year.  We had a fun day with her, and she got to choose her cake flavor, cupcake or big cake, and even got to choose where we went for her big night.  She opted for Chuck-E-Cheese instead of a birthday party ~ go figure.

Graces very favorite things right now are:
the sweater she wore to school today
reading
playing with friends
chocolate (I should have listed this as number ONE)
riding her re-furbished bike
and just being plain ol' cute.

Here's a photo documentary of her big day.....


Dad always leaves a early-morning surprise for the birthday kiddo's ~ here's Grace's chocolate milk:

Grace's birthday oatmeal (I know, I'm so "hip" it's scary)

Here we are at Chuck-E-Cheese (note the shirt change....it turned out to be too hot for that sweater.  Here's another of Graces favorite shirts)

Grace on the big screen...

Crede doing his best to get some tickets...

Gage was doing some pretty impressive Michael Jackson moves trying to get his shoes back on.  OW!

Of course Dad had to get in on the action....good job Chance, you beat the toddler whack-a-mole game...

Go Gage!!

Look at that slicked missionary hairdo.  Woot woo!

I love this one...

Some more exciting activities our kids enjoyed...

I love this one....

 

I hope you had a great birthday Grace. We sure love you and are happy you are a part of our family!!

uh oh......

It's only downhill from here.

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeee.....

I was officially surprised this year.  Mostly I sneak around and end up figuring out what Chance gets for me each and every holiday.  This year he TOTALLY surprised me.

See a few months ago I found a lensbaby on KSL.com for sale.  I think he was asking around 100.00 or so, so I emailed the guy to see if he'd go down to 75.00.  He said no, and Chance said no, so I let the subject drop.

Well turns out, that my computer-illiterate husband snuck onto KSL.com again, hunted down that ad (which was a huge problem I guess...he couldn't find it very easily) and called the guy back.  He met him in Layton, bought the lens from him, and hid it away for a couple of months.

Can we all say, "aaah!!"  Yep, that's my husband.  I love that man.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the night playing around with it.  It definitely takes some getting used to, and I need to practice a bit more with it, but I LOVE it.  These are 3 of the 200 (okay not quite 200) photo's taken that night with it.

Happy Birthday to me!

My Morgan...

Crede and Grandma...

Lilah!

A little experimenting.....

To be honest, I'm not sure why I took this photo.  I am thinking that I was practicing on my back dialing focus....and needed a "subject".  He's just a cutie, and I just love him!

The end.

Ambulance Chasers.....literally.

 So Chance and I officially became ambulance chasers.  We were just settling down for that long winters nap, when we heard some sirens...they were a little loud, but not too noticeable.  The thing that WAS noticeable was the fire engine that drove by our window with it's lights flashing.  I looked at Chance, he looked at me, and I said, "Well, that's not good."  So we threw on a jacket, locked the front door and ran down the street after the ambulance.  Turns out, it stopped right in front of our good friends home.  

It was really scary to get down there and hope that everything was okay.......and turns out, it was.  They had a fire erupt down in their basement, but LUCKILY were able to put it out before it spread through their entire home.  I'm not downplaying it though ~ the firefighters kept telling them how lucky they were.  They usually don't see this type of outcome from that type of fire.

So there was a little singed hair (that John brushed off into my nostrils) and a few jokes about the fact that they needed to stop home-repairs ~ and everything was okay.

But of COURSE I had to run home to get my camera and take some shots.....a little morbid?  Maybe.  Here they are...

 This purse was the only thing they could grab before running out of their home.  

Crazy!

 

Happy Birthday Morgan!

 Wow.  I really AM getting old.  I can't believe I have a 9 year old.  This year we wanted to shake things up a bit and throw a "surprise party" for Morgan.  The thing is this though........she totally knew about it ahead of time.  It's a good thing that I'm married to the king of "awesome tricks up his sleeve".  Morgan saw an invitation that was taped to her friend's door the week before her party.  (You turkey, Morgan).  So we told her that none of her friends could come, so we had to cancel the party.  The tricky part about this though was that her friends were talking about it at school TO MORGAN (FYI, 9 year olds don't keep surprises too well) saying, "yeah, it's not cancelled, I'm totally coming!".  So we had a few phone calls from parents and had to assure them that "Yes, we ARE still having the party" while telling Morgan, "I don't know what your friends are talking about.  They obviously haven't talked to their parents."

Nice.

So all that lying totally came in handy....as you'll see in the photo's below.  It was FUN.  NEE. 

Morgan's favorite things:

reading

playing with friends (and deciding which to crown the all-coveted BFF)

making crazy faces and sounds

eating cold pizza

and downing any form of sugar given to her

did I mention reading?

Anyway, here are her photo-journalism birthday photo's.  Don't you love the candle in her toast?  Yes, I'm an amazing, creative Mom....I know.  (ha!)

You'll also note her mark on the wall gauging how tall she's gotten, her chocolate milk courtesy of Dad, and her birthday treat she took to school....

Aw...she's happy.

You work it......

The boys helped me out with the cake....

 Grandma even came to visit.  We love Grandma.

She's nuts.  Morgan LOVES those crazy poses and crazy faces....just wait till you see some more below.

He's got rhythm......

Love this girl.

 

 I think she got 3 different tries to blow out her candles, and this was #3.  Hence the exaggerated eyes...

 As Morgan was eating ice cream with Dad, we got ready for the big moment.  As you can see, each and every child was riveted ~ on the edge of their seat ~ just wai........oh nevermind.

 So do you think the surprise worked?  HA!!

 Yep, that's our Morgan

We love you bug!!