Happy Birthday Phoebe

Today is Phoebe's birthday and I had her party. 11 little girls came to get wet on the blow up water slide and do lots of fun crafts. I can honestly say that I have never thrown a party where I ran out of time to get everything done before it was time for the parents to pick up their kids. Today I managed to be just getting to the blowing out of candles when it should have been time to end things. It felt a little rushed at the end, but we got through everything and everyone had a great time. We made water balls out of sponges, painted ceramic ponies, made giant paper flowers, and did some fun art with a salad spinner. On top of all that we also had the waterslide, lunch, and a cookie cake. I had plans to make this really cute mermaid cake, but Phoebe really just wanted a cookie cake instead. So I made my life easier and bought the frosting covered giant cookie at Target last night. Now Phoebe is 7. Wow, I can hardly believe it! Thank you to everyone for coming and making Phoebe's day so special.




Granny, Phoebe is so excited about the book and love the necklace! Thanks soooo much :)
You should have seen Phoebe's eyes when she was opening the box sent from Nana and Papa all the way from Korea. She was the most excited to open this present and was not dissappointed. It was full of goodies and this cute korean doll. Thank you soo much :)

Her new bike that she needed so badly since her other one is waaayyy too small. I cute little beach cruiser.

Our Weekend at the Lake

We spent this last weekend camping at the lake with 3 other families. It was over 100 degrees every day so to keep from dehydration and serious grumpyness, we rented a pop-up camper trailer with some cool A/C. This is sooo my kind of camping! We spent Friday evening and Saturday on the boat having lots of water fun and at night, after roasting some mallows and making smores, the kids went to bed while the adults stayed up and got really tired. It was a great weekend and was nice to get away and get the kids unplugged and have family time. I was really proud of Ethen for getting all the fishing stuff together and catching a fish all on his own.
He was sooooo happy to come show me his catch. I am pretty sure that will count to pass off a scouting merit badge or at least an arrow point :)! I was also so proud of Phoebe for getting on the boat and even taking some rides. It was her 1st time back out after splitting her chin open. SHe brought all her nail polish and lotion and painted almost everyone's nails and gave foot massages. Much fun was had by all :)

Trailer Camping Weekend at the Lake

Video For Your Entertainment

Get ready to Celebrate

If you can't be here to celebrate Phoebe's birthday with us on July 30 then go and have a slice of cheesecake where you are! And I hope you are close to a Cheesecake Factory :D

Celebrating “30 Delicious Years,” The Cheesecake Factory is serving up several sweet initiatives throughout the year. To kick-off the anniversary celebration and in commemoration of National Cheesecake Day on July 30, The Cheesecake Factory® restaurants will offer every delicious slice of its more than 30 varieties of cheesecake with a dollop of nostalgia by featuring all cheesecakes at $1.50 per slice, limit one per guest, on that day—as they were when the restaurant first opened in 1978. In addition, a special, limited edition cheesecake, the 30th Anniversary Chocolate Cake Cheesecake, will be introduced on July 30 with $0.25 from the sale of each slice sold this year benefiting the national hunger-relief organization.

blooms

This sunflower is the only one that is orange. It must have known I love orange and gave me a surprise. All the rest are very yellow.


Some pretty flowers are in bloom now! The best of which is the little ones who reseeded themselves into my flower bed from a pot I had some planted in last year. I just love a flower that wills its way to life :)

Groovy Man

Over the weekend my friend threw her husband a birthday party. Since he was born in the 70's it was a 70's theme. It was so fun to get dressed up funny and just hang out and play games. Scott wasn't able to make it since he was on a scout campout, but I went anyway and it wasn't too akward without him there. I wasn't the only one who had to go stag for the night. Great job Gina! Great food, great times :)

Pedicure

Phoebe's BFF will not be in town for Phoebe's birthday and somehow talked her mom into taking her and Phoebe for pedicures. Phoebe has been talking about it nonstop and sooo looking forward to going to an actual salon to get her nails painted. It was so cute to have the little girls in the big chairs getting leg massages and picking out colors to paint their toes. Phoebe was in girl heaven the whole time with a grin on her face and watching it intently. She loved how the water was blue in her footbath. I am sad because I took my camera to document the entire event and there was no memory card in it :( So all I have are the pictures of the final product. I am sure she will be asking to do this again!Thanks so much to Dindra and Alise for making Phoebe's b-day so special!
Phoebe wanted a strawberry on her toe and so she got one. It is so tiny, yet so perfect.

My finished product. It was amazing to watch the girl do these flowers.

Breakfast

I started out the morning by letting the kids have mini powdered sugar doughnuts while I enjoyed a yummy classic of an egg over easy on toast. A perfect start to a day, if I do say so myself :)

If I had disposable income I would find a way to have this bathtub, or one of many others from Kasch. This one would fulfill my dream of an endless pool. To see more of their yummy designs go here!

Stitches

Today we were supposed to be at Phoebe's championship swim meet, but her swim career has been cut short due to an accident on the boat on Sat. She split open her chin and we had to take her to get stitches (her 1st). She is so upset about not being able to swim in the final meet. I really think she had a great chance of qualifying for All-Stars too. It was a bad week for this to happen, but oh well. Maybe next year. She was very brave at the dr. through it all and for some reason was very pleased that the stitches are blue. At least it is on the bottom side of her chin and if there is a scar it won't be very noticable there.

What to do in the summertime

This last week we went to feed the ducks at the lake. I saved the old bread ends that no one eats except for me. The kids had a great time throwing bread, chasing ducks and birds, and finding feathers.






On another day we went to our downtown square and stopped at a cute bakery there and I let the kids get cake and cookies filled with frosting. I didn't tell them where we were going beforehand and they were so happy when we got there and were able to pick out a sweet treat.

Our visitor

My little brother, John, came into town this last weekend and spent a few days with us. I must say that I just LOVED having him here. He is so great with the kids and they totally adore him. He would just keep playing with all of them and gave them so much attention. I don't get to see very much of my family since they are spread out ALL over the world right now, so it was really great to have him here. And I also just loved having him here to talk with. We are definately from the same blood, because we can talk about any subject. He is so happy and smiling and it was fun to have a college kid around to make me feel like I am still his age :) Actually it was kinda funny to have him here with my kids. It felt like we were hanging out at our house and I shouldn't have any kids. I even reverted to calling my boys by going through the list of brothers names. Ya know, instead of Ethen and Luke I was starting to say John, James, Nathan, I mean Ethen. That made us laugh because I did it more than once. Funny how that can just come back so easliy. Our first thing was to put him to work helping us in the yard digging a new trench and putting out the mulch. (yes, you don't have to tell me that it is super dumb to mulch in JULY, but at least we got around to it)

Phoebe found this huge earthworm and all the kids had to take a turn holding it.

On another day we all went out to watch Phoebe rock at her swim meet. She got 3 1st and 1 2nd place.

To reward John for all the hard work we took him up to the Lake on a Tue. evening to do a little of this

and get sore doing this

It was a blast!

Tagged

Joys :)
1)happy kids
2)the smell of the ocean
3)quiet
4)when it rains and I don't have to turn on the sprinklers
Fears :(
1)losing a loved one
2)speed
Goals ;0
1)raise happy, good kids
2)start excercising seriously
3)paint Phoebe's room
Obsessions/Collections :o
1)plucking my eyebrows
2)orange
3)blogging
4)plants
Random surprising facts ;0)
1)I can wiggle my left ear
2)I am left handed, but play most sports righty ( I think tennis is all I do lefty)
3)my feet have grown almost a 1/2 shoe size with each pregnancy

Ethen's self video

Body Painting

This is what happens when Luke is left to paint pictures by himself. I guess working with the paper wasn't a good enough canvas for him and so he thought painting himself would be more fun. I went to see how things had come along (and I was being intellegent this time and had him outside ) and he was looking at me and just said, "mama I need to take a bath." I think he was worried that I was going to get upset with him and just thought it would be better to admit that cleanup was going to be necessary. At first I didn't even see the nice job he did on his stomach. I must say he did do well in getting all the colors on him! And deep inside where my child mind still hides I thought that it looked like a lot of fun :) As a side note, yes I do let him run around the house in just undies quite often. It makes for easier potty time and hey it is summer.

Happy Birthday to Nathan

Happy Birthday to my oldest brother today! I always feel like we're celebrating your B-day on the 4th even if we're not together. You make me laugh like no one else :)

Happy Birthday to James

My baby brother is 21 today! Wow, that makes me really old now :( He is in L.A. on his mission and has only 3 weeks left. That went by fast for me. I bet he's been missing doing things like the above picture for the last while :)

Ethen Wake Surfing