Landon's 10th Birthday Party

Yes, that's right....my son is now a full decade old. Double Digits. I'm not sure how I feel able that. :0)

We always celebrate his birthday a little bit earlier in the month because it makes it easier for his friends to make it to the pary. This year we changed things up a bit, though. Instead of the ginormous party, Landon and I decided we would order pizza, and have pizza and cake and ice cream at home and then go to the movies. He was allowed to pick a couple of friends to go with him.

Landon ended up getting a RipStick from us for his birthday....

and a puzzle and frizbee from his friend, and a Wii game from another friend.

Here we are at the theater waiting for the movie to begin. We went to see Planet 51. I hope the boys enjoyed it.

Happy Birthday Landon! We love you so much and can't believe how big you have gotten. Thanks for being such a good kid!

Happy Birthday Mackenzee!

My baby turned four this year. It's crazy how fast time goes by...
Because Mackenzee is obsessed with the color pink, it seemed only fitting for her to have a Pinkalicious birthday party. What is Pinkalicious you ask?

This book is one of Mackenzee's very favorite and she can tell you the whole story word for word. :0)

The storyline is that this little girl eats too many pink cupcakes and ends up turning pink herself. At first the girl is thrilled that she is so pink, but after being diagnosed with 'Pinkititis' she is forced to eat lots of green things to make the pink go away.

Of course this meant we all needed to eat lots of pink cupcakes too. Thankfully, nobody turned pink at the party. :0)
Adara, Mackenzee, Maggie, Meili, Ambree, and Lili

Of course, her favorite part about her birthday this year was that she got a big girl bike. She is now a professional bike rider and, if given the opportunity, will ride off into the sunset. :0)

Happy Birthday Kenzee! We love you so much!

(October 12, 2009)

Happy Birthday Alina Mae!

Alina...I can't believe you are four years old already! You have gotten so big!

Thirty, Flirty, and THRIVING

So, I had a birthday even though I told everyone that I wasn't going to have one. :0)
But, I must say that I have some pretty wicked awesome friends and family. Friday night I had plans to go out with my friend, Montay, for a fun non-birthday dinner. While eating some fabulous pasta at Tomato's we decided it might be fun to go to the movies afterwards. Well, instead of driving to the theatre, Montay started to drive me out to the country. She swore we were going to go to Jackpot and that her hubby, Rob, and Jaysen were already in Jackpot waiting for us. {That was my first clue that she was LYING!} But, I went along for the ride. Why not....right? Then, my dear friend, Montay, turned on the EXACT same road that you would normally go down to get to my grandparents house. When I asked her if we were going there she said "Maybe". {Honestly Montay, you are a CRAPPY liar!} Of course, when she turned down my grandparents lane and I saw oodles of cars parked outside their barn I realized what was going on.
There had been an EVIL scheme going on behind my back to make sure that I really DID have a birthday!

This is my "SURPRISE!" picture....look how EVIL Montay's grin is. PUNK!
What happened after that? The DJ showed up and we boogied down all night. Oh....and ate chocolate cake and cheesecake. It was wicked awesome!
My friend, Jenn, drove all the way up from Salt Lake to come and celebrate with me. I haven't seen her in over two years and it was so much fun to shake our booties together again {like in the good old days.....when I wasn't 30}

My grandparents even joined in on the festivities....

Thanks for letting us use the barn!

Yes, we even danced the Macarena. Honestly, I think it has been nine years since I did the Macarena. I couldn't even remember all of the moves....

Here are the slacker boys pretending that they can't dance because they are so ravenously hungry that they must consume mass quantities of MY chocolate cake. :0)

The Jaques family....Amy did all of the decorations. Thanks so much Amy!

Landon has some wicked awesome dance moves......seriously. He danced the night away with me.

Princess Mackenzee even graced us with her prescence. :0) I love how she's got the fork in one hand, but has chosen the more "Proper" approach to inhaling chocolate cake......using her fist.

Ben and Heather Bingham

Who was the mastermind behind this whole crazy thing? My dear hubby, Jaysen. He thought of everything from the chocolate to the cheesecake to the music and dancing.

And babe....I forgive you. :0)

Turning thirty isn't so bad with you around. Thanks so much for putting all of this together for me. I love you CRAZY!

Haylee is 15!

Haylee was just 9 when I first met her. I can't believe she's old enough to drive! It's crazy!

We went over to Jerome to wish her a happy birthday on Saturday night and to celebrate with cake and ice cream.

Mackenzee spilled the beans and told Haylee what we got her for her birthday before she even opened up the present. Sigh.....Oh well. Baby Jeremy was so excited about the wrapping paper and gift box! He kept edging closer and closer to Haylee until she just gave the box to him. He's such a cutie!

Anyway...Happy Birthday Haylee! We love you!

Jeremy is 30

That's right. Jeremy is officially old. :0) We all surprised him when he showed up to eat at Garibaldi's last night. He told everyone that he did NOT want to do anything for his birthday, and he didn't want any presents either. {tee hee} Yeah right! This was a landmark year!

Of course....I'm not having a birthday this year either. And when I say that I don't want a party...I'm not kidding. I'll probably be crying in my bedroom because of the realization that I am no longer "young" and in my 20's. You can send gifts though. I take cash and gift cards. Chocolate is nice too. Especially if you could come up with a way to make it fat free and guilt free. That would be the best birthday present ever!

Anyway....Happy Birthday Jeremy! I'm sorry you had to "suffer" through a surprise birthday dinner. At least you got a great card out of it! :0)

Today is the BIG day!

No, I am not referring to the BSU bowl game that is on tonight....

Today....my baby is OFFICIALLY nine years old. I know I already had his birthday party. We celebrated, we opened presents, we ate the cake....

But, he wasn't really nine yet.

What happened to my baby? :0(

What's even worse....is that this year...my first born child no longer BELIEVES. You know...the "magic" of the season? Yeah....he is officially too "old" and is no longer fooled by the promise of magnificent things as long as he "behaves".

I worry he will start getting too old to want to hang out with his "old" mom. How long before I start becoming "uncool"? If the last nine years has gone by this quickly...will the next nine be quick too? He's halfway to being an "adult"!

I'm going to continue having my little pity party for a while longer....

Just take my advice....

Don't let your kids get OLD like this! Mackenzee isn't allowed. She's been officially grounded from growing up.

Sigh.

Happy Birthday Landon! I love you to the sky! We miss you so much already and hope you have a great day!

Happy Birthday Landon!

Yesterday we celebrated Landon's 9th birthday. Where his true birthday is so close to Christmas it makes it hard to have the party on the actual date. So, instead we have always done it at the beginning of the month. This year Landon chose 'Ben 10' for his party theme. For those of you not aware of who or what this is, I will briefly explain....
Ben Tennyson is a ten year old boy who happens upon an alien watch in the forest. When he touches it, it mysteriously becomes latched onto his wrist and will not come off...AT ALL. Through trial and error he finds that with this watch {called the Omnitrix} he is able to transform himself into 10 different aliens....all with different abilities. Crazy...I know. Landon loves to watch this show. The only problem is....what do you do at a Ben 10 party for a bunch of 9 year old boys? Sigh. After much deliberation with Landon we figured out a few things that he thought were "cool" enough and that I thought were feasible enough.


Though Landon wasn't super thrilled with pin the tail on the donkey...his friends thought it was wicked awesome fun. Brady ended up being closest to the tail and won this ginormous chocolate bar. {Sorry Brady's parents!}
After we were done with that game we played a bit of...."Who Knows Landon Best". Which basically consisted of me asking the guests questions about Landon and whoever got the right answer first won a piece of candy. :0) His friends know him pretty well......When that was done we all gathered around the table for a cookie decorating contest. They each got three cookies to decorate however they wanted. Those with the prettiest, ugliest, coolest and most creative cookies won EVEN MORE candy. Jadyn won prettiest as he color coded his cookies just as I would have done. Gotta love an organized cookie decorator! :0) Cole won most creative as he decorated one of his cookies to look like the omnitrix. He did a good job too! I can't quite remember who won the coolest...sorry. It was a crazy afternoon! BUT....I will tell you that EVERYONE won a piece of candy for the ugliest cookies. Seriously....there were some ugly looking cookies made by these boys. Wow....Pictured here from the bottom left hand corner of the table all the way around are Kaden, Gage, Jadyn, Kaleb, Jesse, Landon, Brady, Noah, Cole, Hatim and at the bottom of the picture here is Rhett. It was quite the group! :0)

After cookie decorating we opened up presents. Landon is now the proud owner of some really awesome toys. He has the best friends a kid could want. :0) He ended up with three Bakugan, a Bakugan belt clip, a Bakugan wrist launcher, a Power Ranger, Nerf guns, a Bionicle, a Ben 10 school set, a Wii golf club, a Lego Star Wars Wii game, a Ben 10 DVD game, a martian making machine, a Target gift card, and a couple of books. Yes...my child is spoiled rotten. I don't even think he needs Christmas now. :0)

After presents we brought out the pinata...which totally bombed as apparently Landon had snuck a peek at which string to pull and broke it open with the very first string. :0( Sigh. Oh well. All the kids cared about was getting more candy anyway.

Then, it was time to sing happy birthday and eat some yummy birthday cake. I made his cake to look like the main part of the Omnitrix watch. Talk about stressful!

But, it was all worth it in the end when Landon bragged to all of his friends how his mom made his Omnitrix cake without ANY help. I was beaming. :0)

Happy Birthday my Landon. I can't believe you are already 9 years old. Where has all the time gone?

And a big thanks to all of Landon's friends! You are all such awesome boys. Thanks for sharing in his big day.