Happy Birthday Big D!

Dallin turned 7 yesterday!  I can hardly believe my oldest is 7!  We had a fabulous day.  The day started with swimming lessons, which Dallin LOVES!  Dallin & Matthew now say they want to be "swimming lesson teachers" when they grow up.  After swimming lessons, we went home and finished getting ready for Dallin's birthday party with his friends.  The party started at 2:00.  A little after 2, when most of his friends were here, the doorbell rang.  What a great surprise!  My brother's wife and their 3 kids were at our door.  It was such a surprise because they live in North Carolina and came to Utah for a visit without us knowing.  It was so much fun to have them come over - and just in time for the party!

At the party, we decorated water bottles, played on the blow-up waterslide, played water balloon volleyball (which the kids loved and didn't want to stop playing), and had a water gun battle.  It was a very hot day, but luckily, some clouds came out and a little breeze came - it turned out to be a great day for a party.

For dinner, Ed met us at Chili's - Dallin's favorite restuarant.  The kids were all so good and loved eating out.  The Chili's "surfers" (as Gavin calls them) even sang to Dallin and gave him a milkshake for his birthday.  During dinner, out of no where, Dallin said, 

"I am so spoiled on my birthday.  Mom & Dad, you spoil me so much on my birthday!"  

That right there made it all worth it.  What a sweet boy!

After dinner, we went home and opened Dallin's presents.  He got the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine, Scooby-Doo characters, markers (he LOVES to color), and the one thing he really wanted - Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii (Matthew was very excited too).  

A little later, some of our friends came over and we sang Happy Birthday and had some of the really cool cake (and by cake I mean 4 box cake mixes and one of my really yummy chocolate cake from scratch - and 3 hours of just decorating the cake - I really like making fun cakes for my kids) that I stayed up until almost 2am making (not complaining - totally my choice and it was worth it).  Dallin was very happy with his monkey surfing on a banana cake.  He even said again, "I am so spoiled on my birthday" and that "This is the best day ever!".  It really was a great day!

Dallin's Birthday Invite

It was Dallin's birthday & his birthday party yesterday.  I just realized I never posted the invitation to his "water" birthday party.  At first I had him talked into a Scooby-Doo party (since my boys love to watch Scooby-Doo).  But, after we went to Lake Powell (which I still need to blog), he had to have a Lake Powell Houseboat party.  I did manage to talk him into a Water/Beach Monkey party (beach monkey because I found really fun beach monkey stuff that worked well for a "water" party).  So, here is the invitation and hopefully pages from his birthday will follow soon.

Black Tie Dinner!

Ed's boss (President of Xactware) was recently nominated for the Ernest & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and invited us to a Black Tie Dinner.  It was such a great night!  But I had tons of fun before the actual dinner.  First, I went shopping with my friend Carol to find the perfect outfit (because let's face it, I had nothing in my closet for a Black Tie event).  We lucked out and found a great outfit the first night we went!  Carol is GREAT to shop with.  Then, the week before the dinner was Ladies Night Out.  We ended up spending a good portion of it figuring how to do my hair and make-up for the dinner.  Then, the day of, my friend did my hair and my friend's Carol & Kim did my make-up - all with several other friends (Angie, Laura, Michelle) watching.  And then, when I went home and changed, they all came over (including Dani) to take pictures and see both Ed & I all dressed up.  I really do have the best friends - no one else at the dinner had so much help getting ready, it was great!  And it was so much fun to spend a night all dressed up and at such a fancy event - even though Ed's boss didn't win.  It really was a great experience!

Matthew - so cute!

This morning, I was trying to encourage Gavin to eat his oatmeal by telling him that it would make him big and strong like his daddy.  It was totally working.  Matthew decided to join in and said:

"Gavin, if you take 13 million more bites, you will be as big as me."

It was really cute.  He just wanted to help his little brother.  He has no idea what 13 million is - he just knows its a lot!

Love this saying!

Boys are God's way of telling you your house is too neat!

Here is a great example of this. I ran some errands this morning and when I got home, this is what I found (and yes, the house was clean before I left):

My house doesn't usually look this bad - but, boys will be boys!  Ed was making them paper airplanes and they were watching them fly by placing them above the fan (that they turned to face up).  They were having a great time - except for Brecken, he was tired.  But really, Ed does a great job of taking care of the boys - he just doesn't worry too much about keeping the house clean as well.

Floor Time

Being the 4th child, Brecken doesn't get a lot of time on the floor - let's just say it isn't the safest place for a little guy.  So, when he does get to be on the floor, he is not the happiest little guy - though he is getting better about it.  Actually, in the last few days, he has lasted a lot longer on the floor and actually liked it.  But, I have been so busy that I haven't taken pictures of it and decided to blog these pictures because I could do it fast (and I haven't blogged in over a week - crazy but fun summer).   Anyway, there is hope that one day he will crawl - but I am in no rush (except that he will be so much happier when he can get to the toys he wants).

Best Big Brother

Dallin is a fabulous big brother.  This afternoon, when I was finally getting out of the shower, I found Dallin putting sunscreen on Matthew, Gavin, & Matthew's friend Josh (Brecken was sleeping).  He then proceeded to get 2 blankets out for them to sit on outside and then got books for him to read to all the boys.  A little later, he came in and got otter pops for everyone.  They all had a great time!  What a great helper & organizer Dallin is!

Coach Pitch Baseball

Saturday was Dallin's first coach pitch baseball game (his first game was really the weekend we were in Powell).  I was sooooo nervous for him but he did great and had a lot of fun.  He got up to bat twice and hit both times.  It is nice because the coach's pitch to their team. Each kid gets 5 pitches and then gets to walk if he/she doesn't hit it and every kid on the team gets up to bat each inning (hence the reason for only 2 innings - as the season goes on, they should have more innings - they get as many innings as can fit into 1 hour).  His game was at 8 am but at least it wasn't hot.  Next week I need to not be so lazy and get up off the bleachers and take pictures from the dugout (or somewhere NOT behind the fence).  This was our first non-t-ball game of THOUSANDS to come!

10 Year Anniversary Trip to New York - May 2008

For our 10 year anniversary (which was actually April 24 but Ed was in Europe for an Executive MBA trip) Ed and I went to New York.  Luckily, my cousins Angela & Cortney were able to come and watch our 4 boys - they did a fabulous job!  We could not have gone without all their help!  Thanks!  You guys did a great job and my boys had so much fun with you!

In the 4 days Ed & I were in New York - we saw and did a LOT! We flew into LaGuardia Airport, Thursday, May 15 around 6 pm at night. Once we got our luggage, we waited in line for a taxi to take us to our hotel, Marriott East Side. One advantage of Ed traveling so much is we got our plane tickets using miles and we paid for most of our hotel with Marriott points. The taxi ride was an experience in itself - taxi drivers are a little crazy, but they know where they are going and how to get there. Once we got checked into our hotel and put our stuff in our very small room (which I am told was pretty big by New York standards), we decided to go walk around and see what was nearby. We had a few things planned for our trip but thought we would play a lot of it by ear. If you click on the pages above, you can see more details.  Here are the highlights of our trip:

* Carriage Ride in Central Park

* Serendipity 3 (we ate there 3 times)

* Today Show (just outside)

* Riding the Subway

* Statue of Liberty

* Ellis Island

*Grand Central Terminal

* Time Square

* Eating lots of Pizza

* Wicked

* Street Festival

* Ground Zero

* Wall Street

* Brooklyn Bridge

* Law & Order Courthouse

* China Town

* Little Italy

* Phantom

* Empire State Building

* Mama Mia

* Tram to Roosevelt Island

* Hershey Store

* Planet Hollywood

Sorry for all the pictures - I tried putting a slideshow of my pages on instead of all 11 pages but I get an error from blogger, bX-vvjlxq.  Everything I can find says their is a bypass to it but no one will tell you what it is - UGH!!!!!

Great Helpers - Sort of!

Today when I was feeding Brecken dinner, Gavin got sent to time-out (a common occurrence these days).  I went to talk to him after a few minutes and when I got back, Matthew was happily sitting in my chair feeding Brecken.  He was so proud of himself.  He said that Brecken had taken 3 bites but was messy.  Yes he was, but not nearly as bad as I would expect.  Matthew finished feeding Brecken the first jar of baby food and then Dallin insisted on getting a turn too.  Brecken wasn't too sure what was going on and why mommy wasn't feeding him but he was hungry enough that he kept opening his mouth.  Dallin & Matthew were so excited to get to help - I might let them help feed Brecken more often.  Gavin wanted to help too so I let him give Brecken one spoonful with my help - he won't get to do it by himself for a while (if ever).

Awesome Daddy!

Tonight, while Ed was transforming one of the Transformers that Matthew got for his birthday, Gavin suddenly said:

"Dad, you're the awesomest!"

What a cute little guy!

Matthew is 5!!!!! (yesterday)

What a fun day we had yesterday for Matthew's birthday!  We were still busy unpacking and recovering from our trip to Lake Powell (which I hope to blog soon but Matthew's birthday was more important) but we managed to have a bunch of our friends over for a bbq (good excuse to use up food leftover from LP and play outside).  Luckily, it was a beautiful day and we had our new waterslide up (which we share with some of our friends).  The kids had a great time.  I didn't get any pictures of the kids on the waterslide - Brecken was having a rough day.  Otherwise, it was a lot of fun.  Matthew is into Power Rangers these days, the Operation Overdrive version so he got a Power Rangers cake.  Of course, he wanted his cake to be the Power Ranger that is different colors - Tyzonn, Mercury Ranger.  So, I stayed up Sunday night decorating it.  It took forever but it was fun and worth it - Matthew loved it!  He got his big present before we went to Powell - the new Mario Cart with 4 wheels.  So, on his birthday he got some fun things from our friends, a new game, and a few Power Ranger accessories (a tracker, walkie talkies, and the Red Rangers sword thingy).  All in all, it was a great day.  Now I just have to finish getting ready for his party that is tomorrow with a few of his little friends - more Power Ranger fun!