Six!

Today William is turning six!! We did most of his birthday festivities yesterday.

 He had a Mario party- hence the mustache.

 William chose to have eggs, biscuits, and sausage links for his birthday dinner. And for breakfast, he requested Cookies and Cream Pop Tarts.

William will also be partying at his school tomorrow. He gets to wear a birthday sticker and bring snacks for everyone. The school requests to spend the money you would normally spend on cupcakes on a book instead to donate to the classroom. William picked out The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and is excited to have his birthday extended for another day.

Happy Birthday to my awesome boy! We love William more than words can say.



Spring Break, WOOHOO!

The week before Easter, William had Spring Break! And break it down we did.

There is nothing like having your little ones in school to make you realize how much fun you have when they are home. I was a little worried that they would only fight the entire week, but it turned out better than I expected. So, we made some plans and did almost all of them.

We made our gingerbread train! We have had the stuff since Christmas and Finally got it finished. William was excited to have it done and him and Lily had a lot of fun with the decorations (and eating some too).

We also painted a birdhouse that my dad had. We were supposed to do it last summer, but that too was pushed to Spring Break. Lily painted the roof and William got the sides. They picked whatever color they wanted. I painted the trim.

 Once it was dry, Grandpa hung it on the tree in our backyard.

We also went to the zoo with some cousins. (Thank you Keaven for the picture I took off of Facebook!)We went to the farm part and we learned about some of the animals there. I didn't know that a mule is a mix of a horse and a donkey. There was also a goat there that had one full horn and a horn that was growing back because she lost it while headbutting another goat. William and Lily loved hearing these stories and were talking about these animals by name (Hank and Brownie) for the rest of the day and still bring them up.

 The kiddies were sad because on Friday night, Matthew had a Young Men's camp out. So, we decided to have a camp out of our own. We...and by "we" I mean "I"... made this little tent. William and Lily watched a movie and had some popcorn in their tent, but still wanted to sleep in their beds. I hung the blanket from the top bunk and both of these little ones slept on the bottom bunk in their make-shift tent.

And last minute, we decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese one day. William and Lily are still afraid of Chuck, but they love playing the games and winning tickets. They actually got like 220 tickets this time. It was a fun trip and they picked some goodies and had cotton candy to top it off.

We were also able to go to the park and go see Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked at the $2 theater. AND we had Easter over their Spring Break. I took them to the temple to take Annual Easter Pictures. I'll have those pictures up soon!

We had such a fun week. I'm sad that it had to come to an end, but I am SO excited to have both of my babies home for the summer. 

The Party

Lily's 5th Birthday Party was horse-themed.

I, of course, was more than willing to do this. It is way better than her original "I want a Sonic the Hedgehog Birthday" to which I lied, "Yeah, I can't find any Sonic party stuff... What else you got?"

I was excited even that she wanted a horse party because I know she loves horses more than Sonic AND what little girl didn't dream of one day owning a horse. It would live in the stables you imagined and you would feed it and brush it's hair and come up with some clever name like, "Dolly" for her. See? I thought about it too.

We had Lily's party on her actually birthday and invited family and only a couple of friends to join us.

We had games like:

 Along with a bean bag toss, horse shoes, and hot potato.

And then she got:

 GALORE! These are only a few, but she loved them and cherishes them all!

To top it off, we had some delicious Publix cake. She chose vanilla cake with Raspberry filling and man was it great! To go along with her horse theme, Lily picked out this horse cake and begged the whole day to play with the horses that go on it.

Lily had a great 5th Birthday Party. She loved having her family celebrate with her and missed the ones that weren't able to be here.

I can't believe that I have two 5 year olds!!

Five, You're so Jive

 Lily is 5!!

 Happy Birthday to my favorite girl in the whole world!!

I couldn't imagine my life without this girl and can't believe how fast she has grown. Her request for birthday breakfast was homemade cinnamon rolls. She is so excited to have her horse birthday party (I'll make sure to post pictures). We'll also be having corn dogs and chips for her birthday dinner. Time consuming breakfast, but oh so easy dinner.

Lily is the sweetest girl. We love her so much.

2 more days!

Til this little gal has her 5th birthday!

I know.. crazy, right?

All About the Green

 So, Happy St. Patrick's Day!! I know that it was on Saturday, but.. well, maybe we had too much fun for me to take time to post these awesome pictures of my kids. All in honor of the green land of Ireland.

 We had green pancakes for breakfast, which turned out great contrary to what Matthew thought. We spent the morning outside washing cars and having the kids play in the sun.

And we topped the whole day off with home made Reuben Sandwiches. We couldn't decide if the sand which was Irish, but corned beef and sauerkraut aka cabbage? Can't get closer to the real stuff. Not to mention it was delish. And just for the record, we did watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People, but it was a week early. We couldn't hold in our excitement for St. Patrick's Day this year, I guess!

Another Book

It has been a while since I have read a new book. Lately, I've been rereading books that I have and take my time because... well, I already know the ending. I ordered Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale last week. Remember? Me and Shannon are BFF's. I love almost all of her books. She's such an entertaining author.

Anyway, I forgot a lot of what comes from buying a brand new book. I opened the package and smelled the book. Yes, smelled it. If you haven't done this, you probably should. There is nothing like smelling the pages and ink of a brand new book! Or opening it for the first time and hearing the crack of the stretched binding.

Okay, I'm a nerd. But I do love those things.

The number one thing that I love about getting a new, never been read before, never seen the movie before book is...... I stayed up until 2 a.m. because I couldn't put it down. I read it in less than two days. It has been years since I have experienced that.

All in all, if you like Austenland, you will like this book. If you like Shannon Hale's humor, you will like this book. If you like love stories, you will like this book.

It is different from Austenland in the fact that there's a murder mystery twist. But, who doesn't like to try to sniff out a culprit? 

If you get the book, I'm sure you won't regret it.