Been a little busy

The crazy started the last weekend of June and has continued through today.  I've done Youth Conference, two birthdays, a birthday 'outing', a birthday party and Girls' Camp.
My mom came from Utah to watch the kids while I spent last week (Monday through Friday) camping it up with the young women in our stake.  I have to say, I love our ward but going as a YCL "mom/leader" is totally the way to go!  It is loads of fun with less than 25% of the work.
Then this morning at 6 a.m. my mom left with two of my kids in her back seat.  They are off on an adventure!  This is their first time going to grandma's house without at least one parent.  We'll see how it goes... for all of us!  They will spend this week with my parents and next week with Roy's parents before A and I will drive down to Utah to join them.  By the time we get back it will almost be time for K to start her Jump Start program (a 10 day early start to kindergarten.  Mostly just to get her familiar with the school and routine of school.  It is only 2 hours in the morning but it was so helpful for D.)  And just like that, summer is gone.
But for now, I'm spending the next two weeks shampooing all the carpets in my house and finishing up a few dozen craft projects that somehow keep getting put off!

Look who turned 3!

 This little girl is the sweetest, most even tempered little person I have ever met.  She has a naturally peaceful and loving spirit.  She loves to " 'nuggle" with her big brother and play with her big sister.  She is everyone's friend and has a kiss for any family member who will hold still long enough.  We are so blessed and happy to have her as part of our family!

Birthday party time!

With two birthdays this week we could hardly be expected to not party right?!  Since the party would actually be on A's birthday and we had a small family party on K's birthday I geared the party more toward A.  She loves Elmo and Sesame Street right now and I've seen some particularly cute SS ideas on Pinterest so I figured I'd give it a try.

Here's what we had for activities:

I can tell you that Ernie's Duck Pond and Oscar's Bounce House were far and above the favorite activities!

I tried to get creative with the food and gift bags.  All the food was a hit, even Oscar the Grouch although I still have tons of broccoli left!

I spent a great deal of time and effort on this party but these smiles are what make it worth it!

JJJUMP

 

 

We have a business in town called J.J. Jump.  It is basically a warehouse with a few giant bounce houses in it.  You pay admission and can jump for as long as you want.  K went to a birthday party there over a year ago and  has been asking lately if she can go for her birthday.  We went today, not as a birthday party but as a birthday week activity.  A couple of friends joined us which just increased the fun!

It is so hard to get a picture of them actually looking at the camera!  They were too busy playing!

I'd say it was a hit!

K turns 5!

My first baby girl turned 5 today!  Hard to remember she's only been here for 5 years and at the same time hard to believe it's already been 5 years.  

We had to have a before and after shot of the cake because someone's big brother thought it would be a great idea to smash everything down into the cake.  K was pretty disappointed that he ruined her cake.  She told him she forgave him though and was pretty okay about it.  I love it when the kids actually get along so well!

She's a fierce one and we love her!

The story behind this shirt is pretty sweet.  D had the idea to make a kitty shirt of K because she loves cats so much.    He asked me for permanent markers, luckily we already had a plain white t-shirt.  He wrote "I learned purrsive today".  He drew a picture of a cat saying, "prrr" and K petting the cat and giggling, "heeheehee".  He was so excited to give it to her!

Outdoor Day

Youth Conference

I have had the most amazing weekend!  The last few days have been awesome.  We had a massive 7 stake youth conference in our area.  There were approximately 1,400 youth that attended a three day EFY style conference.  I was able to attend all the events on Thursday.  It started with a welcome from our Stake President (because our stake was hosting this event) and our Area Seventy, Elder Risenmay; followed by Brad Wilcox.  Awesome.  Then the youth broke into groups to rotate through three other classes presented by Chad Kirby, a popular EFY speaker; a member of our Stake Presidency, Ryan Harbertson; and a local attorney with an amazing story of overcoming adversity, Trent Kunz.  The classes were excellent.  We had dinner before having a variety/talent show.  It was amazing.  Let me just say we have some youth with amazing talents.  There is actually a YouTube video of the entire show but it is about an hour long so you've really got to be dedicated to watch it!
We were hosting youth in our home because some of the youth came from hours away.  We had four great girls sleeping in our downstairs.  We got home late Thursday night but they were up and ready to go to a service project by 7:30 am.  I wasn't able to attend Friday at all.  I just dropped the girls off and picked them up late Friday night after a day full of service, classes, flash mobs, outdoor activities and a dance.   I saw pictures and I know the energy in the gym when I picked my girls up was awesome.  I love being around the youth because of their energy and vibrancy.  Yes, I feel old just saying that!
Saturday morning the youth were able to rotate through 6 Book of Mormon "vignettes".  These were productions of various stories from the Book of Mormon such as Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life, the People of Ammon who bury their swords, Abinidi and so forth.  I didn't attend any of the vignettes but I help on the People of Ammon one for a couple of months before switching to the finale vignette which was the Stripling Warriors.  I wish there was a YouTube video of that because it was so so great.  There was a voice over of Helaman describing his warriors almost verbatim from the scriptures while a spotlight traveled from group to group.  We had a small group of mothers with young children, a small group of fathers "laying down their weapons of war" and a group of warriors that ended with a dynamic display as if they were training for battle.  The capstone of this came when we sang Army of Helaman and 80 missionaries from our mission filled in the stage.  We sang the EFY medley and there were a few other musical numbers which were just fantastic including this one (starting at 3:27) which ended totally improv with Brad Wilcox, Helaman and Moroni joining the young men followed by all the missionaries coming back out on stage again.  I actually missed this one because I was in the dance room helping the children from earlier get out of their costumes!  So sad!
We went to dinner after this feast of spirituality while the stage was set up for.... NASHVILLE TRIBUTE BAND!!  It was so much fun being there for that.  Roy was actually able to attend with me for all of the stuff on Saturday.  We sat back and enjoyed the music.  If you go to NTB's FB page there are a few pictures of our event.  It was a great way to end a fantastic conference.  I feel so fortunate to have been a part of this event in even the small way I was.