Cierra's 9th Birthday

Cierra is now 9!  I can't even believe it!!!  Kids grow so fast, I hate to even blink or I pass a new milestone for them.  Cierra is so fun and happy but I think she's heading toward those pre-teen years because she is getting to be quite emotional.
She had a fun birthday, grandpa and grandma christensen came up and she got Zhu Zhu stuff, Bill, the kids and I gave her the green chair she's sitting in, the skateboard and the Barbie with a bike.  Grandpa and Grandma McCammon gave her money and she bought spy gear night vision goggles and a mood ring from the toy store.  Since we were going to have a party for her we made mini brownie cakes and had ice cream. It was a good day!!!

For her Birthday party with friends we couldn't resist the Spy Party theme!   You may look at the pictures and think wow, but it looks way better on the blog!!  Parties for my kids never turn out the way they seem like they should in my head. Bill say's I plan and expect 120% kids only expect 40% and I delivered 80% so they got more than they expected so be happy.  It just seems like the activites will last longer than you thought or the ones you thought would be fun are a huge bomb!!!!  

What cute spies in their hats and glasses.  I took these pictures and made spy ID wallets with a little getaway money!!!  When they got to the party we had a bowl that had nouns and one with adjectives and they drew out one of each to get their spy name.  Cierra was Green Headband!

Here are the invites, they didn't work out as well as planned.  It explains the Mission on the front but for details you had to turn it over and scratch off the stuff to reveal the details (where and when) of the mission.  I found  a cute idea online making your own scratch off cards, and it worked great for us when the paint was dry but after it hardened apparently it didn't scratch off too good.  The idea is here.  Its calls for 2 to 1 paint to soap maybe I really should have added more soap. Oh well.

Got the idea for the cake here, Abbie and Hailey were the decorators.  I think they did a stupendous job for their first cake!!!

One of the game ideas was making a Laser beam challenge This was the original idea but this below is what we ended up doing.  The kids played it outside while I was hurrying to make the wallets, they didn't play in it very long,but the big kids said that the girls had fun. 
They played another spy kids game, but I don't have pictures of that.  They then came in a found that the presents the kids brought had been STOLEN!!!  A ransom note was left in their place so I issued their spy bags so they could donn the gear and find out where they were stashed.  They then followed clues and carried out tasks to figure it out.

Striking a crazy pose while searching for the gifts.

Found them hidden in the bath tub in the basement...they made a great team....what awesome spies!!!!

Cierra then got to open her gifts...Thanks everybody for the gifts she loved everything!!!!

Our repose of blowing out the candle!!!

What a great crew, we are so lucky and feel so blessed to live in such a great place where our kids can have such great friends who live so close by!!!  We love it here!!!!   Happy Birthday Cece!!!!

Jesse's 17th Birthday

It shouldn't be something I think about, but it is! He's 17 which means almost 18 which means almost 19 which means he leaves for his mission!!! OH MY!!!! I love to watch my kids grow, I've never wanted them to stay little forever, I have loved my journey of growing and its exciting to watch theirs, but....he's almost gone! Its April not November when I am posting this and we've been watching conference and the question by a speaker arose "Are we ever finished with our responsibility of being a parent", my answer is maybe the part you play in their life is smaller but you never stop being a parent....loving, caring, worrying, wondering, teaching....its always there. The never ending questions of have I done enough to prepare him temporally and spiritually to live in this world, to survive and survive well, to be happy, work hard and be successful??? He's growing and there is nothing I can do about it....except love him, and I do love him. He is a great kid, he is a testament that parenting is not the reason kids turn out the way they do, its temperament and desire on their part. He is inherently good....a bit bossy but still good!!! Happy Birthday Jesse, I love watching you grow from boy to man, I can't wait to see the man you'll become!!! Jesse decided no cake this year instead he wanted pie, so pumpkin and cherry pie were his choices. No present from us at this point, it came earlier this year in the form of very expensive golf clubs! Grandpa and Grandma Christensen were able to come and enjoy it with us!

She's Eleven Now

HaPpY BiRtHdAy!!!! Love you Ab!!! One more year until make-up and shaving!!!! Yikes!!! That is seriously the things she is looking forward to!! If she only knew! She had a small birthday party with 3 of her friends. Making a wish. And when I was decorating Cierra's cake this year, she informed me she wanted to decorate her own cake! Well that's exactly what she did!! When they were done the frosting on top was about 6 inches thick! The Decor!!! This is the kind of cake that makes one want a very large glass of milk!!!

July Recap

The month of July has been a fun one! I have two more posts to do to completely catch up, but here is a brief recap of our month. Cierra's best friend has a luau party for her birthday and Cierra really wanted a coconut bra and grass skirt. Jesse decided to be the man and find one for her. They looked at the dollar store and found the skirt, but no bra. So he made one! He found these black bowls 2/$1 and sawed the legs of the bottom, drilled holes for the string and spray painted them brown. (By the way did anyone know its illegal for anyone under 18 to buy spray paint?) Any way they turned out great, he made some for the birthday girl because we thought she didn't have any turned out she did, so there was an extra pair! Anyway isn't she cute!!! This fourth of July for the fireworks we went to a house down in the area by Melaluca Field. We have a friend that has an office in a house down there and went to watch them there. The kids had fun lighting their fireworks waiting for the big moment. These turned out alright now I wish I would have had them spell their names! It was an alright spot to watch from, it would have been nicer if there were no trees though! But the traffic was horrendous to get home! We sat in one spot for almost 3o minutes no rolling forward at all! All in all a 5 mile drive took us more than an hour to get home! For those of you who think my husband forgets my birthday every year, this year he did not! He came home with White roses (my fav's in the rose category!!!), and took us to dinner. We went out to Famous Daves, it was alright, but I think I still prefer Texas Roadhouse for BBQ! For the 4th of July I have always wanted to organize a bike parade for the kids in our neighborhood, but I am too lazy. But this year for Pioneer day our ward activities committee did just that. The kids could dress up in Pioneer stuff, red white and blue, decorate a bike or wagon or whatever and join in the parade. It was so cute and fun! In Tremonton where I grew up we had a children's 24th of July parade every year it was the highlight of our youth and something we looked forward to every year! Here is a picture of me, my best friend Kami and my sister Wendy pulling us in our Pioneer garb for the parade! The next few picts are just those of my girls in theirs! Isn't life the greatest!!!!

Cierra's 8th Birthday

I can't believe my baby is 8 already!!! Time sure fly's by! It's has been a joy raising her to this point though. She is a bright light in our life!!!! She is always happy and smiling. She LOVES to laugh and play and have a great time (a bit like her mom I think!). For her life is too short to spend it doing things you don't want to do. She would rather ask for forgiveness than permission, and she's rather hard to get mad at. I think its a youngest child thing!! I am so glad she is part of our family. From Grandma and Grandpa Christensen she got a Toy Story Jessie doll just what she wanted!! Grandma and Grandpa McCammon gave Cierra her favorite things Webkinz. A tiger, the cutest puppy ever and an Amazing Hamster. This year she chose the dog cake pan, then decided what I put on it wasn't enough, so she wrote the stuff on the bottom with a little help from Abbie. Cierra's birthday was on a Sunday this year so it's less exciting than some birthdays, but all in all a great day. She'll get to pick a friend or two and take them to the movies, but no big party. The baptism day will be big enough! She's very excited for her baptism and had a hard time understanding why she just couldn't get baptized on her birthday, I mean she's 8 now right?! We're proud of her for her decision to be baptized! We love you Cierra!!!

Relief Society Birthday Dinner

For our RS Birthday dinner they had a sign up to decorate a table. I had some dishes that Bill's parents gave us that were his great aunts, they were white and blue (Bill was not happy I used them though!) I was talking with my mom telling her I had them and wanted to use them and as we were thinking we came up with a 50's theme. Records, Milkshakes, and Poodles oh my!!! I found these Soda Fountain glasses at the DI. I filled them with Whoppers, and topped them with cotton candy and I found some gummy cherries. I took the picture before I put the straw in but the straw topped it off and I thought they turned out pretty cute. I made these cute bowl out of records (although I didn't think anyone should eat out of them). I bought full sized records at the DI also and melted them in the oven over a bowl then formed them into this shape. I made the record centers on the computer to cover the fact that they weren't albums from the 50's!! I felt like my table was too bare though there wasn't enough oomph! The centerpiece was suppose to be a dessert. I made a two layer chocolate cake with whipped chocolate ganache to put the cakes together and another layer of ganache on the outside that hardens. It was way to chocolaty for me, but it was still tasty...if you had a gallon of milk with it. For the Ganache you use semi-sweet chocolate, but if I make it again I will definitely use milk chocolate instead.

Jesse's Birthday!

I am a terrible mother!!! Its official! Jesse turned 16 on his birthday in November and we didn't even celebrate it! It was a tuesday, which means YM/Scouts and they went to the ice caves up in St. Anthony not to return until nearly 10pm. So no birthday celebration that day, Wednesday Jesse has debate nights at school on those nights, thursday I was at Girls Night, and all day Friday and Saturday was the Joust Debate Tournament at Hillcrest and Jesse was gone. Then Sunday morning bright and early I took Bill to the airport for his trip to China and he was gone until that Friday. Nothing was working out for us, until Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.

Jesse didn't want an ordinary Birthday cake, he wanted Hot Wings, no ordinary hot wings either he wanted his dads famous hot wings! So Jesse's birthday celebrations was hot wings, little smokies and ritz crackers. His gift, well, he didn't get one of those either! (See I told you I was a bad mother!!!) I guess I should say yet. Last spring Bill got tickets for March Madness this year. A ticket for each of them, they were expensive enough we are calling that his gift. Aren't I a bad mother?

The sunday before Jesse's birthday we went down to Utah to see my nephew give his last talk in church before his mission. Bills parent's came over and gave Jesse's his present...Jesse's favorite...CASH!!! And a really cute card. And my parents gave him a couple of golf balls, one was from the US Mint and had $100 in it, they also gave him a little cha ching!

This picture is Grandpa McCammon, Jesse and Grandma McCammon.

We are so lucky to have Jesse as part of our family, he is such a great kid!! Some days Bill and I ask ourselves what line in the preexistence did we have to wait in to be this lucky! Jesse is a normal teen that has his mood swings, but he is inherently good. It is his personality, that's who he is. Bill and I get after him a lot, being the oldest we pick on him probably more than we do the girls to be 'the perfect child', but I really don't have much to complain about. When he's asked to do something he may say no, but he's in the process of doing it while protesting. Maybe he has the Ella Enchanted Curse!!! We love him very much and appreciate all that he adds to our family. It brings tears to my eyes when I think of the few years he has left in our home. We love youj Jess! Yesterday (Sunday) Bill also was able to ordain Jesse a priest. I am just so proud of him!!!!!