Party Time!

Abbie had her first birthday party this year. She was so excited. She declared that it was her turn for breakfast in bed and choose her favorite, sugar pancakes (crepes). It was so cute when she woke up. She starting singing, "It's my birthday, yah! I get breakfast in bed. It my birthday!"


When Terry was cleaning out the attic at work he found some old tickets, and was able to give them to the kids. Some of the tickets were pink, which is Abbie's favorite color. She decided she wanted to use them for her birthday party. We set up the party like an arcade. You could earn tickets at the different stations, and cash them in for prizes at the end.

The first station was decorating bags. They used the bags to hold their tickets, and put the prizes in.

Than we split up the kids in two groups and did the other stations. We had pin the belly badge on the care bear, belly badge walk, decorating cookies, and making spider suckers.

After the activities Abbie got to open her presents.

This is Abbie's cake. She loves Care Bears, and wanted a Care Bear cake. We went on-line and found this fun cake to make.

Abbie with her cake. While we got the cake ready, the kids got to go and cash in their tickets for prizes.
Abbie wearing a cute hat she got for her birthday.

Soccer

Riley had fun playing soccer this year. It was a beautiful season for it as well. There were only two games that it got cold, and one of those was an evening game. We enjoyed watching him. My favorite time was when he was playing goalie and would start screeching every time the ball would get close to the goal. He is such a character. The scariest moment was when I dropped Riley off by the field he was playing on, and than went to park the van. By the time I got to the field Riley was sitting on the side line with an extremely pale face. He looked like he was going to pass out. I asked him what happened and he said he fell and hurt him arm. I was afraid he had broken it. I had him hold his arm up and it looked good. He could make a fist, but had a hard time holding his water bottle. I had him sit there for a while, and put ice on it, until he started feeling better. He finally went out on the field and played the last half of the game, but was still favoring his arm. I kept an eye on it for the next few days. It did get better. I believe he hyper extended it, because he was saying it hurt right at the elbow. He is doing fine now.

Don't you just love this picture. It was so cold that Riley decided to use the camping chair covers to keep his legs warm.

Suprise!

I had the most wonderful surprise a couple of weekends ago. My mom and dad decided to come down for Abbie's birthday party and didn't tell us. I had gone out Saturday morning to do some last minute shopping for Abbie's party. When I was driving back I saw a car in front of my house and wondered who it could be because the party wasn't until the afternoon. Than I saw the license plate and realized it was my parents. I started crying and had a hard time parking the car. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to see them. The kids loved having grandma and grandpa there. Not only did they get to be there for Abbie's party, but they got to go to Riley last soccer game. It was such a fun day for all.

The kids sitting on grandpas lap at Riley's soccer game. They sat on grandma's lap as well, but for some reason I didn't get a picture of that.


Grandma helping out at Abbie's birthday party.

Phase 4

Science Experiments:
Riley found all these fun books at the library about science experiments with little kids. We planned to do at least one experiment a week during the summer, but ended up only doing a couple. Hopefully next summer we can do better.

The traditional volcano experiment. Riley choose this one.

Died flowers. Abbie choose this one. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the finished product.


Hiking:
We went for a fun hike up at Bennington Lake. Than we tried out our fishing poles again. For some reason I didn't get any pictures of us fishing, but I got plenty of us on our hike.

Picture of Riley taking a different trail than the rest of us. Riley has been wanting to go off on his own and explore more often. I know that I need to give him his space and let him, but it is so hard to let go.

Love this picture Terry.

The little girl in this picture is one of my day care kids.



I feel like my house looks messy in almost all of the photos I post. This is proof that it is clean at times. My kids, especially Abbie, love to vacuum.

Phase 3

During the summer we had fun visiting our family. There are so many wonderful pictures to share that I am putting in slide shows.
For the 4th of July we spent time with the Bott family. It was wonderful spending time with my family and seeing friends. It doesn't feel like the 4th to me unless I am in Malad. I know that it is because it is what I am used to. This 4th of July was a little different because it was so cold. We didn't have any pants. Luckily we had some jackets, but it was still so cold. Regardless of the wind we enjoyed ourselves. We went to the parade and traditional western shot out and than enjoyed lunch with my family. The kids got to go to the farm with grandpa and I got to spend time with my mom and sister Beverly.



After the 4th of July we went to Terry's parent's house and enjoyed time with them. We got to do some fireworks and celebrate Ethan's(our nephew) birthday with him.


Terry and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary this year. I can't believe that it has been that long. I love my husband more than ever and appreciate his patience and understanding with me. We had the opportunity to leave the kids with Terry's parents for a couple of nights and go the Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake City. They have themed rooms you can stay in. We stayed in the Romeo and Juliet suite the first night and the Swiss Family Robinson suite that following night. It was lots of fun. We loved both rooms, but the Romeo and Juliet room was our favorite.

Pictures of us in the Romeo and Juliet Suite

Picture of us in the Swiss Family Robinson suite

Fair

As usually we attended the Walla Walla Frontier Days at the beginning of September. The kids look forward to this all year long, and are constantly asking when we are going to the fair. They were so worn out by the end, and so were mom and dad. I love watching my kids at the fair. I wish we could have gone earlier and not gotten done so late. At least we got to see all the rides lit up for the night before we left.


Abbie and her cute hairdo.


Isn't this the cutest picture. Riley was being such a good big brother helping Abbie with all the rides and making sure she was safe. I have about four pictures like this that we took throughout the day.


Riley and Abbie on Riley's favorite ride. This is the Indiana Jones Ride.







Here we are at the end of the day. Lucky for the kids that they get one last ride home. Riley bought this glow sward. It was like a strobe light all the way home. My eyes were pretty sore.




Parade
The next morning we went to the Walla Walla Frontier Day Parade. Like most kids, mine love parades. Mostly for the candy, but they do love to see all of the floats, horses and other things. We ended up sitting on the wrong side of the street though. We were in the sun the whole time. Had this been a parade at Malad, it would have been no problem because it would have been over before we felt the affects of the sun. However, that was not the case. It was a pretty long parade. The kids were hiding in our shadows by the time it was over. It is a good thing we brought lots of water.
The kids wearing the pink bandannas that were handed out.