6 Years Old!!!!

Jackson turned 6 on July 15! He shared a combined family birthday party with Alanna on her birthday, which I don't think he loved doing. It's just too much with all the other activities going on to try to have 2 separate parties though! Jackson was very spoiled anyhow, and he is so lucky to have so many great examples and people who love him in his life.

Uncle Caleb spent lots of time making him this Death Star cake, and it came with Star Wars Legos. Jackson was really wanting his very own cake that he didn't have to share, so this was a wish come true. All of the sudden he and his friends are obsessed with Legos too!



I always make a theme cake for the kids on their b-day, and Jackson really wanted this skateboard cake. Unfortunately, on the ride up to my parent's house in 95 degree weather, it melted! I should have thought that one through better - but I have a brain severely affected by pregnancy right now! It still tasted good, and he thought it was really cool anyway :)





Jackson loves Vans like his dad! Especially since he is into skateboarding lately!

We love having Jackson in our family. He is so creative and active and always keeps us laughing. I'm so lucky to have such a smart little boy who is constantly craving learning situations and picks up on things so quickly. People always tell us how well behaved he is too - in public anyway :) I'm looking forward to seeing how he progresses in the following year!

Soon to Hatch...

The whole time I have been pregnant, Paul keeps talking about how the baby is going to "hatch" out of my belly. I guess to a little guy it makes sense since we read books about animals hatching, and my belly looks like a huge egg! This morning, all the kids were in our bed kissing and "rocking" my belly when Paul announced that my belly will be hatching really soon because he could see scratch marks on it (my lovely stretch marks!). Too cute!!!!

Girl's Camp

I have the great opportunity to work with the youth of our church, and the girls traditionally attend a "Girl's Camp" every summer to bond and learn some useful outdoor skills. The girls from our ward are up there for a week, but since I am pregnant with young kids at home, I just went up for a couple of days. It was actually a really nice vacation for me. I had so much more energy since I only had to care for myself and wasn't carrying around kids etc. The girls all got along so well, and I loved getting to know the other leaders better too.

The funniest thing happened to my partner Marci! She just got a new Cadillac crossover SUV (I'm really not good at identifying models of cars), and she drove it up to camp and had it parked right near us in our site. The second morning we were there, she got in and turned on her car and the battery had gone dead for some reason. Finally, by dinner time, she had found some men who had jumper cables and came over to charge her car back up. She popped the hood and was leaning down to see where the battery was when the guy helping her made a startling noise. Marci looked up and there was a huge pregnant white mountain rat sitting in her nest that she had built on the engine! Of course, Marci started screaming and made a run for it while the guy picked up the rat and chucked it in to the trees! Disgusting! Judging by the size of the rat, she was probably about to give birth, and she though she had found the perfect spot. I am so glad that I am not there in that camp site to have any more run-ins with that rat!

James stayed home Monday and Tuesday with the kids, which I was very anxious about since he has never had them for that long by himself. He did a great job of making sure they had a fun party while I was gone. They went to the lake, went on a hike in the canyons, saw a movie at the theater, and got to eat dinner at Burger King and play on the playground there. The house was pretty clean when I got home too! The boys were upset that I hadn't called them back - they had been calling me up at camp but I didn't get cell phone reception! It was a happy reunion for all. When we got into bed James said "It's so good to have you back, Sarah!" It left me wondering if he really missed me, or if he had enough of being Mr. Mom. When he had to get up for work at 5am this morning though, he told me he was upset his vacation was over! I'll take that to mean he really did enjoy having some alone time with his kiddies :)

Happy Birthday Little Monkey!

Alanna turned 2 on July 10th, and she was so happy to be able to have her birthday party at Grandma Ce-Ce's house with extended family. Of course, she had to have a banana and chocolate monkey cake, and she ate a pretty big piece of it too! Blowing our her candles just seemed to be natural for her - she knew just what to do! It was so much fun to watch her open her gifts. The first one was a box filled with jewelry I made her (so she will leave mine alone!), and then there was a nail polish set wrapped up in tissue paper. She was being so dainty with the tissue paper and taking her time opening it, and James being inappropriate said "Just rip into it Alanna, it's not like it's poop!". So the next present was in a gift bag with tissue paper, and she tipped the bag over and was just peeking inside but wouldn't touch it. I kept trying to prod her to open it, but she was very hesitant and would barely touch the package. Someone said "What's in the bag Alanna?", and she said "Poop!". It was pretty funny, though inappropriate.

Back to the nail polish - if that's the only gift she received she would have been happy with only that. She took out the pastel blue nail polish, opened it, and started trying to paint her nails. Guess who let her - James! He supervised her while we all watched her make a huge mess of her hand, and then he tried to teach her to shake her hands to make the nail polish dry. It was a pretty cute daddy/daughter experience to observe.

We finally convinced her to continue on with her presents, and she stopped to play with all of them. She got an SUV with a baby in it that sings songs that she absolutely loves. She loves combing the hair of her "My Little Pony" too. We bought her a Dirt Devil brand toy vacuum cleaner because she loves to be a good little helper around the house and tries to use our vacuum to clean the floors. If only we can get her to sleep in her new big girl bed now! She thinks it's very pretty and like to try to jump in it. I just have to get a mattress and make bedding for it, and we'll see how she likes sleeping by herself!

We are all so happy to have Alanna in our family! She has such an independent sweet spirit about her and always keeps us laughing!

Cow Apprecitation Day...

We took advantage of Chick-fil-A's "Cow Appreciation Day", which meant we dressed up like cows to get a free combo meal for each of us. I actually just put an "Eat more Chicken" sign on me because I am already feeling enough like a cow at this point! The kids had so much fun (James did too I might add). Thanks to the Palmers for letting us borrow their costumes!

4th of July!!!!

Luckily, since we live in UT, we were able to celebrate "4th of July" on Saturday, the 3rd of July. For two weekends in a row we saw local city parades and fireworks. The kids got tons of candy at the parades, and Alanna wanted us to take pictures of just about every float that went past. One float had a bunch of people dressed as dogs and was blaring the song "Who Let the Dogs Out?" - and now she loves for us to sing that to her. We ask her "who let the dogs out", and she always says "Jackson!". The fireworks show was pretty amazing, especially since we sat so close to it. After each firework at the beginning of the show, Alanna would point and excitedly say "Look, Arah!" (she calls me Arah, Sarah minus the S!) I tortured her and made her wear a festive outfit - it's not even that's it's a dress - she just hates any clothes period!

During the day on Saturday, we went and saw "Karate Kid". I was really surprised at how entertaining it is! The boys loved it, and they keep trying to do Karate moves on each other. I was afraid that would happen! We had our own b-bque with salmon , a summer tortellini salad, 4th of July jello, and corn on the cob. It was nice to just stay around our city and not fight the crowds etc. We also got to enjoy seeing fireworks from our deck all week long! And, in a couple of more weeks, we will get to celebrate Pioneer Day here in UT and do it all over again :)

Weekend Fun...

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated my mom's b-day along with Father's day. She turned 58, but we were nice and just used one big candle on her ice-cream cake. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures with James and the boys. They gave him a Costco size bag of Cheetos- all for himself, and two kinds of Mountain Dew. I only buy those things for him on special holidays! It's all he really wants too. I am slowly talking him into getting a grill though - we'll see! We enjoyed a feast of summer foods like kabobs, corn on the cob, watermellon, etc. I love summer time!


















My beautiful sis-in-law Andrea is due in a couple of weeks, and we got to attend a baby shower for her and baby Peter. I made my first "diaper cake" - so cute and easy! It was filled with diaper bag
essentials. I can't wait to see the little guy soon!

This summer Alanna can reach the pedals of the Power Wheels, and she is a little thrill seeker. She goes down the hills at full speed, and she knows how to put the car into reverse when she needs to. As we watch our kids drive their "cars", James and I wonder if these park outings are better than Disneyland!