Josh is 7!

I blinked my eyes and suddenly Josh turned 7. Man I can hardly believe it! It took us a week to celebrate his birthday. It started on Tuesday, his actual birthday. We opened presents first thing in the morning since Dad was going to be late teaching down at BYU.

Hooray! I am 7!

McKay gave Josh a big "bump" on the head.

Josh is always making jokes about adult diapers. I am not sure how this all started, but he will draw pictures of someone with a caption that says, "I wear adult diapers!" So this year for his birthday we decided (as a joke) to give Josh some adult diapers. The above picture is his reaction to when he first opened them.

He thought it was pretty funny. After he had a good laugh he threw them back to Jeremy and said, "No thanks. I don't need these." Needless to say, it was pretty funny. (I took them back to the store as I hope no one in our house needs them any time soon!)

Now for the real presents! Josh received his first BIG Lego set. He has been busy putting together his Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts school set the last few days.

Today we had Josh's friend birthday party. He was able to invite friends from the old neighborhood and friends from the new neighborhood. Josh wanted a BYU birthday party, so we got BYU t-shirts for Josh and his friends. Above they are all set for some fun BYU party games.

We started out with some "Jimmermania" and the boys shot hoops. They tried to make as many points as possible in thirty seconds.

Here is our winner!

After some pizza, we played another game called "Stoppin' out the Utes". The kids had red balloons tied to them and then they stomped on each others' balloons. The boy that was last to have both his balloons stomped out won.

It was a long time before we had a winner and the boys were all pooped by the time the game was over, but they loved stomping on those red balloons!

Presents! Josh getting bonked on the head by his friends.

Having a good laugh with one of his good buddies.

Josh decided he wanted chocolate chip cookies as has birthday cake. I liked that idea. Here he is waiting to blow out the candles.

I hope he made a wish! It was a great birthday party and a BYU theme was a lot of fun. The boys seemed to have had a great time and they all loved their BYU t-shirts. Josh loves his friends and loves being with them.

Happy birthday Josh! We are so thankful for you! You bring a lot peace to our family. We love your sense of humor and love how animated you are. You always make us smile and laugh. Thank you for being part of our family. We love you!

Brrrrrrr!

The holding pond for our waterfall has been freezing every night. It drains in the morning when the waterfall is turned on and the ice breaks. This day it looked really cool: (click to enlarge)

There was a tunnel of ice that the water was flowing under. It looked pretty cool.

Just as a side note, I don't like winter and I am NOT ready for the cold. Bring on the wool socks!

Am I Four Now?

First thing this morning we sang Happy Birthday to Kayden. He then asked us, "Am I four now?"

I am 4!

Jaxon and Josh agree, Kayden is 4.

We did our traditional "Heavy, heavy hang over thy poor head". Kayden wished us Legos, a family vacation and a happy family home evening.

He was very excited to rip that paper off to see what new toys he got. Here he opened a Luigi car. He also got a Phineas and Ferb toy and some Star Wars action figures.

Later this afternoon Kayden invited over some friends for a Curious George birthday party. Here are a few highlights:

The boys played with Chef Pisghetti's chocolate clay. They were able to shape it, mold it and eat it. They had a great time. Kayden and his dad made a monkey face.

Curious George is always getting into mischief like drawing on the walls. So we let loose and let the boys paint the walls in the garage. Don't worry, we put paper on the walls first. They had a great time.

All the party guests and their art work behind them. Even Josh joined in on the birthday fun.

After painting, we went on a banana hunt so we could have banana splits. Everyone found a banana and used the bananas to put smiles on their faces.

Singing Happy Birthday so Kayden could blow out the candles.

He blew them all out (with the help of one of his friends).

The party was a huge success until all the party guests left with a treat bag and Kayden didn't get one. He got mad. I learned my lesson. Have a treat bag for the birthday boy too.

Happy Birthday Kayden! We love you! You are growing up so fast. You have taught our family more than you will ever know and we so thankful that you are part of our family. You are one smart and fun kid and I love you. Happy Birthday.

To Be Twelve...

Now that McKay is 12, he is able to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We took 14 family names to the temple this last weekend and McKay performed the ordinances of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was wonderful to be in the temple with McKay, Jeremy and Grandpa Haacke. I was even invited into the baptismal font while McKay and Jeremy were in there. It was a great experience and one that I will remember for a life time.

Here is McKay ready to enter the temple with his recommend in hand. I am so blessed to be his mom.

Happy Halloween 2011

We had a great Halloween this year and loved all the new traditions at school and new neighbors we got to trick-or-treat to. Here are this years highlights:

The school has a Halloween parade where the kids walk through all the classrooms and through the halls and gym to parade their costumes. Mr. Melville--the principal--led the parade as Mr. Incredible and all the kids followed. They had fun Halloween music playing over the intercom system as the parade was passing by. It was very festive.

Here is Josh parading as a Jedi. He said he was Master Windu. I see the resemblance, don't you?

Jaxon was a cowboy and he looked happy to be parading through the school. He gave me a half smile.

McKay resurrected his costume from last year (it is a good one) and was the riding bull cowboy. He had a good time parading the halls in his getup.

Kayden and I were able to attend McKay's Halloween class party. It is his last one since he is in 6th grade this year (sniff, sniff). I made slime with the kids in his class as part of the party.

Here are the kids all decked out ready to go trick-or-treating. It was a beautiful evening and we had a great time wandering the neighborhood and visiting with the new neighbors.

When we finished our trick-or-treating, we built a huge fire in the backyard using some scraps of wood from the building site down the street. The fire was roaring!

It got even bigger! We had a great Halloween this year. Grandma and Grandpa even came out for dinner and to go trick-or-treating with us. Hope your Halloween was just as fun and memorable as ours!