Happy Birthday Grandpa

My dad was here this year for Christmas and his birthday.

I made a chocolate cake for his birthday and we had my SIL and her family over for dinner. It was a fun day for all!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Birthday Dinner!

So for my birthday my awesome Sister and Brother in law took Garran and I out to dinner. 

We had a really great time and the food was amazing!! 

We had a lot of fun together and I was even sung Happy Birthday very loudly....and then instructed to stand up in front of everyone and dance. 

Yes.

IN. FRONT. OF. EVERYONE!

So thank you to Joe, Jerusha, Garran and everyone in the restaurant for tolerating my sweet dance moves!!

Fear Factor Party

So my brother in law loves fear factor, so his awesome wife did a fear factor party for him..

and of course...

we participated. 

The first one was worms on a plate and you had to take a plastic fork in your mouth and put them on a plate your partner was holding. 

Who ever could get the most won...

Yep Garran and I WON!!

Next up...

Gummy worms in cool whip. 

You had to get all the worms off your plate, rotating players. Whoever got theirs all eaten first wins..

Yep, we won!!

 Joe and Jerusha came in a close 2nd. 

Can you tell I get a little competitive! 

Next up..

the water challenge. 

They put ice and water in buckets and each partner had to put one foot in. Whoever was left standing with a foot in, won. 

At this point, it was Garran and I versus the Elders. 

 Here is Joe, filling the buckets. 

 Elder's feet are in. 

 But so were ours. 

Garran lasted a few minutes, as well as one of the missionaries. 

But me...NEVER.!!!! 

I lasted 20+ minutes, but then realized that Joe probably wanted some birthday cake and that I would be nice and let the missionary win. 

We all know who is tough! LOL

These were my feet after. Yep a little red, but I am tough. 

After that..

A pepper challenge in which I did not participate. 

That was all boys. 

It was Charlie, Tobie, and one of the missionaries. 

The missionary won. 

Poor guys. 

It was hard to watch them eat those peppers. 

I am tough, but I don't do peppers. 

Finally it was time to celebrate. 

Joe had a non traditional birthday cake, but it was fun. 

It was a donut tower! 

Very Fun!!

Happy Happy Birthday Joe!

It was a wild and fun party!

See...Here is a picture of my niece Tessa at the end of the night!

 Just kidding. Her uncle put those on her as a joke. 

I love the look on her face! 

Thanks for such a fun night!

Great to be 8!

So this kid turned 8!

 Here he is with all his sibs!

They are all getting so big!

 In our faith, when a child turns 8 they get to decide if they would like to be baptized or not. Cullan made the decision to be baptized. So on October 19th at 5:00pm Cullan took the plunge. 

Here are my two handsome guys before we left for the church. 

 Cullan and I!

Look at that. He is almost up to my shoulder...

He really needs to stop growing. 

 The three of us!

 My dad was here from Iowa visiting, and so he was able to attend the baptism as well. 

 We had a picture with a sweet little poem and the programs sitting outside for people to take. 

 Here is the poem that is next to Cullan in the frame.

Baptism Day

Little child dressed in white

He takes your hand, you hold so tight.

He, with his arm to the square

Commissioned of Jesus Christ, 

invokes the prayer.

You leave the water born anew

And pledge you’ll try His work to do.

Heavenly Father is happy today

Because you have followed His Son’s 

chosen way.

Remember always to choose the right, 

little child dressed in white. 

 Cullan and Garran ready for the baptism. 

 One more with the three of us. 

 Our little family. 

Our family and my Dad.  

My husbands sister and her family were able to be there to support Cullan on his big day. We love having them so close to us. It has been such a blessing. 

Because there were others that we wanted to be there but could not make it, we tried to incorporate them in. 

Garrans parent wrote a talk that was read by Uncle Joe.

Cullan's primary teacher Bro. Owens, who was just amazing to Cullan while we lived in IL, wrote a talk that was read by Tessa, Cullan's cousin. 

It was a very special and emotional day. 

Especially for me. 

When I decided to join the church in 2000, I was baptized in the same font that Cullan was. It is a small thing, but one that I will cherish and something special between us. 

I am so happy that Cullan made this choice and hope that he finds as much happiness as his dad and I have. 

Congrats Cullan on your big day!

B bugs Party!

We decided to celebrate Briea's birthday a couple days early since Garran's parents had come to surprise him when he got home from Belgium. 

Here is the party crowd before we brought down the birthday girl. 

A princess cake with no pink!!

 Can you guess what she wanted as the theme of her birthday?!?

Of course we had dinner and cake...and then it was time for presents. 

 Briea opening her princess tea set.

She is very into tea parties right now.

 Then she opened her "BRAVE" doll Merida.

She was pretty excited.

 We had some games to play and prizes to win.

This was one of Kael's prizes.

Can't you just imagine him yelling CHARGE!!

 Briea with her glow in the dark princess wand!

 I sure love these kiddos.

The boys were being very sweet. They kept saying that Briea was a princess and they were giving her whatever she wanted. Kael said they were her servants! I thought it was really cute.

Garran won a prize but wore his a little differently.

Here is a video of the birthday song and cake!

Birthday Weekend FUN!!

Well this Birthday was AWESOME!!

I was totally spoiled by my friends and hubby.

and most of it was a surprise....which i really loved. 

my friends Trisha and Becca bought me this shirt. 

i LOVE IT!

I have wanted one for a while...

So huge thanks for that!

Then they treated me to a pedicure!!

 I love this place!!

We had such a good time laughing and chatting. 

It was wonderful. 

 Who doesn't love pretty toes!

I know I do.

After we got our toes done, we went to dinner. 

It was such a good night. 

I was so thankful to them. 

The next day Garran surprised me with a day all planned out. 

He set up the sitter and everything. 

(I know ladies, SWOON RIGHT!!)

We dropped the kids off around 10:30 with a couple from church and then we were on our way.

 We decided to go to lunch first. 

It was so nice being able to just sit and talk and laugh. 

I love hanging out with Garran.

After lunch we went shopping to get a few things. I found two cute skirts that I was really happy with. 

After we looked around for a while, we headed to the movies. 

I know the picture is horrible, but I was documenting our day together. 

After the movies, it was time to go get the kiddos. 

I was so happy the whole day. 

It was great!!

It was a wonderful 32nd Birthday!!

getting ready!

Two friends of mine are going to take me out for my birthday tonight. 

It was such a nice surprise. 

My one friend Trisha got me this shirt. 

Can I just say that I LOVE IT!!

So I was getting ready to go out and had just gotten dressed and wanted to get a quick picture before I forgot. 

So True!!

This shirt is definitely going to get some mileage from me!!

Thanks Trisha!!

October Birthdays!!

Well as most of you know we have a lot of October Birthdays in our house. 3 of the 4. So this year due to my surgery and completely missing Kael's birthday due to and ER visit, I decided to have a family fun party night.

I thought it would be fun to do a photo booth. 

When I was getting some things out of the party section at walmart, i came across this package called photo booth. It was $5.00 and it was so much fun!!

 after playing with the photo booth for a while, it was time to have dinner and celebrate!!

on birthdays we let the kids pick what they want to eat. they all decided on pizza. 

then we had special cupcakes for the birthday kiddos. 

as you can see 7, 6, and 2!!

 Then it was on to presents. 

Somehow I missed getting a picture of Cullan showing what he got, but it was a remote controlled helicopter!! He had a lot of fun playing with it.

 Then it was Ayla's turn. She is obsessed with YO GABA GABA so the next series of pictures are of her opening up the stuffed characters from the show!

Kael had already opened his presents on his birthday when Grandam Moe was here and they had some cake. So he just got a special cupcake. It was  a really fun evening. The missionaries came for dinner as well and were even good sports about doing the photo booth. 

It was a fun evening! 

We all had lots of laughs and made some happy memories together. 

Golden Birthday!

July 11th was Oliver Palmer's Golden Birthday. 

The Palmer's did a balloon release at his grave side, but obviously we could not be there. 

So...We decided to do one on our own. 

 Here are our balloons. All bagged up. 

 We bought these balloon stickers to decorate them and spell out his name!

Then we each took turns writing Oliver a message. 

I had the kids tell me what they wanted to say, because I did not want to risk popping a balloon. 

 I forgot to get one of Garrans because he came home late from a meeting and we just went outside with the last bit of day light we had. 

We attached this little baseball to one of the balloons. 

Oliver loved baseball. 

I thought it was cute and the kids loved it. 

Here goes the big moment! 

Our big release!!!!

Happy Golden Birthday Sweet Boy!