Luke

Luke just told me "Thank you, my highness" when I handed him a handful of pretzels.... he's such a goof!

Another party at Rocket Park

It was my mom's birthday on Saturday so we had a little get together at Rocket Park for her. I did a rerun with the Oreo Cake (because it's SO YUMMY, and easy) and my mom didn't even know it was a rerun.... one of the blessings of getting older maybe..... jk mom. She acted like it was her first time having it... kinda nice :) considering we've had it like 3 other times this year. )Thankfully Sarah grabbed the camera when we started doing the cake.... thanks Sarah!

Lukey helped blow out the candles wish you could see his face in this....


Charity and Charlie

Noah made sure to sit by the birthday girl so that he could get lots of bites of cake- Grandmas can't resist sharing with that cute little face.

We hope you had a nice time Mom! Happy 51st!

Scripture Man

(Does anyone remember playing that "Scripture Man" game in Seminary? I just remembered that.... huh. anyway.)

Noah got his hands on the Book of Mormon.... these totally look posed, but they weren't. I just thought it would make a cute picture..... he looks like he's so into it :)

(I dont' know who Raymond Walter Anderson is, must be one we got from the DI or something :))

I'm always wishing

I'm always wishing my kids (besides Noah of course) would just let me sit and take their pictures. Well, Saturday my wish came true :) kinda. For a few minutes.


Luke and Kelly and I were eating nectarines together on the front lawn and Luke was like, "take wots of pichurs of me mommy!"

So I did :) He just danced around being silly right there in front of me for quite a while. I loved it. He had me and Kelly laughing our heads off by the end.

I can't get over his face in this one :)

and his cute smile. He looks all grown up!

Which actually I've been meaning to mention just how much growing up Luke has done over the last week or so. Since we started potty training him really. He's started dressing himself more. He puts his own shoes on (which for me is HUGE! it's been driving me crazy that he hadn't learned that yet). He says his own prayers!!!!! I LOVE Luke's prayers. In fact last night after we had had family prayer and tucked everyone in, he asked me if I would say a prayer with him (how cute is that!). So we knelt down together and he said THE SWEETEST PRAYER EVER!! All by himself. No prompting. I just about died! Asking Heavenly Father to make him not have bad dreams, and to bless Mommy that she will let him sleep in her bed :). He's a real sweetie. It's been really nice to have him be so independent lately, but at the same time it makes me sad to realize that he is really going to grow up! Which I always tell him not to and then he says, "I going to!!!!" with his little teasing/taunting tone :) He's adorable. He's been doing awesome with the potty training. He went a whole day and a half with no accidents (if only we hadn't been at the park!!! Such distractions all over the place) and then has only had about 1 a day on most days. Which just blows my mind. He's done amazing. He is completely over the training potty too... he likes to use the big potty, standing up. He still really hates it when we ask him if he needs to go potty, but I've discovered a way around that... I say, "how's your underwear doing?" and he just tells me "it DWY!!!" (it's dry) I love it. So anyway.....

Funny little boy.


Pretty little Kelly wanted a few shots as well :) She's so cute!

Kelly's Day

The day started out with a Happy Birthday sign, balloons, her favorite breakfast Puffy Pancake, then she got to open 1 present from Mom and Dad. Her beloved flip flops! She picked these out a while ago and has been DYING to have them ever since ;) It's fun to see her get so excited about something so simple.


Then she got her birthday spankings, Grandpa Russ style from Daddy.


more presents from Aunt Becky and Aunt Jen.... she LOVED the giant pen!

Then she had to go to school (I say "had to" because of me. I'm sure I've mentioned it's hard for me to send them to school on their birthdays). Kelly was of course more than happy to have attention from her class and pass out her treats. Luckily she just has half day because I missed her.


At 2:00 we were at Rocket Park, all ready for her "Dora" party. (I had been fighting (inconspicuously) to change the theme for about 3 months. I am not sure what made her want a Dora party other than one of her friends had had one before (that she heard about, not went to) and I guess the idea just appealed to her.) I'm not a big fan of Dora. I thought things went really well though. I did forget my camera and didn't get it until Nate went back for the popsicles and matches. But that seems to be just how it is lately. Nate got some on his phone..... I'll have to add them later. We did a little painting craft, then played some games: tag, red light green light.... I think all they cared about was winning the prizes that Kelly had been publicizing about all week. Then we did the pinata..... that was interesting. They never seem to break soon enough. Everyone's all bored with it by the time it finally breaks and in our case half of the girls were over on the playground when it broke so some of them really missed out on the candy..... luckily there was some sharing..... still makes me laugh when I think about it and how Charity totally demolished the pinata :). But anyway. After the pinata we had cake and opened presents (we were kind of hurting for time at that point so we were trying to multitask. It worked okay, but I probably won't try that again.)


Oh the wind!

We lucked out with the weather. It was nice and clear skies when we got there and so I was all set thinking things were going to be fabulous but then Maryn's Dad, Kevin Eubank (yes, the weather man) asked where he should pick up his daughter when it started raining!!! (according to his forecast- which I hadn't seen or heard- it was supposed to rain during the party) AAAHHHH!!!! It really caught me off guard and I just kind of blew it off. But then I kinda got worried when the "storm clouds" were overhead (that's what Bradley calls them). It made me happy that we had managed to get by with only a TINY bit of sprinkling during the cake eating part, but other than that..... I am really grateful that "the weather man" (kelly's class all call him that) was wrong. And we all had a good laugh about that afterward :) I took too many pictures of her opening her presents, but you can just scroll faster I guess....



This had me laughing. Luke was almost MORE excited about the present he and Brad got her (gumball machine) than Kelly :) His face in this one is just priceless :) Kelly's is pretty cute too....


It was cute that Kelly could read all the cards herself.... so fun for her especially.

Okay, this is probably not polite of me to point this out, but it's funny. I just love this face that Kelly makes. It usually means, "oh. another one of these. I have like TWO OF THEM. darn it." It just cracks me up. She hasn't quite mastered the art of faking the look. She was very polite though and didn't say anything. Charity took care of that anyway :) Funny kids. She of course has used it nonstop since she got it. She must have forgotten that the other ones she has had are pretty much gone.

I totally just let them open presents and stuff on the table. I'm glad no one's parents showed up and saw them all standing on the benches and stuff. I'm sure that would have been a red flag for someone. I'm too white trash for most people.

This was when Luke was getting all giddy with all the girls. Screaming and giggling and stuff. He's hilarious.

Kelly's sister sure knows her well! Got her the perfect present! And Kelly hasn't stopped thanking her for it as well.

I loved this reaction

After the cake and presents the girls were sent on a treasure hunt (aka: wild goose chase) by Nate. He had them all over the park searching for the prize. It was fun to watch the whole group moving from one clue to the next. Nate's so good at these....

And then Kelly WOWed us all with her monkey bar skills (the WHOLE reason she wanted to have her party at THIS park :)) So cute.

All of the parents came, and then it started to rain :)

After the party we ran home to get cleaned up, opened some presents from Grandpa Hatch and then headed on down to Lone Star (free kids night) with Grandpa Hatch and Nana. The kids were very unruly there. Up and down, to the bathroom and back..... it was nuts. But good times and good memories. When we got home Kelly opened a bunch more presents from Pam and Mom and Dad. She got a cute outfit and an easel. Then she crashed in bed!!! It was a BIG day for all of us, but I think overall it was a nice one. I am so picky about how birthdays go. Hopefully one day that will go away :) I just like making them feel special. Kelly was pretty good and spoiled so I think it passed :)