Birthday Boy

Justin turned Six last Tuesday...and after all sorts of celebrating I am finally ready to blog about it. :) We'll start with Tuesday morning...Justin woke up to a breakfast of yummy whole wheat pancakes served on the special birthday plate...

(Sleepy, but excited)

Before heading off to school we let Justin open a couple of presents.

I included this picture mostly because it shows Eden wearing her favorite

accessory...Emily's underwear. (It's clean.)

No friend party this year, but we did do a pizza playdate

at the park with some of Justin's best friends...

Later that night we celebrated as a family at the Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix. Justin (being the awesome kid that he is) won an award in school where he received a full on party at this really fun Go Kart place in our area. It included pizza for the whole family, drinks, tons of tokens, and tickets to go on the cool rides and Go Karts there. It was seriously so much fun! Justin loved every second of it, we all did. It was a perfect way to celebrate Justin...

Merry-Go-Round...

Air Hockey!

Going down the Huge Slide...(so fun!)

Rides!

Eden really wanting to go on the rides....

(Poor thing, the only rides she could go on were the slide and the Go karts)

Our favorite part--the Go Karts. Emily was old enough to ride on her own and she was such a champ. Justin rode with me (which is why I unfortunately don't have a picture) and Eden rode with Dave. I can't even say how fun this was...we were all out there together as a family just zooming around. It was pretty great.

Justin riding the mini cars...he was way into it.

We celebrated one more time on Friday with all of our family here in Vegas.

Here's Justin with his Mario Mushroom cupcakes...

Who needs a friend party when we have so many awesome cousins!?

opening presents...

Justin looking at the scrapbook Emily made for him. :)

Our Birthday Boy!

We couldn't love this little guy (big guy now!) more. We are so lucky to have Justin in our family!

10 Years

10 Years ago today I married Dave...

There is so much I could say about him on this special day.

Like how much I love him, and how perfectly sweet he has

been to me every day for the last 10 years, and how much

fun we still have together, and how much I love that we

still lay awake every night talking and talking because there is

still always so much we have to say to eachother. How even though

it's been 10 years we still love to be together more than anything else.

And how cool it is that we finish eachother's sentences and always

seem to know what the other is thinking and feeling.

And how absolutely lucky I feel to be his wife.

But I don't want to make anyone nauseous.

So all I'm going to say is how happy I am that I married him.

So very, very Happy.

Hiking

Last weekend we went to one of our favorite places in Las Vegas...Red Rock Canyon. It is so awesome there this time of year. The sky was blue, the rocks were red (and white) and the scenery was gorgeous. We had such a great time hiking around together as a family, It was just another one of those perfect days...

The kids LOVE climbing and exploring the rocky formations there...



Dave does too...

Some shots of my girls...

(Isn't that blue sky amazing!)

Here are pics of us on our actual hike. My friend found this awesome carrier for us at a garage sale and it was so great to have! Our last hike (see pics below) we pushed Eden up the mountain in a stroller and it was kind of ridiculous. :) Thanks Marjorie!!!

hiking along...

Our favorite hike at Red Rock takes you to a cool, little waterfall, it's only going in the Spring so we had to check it out....

Cooling off...

Emily loved getting wet...

Eden didn't...

I had to throw in this other cute kissing picture...

(we can't stop.)

Here's my attempt to get a picture of Dave and I together...

I didn't realize I was so zoomed in.

We went to Zion's over President's Day weekend a couple of months ago and I never blogged about it. So here are just a few pictures...

It was GORGEOUS!

Here we are pushing Eden up the mountain in a STROLLER. People looked at us like we were crazy. But the whole hike was paved and it was way better than not using it.

A family pic at the waterfall there (can't think of the name.)

We had a super fun time.

Easter Clothes

Here are my shiny, happy kids in their Easter clothes...

Eden, age 22 months

Justin, age 5 (almost 6)

Emily, age 8

And here is my attempt to get a "sister picture" of Emily and Eden in their color coordinating dresses.

Not even close. :)

I am so thankful for this Easter season. Thankful for the reminder of what a wonderful Gift was given to us by a loving Heavenly Father. These three children of mine are a daily reminder of my purpose here on Earth and I am so grateful.

While Easter clothes are the very least important part of this wonderful holiday we just celebrated...I still really like the symbolism of getting my kids dressed up in clean and new and beautiful clothing. :)

So Happy late Easter everyone!!!

Spring Break 2010

Spring Break is over. :( We had such a great time together it makes me sad to see it end. Our days were filled with fun, and friends, and cousins, and outings...we definitely made the most of every second.

It gave me such a blue feeling yesterday morning as I sent Emily and Justin off to school after our break. I knew I was going to miss them so much. Thankfully I had this little angel still around to keep me company...

:)

We really did do lots over the break. Every day was a party. I just have to say I have the funnest friends ever and feel so lucky. :) Here we are dying eggs with some of those fabulous friends...

Em and J planning what to do with their eggs...check out their concentration!

My friend Jolynn put on an egg hunt for all the kids after the decorating...they loved it!

O.K., so this next activity was super cool too. My friend Melinda organized an egg roll for a bunch of us. The kids had so much fun racing and rolling their decorated eggs down a hill. It was so funny to watch them!

Waiting to start rolling...

Running after their eggs...

(check out our friend Spencer's super cool slide...)
Eden throwing her egg down the hill, she was so into it!

The damage...

We went to the Children's museum another day, and I have some fun pictures from that too...but this post is already so big, I'll save those for another day. :)

These next few pictures aren't actually from spring break, but I've been wanting to post them anyway because it was a really fun day. My old college roommate and friend Amy and her family came into town and invited us to their fancy hotel for a fun swim date. It was our first swim of the season and it was gorgeous weather. We had such a great time catching up and watching our kids play together. Thanks Amy! It was so fun to see you!

Ready to get in...

Amy and her cute kids...Ella and Tyler

They all got along so well!

So that is just a little bit of what we've been up to. I will probably be posting more Easter pictures soon. I am just so thankful that I have such awesome children to hang out with every day. They make me so happy. :)