Happy Birthday Cameron!

One thing that's nice about having a husband five years older than me is that I can tell him he's old but he can't say the same about me! Ha!

Cameron, you are such a wonderful husband and father. Thank you for all that you do. I've never seen someone that works as hard as you do. I'm often amazed at the things you are able to accomplish. Your children think you are the best ever. They are so excited when you come home from work and run to give you hugs and kisses.

I hope you enjoyed your birthday breakfast, dinner, and cheesecake! I love you!

April Fools!

Do you remember last year when I shared the best April Fools joke ever?! Well, they got us again! My friend called me on Saturday night to see if I might like to come to dinner on Sunday.  Not too long after getting off of the phone, it occurred to me that Sunday was April Fool's day. Remembering, the great April Fool's joke from last year, I figured there was something up, but I didn't know what. I told Cameron my suspicions and he said something like, "Maybe we shouldn't go and just text them 'April Fools' five minutes after we are supposed to get there."

But I knew that if my friends invited a big group over for dinner, then we would actually be served dinner, and the joke would be harmless and funny. So we went.

When we got there, everything appeared to be normal. We could smell the dinner. Everyone was sitting on the couch chatting, waiting for dinner to start. There were plates set around the table. 

We said a prayer over the food, and then our host said, "Well, I don't think there is enough room around our kitchen table. Let's go to our formal dining room." He then led us to the garage! When we opened the door, we saw that there were two long strips of brown paper set on the floor with placemats, plates, and silverware drawn on. Over the entire floor were big sheets of plastic. We were told to "Each take a seat but make sure not to step on the tables!" Next they handed out bibs made from wrapping paper. All of our cups were filled with what appeared to be water, but was actually a clear kool aid.

Soon our host walked in carrying a bowl full of salad, which they dumped into piles directly onto our "tables." They did the same with bread, spaghetti, and jello. We ate with our fingers, off of the floor. Don't worry, the floor was covered in plastic! Remember?

Pictures of the night!

It was fun! And I think Cameron is making plans for the Young Men in our ward. Only he said he'll use mashed potatoes and gravy instead of spaghetti.

I also played a joke on Cameron, but it didn't work. I put a drop of blue food coloring on his toothbrush, but he noticed the blue water when he ran his toothbrush under the water before brushing. He made sure to rinse it all out before putting it in his mouth.

Happy Birthday Eli!

Happy Birthday my little man! You are such a special boy. You are so smart and creative. How did you get four years old so fast? Some of your favorite things to do right now are:

Play with your cars

Play hide and seek with Brianna

Draw pictures

Write letters to Grammy

Dig in the dirt looking for buried treasure

Go on 4-wheeler rides with daddy

Look for Geo Cache treasures

Eli, we love you so much! You bring such joy to our lives! Keep making us smile and laugh with those great jokes of yours!

......

And now, on to the birthday party... We had a party in the park. It ended a little sooner than it otherwise would have because it got cold and windy. That was rather unlucky since every day leading up to the party was 74° and sunny.

The first thing we did was have a treasure hunt to look for the pinata. It was pretty fun watching all of those little kids looking for all of the clues. In this picture the pinata has already been broken. I haven't made a pinata since Spanish class in the 9th grade. It was pretty fun! This one is a pig from Angry birds.

After breaking the pinata, we sang "Happy Birthday," opened presents and had cake. Eli requested a Lightning McQueen cake. Probably the hardest cake I've ever made. But it was fun trying to figure out how to get him to look right. It took me an entire day to make this.

Then the kids played on the slides until either they, or their parents, said, "Ok, I'm cold. Let's go home!" Our kids didn't seem to mind the cold quite as much. We were the last to leave, and the only way we could convince Eli to go was by telling him that he couldn't play with his new toys until we got home. It was a fun day! I've got some videos that I might post later.

Happy Birthday Brianna!

How adorable you are! I can't believe that you are two years old already! You bring such joy to our lives. Some of your favorite things right now are...

Piling "blankets" on top of your babies

Feeding your babies with the new baby bottle you got from Grammy Teena

Playing with your brother

Riding your "bike" (it's more like a scooter)

Repeating EVERYTHING mom and dad say

Giving hugs and kisses

Playing Hide and Seek

I can't wait to see what the future brings for you my love. Everyday, you make us smile and laugh. Even your brother has caught on to that. In his prayers, he never forgets to say, "And thank you for Brianna, that brings us good happiness." I love you my darling!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This year for Christmas we were sick! Again! But luckily not as sick as last year, so no emergency trips to the hospital. I was supposed to sing a duet of "O Holy Night" for our Sacrament meeting, but I was a bit hoarse. I sang it anyway, and everyone told me it sounded great, and hopefully it really did. Since the rest of the family got sick after I did, I was the only one who made it to church that day. We opened up gifts before church and they played with them while I was gone. It is so fun to watch their excitement as they open up their gifts!

 

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care... Oh wait, we don't have a chimney.

 Here, I am showing Eli how to work his new fire truck.

 Brianna and I were both excited to open her stocking!

Surprisingly, this little fire truck (he got a big one too) was one of his favorite gifts.

So excited!

They got a good haul! And were so excited to open each and every thing! Eli was handing out the gifts, but didn't want to bother with any that didn't have his name on it. He is getting pretty good at knowing which name is which, but mostly because he knows the first letter of each person's name.

After we had our Christmas, we traveled up North to have Christmas with Cameron's family. We also got to visit with my sister and my cousin! One day we were going to watch a movie at the theater but it was sold out. We went to the park instead! Yes, it was warm enough in Salt Lake to go to the park the day after Christmas.

I don't have any pictures of New Years, but we were pretty boring. I think we went to bed at about 8:30 on New Year's Eve. Well we were tired! I did remember to tell everyone, "Happy New Years!" when I awoke! So to you all...

Happy New Years!

P.S. I just noticed that Cameron took the picture of the stockings before Santa had finished filling them. Don't worry, Eli's and Brianna's stockings were full too!

Florida!

What do you do when you have a ton of frequent flyer points? Take a trip to Florida of course! We had an amazing time! The highlight of the trip was swimming with the manatees, which we did twice. We also went to the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. That was the best little zoo/park I have ever been to! Here are a few highlights of the trip.

These first few shots are at the Homosassa Spring Wildlife State Park. Hence the closeups of otherwise elusive animals.

 Admit it. If you had seen a bald eagle in front of an American flag, you'd take a picture too. Cheesy or not.

This wood duck was actually wild. We took a boat trip down a river to get to the park, and we saw this guy on the way there. Looks fake doesn't it? But it isn't!

These next ones are from when we went swimming with the manatees. The water in Crystal River is natural spring water, so year round it is 72°. It was about 80° outside when we went swimming, so it wasn't horrible, but we couldn't stay in for more than about 20 minutes at a time or we got too cold. Most everyone else that was there had wetsuits and came in commercial tour boats. We just paddled over in a canoe and used life jackets to keep us a little warmer.

Brianna was tougher than Eli when it came to the cold. He wanted out a lot sooner than she did.

 I know. So attractive in goggles, right?

 It's hard to tell, but there are about 10 manatees in this picture.

 One swimming under our boat.

 This one was curious and followed our canoe for awhile. It's the same one as in the next shot.

The crazy hair picture! One day Brianna had just woken up from her nap and was playing with Eli outside. We snapped a picture because she was being so cute.

 This guy is catching his breakfast.

 Got it! (It's a crab)

Also eating his breakfast.

 Eli saw one of these swimming through the water chasing a fish, and he said, "Wow! It's a ninja bird!" So, forever after any dark bird that we saw was a ninja bird.

 Cameron saw this alligator while he was out hiking one day. It is about 10 feet long!

 This is a blue heron and is one of my favorite photos. I just love the way the colors of the bird match the colors in the background.

Cameron always takes more photos of wildlife than he does of our family. I included every single family picture that he took, and I didn't even include half of the wildlife ones. Silly Cameron. If you have any desire to see some of his other wildlife shots from Florida go to his Flickr page.

Halloween

Last year, right after Halloween, I found a lady bug outfit and a superman outfit at a garage sale for 50¢ each. I figured that would be cheaper than making them myself so I bought them. This year, however, Eli decided that he would rather be Lightning McQueen again. Which is fine with me because I spent a lot of time making that last year! Not only that, but the Superman outfit is still a little on the big side, so I'll see if I can convince him to wear it next year.