March party time

March was a fun filled month for us. Chris's parents and sister came to visit us for a few days. We were able to visit Kirtland and also celebrate Chris's 31st birthday. At the end of the month we celebrated Steven's 5th birthday with a bang. We had a big Bakugan birthday bash that was a big success.
The weather didn't really cooperate so I didn't take very many pictures but this picture is in front of the Kirtland Temple. We took the tour and were able to see the inside. It was really incredible. I was just amazed that they built such and incredible structure with their own hands and then had to up and leave it not long after they had finished it.
Their was a visitors center inside the Kirtland temple that is owned by the reorganized church. Laura Aaron and I had fun dressing up.

We stayed one night in a hotel with a swimming pool. The temple and the visitor center was my favorite part of the trip but I think the pool was probably Laura and Steven's favorite.

Laura and Steven had swimming lessons in March so that made swimming even more fun. They had a great time showing us what they were learning.
Aaron on a little path by the Kirtland temple. He stopped and said "Cheese Mommy" I needed no further prompting to whip out the camera.
Chris's parents gave him new hiking boots for his birthday he is anxious to break them in.
Here Chris is unwrapping a present from Steven. He made him a lego rocket and for a special effect wrapped it, in his favorite blanket.

Nothing like a new shirt to wear to work to make a man happy. Thanks for working hard for us honey, we love you!
The next and final birthday celebration of the year is Steven! This is his Bakugan costume(Actually "How to Train Your Dragon" PJ's purchased at Walmart.)
The day started with the ritual opening of many many presents.
I tried and tried to get this to load the right direction. I'm not sure why the blog keeps flipping it but here is the Bakugan birthday cake in all it's sidways glory.

Steven and Laura were active participants in the decorating of the cake. They took over decorating the edible truffle Bakugan balls, which is just as well I think they did as good a job as I was doing.

I found this Chinese New Years puppet on line and thought it would go great with our theme. I know that Bakugan's are not always dragons but I think most of the time they are. We aren't experts here at our house we are just fans. The puppets were a huge hit at the party and all the kids loved making them. I am only sad I didn't get a picture with all the kids and their puppets. The trouble was that I had 13 kids at the party and had split them up into two groups. One group with me for games and one group with Chris for the puppet making. Getting them all together would have been maybe impossible.
They did all come together when we said cake and ice cream time but by then we were just about out of time.

The present casious. I didn't have good organized way of doing that. Let me know if any one has any good ideas.
Most of the party went smoothly. We played Duck Duck Goose, had a candy walk, played keep the balloon in the air and some freeze dancing. I even tried Button Button but that really didn't work despite that the website where I was looking for game ideas said it was great for 3 year olds. I think all the kids had a great time and Steven was one very happy birthday boy. I can now breath easy knowing I have a full year until I have to throw another friend birthday party for Laura. Next year will be Steven's turn to have a family one.

Laura and Aaron's birthday's

February brought more Then just a lot of snow this year. It also brought my mom from Utah. She stayed for about 10 days and helped us celebrate Laura and Aaron's birthdays. Laura's birthday was is on the 29th but we celebrated it on the 25th since that was the day that worked best for Chris's schedule. Aaron's birthday is on the 27th and we actually celebrated it on that day which is unusual for us. We are always changing birthdays and holidays to fit our schedule. IT was wonderful having my mom here she has boundless kid energy. This picture shows what she was busy doing from early in the morning when they went down and woke her up until bedtime.
Laura chose crapes for her birthday breakfast, and of course she wanted to make them herself.

With a little persuading she agreed to let Steven help with the crepe making.
Laura's birthday breakfast. I am actually in the picture since my mom was there.
Laura picked this rainbow cake for her birthday because she thought she could make it herself. My mom and I both tried to give pointers but were quickly reminded that this was her cake and she was going to decorate it how she wanted too.
Laura's cake decorated completely by herself.
Last year Laura got to have a friend party so this year she had to have a family party. For her family party she chose to go to ChuckE Cheese. Thanks to clips about Chuck E Cheese that are always being played on PBS my kids have been asking about it for a long time now. This was our first time at ChuckE Cheese except for Chris who went a few times as a kid. We all had a great time and I'm sure ChuckE Cheese is in our birthday celebrating future.

I had to post this picture because I actually won.


Here we are enjoying our high quality very greasy pizza. Laura said that it was the best birthday ever because everything was so fun and because Nanna was there for it.

Steven was a big fan of this guy but Laura and Aaron were not fans.
Since we celebrated Aaron's birthday two days later I could not bear to have more yucky birthday cake sitting on the counter. So I made Aaron this razzleberry pie which we ate long before the cake was all gone. I figured since he was only two I could get away with it.
He showed no signs of disappointment at the pie so I think I pulled it off this year. We will see if I'm as lucky next year.
It doesn't get much better then a new ball.

Aaron also got this new race car track as well as a few new shake and Go cars from Grandma.
A bubble blowing machine is probably a close second. Sadly it broke not long after its first use. So I guess good old fashioned blowing is probably the best way to go as far as bubbles are concerned.

Winter Highlights

Even though we are well into Spring for which I am very grateful I still wanted to post some of the winter fun we managed to have. We had so much snow this year, we were able to go sledding four times and Chris and I even got out on our skis twice. It was the first time we were able to ski since we moved here to Ohio. Winter is not quite so bad if you have some snow to play in. My mom was here for 10 days at the end of February and that also helped to brighten the long winter.


When my mom got here we had about two feet of snow. By the time she left more then half had melted. We went sledding the first Saturday she was here.
Chris and I went x-country skiing at Prairie Oaks Metro Park. It is only about 15 minutes from our house and it's really pretty.





Chris built this big guy with the kids on one of the many snow days we had. We didn't get dumped on like the east Coast but we did have 4 snow days where Laura stayed home from school.