Family Fun

Sunday evening, we celebrated Anna's NINTH birthday with family. I cannot believe she's nine (well, on Tuesday anyway). More on that later. For now, take a look at the craziness that always happens when this family gets together :)

Who's surprised that birthday girl has a book in her hands?!

 Tate & Isaac...those two are trouble! The fearless duo!

 Anna's birthday bouquet from Hudson and Tate...picked from their own backyard!

 Papa tried to tell her that if she keeps watering that green flower, it'll grow more green. Anna didn't buy it. Jacob was ready to start watering all his green "flowers"! haha

 Daddy needs a shotgun.....

 Oh boy...Aunt Cara has been sewing!!

 Look out Aunt Cara...she's got a big hug for you!

 Why is she looking so weird? The next picture explains it all...

 Oh Mia.

 She's had her eye on this journal for MONTHS!

 She loves her Papa and Binga. I think she'll be a Papa's girl the rest of her life...has been since the day she was born!

 Bryce decided to put the gift bag on his head, so Uncle Wally had a little fun with him! ;)

 Time for Duck, Duck, Goose! Rhys just ran around the circle playing her own version of the game.

 Look out...here comes Tate!!

I say it every year, but we are SO blessed to have family that loves to get together and celebrate!! This is what birthdays were growing up...grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins just getting together and being together. Nothing fancy, no big to-do. Just sharing a meal and being entertained by the kids (easy to do when there are 9 of them!). It's never quiet and it's never dull, but I love the memories my kids are making. So thank you, family, for making the effort to be here and celebrate Anna Rose! 

My Baby is SEVEN!!!

Anna wanted a pool party and Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Alisha were nice enough to let us crash their house! It was just a family party, but for my family...that means close to 30 people! We're so blessed to have family that comes to celebrate with us!

 Since harvest was so early this year, Aunt Cara wanted to make her a cake. Usually, her birthday is right smack in the middle of harvest. Let's just say Aunt Cara hit a home run with this cake!! :)

 Aaron's brother and family got the kids Dave Ramsey's children's books. They teach about saving and giving. The kids love them. We recently spent quite a bit of time de-cluttering Anna's room. Her and I talked about how much is enough and how she doesn't play with a lot of her toys and what she should do with them, etc. One of the books talks about an orphanage, and we've talked about orphanages before when some friends went through an adoption. And we've talked about being thankful for what we have and not being greedy, etc etc. So when it came time to send out her birthday invitations, I asked her what she thought she should do about getting presents. She said she had too many toys as it was. Her first suggestion was to donate the toys to an orphanage. Since there isn't one nearby, I asked what else she could do. We came up with the idea of donating the money that would have been spent on her gifts to Uncle Scott's Ranch. It makes my heart sing to know that she has a heart for others and desires to give already. And our family is so incredibly generous! She raised over $100! A couple people had gotten gifts for her before I sent out the invites, so she did still have a couple of presents to open.

 Lots of cousins!

 Isaac thought Anna's horse was the perfect size for him to ride!

 Isaac crashed. Poor Jacob was sick with strep and had to stay home with Daddy. :(

 She loves her cake!!

 Isaac and I slept in Bryce's room and Isaac decided that sleep was for the birds that morning. 

 I love the mural on Bryce's wall! Amazing.

 So we went for a walk over to Great Grandpa and Grandma's house.

 Beautiful country sunrise

 Isaac LOVES the pool table at Grandma Mary's. He remembered it from the day before when he went over there with Papa & Binga.

 After a loooong day, Isaac crashed hard when we got home!

Jacob was feeling much better when we got home. When I checked on him, I found him sound asleep with his leg in the air!

Anna's 5th Birthday...on the 4th!

We had Anna's party on the 4th of July weekend again this year. It works out well with all the fun stuff going on around town. This year, Anna wanted a butterfly cake. I made way too much cake, so Binga also made her a lady bug cake!

Not my finest example of cake decorating, but Anna loved it:) The "recipe" called for candy sticks as the "body" but I couldn't find any. And yes, Aaron was the first to point out just what the Twix looked like.

Time for presents! Aunt Cara & Uncle Terry gave her TOM & JERRY!!! The kids love Tom & Jerry.

And Aunt Cara made her a beautiful blue butterfly dress.

Papa & Binga got her a keyboard! Can you tell she's excited?

And she finally got her big girl bike!!

What a beautiful birthday girl!

The sidewalk in front of our house is the worst possible sidewalk to learn to ride a bike! It's uneven and bumpy. And of course, after I gave her a pep talk about how the training wheels would keep her bike from tipping over, etc etc etc. And then what happens? HER BIKE TIPS OVER!!

So Jacob took a spin and then she was ready to try again.

These two love watching harvest videos. Seth and Aaron dream up big plans for a custom cutting crew :)

Early Saturday morning, these guys (my brother Jamie, Doug and Aaron) ran the 5K. None of them (or me) slept well that night so since I was up at that ridiculous hour I took them to the starting line.

I'm not sure how many people ran, but it was a lot.
We did get to see the parade in some rain, but most of the other festivities, including the fireworks, were canceled because of the rain. :(