Birthday Bash

Guess who's almost 30?! Thats right, ME. I only have one more day left in my twenties...and actually I'm fine with it. I'm ready to be an official "grown-up" :) But does that mean I'll start acting like one? Nahhh. Two of my very best friends around, Katie & Sarah, threw me an awesome birthday party last week to celebrate. It was so much fun to party with great friends. We ate at Petra(yummy Mexican food, which as you may know is my favorite). Katie went all out with treats-she made me chocolate covered mint oreos along with the cute little cakes. She also bought me this little album and had everyone write me a few birthday wishes to put in the album. So, I have sweet notes from all of my favorite friends plus pictures from the party in this album-I will treasure it forever. Thanks Katie for the extra special things you planned to make this party memorable! And thanks Sarah for helping with everything too! I will never forget that night:)

Me and some of my peeps, L to R: Sheri, Sarah, Brittney, Melissa, Jennifer, Amanda, Rachel, Me, & Katie

My awesome friend Emily and I-she had to leave early with her sweet little baby, but I made sure I got a picture with her before she left. She missed the group photo later so I'm glad I did! I'm thinking Ammon and her son Will are gonna be buddies:)
The awesome cakes Katie made-yummy and super creative. She had an 80's theme with the invite and treats-loved it:)

My oreo bouquet!!! And yes, they are gone. Every last one.

Since I was the birthday girl, I got to be "special." I worked those glasses like I owned them.

And thankfully, Katie made everyone else wear something ridiculous too. So I wouldn't feel alone. But wait a second, Katie....you didn't wear them. Smart girl:)Thanks everyone for a wonderful night! So glad I was able to celebrate with you before this baby boy comes(my due date is the day after my birthday so they threw my party last week). He and I are going to have back to back birthdays. Well, unless he decides to come tomorrow and share my birthday with me:) Who knows?

Prego Photo Shoot: 2010

I asked Joey to take some maternity pics of me this week and I'm so happy with how they turned out! He did such a wonderful job. And the weather totally cooperated-we'd been having temps in the 100's and it cooled off to the 80's for one day only-photo day! I'm so lucky to have a man with such photo skillz:) He also took some shots of me and the girls and a few of the girls doing their own poses of choice. And of course, I had to take a picture of the handsome man behind the camera with his daughters too. I love every single picture. We are so blessed with such a beautiful bunch. Crazy how this chapter of our lives is about to close, the "all-girl" chapter:) Its been fun living a life of playing with barbies and playing dress-up, but now its time to widen our scope to transformers and cars. Joey can't wait:)

End of summer fun

Ok, so I'm backtracking a teensy bit to last week:) Friday night we decided to take the kids out to dinner and out for some fun. It was the last weekend before school started so we thought we needed to party. We went over to Fairview and ate at...

Yummy food, but mostly we went because we thought the name of it was cute(Cali was so excited about the cow being purple:) and it was right next to the "Fountains at Fairview" which was our planned activity for the night. We had been to the fountains with friends before, but had never gone at night when the water glows and they have light shows. It was really cool!! And the kids had so much fun running around and making friends with all the other little girls there.

Time to dry off and get ready for the show!

Cali and Ella danced to the music-it was so cute.
Aubrey chillin on her towel

And a couple of pics of the show. The water glowed different colors and shot up and down and all around to the music playing. It was pretty awesome! And the fountain in the middle shot waaaaay up high. The kids were pretty wowed by it(and we were too). A fun free family activity!

So summer is over. School has begun. Bummer dude.

Handsome Like Dad

Found this simple and adorable little onesie with pants/matching hats at the Osh Kosh outlet today. I think it will be the perfect cozy little homecoming outfit for Ammon. I mean, his Dad is pretty dang handsome....so of course he will be too:)

First Day of School 2010

Today was the big day...the first day of school! Ella is no longer at the bottom of the food chain and gets to be a big first grader. And Aubrey is just too grown up and starting third grade(What? How did that happen?!) This year Aubrey has Mrs. Dickson, who I've heard wonderful things about. This was the teacher she was hoping for (phew!). And Ella has Mrs. Gahan, who was Aubrey's first grade teacher-an amazing lady! Ella already feels like she knows her so that is nice. I seriously prayed she would get her because we loved her so much:) I am so happy they both will have such wonderful teachers this year, what a blessing! They were both soo excited for their first day, mostly because they got to wear their new clothes/shoes/accessories :) Totally girls! Here they are right before we left this morning. . .

Cali of course had to get in a shot with her big sisters. Cali handled this morning just fine. No sadness or tears. I think the fact that the cafeteria served donuts for the parents & sibs for the boohoo/yahoo breakfast helped. She was perfectly content munching on a chocolate donut right after we took the older girls to their class. My kind of girl-chocolate makes everything alright:) Plus, she seems like she totally remembers the girls being at school last year and it doesn't seem to be a big deal to her to be alone. She has mommy all to herself now:) Well, for a little while...

Each of the school girls struck a pose for me :)

Lookin good!
I can't wait to hear about their first day. I hope it went great!! Cali and I spent some "special" her and I time this morning and even had a fun play date with a friend at Chuck E Cheese. This is my last week with just her and I at home and I want to squeeze in as much one on one time as possible before the lil boy comes. 9 days or less...

Origami

A couple of weeks ago we checked out an origami for kids video from the library. Here are the girls creations. . . pretty cool, eh? Boats, puppies, bats, swans, a box, a flower and a dinosaur. Good work Aubrey and Ella!

Our big girl with a whole lot of curl

Cali's hair was especially curly and beautiful the other day so Joey snapped a few shots of her in the kitchen. . .I just love them! They capture her and her funny personality so well. I've been watching this girl the past couple of weeks and she just seems to be growing faster than ever. And in two weeks or less, she will all of the sudden seem even older to us. Having a new baby does that! It makes me sad:( Our little baby isn't a baby anymore and pretty soon she'll be a big sister. I know she'll be a big helper and will enjoy her new role, but I just wish sometimes I could make time stop for a little bit. Or at least slow down. We love this little girl so much. She is so loving and sweet. She makes the funniest facial expressions, as you can see. And she loves to be silly-she fits right in over here:) She does try our patience at times(she just wants to do her own thing!) so thank goodness she is so stinkin cute! ;) Enjoy these pics of our cute curly-haired Cali.

Baby Shower!

This past Thursday night, 3 of my favorite people threw me a wonderful baby shower. It was SO fun! So many people came to pour out their love, support and congratulations to us. And I came home with a ton of cute cute stuff! I felt so loved that night-it was perfect. Thank you everyone that helped and everyone that came!!

Me and my peeps that threw the shower(L to R): Rachel, Amanda, Me & Sarah. I love you girls!

This picture cracks me up. Sarah, you rock woman:) The shower was a fondue party with yummmmy chocolate and everything you could think of to dip in it. So heavenly. And I loved the island theme to the party(they know our nursery theme is surfer/islander). It was perfect.

Me and another one of my besties, Katie. One of the sweetest girls you'll ever meet.

Two more of my favorite people, Sheri & Susan. Wonderful gals that also happen to live about 30 seconds down the street from me:)

A few more buds from church: Carla, Sharon and Jennalee

My super sweet friend and neighbor across the street, Monda & her sweet daughter, Meredith.

The lovely Kendra and Melanie. So I tried to snap shots of everyone, but missed about half of them. I tried:)

Here are pics of me opening the goodies...it was so weird to be opening up little boy clothes. So not used to that! So awesome:)

I just thought this was a cute picture of Amanda:) The shower was at her beautiful home, which I just found out they are moving from very very soon. I'm so sad Amanda!!!

Me and my handmade card from my dear dear friend, Susan. Definitely going in the baby book! She makes the cutest cards EVER.

Had to get a pic of Emily's sweet baby boy. He was born about a month and a half ago. Such a cutie, just looking at him got me really excited! Emily is on the right and Amanda is holding her baby. Doesn't Emily look awesome for having a 7 week old?!

The next morning I got all the stuff out to show my girls and of course I had to lay it all out to admire it:) And of course I took pics. So many adorable things! The girls were so excited looking at all the gifts with me. They can't wait to have a lil bro.

Anyways, that about wraps it up! The baby shower was an awesome night with awesome friends. I'm so blessed to have these girls in my life! Now we are totally ready for this boy to come! 2 1/2 more weeks. . . can't believe how close its getting. Can't wait to meet him!