Sunday, June 1, 2014

London's Birthday!

My sweet London turned 9.
I never in my life thought my kids would ever get old, but they do.  London and I have become such good friends this last year, we have had some of the best conversations, and I have grown to love her even more!
Just the other night, she came into my room at about 10:30-this is not like London so I knew something was bugging her.  I invited her to sit on the bed and talk with me, and she had a whole heap of things to talk about!  And I loved it!  I could listen to that sweet girl jabber on forever!  
Her main concern that night was that she couldn't believe how girls dressed in mascara commercials. She is very distressed with how immodest women are these days.  Her question to me, which I will never forget, was "Why do they gotta show all their ...stuff?!"
I laughed and hugged that little girl and we had ourselves a good talk about modesty, and how important it is.  We talked about how important women are, and how important moms and daughters are.
Some things about London:
Her favorite show right now is Dr. Oakley Yukon Vet.  She wants me and her to be veterinarians, and drive all over like Dr. Oakley and help sick animals....in Alaska!
AND Bill Nye the Science Guy
Her favorite food is Swedish Pancakes, she could eat those things all day.
Her favorite animal is still a dragon, can't break it to her that they are not real.
Her favorite thing to do is run and play with her friends
Here is  the funny side note/story about that statement.
She came in the other night after playing with our neighbor Anika, and told me that she wanted to talk to Anika about what she wants to be when she grows up.  She said, "I told Anika I want to be a scientist when I grow up, what do you want to be? And Anika told me, she wants to be one of those mascara girls!!!"  
London couldn't believe it.
I fall more and more in love with this girl every day!
I was so excited to decorate the house for her birthday!  I made her a viking ship and a huge dragon puppet, and tried to make a whole scene for her.  It's sort of a China meets Viking dragon, and she LOVED it, so it didn't matter how ridiculous it was!
 I knew she would dig this, I put the viking ship on the mantle and made waves and "water" crepe paper, and hung the dragon puppet underneath, he is a sea dragon because those are her favorite.
Here she is!  The morning of her big day!  She is wearing the cutest outfit Grammy sent to her!  Thank you so much Grammy!  she could not get over this owl shirt!!!
 After she left for school, I had to get started on her cake!  
She wanted it to be dragon-y, and that meant the frosting should be....purple, and the cake should be green.  These are her thoughts not mine!  I loved making it though, it was so fun, Aubrey was quite a helper too!
 I found all these miniature dragons at Target and got them for her cake, I think they are just about perfect!  And I learned how to do frosting "scales" and I think they look pretty dang awesome too!
But it didn't matter what I thought, I was just hoping London would approve.
 That night, when she got home, we waited until Daddy was up before she opened all her presents.  Darn it!  Daddy had to work that night and miss all the fun, but we wanted to make sure he got to see the presents!
She wanted sloppy joe's and french fries for dinner and a big fruit salad.  I was relieved, talk about an easy peasy dinner!
She couldn't wait until after dinner to open at least one present, so I let her open a Littlest Pet Shop crab.  It was nostalgic, because that used to be her absolute favorite toy of all time.  She was just a ball of giggles when she opened it!  It's a crab, so it passed and was an acceptable toy.
 Here we go with the presents!  I had to get a picture of her with them!
 She got a dragon book from How to Train your Dragon.  It's the Book of Dragons, so it tells about all the features of the dragons and then it has punch out/paper airplane dragons!
We were busy that night!

 We just HAD to get her a couple Playmobile dragons.  She was oohing and aahing over them that time at Toys R Us.
 And a snorkel.
I think her face says it all.

 Hatch your own dragon.
 This was immediately ripped open and put into water, we absolutely had to see which dragon we would hatch!
 While the egg was working away, we decided to open birthday cards.
Thank you so much Nana and Grandpa and Great Nana!!!
She was so excited to get birthday dollars!

 And back to the egg, which was fizzing red stuff at this point, and the shell was getting mushy!
Look at the concern on her face.

 And it's a baby Toothless!
That HUGE egg, and here is this teeny tiny dragon, but London couldn't be more thrilled!
 After dinner, and Daddy leaving, Grandma and Grandpa Edwards came over!
They had the greatest surprise for Miss London!
A full size Toothless that flaps it's wings AND Hookfang!
 Does this girl look happy or what?
 Even Aubrey was celebrating!
Time to blow out the candles and have us some cake!




 London was right, it was pretty cool looking to cut into it!
We spent the night eating our scaly cake, and making dragons.
I love my sweet 9 year old London, and I hope she is always this curious and amazing!
LONDON'S PARTY!
Here are her cute invites!
We sort of loved this Maleficent looking dragon, and had to use them on her invitations.
She invited her good friends, Reagyn, Matti, and Edyn.
And I took more pictures of the decorations because I couldn't believe how cute it was with the balloons!!!
 I love balloons and I should always remember how amazing they make every occasion.
 The girls came over and we made green popcorn, and headed upstairs to watch Pete's Dragon until it got dark enough outside.
As you can imagine, it did not take 4 3rd grade girls too long before they wanted to stop the movie and open presents.
They were so sweet.
 Edyn gave London some paints and paint brushes and a wooden bird house and a wooden letter L for London to paint.

 Here they are all watching London open her presents.  I love that I caught 2 of them wiping their noses!
 Matti gave her nail polish, and some Halloween socks!
Which was not weird at all, it completely rocked because 3rd graders can give each other Halloween socks in May, especially in this house!

 And Reagyn gave her a poster book.  London has loved it!  Her and Aubrey have been busy coloring their hearts out.

 Complete silliness.
 They just could not wait for it to get completely dark to go roast marshmallows.

 They were completely giggly, and no one felt left out, and they were all well behaved.  I like this small party stuff, there's way less drama!
Aubrey was quite the photo bomber though.

 I hope these girls stay good friends, they were just giggling and talking all night long, and there was only one boy crazy one in the bunch, but I think I broke her of it when I told her that boys are gross and eat the boogers even the ones in their ears and that every boy has his very own fart box.  
She was so funny, she said, "So THAT'S what that box is in my brother's closet!"
I told them they could like boys when they turn 16 because that's when boys start trying not be so gross.
Good birthday party, and educational.
Win win.


Thursday, May 22, 2014

Mother's Day Weekend!

What a fun Mother's Day weekend!
We started out the weekend with recitals!
Friday night, I got to go help with all the little girls who are not Aubrey in their recital.  It was so adorable!  I got to help in the dressing room, they were so fun to listen to, and so fun to dress up.
My kiddos wanted to come with me and watch the recital, so they sat in the audience and they were perfect!  I seriously could not ask for better kids!  I love them so much.
Then Saturday it was Aubrey's turn to do her stuff!
She was so excited!  She has never performed on a stage before, so she was so nervous and excited, I loved talking to her about it that day.
Nana and Grandpa were able to come up for her performance.
She was so glad they came, the first thing she asked me that morning was if they were going to come.  She about jumped out of her skin when I told her they were coming!
They took us to McDonalds before the big show.
This is a big, huge deal to Aubrey!  Plus they have Spiderman toys right now, and she has a crush on Spiderman right now (it is the cutest, most innocent little crush in the world-I think it's actually a crush on Lego Spiderman) so it all worked out really well for her.
Here's Nana and Aubs.
 And Grandpa and Aubs.
Here's Aubrey's whole class right before they went out on stage.
Most of this class has never taken dance before, or been on a stage before, so they were really nervous and really excited and REALLY giggly.  It was so precious.
They did a great job on their Enchanted dance.
 And then it was time for Splish Splash.
It is Aubrey's happy dance.  Too bad I couldn't even see her from the parent's seats!  
She had a great time though and she was so brave, no tears, no fuss, no tantrums.  She just purely enjoyed herself.
 And here she is after the dance.  I love that she has no shoes on in this picture.
She is so funny, she cannot seem to look at me when I take pictures of her, she always looks to the side, or something.  It cracks me up.
See?
What is she looking at?
Here she is after all her dances, and taking her bows.
She wanted flowers in the worst way, so Cris told me to make sure I got her some flowers from him (since he had to work darn it), and then Nana and Grandpa got her some flowers too!  She was beside herself.  I had to get her the flower lalaloopsy she wanted, yes I did!  She did such a good job practicing, and I am not above bribery no siree!

I just love this picture.
It makes my heart melt a little.  Aubrey adores Grandma Diane, and the feeling is mutual.
After all the hugging and pictures, we went and got some ice cream at Baskin Robbins.  I haven't been there in forever!  We weren't the only ones with this big idea!  The place was packed and there was only one poor girl behind the counter.  She did awesome though, and had such a good attitude about it.
Thank you for the yummy treat Nana and Grandpa!
Aubrey found some dance friends, so they decided to be friends and have their ice cream together.  They all had the same thing too!  Cotton candy ice cream.
Then, it was time for Nana and Grandpa to get home.  
We were so glad they came up for Aubrey's big night!
 MOTHERS DAY
This was a fun day.  Poor Cris had to work Saturday night, so he was sleeping Sunday so the kids and I went to church together. 
It was nice to just sit with my sweet kiddos, and neither of the talks were about moms so I didn't end up bawling all through sacrament meeting which was really nice!  I hate doing that!!!  
I loved hearing my kids sing to me, and I loved all the treats the bishopric and primary did for us, it was just a nice day.
Cris went and bought a roast for us to have for dinner, and Beth, from Cris' work, brought me some shrimp!  How nice is that?  She is the nicest lady!  And she knew I was the only one who would eat it, so yay for me!!!
After church, we went to the Edwards to visit Diane for Mother's Day.
Aubrey went straight to their play room and made me such a great mothers day present!
There were birds.
 And she made a tea party for me!
 This was my favorite surprise, a chocolate inside a heart.
 Then, she said, "Here's the grand finale mom."
She squeezed each bird one at a time until they were all chirping a beautiful mother's day song to me.
I felt very special.
 London came in to giggle a little with me.
I told her she had to come see these birds all lined up, and she and I had a good little giggle together.
I love my kids.
 We had to get some kind of picture with Ethan right?
Look at how well London takes pictures!
I love these sweet people!  They have been such a blessing in our lives, they make it so much more bearable to not have my parents around.
 When we got home, we were all pretty hungry so Ethan said, "Don't worry mom, I got this."
He made lunch for Aubrey, and then he told me to just hang on.
A few minutes later, he came upstairs with this.
I love how he served it on a cookie sheet, and that he drank half the diet coke.
I really do love that kid.  I am such a lucky, blessed mommy.
 I also got flowers from Nana and Grandpa!  
It was so sweet, I got home from a crazy errand laden day, and found a box in the entry way from pro flowers!  It was such a nice surprise!  
There were chocolates in there too!  And they were kind of delicious!  
Thank you again to Nana and Grandpa!
It was such a nice Mother's Day.
I loved spending it with my sweet family