We have a BIRTHday! 14 big ones.

Look who is 14.  

She's SO old!  These kiddos grow up so fast!  Elise is smart, beautiful, zany, witty and has a very caring heart.  We love her so much.

I'm pretty sure these kids are crazy.  Erica and Ashlyn Davis came over to eat pie with us.

The Passing of the Granny Gear

 Traditionally, when one of the sisters had their 40th birthday we have showered them with gifts fit for a granny.  All sorts of stuff that people tend to need as they age.  Denture cream, prunes, granny panties, cat sweatshirts, etc.  As the youngest sister it was always very fun and enjoyable to be on the giving end of such presents.  Unfortunately my time for receiving has come.  The last day of my spring break we met in SL and had dinner at Cheesecake Factory (and experienced the worst and slowest service I have ever, ever, ever seen).  The food was good and the cheesecake was amazing, even if it did take about 2 hours for dinner.   Yohanna brought us all squeaky cheese and Gossner milk from Logan.  That was definitely the highlight of the trip! After dinner we went to the hotel and I was bequeathed the traditional granny panties and cat sweatshirt, along with a few other great and exciting gifts such prunes, Depends, Altoids, and of course a lovely turban, fit for a bald granny.  The weekend was fun but really quite a whirlwind.  I dragged Amy up with me for my torture birthday party.  Amy had come to visit us during our spring break and stayed for several days.  This granny party was kind of organized quickly and at the last minute.  I hope she didn't mind too much being a witness to this crazy tradition.  One thing that was different this time though was the lightening speed photo uploads to Facebook.  I'm pretty sure some of the pics of  Carol made it to Facebook, and maybe Linda, but mine were literally uploaded within like, 20 seconds of being taken. I was trying to be a good sport about it but, honestly, it is definitely more fun to be the disher and not the taker.

It's GREAT to be 8!

Adele was lucky this year to have her party on her birthday.  The novelty of a Halloween Birthday Party has not yet worn off so we did the costume birthday party thing once again.

We had a spooky dinner with monster mouths, witch fingers, mummy dogs and breadstick bones.

From left to right:  Gracie, Evelyn, Adele, Lana, Mallory

The birthday ghoul.  She even did her own make up while I was buys slaving in the kitchen.

The other exciting thing 8-year-old activity that happened was Adele getting her ears pierced.  She has wanted to for a long time and I told her she could when she was 8.  She was SUPER excited, very brave and didn't even flinch!

And, of course, we had to spend birthday money while we were there.

Birthday Girl

Another birthday for this girl!  She's 13.  She has changed a whole lot this year!  All these kiddos are getting so old.  This year (since February) she has been wanting a Nintendo 3DS.  She made a deal with me that if I would pay half and get it for her for her birthday she'd pay the other half.  She has been saving ALL her money all year.  She has resisted the temptation to participate in dollar store runs with the other kids.  I'm impressed with her dedication to save for something she really wants. Important life lessons!  We celebrated her birthday a day early because she was headed to Girl's Camp on her birthday.

The usual Swedish Pancake birthday breakfast

She wanted a chocolate and cookies n cream ice cream cake with the "Tri-force" on the top.  

Happy Birthday!!!

Emilia is 15!

This lovely and talented girl is 15!  One more year til she gets her driver's license.  That is scary for sure!  She can actually get her permit after she takes the written test. I'm leaving that up to her. When she wants to do it she can get it scheduled and do it.  I'm not pushing the matter!

Emilia has had a great year.  She started Success Academy and is a Freshman.  Success Academy is a difficult high school program that gives kids the opportunity to take college classes concurrently with high school classes.  This year she took the ACT and was accepted to college.  Next year she will start her college classes.  When she graduates from high school she will also have an associate's degree.  I am hoping we will both graduate at the same time.

Emilia loves to draw and has really grown as an artist. She can look at a picture and draw it.  She has also somehow gained an appreciation for languages, especially European languages and is taking German at school.  She is fascinated by Sweden and Finland and is super excited about going to Ephraim in May for the Scandinavian Festival.  And as always, this girl loves birds and can recognize almost anything by it's call or how it looks.  She's an awesome girl and we love her so much.

I am noticing that Ian is pretty much always in everyone's birthday pictures. He wants to be where the action is for sure.

These girls don't look excited do they?  They are doing what they call "fan girling".

One more year of Youth

So I just turned 39.  I have one more year before the big 40.  I really can't believe it actually. I can remember so vividly when I turned 20.  30 is more of a blur. I was probably sleep deprived with all the kids and I just don't remember being 30.  I have to live it up before the next birthday.  And by living it up I mean going back to college which will make me feel young (or old).

Now that Kathy and Sam live close by we always have  family around to party with.  Kent had to go to SL for the week before my birthday. I had bought a corned beef brisket to make for St. Patrick's day, but since Kent was gone I saved it.  We cooked it up on my birthday and had roasted potatoes.  Kathy made a yummy cake and we had a good time!  I got lots of chocolate, and smart Kent had picked up a bunch of awesome stuff for me when he was in SL at Bath and Body Works.  Ya can't go wrong there.

Ian's 10th!

Happy birthday to this very special dude!  Isn't he such a cute kid!   We have a tradition of picking up out birthday kid on their day and taking them out to lunch wherever they want to go.  Ian wanted to go to the Chinese Buffet.  He was very adventurous there and ate lots of interesting stuff:  clams, oysters, and sushi with raw fish (which he said was disgusting).  He is definitely my most adventurous eater.  Now if someone could tell me why this kid doesn't like noodles...

 Since Kent and I went to Las Vegas the weekend after his birthday and then it was Thanksgiving, the party has been slightly delayed.  More to come on that.  And more pictures too.

Yummy ice cream cake.

Adele's Birthday Halloween Bash

My baby girl is 7!  She loves having her birthday around Halloween. For the last 3 years she has wanted to have a Halloween Birthday party, which makes things really fun and easy.  This year we did the Bertie Botts guess the jelly bean flavor, pass the pumpkin (hot potato), pin the legs on the spider and donut on a string. It was pretty crazy with 10 little kids.  I think next year we will go for the smaller 2 or 3 friend party.

Happy Birthday to Kent

Happy birthday to this awesome guy!  He wanted me to make him a strawberry cream cheese pie. I learned something:  You can't really substitute margarine for shortening in pie crusts.  There is too much moisture.  While my crust was baking it was falling over.  I was able to salvage it by putting it on a flat pan, but it became a tart instead of a pie.  It still tasted pretty good.  Ooops.

 Love you dude.

Happy B-day Emilia

This girl just turned 14!  She's growin up!  Now that she has her braces off she is starting to look so much older.  And starting high school next year.  *sniff sniff*.  Can't believe this girl is so grown up.  

Breakfast candle in the (bum) strawberry

Scored some roller blades

 For her birthday she wanted to have some friends over for food and movies.   I made taquitos for the girls and they all brought a treat.  After dinner they played games and watched Frozen.  They pretty much had it all memorized. I could hear them in the other room quoting the entire movie.  It was pretty special.  And you don't even want to know about "Let it Go".  Ahh, the fun of being a teenager.  It was a lot of fun though having the girls over here. It brought back a lot of memories of being a giggly teen. (And really, it hasn't changed all that much has it?  Really?)

Nice photobombing Kent

The Other Birthday Girl

March is a big birthday month at our house!

Here's my birthday girl!

I love how everyone is getting ready to help blow out the candles.  This pic cracks me up!

The mint choco chip ice cream cake. Yum.

Don't you think she looks a bit evil in this picture?

And here is the birthday girl with the traditional birthday strawberries and whip cream.  

Happy big 12th Emilia! We love ya! Thanks for making me a mom!

One Year Older and Wiser Too

Another birthday has come and gone.  Next year I will no longer be able to classify myself in the "mid 30s".  I will have moved on to "late 30s".  I am not sure how I feel about getting closer to 40.  When I turned 20 I was excited. There was something about being out of the teens that was great.  When I turned 30 it was a little more of a crisis than I thought it would be.  Who knows about 40. And 50 and so on.  *sigh*. Here I am eating my birthday treat: apple turnovers. *Side note:  My family always makes fun of me when I wear this navy and white striped shirt.  They constantly tell me that I look like a mime.  Or a prisoner.  I think I know what I will be for Halloween this year.  Just gotta find me some red suspenders.

My actual birthday wasn't the most exciting day. You can't really celebrate much on weekdays when the kids have all their regular activities and when you have kiddos at home from school with communicable diseases.  Friday the 23rd was the real birthday celebration.  Kent took me out to dinner to eat some Thai food and then we went and bought my super exciting present (really!)  a small chest freezer for our garage.  On Saturday I went shopping and to dinner with some of my good friends and they were nice to me and treated me to dinner and cupcakes.

.

The kiddos enjoying the birthday treats.

PaRtY!!!

We had quite the time picking a theme for Ian's birthday party.  He kept changing his mind about the theme, the games, the activities etc.  The one thing that didn't change was the donuts.  For awhile he wanted an Indiana Jones party.   While I.J. IS cool, we thought it might make things a little bit complicated since he, (and probably none of his guests) had ever seen Indiana Jones.  We finally agreed on a Harry Potter party. 

The kids were sorted into houses, given wands and worked on some "schoolwork" puzzles with their wand pencils.

 We made potions that bubbled and "smoked"

Played "Bertie Bott's-- Guess the Flavor"

Opened presents and ate our donuts.   We had "pumpkin juice" punch bubbling with dry ice and had glow-stick straws. And just like on his birthday, no cake and ice cream anywhere to be found.  Ian's friend Dylan gave him 2 jars of pickles.  Just what he had asked for.  Happiness.

All the guests!  What a funny picture huh?  I can't get Ian to stop looking at his toys and smile for a picture!

Ian's 7th Birthday!



 It's a tradition at our house to have a candle and sing "Happy Birthday" at breakfast.  Usually this involves whipped cream and strawberries since that is a favorite around here.  Ian wanted Swedish pancakes for breakfast, which is another very popular birthday food.

Ian also got to pick what we were having for dinner.  He wanted to have mini pizzas that everyone could make themselves.

And here we are, having a dinner picnic with our pizzas.  Ian's birthday was very non-traditional, but he had a great time getting to pick all the food and getting to eat dinner on the floor.  Instead of a cake and ice cream he decided we should all go out for ice cream.  Works for me.  (Check out Emilia's awesome outfit!)

The Birthday Girl is 4!

 We always have a candle in something for the birthday breakfast.

 

Adele wanted a Squinkee gumball machine

She is posing with 4 olives because she is 4. 

Every time she hears the number 4 she always says:  "4 like I am 4!"

The cake

Adele adding the finishing touches to the cake.

She loves this umbrella and has slept with it every night since her birthday.

Happy birthday Adele!