30

I turned 30 last week. I was more worried about it 6 months ago. The sad part- when I drastically cut my hair one of my biggest worries was turning 30 with such a horrible hair do! Let's just say I got over that one. In one sense I was excited to turn 30. Totting around four kids, being twenty and some change made heads turn. 30 sounds so much more mature and worthy of four kids. I am also hoping my "older" friends will not feel such a big age gap between us anymore - wink, wink!

Luckily, MLK landed the day before giving Connor a big fat day off of work to celebrate ME. Breakfast in bed with cinnamon rolls and all (Ashlyn and I practically ate the entire pan.) Jane, one of my idols, had us over for dinner. What I didn't know was that it was a decoy. Connor planned a surprise party with some of our favorite families. He also had worked long and hard creating a movie about me. A slideshow of pictures from birth to the present as well as interviews with all the kids about how they felt about me. I can say that he did a great job- there were only a few pictures that I cringed at as we all watched the video.

Success? I say so! Corbin had cake for dinner, my house was filled with people I love and Connor didn't have seminary the next day (meaning, I got to actually hang out with him after the kids went to bed.)

But the celebration doesn't end there...dinner made by my bestie with a bunch of other super amazing gals!

Thanks for making my 30th super amazing everyone!

One and counting

On Friday Kamryn had her first birthday! How fast this year has gone. It has been packed with so many blessings. We have enjoyed our first year with her- to say the least. Sadly, the 4th child gets jipped on a lot of the frills in life. This was our pathetic attempt at a party... When we sang to her she acted interested but confused as to why everyone was looking at her. Because she is my best eater, I assumed she would devour the cake unlike all my other kids. Surprisingly, she didn't. How sad. However, I can't say that it was the best cake I have made. She didn't mind getting her hands messy... She was great at sharing... She likes both chocolate and vanilla... Most of all she liked her bath... She didn't seem to have any interest in unwrapping her birthday presents, I couldn't keep Corbin, Ashlyn and Dylan to stop unwrapping for her... She was content just playing with the toys that were already around... I truly have mixed feelings about this birthday. I have loved every minute of this munchkin. She has an extremely happy temperament. I have always felt like she was so mature for her size- like I could connect and talk to her as if she understood. I am excited to see each new step of her life because she continues to become even more entertaining every day. However, I am so sad that one year has already passed only because it means that it will continue fly by at the same rate and I have enjoyed it too much for it to move so quickly. I have come to realize that my experience with motherhood has been a little backwards. When Dylan and Ashlyn were little I wished away the years and wanted my babyhood days to quickly expire. Now, as I am on my fourth baby I am finally coming to realize how much fun this is and how much I really love it- only to realize it is winding down. It could be due to the dynamics we are in right now, but I wish I had known then what I know now. I have learned to treasure each new day.

Lego Party

Now I can't take all the credit for this one. Again, my creative friend Rochelle did this over the summer and it seemed doable. But I guess I can take credit for the work I did do.

First we did the Lego drop...

Standing on a chair and seeing how many Legos we could get into a jar in one minute. Chauncey won with a whopping 14! As you can see Corbin had to do it to0. He got more joy out of throwing the Lego's and watching all the boys scrounge to pick them up.

We did a Lego scavenger hunt. They had to find all the pieces of Legos and put them together right to read the next clue. Which lead them to...
Edible Legos!!!

We did a musical Legos game. Whoever ended up with the Lego piece got to choose one of each of these... (don't worry, I hit an awesome sale at the Lego store!)

(luckily they didn't figure out that they should really try to keep the Lego instead of get rid of it!)

Then Lego cake and ice cream...

Lastly, "human Legos"...

which ended up like this...

Thank you to all who could come!! We had a blast.

Friday night we had a family birthday bash. The boys had fun opening their presents from us. Sadly, Ashlyn was feeling quite left out. Hopefully when this little girl comes it will help her feel more included when they have birthdays close.

Dylan's favorite gift...

Corbin's favorites...
And a plush Lightening McQueen, (which sadly mom, I don't have a picture of.) But he won't sleep without it. It almost had to come to church today!

We had so much fun!

January's Random thoughts

This is what I wanted and got for my Birthday...A new way to organize Ashlyn's clothes so we won't fight so much, so far so good!

Here I am, does this look unusually large for a 28 week pregnancy to anyone else!!!!

It can't look very pretty in 12 more weeks!

Birthday Bash- part 2

Dylan and Corbin's Birthdays are past and Ashlyn's is in a few weeks. Instead of throwing two different parties separated by a month- of which all the same people would be invited- I went ahead and just did ONE BIG BIRTHDAY PARTY! So here is the invite:
Batman Saves Barbie Party

(I am sad to say there is a huge lack of appropriate pictures due to the very sad Mr. Corbin.)
As the girls walked in they sat at a vanity to pick out a dancing tutu (it seems that is a lot of what Barbie does lately and every girl loves that!) They also picked out a flower barrette.

The boys went into the "Bat cave" and put on their batman masks.

Connor did a great job of managing all the games (isn't he great!) We played "stomp the villains." The villains were trying to kidnap Barbie and to save her we had to stomp them (aka pop the balloons that had villain faces on them) and get the candy which was inside. We then had some dancing time so those tutus could get their full use (they will get much more since they took them home.) We then played "Mr. Freeze." When the music stops, so do you, and if you don't you get sent to the "Bat cave" (aka- the tent covered in a dark sheet.) We then opened some awesome gifts and then had cake!! Here is how they turned out (I am by no means a profession, nor wannabe profession cake decorator!!)

So here are the pictures I DID get: (Thank you Shama!)
The wishes


The aftermath of playing and ballooning

And a very happy little girl with all the jewelry (and what you can't see is that she has glitter make up all over her face!)

Dylan is too busy running around with his Batman swords to get any pictures!
So Happy Birthday to all my kids at once!! Wish you all could have come!