beautiful flowers

i will tell you that the flowers and color scheme at quy and sara's wedding was absolutely beautiful! i love green anyway.......but green and orange together for a summer wedding, could not ask for a better combination! love, love, love. i forgot that i was at canyonview while i sat and watched them join together in marriage. it was a day worth remembering.

these adorable "flowers" hung in the reception hall

bridal table

bridal table

i love these sooooo much

a fun photoshopped photo of the arbor flowers

the arbor overlooked the river

the moment

Quy and Sara

Married today
Given to God
in front of friends and family

Congratulations

pick one

this week at vbs the kids made your classic fortune papers! of course the vbs ones were full of God's wisdoms.......these from luke's party were full of chickens and animals and bad boys. i say this with the truest love and the fact that i am their mom.....but my kids are great big goofballs. one of sydnie's answers was that raising kids is like being pecked to death by a chicken! one of noah's is that you are a bad, bad boy! so silly! they went around asking everyone at the party to pick one.....what a great way to spend a summer evening!

silly

it is amazing how much luke looks like my dad and my brother.....he is their little mini-me's. and he loves spending time with his grandpa! and grandpa loves giving luke tummy kisses!

luke's first bday

it's my first birthday

hello blue eyes

randal and his little man

yum....cake

laughing at his sister

the suprise gift of the night!

super star!!!



today is my nephews first birthday! and he was totally rockin' the party. he was all over the place, having a great time. running after his sister and all the other little kids that were there....he does like to run. it is so funny because he is such a momma's boy, but when it comes to being held or who he gravitates towards....it is the men. he sat on thad's lap for about 30 minutes, but would not even smile at me. so funny. we arrived early for a family bbq and enjoyed the nice 95 degree weather! it was a great night!

my favorite part was jen opening luke's "new" pajamas.....which were ryen's old ones! we have this running joke between us since i saw her dressing luke at christmas into ryen's old jammies! she said that she really did not feel like buying him new ones when she had perfectly good jammies available! randal absolutely hates it, but it has made for some good jokes! so i got the brilliant idea to give luke some pajamas for his bday. I was going to buy new ones, then i called a friend to borrow some and then settled on borrowing some of ryen's to put into a gift bag! it was perfect! jen cracked up and randal got a good laugh as well.

we love you little lukester! we are glad that we got to come down and celebrate with you!

plucking 101

another day of vbs, another day that mommy gets to play!!! yesterday i had a friend stop by on her way home from dropping her daughter off at tadmor! lunch together and a chance to catch up made for a very nice morning....of course throw in some shopping and what more could you ask for.

this morning, my brilliant plan worked! i called up julanne and told her that she should bring the boys to vbs so that we could spend some time at coffee and getting a pedicure together!

so we leisurely drank our coffee, went to target and headed to our pedicure. it was heavenly. i love the hot parrafin dip that they do! then it happened............

"do you want me to do your eyebrows?"

as this little vietnamese woman leans over me to stare intently at my fading into existence eyebrows i stop and just stare at her for a moment. my eyebrows? are you kidding me? i barely have left and you want to wax them? i laugh to myself and explain that if i were to wax them they would stay red all day long and i would not be able to go anywhere (sensitive skin). i admit that my eyebrows are my last thought...i don't pluck regularly because they are so fair that i can barely see them........but apparently this woman thought they were a tad overgrown and visible!!! i politely declined and then julanne and i had a good laugh. so now i apparently have fading into oblivion eyebrows with a bit of an overgrown problem!! how does one handle that? oh the trauma that we women go through to look beautiful.

vbs

this morning starts our week of vbs........we are going to dayspring again because the kids absolutely loved it last year. they were very excited to get up this morning and go....there was no complaining or moaning or crying, just up and out the door. again i was impressed with how organized and the detail that this church has put into serving the youth in our area. as a parent you feel comfortable leaving your children there and when your kids come home with such huge smiles on their faces, you know they have done something right! they already have lots of people that they want to invite during the week so they can get all the extra prizes....lol. and i get 3 hours to myself everyday.

roller babies

thanks to my friend erik for passing this one along..........

Cherries this time

today we went cherry picking! i love fresh cherries, my kids not so much! so i made sure we only got a small container full. it is more about the experience for them. i want them to grow up experiencing different options out there. i grew up picking strawberries a summer job. i hated it. now i only buy my strawberries! ha ha. but this is different. this is mommy time. this is family time. something we experience together and they look forward to it. it only takes 30 minutes of our time and we get to eat the benefits all day long. i have two bowls of fresh fruit on my counter all day long that they can snack out of...........and me too.

cake examined

well here it is...in all of it's glory, on a tupperware cake taker plate! but still here it is. it was amazingly good. super rich. too rich. but if you cut it in thinly sliced pieces and served it with milk....yummo! the sweetness might have something to do with the 2lb bag of powdered sugar that you make the frosting with. it eclipsed the cream cheese and overpowered the frosting. but overall a great party cake to make, especially if you like coconut! i think i will freeze the remains of the cake before we all gain an extra 5lbs. then pull it out later for a special treat. i wonder if it would be good with a fresh fruit drizzled over the top? maybe i should try that first!

park time

decided to take a break from all of the baking and head to the park for awhile today. my kids love to swing. they always have. i am guessing they always will.

Baking, Baking, Baking

i am baking this scrumptious looking creation today.....

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/billies-italian-cream-cake-recipe/


i love coconut and i had all the ingredients....so here we go. cannot wait to try it tonight. of course this has not been a very good week diet wise. lots of goodies being made. i do love to bake. it is a stress relief for me. i love how the ingredients work together to form a delight for the tastebuds. unfortunately for my waistline, i have already made a homemade caramel apple pie and blueberry muffins this week. not sure adding on another dessert is what i needed, but i could not resist. i will let you know how it is! i also want to get all my cookies baked for camping while the weather is not too hot and my house is cool. we'll see if i make it that far. i also have a birthday cake to make for a dear little friend who is turning 8 on saturday! I was not kidding when i said i was baking this week!

blueberry season

heading out to pick blueberries today! i have such a hard time picking them when they are nice and juicy and big, because i don't know when to stop. i only need a small amount so that i can make some fresh muffins to take camping with, the rest i will freeze and eat fresh. yummo!

goodbye

Happy 4th!

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land

unto all the inhabitants thereof. "

liberty: freedom; the power of choice

that's all....

we really had an amazing time at the GWL, but we are all exhausted from lots and lots of water play. by the time we left at 7:30 wednesday night i never wanted to see water again. i think had it been outside enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, i might not have gotten so tired of it. but we will definately be going back! no doubt about that, the kids are already planning it.

bonus, bonus, bonus

on our last day at the park we woke up finished our wand quest while thad and i enjoyed our starbucks!!! then we checked out and swam for about 4 hours, ate lunch in our car, then headed back into the arcade! i just need to state for the record that i hate arcades...what a waste of money, you usually don't earn enough coins to really "win" anything and what you do win is just a bunch of junk. but we were willing to give them the experience and have some fun while we were there. noah was down to his last 4 coins and we decided to play the bass game......he pulled the lever and it did not quite register, so i helped him out on the second pull.......jackpot baby!!!!
he got a 1,000 tickets........he immediately said he would share them with sydnie and he ran off to find her. i have never seen a little boy so excited. when it came time to pick out his prize, it was no question that he had to have the light up lightsaber! sydnie chose the GWL cup that was filled with goodies. a good time spent in the arcade!