Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned 36 a couple weeks ago, so now I'm closer to 40 than I am to 30! But I'm okay with that, because Dave is 2 years older than me and 36 seems a heck of a lot younger than 38. 

I had a great birthday. I took pictures of Chloe in the morning. That always makes me happy. Then I went to lunch with Kristen and a friend who shares my birthday. Nathan watched our toddlers, so that was lovely. It was a gorgeous day, and we ate outside (for both lunch and dinner).

After the kids got home I took a nap with Chloe, and then I relaxed in the hammock while Dave grilled dinner.

We had Mexican chicken and veggie kabobs with rice and pineapple. Scrumptious!

We like to cook all the meat together and all the veggies together (less cross-contamination, plus more control over cooking times). But the kids love the idea of eating off the skewers, so we let them reassemble them.

There's a lady at Dave's work who likes to make cakes (or whatever dessert people want) for all the birthdays. Somehow she knew my birthday was coming up, so she offered to make something for me too. Wasn't that nice? Anyway, I requested lemon bars because I love them but Dave doesn't, so I never make them. They were yummy!

For my birthday dinner date we went to our favorite new restaurant downtown called Estrella. It was another beautiful evening, and we ate outside. We even left Chloe with my mom, making it our first real date since she was born.

We had the family over for dinner the following Sunday, which was great because now my dad has Sundays off work. I love this picture of my mom with Chloe. She's so beautiful, and I love how Chloe is looking up at her.

I couldn't decide what kind of cake to make, so I ended up making 2 different kinds of cupcakes with 3 different toppings. I made strawberry cupcakes (from scratch) with graham cracker crust, cream cheese frosting and graham cracker sprinkles on top, and white cake mix cupcakes with a brownie crust (half with cream cheese frosting and the other half with peanut butter frosting). I made 48 large brownies and 24 minis, and we actually had a few leftover. Cupcakes are great for a crowd because there is  no cutting/dishing up ice cream/dirtying more plates and forks. I should do that more often.

For my birthday I bought Lightroom (a photo editing/organizing computer program), but I can't use it until we order a new computer because our CD ROM doesn't work (among many other things, including a bad mother board). Hopefully we will get it soon! Kristen gave me cute yellow flower earrings and a 4 different kinds of syrups. We've enjoyed them on pancakes, waffles, ice cream sundays and even chocolate lava cakes. 

2 months!

Chloe is 2 months old! She's healthy, happy, and super sweet.

She loves her baths now. They're great at calming her down if she's upset.

She is eating well, taking good naps, and growing out of some of her 0-3 month clothes. But she is still nice and little, and we are not in any hurry for her to get big.

Her brothers adore her, and she's very patient with them as they hold her and make her boogie!

She's very snuggly, which I love! I realized, however, that I couldn't snuggle with her all night forever, so I transitioned her to the bassinet a couple weeks ago. She did great with it, and last night she slept 7 straight hours! 

But the best part about being 2 months old is all the smiling and cooing. We die of the cutes every time she does it!

Prom pictures

My nephews went to prom this weekend, and Kristen asked me to take pictures of them with their dates.

Jonathan asked a girl on his track team. She's one of 7 children in her family, which is really cool because big families aren't too common. 

Christopher asked a girl he met at a church dance. Her dad is the stake president in Santa Maria.

I loved taking these pictures because it's fun to photograph beautiful people! Plus I liked seeing everyone all dressed up.

I was really late getting to Christopher's pictures at 4:00 because I was at Avila beach with my family all afternoon. It was a beautiful warm day (the first nice weekend we've had in weeks), and apparently everyone in the county had the same idea because Avila was packed. 

Their prom was also in Avila Beach, and they went in big groups. This is their good friend Logan.

As you can see, he's a lot of fun!

I was going to take pictures of more couples (I knew a few more people from church), but they all jumped onto the limo bus too fast (not literally, of course - that would be tricky in heels and dresses) to get to their restaurant on time.



Jonathan's group took pictures at 6:30, and the lighting was beautiful.

Jonathan's date was super tall, and she was wearing 4" heels. It was funny because at one point a parent suggested taking pictures of the couples with their parents. I won't post it, but I have a picture of Kristen and Nathan with these two, and poor Kristen looks very short next to everyone!

  

Jonathan's group was bigger than Christopher's. I have a hard time taking pictures of this many people. I need a new lens!

I love back lit pictures!

They rented these limo buses, so they could all go together.

Some of them went to Kristen's house afterwards to watch a movie, and then they had to drive Christopher's date home (she lives an hour away, but I think they met her dad somewhere in the middle). They didn't get to bed until 5:00A.M., and they all looked pretty tired at church the next morning. But the boys looked super handsome blessing the sacrament in their tuxes!

Easter

Easter morning started early for us, since we have 9:00 church and had to search for baskets and eat candy and get cleaned up in time for a quick picture by 8:45. We got up at 6:00 to fit it all in. Chloe was not a happy camper by this point, but then she ended up sleeping through church (our first time back since she was born), so that was a blessing. It was so good to be back at church, enjoying the talks and music - especially on Easter Sunday.

The Easter bunny did things a little different this year. Instead of written clues to find the Easter baskets, the boys had to decipher picture clues.

Here are a few of them. Some were super easy, some were a little trickier, and one was so hard it even stumped Dave. That was fun!

The baskets were in Chloe's bassinet, which she wasn't sleeping in at the time. That whole hospital thing really threw off her sleep, but now she's sleeping at least half the night in her own bed.


We never know what the boys are going to be wearing in the morning when we've been out on a date the night before. Apparently Brennan slept in Spencer's Smee costume (from the Peter Pan play) inside out. We thought he looked like an egg.

Tyler CRACKS me up! Dave and the boys got on a roll of egg jokes the other morning that went on and on...

Levi slept in and had to eat his candy quick before getting ready for church.

Funny just-woke-up face!

I gave this cute dress to a friend's baby last year, and she held onto it in the off chance that I would have a girl and she could give it back to me. Chloe's also wearing a pearl bracelet from Kristen. Cute, cute!

Levi has been coming home with me and Chloe right after sacrament meeting for the past couple weeks to avoid getting sick in nursery. His nose is finally clear after about 3+ months of constant colds.

Sunday afternoon was our Easter egg hunt. We divided the yard into 3 sections and hid 75 eggs: 15 each.

The area around the playground was for Brennan and Levi.

The lower section was for Tyler and Dallin.

I guess I hid theirs a little too well, because even I couldn't find the last couple.

And the sides were for Spencer. Of course Dave made his the hardest, but I think he found most of them.

I spent the day making cream pies, eating chocolate, and enjoying a lovely ham dinner with family. For Family Home Evening the next day we did our Resurrection Eggs (a carton of plastic eggs with symbols of the Easter story in each one) and watched He Is Risen. All in all a very successful Easter!