It's great to be 8!

Dallin turned 8 a couple weeks ago. With Maryruth's family in town, we had a family party of 25 people.

Brennan is just so excited about this one! Note the pink princess gift bag. That's what happens when you have a baby sister.

  

My kids' love Heath (ice cream, candy bars, etc.), so I made him a Heath Bar Cake. After poking a hot chocolate cake with holes, I poured sweetened condensed milk mixed with a jar of caramel over the top, let it cool, covered it with Cool Whip and topped it with crushed Heath bars. It was super yummy! 

Then on his actual birthday we had tacos and watermelon (his favorite dinner) and more cake. Good thing I made 2 of them.

Then of course there were lots of jokes about the diaper box he unwrapped.

Inside the diaper box was this awesome black and red tool bag (his favorite color combo) filled with a bunch of little presents.

Rope + red sheets + big and little clamps + flashlights = a fort kit!

My kids are always making forts, but it's hard to get the heavy blankets to stay up. Plus they always sag in the middle. This way they can clamp onto furniture and tie the rope to various things and clip the sheet to it. They get really creative.

They've made some pretty amazing forts!

Of course the best part about turning 8 is getting baptized. He was looking forward to this for a long time, and it was lovely. Grandpa gave the opening prayer, Spencer gave the talk on baptism, Tyler played his violin (Families Can Be Together Forever), Dave performed the baptism and confirmation, I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, and grandma gave the closing prayer. And as I mentioned earlier, everyone took turns holding Chloe. 

Afterwards we gave Dallin the option of either going out to lunch or going to the movies. He chose to see Ice Age. Then Levi screamed as we approached the dark, loud theater, so I got a refund and took him home. Luckily the boys brought me home a big bucket of popcorn. It was a great day.

Tyler's 10!

Last Friday was Tyler's 10th birthday. First we celebrated with family on Sunday, as I mentioned in my last blog. He chose a vanilla cake with marshmallow frosting. I added raspberry filling for fun.

It was yummy, but the slippery marshmallow frosting didn't like getting decorated, and the border started to slide off. Oops!

Tyler's birthday was filled with yummy food, starting with donuts for breakfast.

Later we all met Dave at Nucci's after work for our favorite pizza.

Mmmmm......

We were going to play at a park down there, but it was too cold/windy. We were also going to drop off a thank-you card and chocolates at the pediatric unit at the hospital, but it was empty - no patients and no staff. I guess it's good that they didn't have any sick kids, but I was disappointed I couldn't visit the nurses. I actually miss them!

Then we came home for Oreo cupcakes. They were SO good. I put half an Oreo on the bottom, covered them with chocolate cake batter mixed with coarsely chopped Oreos, then topped them with cream cheese frosting mixed with Oreo crumbs. Yum!

Chloe wore her cupcake outfit for the occasion.

We've had fun playing with his birthday gifts all week: Wii Just Dance 3, Dominos, puzzles, knight toys, R/C truck and metalic engraving pictures. I also took him to the movie theater to see The Lorax. It was really cute, and I liked it better than I thought I would. Of course Tyler loved it. He's one of the easiest-to-please kids I know. Happy Birthday Tyler!

Dave's family visits

Dave's family came to visit and meet Chloe last week. Because of his dad's failing health and dialysis 3x/week for the last few years of his life, it had been five years since his mom's last visit to California.

She didn't want to fly alone, so Dave's sister Christine came with her two kids - Noah (16) and Celestial (14). It was their first time visiting California.

One downer was that we were sick for the first few days of their visit. There have been so many mean viruses going around! Dallin had a stomach virus, and Dave, Brennan and Levi had fevers and such that lasted for days. My mom, Kristen and Nathan and several of their kids were sick too - some of them for weeks. We were SO glad our company didn't get sick - whew!

We set up our badminton net and Foosball table, which gave people something to do while we were hanging around the house.

I love this picture of Levi on the zip line!

I pretty much stayed home with sick kids and Chloe while they managed to get around a little bit. Thursday they went to Farmer's Market in San Luis Obispo, where they ate ribs, watched a play snippet and stuck gum on the wall of Bubblegum Alley.

Friday (after taking snickerdoodles to Tyler's class for his birthday) we signed Spencer and Tyler out of school a couple hours early, and they all went to Morro Bay. They shopped, watched big waves, ate crab and fish, and bought lots of salt water taffy.

At the Salt Water Taffy place we like to go to, the owner let Tyler have a lollipop with a cricket in it.

Tyler: Oh cool! How much does this cost?

Owner: $2.

Tyler: Oh, darn!

Owner: How much money do you have?

Tyler: None.

Owner (laughing): Okay, you can have it.

Noah chose this hat and sweatshirt for his birthday.

On Saturday we went to In-N-Out for lunch. We were hoping to go to a beach again, but it rained. That was the other bummer about the trip. The first couple of days were sunny and warm, but then it was rainy, cold and windy.

On Sunday we watched our church's semiannual General Conference on T.V., and Dave's mom went to mass at the San Miguel Mission. Then we had my family over for dinner and cake. Tyler and Noah share the same birthday, so we celebrated them together.

On Monday they went up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I stayed home with Levi and Chloe.

I probably should have put my regular lens on my camera before I gave it to them, because my new one is a little finicky if you're not used to it. Group shots are particularly hard because the focal length is so small and it's hard to get them all in focus at the same time. I just thought it would have been perfect for low light pictures of fish.

I think Celestial really enjoyed it.

Tuesday was their last day here, and we all went to the beach. First we went to see the elephant seals. The adults had gone back to Alaska, leaving just the babies and teens. It wasn't as exciting as the last time we went, when we saw mating and fighting. And it was freezing cold and windy!

I don't have any pictures of Celestial at the beach. It was too cold and windy for her, and she spent most of the time in the car.

At least it was warmer and less windy at Hearst Beach, which is why we usually like to go there.

This was Chloe's first trip to the beach. Poor thing pooped through all her clothes and had to be wrapped in blankets because I forgot to pack a change of clothes for her. I have since bought a diaper bag so I can be more prepared for outings.

Dave and Noah went kayaking, but the waves were bigger than normal and flipped them over a few times on their way out.

Noah is such a cool guy. I'm glad we all got to know him better.

Christine was going to go boogie boarding, but she put her feet in the water and decided it was way too cold for her, even with a wet suit on.

The boys spent the entire time building a dam and sand castle.

And eating, of course.

Brennan loved having Spencer pull him around on the boogie board. Kids don't seem to notice the coldness of water. Plus they tell me it isn't nearly as cold in the creek, which is why they spent all their time there. I'm glad I was finally able to get out of the house a little bit while they were here.

Party time!

There was an especially crazy week recently (the same week of the stomach flu and my photo shoot and my baby shower and the cub scout pack meeting), when my nephews Eric and Luke had birthday parties a day apart. Brennan went to Eric's art party Thursday after school. He had a lot of fun, but I wasn't there so I didn't get any pictures. Then Levi and I went to Luke's Cars party Friday morning.

They were going to ride bikes at the park; but it was moved to the church because it started to sprinkle. Then we didn't see another rain drop once we got there, so the kids just rode their bikes in the church parking lot.

Levi was pretty clingy that day. He just hung out with me, blowing bubbles and eating candy from his treat bag.

Such concentration - so cute!

Levi finally got on his scooter. Then he lost control on a slight (and I mean slight) hill, fell and got hurt. He was done riding after that.

Kristen made super cute car cakelets. Of course the birthday boy got to have Lightning McQueen.

Can you believe how long Levi's hair is? He's the one under Kristen. When it's curly, it's cute. But when it's straight, it looks pretty silly. He's never had a haircut because he was bald for so long, but I really need to cut it one of these days.

Levi was happy as long as he was eating. It was a fun, low-key party. Perfect for 2-3 year olds!