Feliz Cumpleanos Avery!!!

Yesterday we celebrated Avery's 4th birthday with a huge Dora Fiesta! Dora the Explorer is one of her favorite "little shows" as she calls them, to watch so she was so excited to have a Dora party. My family came down and we had a scrumptious Mexican feast complete with fiesta chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice, 7-layer bean dip, chips and homemade salsa, lemonade, oh and let's not forget, lovely Spanish music playing in the background!

After dinner we played a wicked game of Pin the tail on the Mexican Burro, here are the results.....

There were a few kids that got pretty close but I think they were peeking through the blind fold :)!

Good thing we let Avery have a go at the pinata first because what do you know, she broke it. Boy, that was sure fun for the rest of the cousins, oh well, they really only care about getting the candy anyway right?

Here are all the kids with their loot!

.....minus Quinney, he was doing this.....

Notice the mini pinata in the top right corner of the picture, that's the best I could do to get him in on the pinata scene! Poor little guy, he just clonked out during dinner!

Three little ladies, oh so pretty. (that's a chocolate taffy sticking out of Lily's mouth if you were wondering.)


Present time!!! I realize I posted tons of pictures of her opening her presents but she is just so happy and excited and cute I couldn't help myself!









The CAKE..................yes I made it, and yes Dora is about twice the size of the palm tree.............it's in the sand off in the distance okay!!!

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you........

.....happy birthday dear Avery, happy birthday to you!


After everyone left I ask Avery what she thought about her Dora Fiesta party, she said, "it was all great, my party was wonderful!" :) She also had to call Grandma right before bed and tell her she was wearing her new Ariel nightgown that Grandma and Grandpa gave her. What a cutie!!!

Thanks for coming everyone, and making it a special birthday for our little Avery girl! And thanks for all the gifts too, Avery loved ALL of them! I can even prove it, just take a look at what she's been up to today...........




Plus she's colored at least 5 different times in all her new coloring books, has blown bubbles, played her Buckaroo game, plus a dozen other things, she's been a busy gal today!

***Stay tuned for more birthday fun! We are going to celebrate Avery's birthday with Justin's family this weekend up in Bear Lake plus we still have a special surprise to give her on her actual birthday. Nothing like having a Birthday WEEK!!!

~~~ Stake Swim Day ~~~

We went to the Roy Aquatic Center on Wednesday for the Stake Swim Day. It was lots of fun, a lot more fun then last year, that's for sure. (last year there was lightning and on the verge of raining, they kicked us out after being there for only 30 minutes, BOO!) We had dinner with our ward, hot dogs, chips, salads, fruit, and desserts pot-luck style. Avery loves swimming and being in the water but it takes Quinn a little bit longer to get used to the idea. He warmed up after awhile though and then he was having a blast! Avery went down the "big curly slide" on Justin's lap, so sad I didn't have my camera handy, Avery loved it! I guess we'll just have to go back again!

Apparently we're expecting.......

"Mom, when will we have our next baby, (3 second pause) cause your tummy's gettin' real big."

For the record, I'm not pregnant........I guess this means I need to anti-up my exercise routine a bit or people will start to suspect.
-- lucky me!

fat cats

Last Friday Justin got off work early (which is a very rare occurrence), so Avery, Quinn and I met him at Solomon Center in Ogden for a little fun. We went to the Fat Cats arcade where we played games, won some tickets for prices, and then went bowling. It was Avery and Quinn's first time bowling and they had so much fun! However, I am embarrassed to admit that they both got a higher score than me. Although in my defense, Avery and Quinn had bumpers and I didn't! The scores went as follows: Justin 108, Avery 81, Quinn 78, Me 70 -- we have some world class bowlers in our family don't we! :)

This is Avery & Quinn at the arcade, the picture didn't really turn out.....I mean I meant for it to look like that.....I thought it looked kinda cool anyway.


Wait for it........wait for it........SPARE!!!


Way to go Quinney, STRIKE!!!

Quinn helped me with my turn, I think he was trying to boost my score! -- what a sweet son! :)

After we had our fun we went to dinner at Javier's. Yum-O! Good times!

I see London, I see France.....

I see Rosanna's underpants!!!

9th grade treasures!

So I was looking through some boxes downstairs and guess what I came across?...my old journals. I used to be an avid journal writer once upon a time. Mostly through middle school and high school and then a little in college. Wow I'm a nerd!!! I'm a little embarrassed about how much I talk about this boy named B.J. Davis -- I'm sure some of you will remember him! I had a major crush on him from about 8th grade to 10th or 11th grade. On almost every single page down at the bottom I wrote something about him like: "B.J. looked so cute today" or "B.J. said hi to me today wahoo!" or "I heart B.J." or "Me and B.J. walked out to seminary together, I was in heaven." Then like two days later I'm saying, "I don't think I like B.J. anymore, I think I just like him as a friend now." And then all the sudden two days later I'm saying how cute I think he is and getting all giddy about him talking to me in the hall at school or something. Oh the drama of it all!!! :) How embarrassing!!! Here is a journal entry from my 9th grade year when I was 15 years old. I thought it was pretty funny and NERDY too!!! You might have to click on the picture to make it bigger so you can read it better.


Hey what do you know, Justin fits all 7 of those qualities!!! Looks like I found my REAL dream guy after all!!! :)

In case you were wondering, here is the report from the re-scheduled Valentine's Dance.....

Sadly, B.J. didn't ask me to dance but obviously I still had fun, I mean I only wrote that like 14 times! ha ha! Let's not forget, "We (Holly, Michelle, & Zandra) sat up & talked for a dang long time!" --not just for awhile but a "dang long time!" And Jami Olsen (Peterson), apparently we rode over to the dance together, how funny!!!

Okay so I have to share this entry, it is over a year later when I was now 16 years old and I was still secretly in love with B.J.!.....surprise, surprise.....I wasn't lying when I said my crush went from 8th grade to 10th or 11th grade!!! How pathetic!!! -- but oh so fun! he he!!!

Here is the insert that I'm talking about in the journal entry. Pretty clever eh? NOT! As if writing "Brandon Jones" would deter anyone's thoughts of me not meaning B.J.--- I only doodled his name and initials a million times!:)


Alright, I could go on for hours, this has been so much fun reading back through my journals, I'm really glad I was a faithful writer back then! Good times! I just have to share one more entry, this one might be the best...I mean the NERDIEST!!! Take a looksy.....



I love how I wrote "in no particular order" and that "Emily Groll didn't get pictures" on the top right corner of the first page! Just wanted to make that clear folks so my posterity would know, "in no particular order"! And I'm really glad that I wrote "friends continued..." on top of the 2nd and 3rd pages where the date was suppose to go so nobody gets confused that I'm still gluing my friends pictures into my journal! Oh the memories!

I also have a great entry about Jenny Jones (Mathews) and I. About how we went swimming at the Mountain Crest pool (for a Young Women activity I think) and you and I wouldn't swim because we didn't want to take our shirts off because we were embarrassed that Tim and Tom Pearce were there and apparently the MC pool didn't allow people to wear shirts while swimming. I actually remember that day! Also I have some entries about Skye Longhurst (Olsen) and I and all the dorky stuff we used to do and all the fun we had together. Also Skye, I have tons of notes that you wrote me inserted into my journal, isn't that funny! Remember when we used to do those Wing Ding notes to each other? And Lyndee, this is what I wrote about you on Tuesday, August 15th 1995: "Lyndee Spence is so fantastic! In Sports Inter. she was a great gymnastics bud. During that class we used to go and play gymnastics on the rolled up wrestling mats. It was so fun! Lyndee was my gymnastics pal along with Charity & Zandra." -- of course you remember that Lyndee!!!

Awwwww, this has been a blast from the past! Maybe I should start making this a weekly post, some dorky entry from my journal. Pure entertainment if you ask me!!!

BFF get-together!

Today we had a fun outing at The Gateway. We met up with my long time friends Amber and Cookie and their cute kids Abby and Olivia. I was also looking forward to seeing my friend Rosanna but she had to cancel because she was having flu-like symptoms this morning! Yuck! Sorry Rosanna, hope you feel better soon! "Meanwhile, back at the ranch", (he he, that ones for you Amber), Avery, Quinn and Abby enjoyed the water fountain while Olivia was lounging in her stroller drinking her bottle.


Abby especially loved it, she got soaked. Good thing Amber was prepared and brought two extra outfits!

While we were waiting outside of the restroom for Amber to change Abby's clothes we took these next few pictures. A guy walked around the corner and said, "couldn't you find a prettier place than this for pictures?" "ha ha ha.....uuuhhh.....oh yeah".....my courtesy laugh and awkward reply. :)

Olivia, Avery and Quinn, what some cuties!

Avery with her new best friend Cookie.

For lunch we ate at Applebee's. I ordered the Turkey Bacon Ciabotta Sandwich, which by the way is delicious! "Does that have bacon on it?" Oh, I'm such a dork!!! While we were packing up to leave the restaurant the waiter was entertaining our children with a wild game of peek-a-boo. At least they thought he was funny!

We had fun shopping around, lounging under the misty thingy's in the shade and letting our kids run around together.---well at least Avery, Quinn and Abby ran around.....


Olivia did this.....she was all tuckered out, it's hard riding in a stroller all day!:)

Binky Buddies Forever!!!

A self portrait of me and my kiddies!

Avery's fabulous "picture face".....ugh!!!-I'm rolling my eyes right now!

All in all we had a great time minus the fact that Quinn developed a serious case of the "rocky mountain quick step" after we got there!!! (diarrhea).....grrr! Okay, so I assumed that three diapers would be plenty for the day. Not hardly! I went through those three diapers in a matter of, oh, about 45 minutes! Luckily my sweet friends were prepared, thanks for the two diapers Cookie! Yes folks, that's a total of FIVE diaper changes within a two hour period! (and two more since we've been home might I add!) So needless to say Quinney wasn't too happy at times but we still had fun! Thanks for meeting me there Cookie and Amber, I'm looking forward to our next outing!

**Note to self: don't feed Quinn acidy fruits like pineapple until he's older, his stomach doesn't like it!**