My Little Girl Turned 5!!

I can not believe my little girl turned 5 yesterday.  I remember when she was born, and I was so happy to finally have her out, after all the complications.  It was much better for her, even though she was just over 6 pounds.  She has been a beautiful girl from birth and Ryan and I are so lucky to have her.  She is such a good little girl.  She is thoughtful, thankful, responsible, and has a great testimony of the gospel.  She says such sweet prayers and has a testimony of that.  One time she was praying when our battery died, just as she said the prayer, the car started.  She did not see Ryan with the jumper cables on the other side of the hood, she just said, "Heavenly Father started the car!"  She is a great example to me.  She is sweet when she plays with her little brother, and tries so hard to be a good example to him.  She is so smart, I am so nervous for her to start school, but she wants the challenge and to learn more.  She always tells me that Heavenly Father gave her to me since I am so forgetful and she remembers everything-literally.  We love having Annika in our family and we love watching her grow up.

We started the day with strawberry and whip cream crepes (Annika's choice).  Luckily we got them done before the power went out all day because of a truck that hit a power pole.  We did not get our cake baked in time.  We will save that for this weekend in Vegas, I guess!

The kids and I spent the entire day at Raging Waters Water Park with Aunt Shell, Uncle Eddy, Dax and Eddy's extended family.  We played together in the water and did water slides and toys all day.  It was too much fun and the best way to spend her 5th birthday.

We ended the day at Chili's for a yummy dinner where they even sang to her!  We came home and she got to play her new Diego Wii game and go to bed with her new Jasmine Barbie doll!  We had a great day!

Trip to Las Vegas

So, on June 26th, we headed for our trip to Vegas.  We left after work, so it was a dark ride, but I saw this idea in Family Fun magazine to tape the names of the cities you are driving through on the roof of the car, and then move a car with velcro on it  to each piece of tape.  This helps the inevitable question, "Are we there yet?"  So, here we are, almost to Vegas, both kids sleeping, but the little car there.  Here is a long, photo filled post about our week long trip.  We had a blast seeing so many friends and family.  I do get sick of the heat easier than I used to, but we love to spend the time having fun with people we love.

We were able to celebrate Ryan's 29th birthday again with his friends and family in Las Vegas too.  This is a picture of Ryan before he blew out his candles.  Can you see a resemblance with that scowl face of Ashtons?  Like father, like son.  You will see that scowl more in the post.  It is his signature look and frequents more than a smile sometimes.

My baby brother got married last Saturday in Las Vegas.  He married the 2nd Heather to marry into our family, and we are really excited for them.  My whole family was able to be there, and here is a photo of all of us.  We just keep on adding family members.  Minus the heat, the wedding was great and everything went really well.  He is the last one in the family to get married and I am sure my parents are glad to finally be empty nesters.  After the wedding celebrations, my sister Nikki from Ohio and I hung around in town without husbands to play with the grandparents for a few days.  We got to chat, watch chick movies and hang out.  We had a blast.

Here is a picture of our family at the temple in the scorching heat, notice the scowl, and we need to work on sitting modest for Annika obviously.  Maybe Ryan can fix it for me in Photoshop. This may have to be our Christmas picture since we never get photos of the 4 of us together.

(Ashton and cousin Dax along for the ride to the mall)

Of course we had to do some shopping with Michelle and Marianne while we were in town.  The kids were troopers on such a hot Las Vegas day, and we did not do too much damage to the wallet.

(Eric, Jeremy, Katie, Ashton, Jessica, Annika, Meredith, all hanging out while their mom's played games)

We loved having time to hang with all the cousins around.  We played lots of board games, dress-up, Barbie's, puzzles, everything!

(This is the pool Annika and I got to go to with friends without Ashton.  My mom kept him to nap so Annika and I could go and have some fun together)

(Annika loved playing in the nice air conditioned building with friends, it was quite a workout for the moms too)

(Playing at the jumping place, if you look close that is me on the far right with Annika and Ashton and Missy's daughter Riley doing a train)

(Me, Michelle, Amanda, Melissa and baby Talan at dinner)

I was lucky enough to get away from the kids and have a girls night out at the Guadalajara restaurant.  I miss my friends from Vegas so much and it is always nice to get together, especially without kids.  We did all get to go to Jump Up this fun play place together and a fun Rec pool in town too while I was there.

(Me, chasing Ashton around Hope's pool)

(Annika, Jessica, Abigail loving the water at Farnsworth's pool)

We had a blast and swam, swam, swam and swam some more.  We hit up Megan's pool multiple times, Hope's pool and the Whitney Ranch pool.  We finally made it home last Thursday night just in time to start our next adventure (wait until the next post).