In The Land Of Runia

Nyah's Birthday Party

So, this was the start of our INSANE weekend!! We had Nyah's birthday party, Nyah's gymnastics performance, Nyah's baptism, and Connor's baby blessing all in one weekend!!! People thought we were crazy, we are of course, but there wasn't really much we could do about how it worked out. I had always planned on doing the Baptism and Blessing all in one weekend cause I figured it would work better for anyone that had to travel. Now the gymnastics performance couldn't be helped, I don't get to pick the day and time. The birthday party we didn't have a lot of options with either because if we had done it the weekend before her birthday, well that was memorial weekend and that just doesn't work, and then if we waited another week it's just getting a little far from her actual birth date, so there ya have it. Okay so I am just crazy, but we did it!

Nyah this year wanted a Taylor Swift party. So, they don't have any Taylor Swift birthday party things, we had to do our own thing.

I made these invitations, which I was proud of for doing. I tried to make them look like a concert ticket (I blacked out certain parts for obvious reasons).

We had plenty of friends there.

We first got their nails done and sparkles put in their hair to "get ready" for the concert. Then we had a relay race to put on "concert clothes" then came the concert. We had the karaoke machine out and the girls took turns in groups or by themselves singing whatever they wanted.

Then of course we had the dance party. Nyah looks so funny in this shot ha ha.

This was the decorated kitchen

Here was the cake

It ended up being a pretty good turn out and they all had a lot of fun.

Nyah's Baptism

Well, we she did it. She got baptized. That was a tear jerker moment for mommy. She is growing up way to fast and there is nothing I can do to stop it. She was so excited and was not scared even for a moment. I am so proud of her!

Daddy's Little Girl, growing up before our eyes

I still want to take her out to get some nice pictures of her in her dress. I will post them when I do that.

Connor's Blessing Day

We blessed Connor in June. It turned out so nice. We had a lot of family and friends in attendance. We did the luncheon afterward of course, it was a nice end to our INSANE weekend.

It hard to even get a decent family picture, Jayda looks thrilled. That's okay.

Jared and his son!

We could not have pulled this weekend off if it hadn't been for the huge amount of help we had from friends and family. They helped with food for both after the baptism and the blessing, helped take our kids to places they needed to be, helped with the birthday party, helped do Nyah's hair for the baptism. You all know who you are, so THANK YOU!!!!

I had to post this, my friend found this lady that makes these awesome cookies. I thought they where so cool. We had some for the baptism and the blessing. If you look closely some of them had their names on them as well.

It turned out great! We pulled off the huge weekend of birthday party, gymnastics performance, baptism and blessing! It's exhausting even thinking about it, but it got done and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Lake Powell

We got to go to Jared's favorite place in the world again this year. . . Lake Powell. We went with my parents and some friends of theirs. We camped in Paige and then put the boat on the Lake every day. It was so much fun.

So, Keira's absolute favorite place to ride in the boat is in the bow. Well one day she was right up there similar to this photo only without Jayda and we were riding along and then all of a sudden she just fell backward hitting the floor of the boat. We did not hit any waves, there was no sudden jerking of the boat, oh no she had fallen asleep and fell back! I am so glad she didn't fall forward!!! After that I had to keep checking on her to make sure she was not asleep sitting up there.

They loved to go in the water in their tubes, they could have done it almost all day.

We went to the dam which was neat to see. We also went to Rainbow Bridge but of course I had forgotten my camera that day. My mom had hers so we did get pictures but she has them and I have not gotten them from her yet.

Our little boater.

Jayda loved getting the boat all muddy and then washing it off with the watering can, it was very cute.

Keira was VERY safe (unless you count the falling asleep in the bow of the boat incident) as you can see she was going to make sure she would not drown. She has her life jacket, her tube, and shallow water. . . very cautious!

Out little baby boater, he was so good. He wasn't a huge fan of the life jacket but he didn't put up much of a fuss. Every time the boat was moving he would always fall asleep.

Jared got to water ski, he was very happy about that. It has been a while since he has been able to.

Proof that I did go on our vacation.

My parents friends that came had a two daughters, Nyah's and Keira's ages and they all got along great. Nyah talks about Mckenzie all the time and has been writing her letters since the trip.

We had so much fun and were not ready to come home. We would love if we could go every year to Lake Powell. Of course Jared would live there if we let him.

4th of July Star Valley Style

Over the 4th of July we went to my good old home town Star Valley. We went for a family reunion and had a lot of fun. Since my parents live here now, we don't get to go there very often so it's nice when we do go.

Nyah and Keira got invited to be on one of the floats in the parade which they thought was wonderful. They had a good time waving flags and throwing candy.

Jayda had fun watching the parade. She got very daring running after candy that was thrown in the street.

Attempting to get all my kids in a picture and have it turn out decent is pretty much impossible at this point I just pick my battles and choose the one that is not the worst ha ha. As you can see Connor especially loves these moments.

No visit to Star Valley in the summer is complete without visiting the Red Baron so we went there for food and ice cream which Jayda LOVED!

We got to see my old house I grew up in. Wow it has a lot of memories! It is sadly not the same though. It is now trashed inside and really disgusting. It makes me sad.

Of course we did fireworks and we got to do the really fun ones that go very high as they are not illegal in Wyoming. My kids didn't know what to think. But of course we had sparklers first. I love how she has her blanket in her mouth.

Only in Star Valley would you have to wear a coat out to do fireworks in July.

We had a great time there, it has been forever since I have been there for the 4th of July, I think since the year Nyah was born so that would have been 8 years ago. It was nice to go back again.

Summer BBQ

Over the 4th of July weekend we decided to have a big BBQ at my parents house. We had a lot of people come, some of our friends, my bro and his friends, some friends of my parents etc. It was a TON of fun. We ended up with a HUGE water fight, including the big blow up water toy my mom has, water guns, water balloons, the hose, pitchers of water, etc. No one was safe and everyone got dumped in the little pool on the water toy whether you had clothes on or swim suit.

Nyah randomly caught a butterfly that crawled all over her head it was CRAZY

We hatched a plan to get my brother in the water with his clothes on, which included one of my friends calling him on the cell phone and all the guys had to pitch in to help because he put up a FIGHT!!!!

We were of course successful!

Of course Cameron was next!

After their pool run in and all wet.

We had TONS of food and all hung around visiting and laughing.

When it got dark we pulled out the chairs for the fireworks. Of course right in the middle of it all the automatic sprinklers came on and everyone went running and screaming. (To bad that was not on video!)

We had these GIANT marshmallows my mom got and Becky decided to play "chubby bunnies" she got 3 of those things in her mouth! (I should also post this pic on facebook, I know Beck would LOVE it ha ha)

Jayda and Tylie just wanted to watch cartoons together.

It was so much fun! We should do it again.

Cherry Hill

So we just recently went to Cherry Hill. My family goes there every year as a family reunion. We have been going since I was 10 years old (so, a LONG time). We love it and it holds a lot of memories for us. This year, Jared's family decided to also have a family reunion there the same weekend we would already be there which was nice for us, to kill two birds with one stone so to speak.

Jared's grandma Joy got to join us and she made a "club" for all the grand kids called "The Screaming Yellow Zonkers" so now we decided to extend the invitation to the great grand kids as well. So we had a ceremony for the kids to be initiated into the "club" by getting a cup of water dropped on their head. As you can see Connor was somewhat less then amused with this. According to Jared they got off pretty easy cause he had to be dunked in a creek. Grandma Joy had a grand time getting all the kids wet.