Party Fun!

Last night we went to our friends the Larios' for their son Nicholas' first birthday party.  We were so excited because we were going to get some real Mexican food for dinner...and it was yummy!

Jantzen, JoseAlfredo (Nicholas' older brother and Jantz's best friend), and Jaron took off playing together for most of the night.  Zulema had some fun party games planned for everyone.  The boys, and Jaedyn, played musical chairs a couple times...JoseAlfredo won.  Then there was a game where Zulema would call out a specific item and the kids had to find it.  The kid who found the most items first would win.  Guess who won...Jaedyn!  She was sooo happy about winning.  Another game that was played was a balloon popping one.  Everyone got a balloon tied to their leg and they had to try and pop other people's balloons while protecting their own.  This was a fun game to watch because it all cam down to Josh and Zulema.  They were fierce competitors, but in the end Josh won...

    ...it was fun watching them, everyone was laughing and having a good time.
Here's Josh and Jaedyn with their prizes they won...     Jaron and Jantzen were really bummed they didn't win anything, but that's okay, they all had a good time.  I love having good friends to share fun days like this together.

Random Phone Pics...

Jaedyn LOVES to take pictures and have pictures taken of her doing silly things with my phone and iPod.  I thought I would include them so she can remember them always.  Here are some of the most recent ones...

(Clockwise from top left: Jaedyn wearing a stress relieving toy as glasses; me hugging Jantzen during sacrament; Jantzen being silly in sacrament; Jaedyn's bathroom reading material; and Jaron trying not to laugh in sacrament)

    (Clockwise from top left: Jaedyn playing "hide and seek" with a Minecraft sword; Jaedyn playing my iPod while waiting for Jantzen to get out of school; Jaron being a nerd on the way home from school; Jaedyn taking a rest in the toy room; some of Jaedyn's favorite "Cars" toys...she posed them all for the camera; and Jaron holding a cup to make his mustache look bigger and fuller)     I love it that Jaedyn likes to take pictures, she's just like me in that aspect.  But, sometimes I wish she wouldn't take so many pictures of random strangers!  NO, I won't be including any random stranger pictures, they get deleted immediately!

"National Teddy Bear Day"

Yesterday was "National Teddy Bear Day", so for preschool Jaedyn got to bring in her favorite teddy bear, she was so excited!  She chose to bring "Cheeto-Worm"...

      Yep, that's her bear's name...and she loves her to pieces!!!!

"Donuts with Dad"

Today was "Donuts with Dad" at Jantzen's school.   Since Josh has to be to work before any of us are even up for the day, I went with the kids.  I also went because I'm on the PTO board at the school and it's an event that we put on for the kids.  Jaron was excited to be able to go because he doesn't go to that school anymore and because he LOVES donuts!

Jaedyn chose a powdered donut and by the look on her face after she was done with it, I'd say she really enjoyed it!

    Jaron chose a glazed donut and Jantzen chose a chocolate one.   Here are my crazy kids enjoying their sugar filled breakfast with some of Jantzen's friends (don't worry, they did have a healthier breakfast before...this was just a bonus).             I'll admit, I had a crumb donut and it was delicious!!!  Sorry, you don't get any pictures of me eating it.    I hope all the teachers have fun with the kids today now that we've loaded them up on some sugar...good luck teachers, don't hate us too bad!!

Straight "O" Social...

Today was the Straight "O" Social at Jaron's school.  Every quarter the kids at Cram get celebrated for having good citizenship and so far Jaron has been able to go to every single social.

They usually get ice cream, but this time they got cake.  I'm happy about that because I was one of the moms that would help scoop all the ice cream and it was kind of a pain (There's usually about 700 kids that come to these socials).

 Against Jaron's wishes I took some pictures of him enjoying his cake, mainly because he was sitting by Addison.  She's the girl that he claims he's just friends with, but they really do like each other.  Kennedy came over to harass him too!  I think Jaron got a little embarrassed by Kennedy and I bugging him, but that's okay, it's my right as his mom to embarrass him!

    One of the perks of not being in school yet, is that you get to enjoy all the socials too...     Jaedyn loves coming to things at the boys' schools when she gets to enjoy yummy food.  She really enjoyed the chocolate cake!   Good Job on getting straight "o's" Jaron, keep it up!! 

Glow in the Dark Dodgeball

Tonight was a blast!! Josh and I went to my friend Natalie's birthday party. She had a "Glow in the Dark" dodge ball party, it was so much fun!

When we all got there, we picked out all the glow stuff we wanted to wear, then we started a super vicious game of dodge ball.  For the first few games we had mixed teams, then the last game we played was girls vs. boys.  Let me just say that the boys didn't play gentle with us girls.  I have a nasty bruise on the back of my thigh to prove it!  It was fun though.

After some treats and socializing, we took a few pictures of us goofing around.  Not everyone stayed for pictures though...including Josh.

       Can you find me in this picture???  I'll give you a hint, I'm wearing a shirt with polka dots on it.       And here's us girls...     Just because we're "old", doesn't mean we don't know how to party and have a good time!

Mommy & Jantzen Date Night!

Josh and I decided to start taking each one of the kids on individual dates with us every month so we could spend some one on one quality time with them and let them know that each one of them is important to us. This month it was my turn to take Jantzen and last night was the night.  I let him make all the plans for the night and he was really excited for it all.

We started our night out at Olive Garden for dinner.  We don't take the kids there very often, but they love it, so that's where we headed.  Dinner was really good, as usual.  Both Jantzen and I had the fettuccine alfredo...yummy!

After dinner, Jantzen planned for us to go see a movie.  This is the movie he picked out...

   ...it was pretty cute!   Here I am with my handsome date for the evening...     After the movie was over we were going to just go home, but Jantzen decided he wanted to go to Target for some shopping.  I was totally okay with that!  We didn't really buy anything, but he really wanted his own pack of gum, so I got him some.  He's so easy to please sometimes.   We both had a great time on our date.  It was nice getting to talk to Jantzen one on one without anyone else there to distract us.  He's already planning his next date in February with his dad...he saw a preview for an animated Lego movie and said that's what he's going to do!  I love that the kids are so excited to go on dates with us, it makes us so happy that they're not completely embarrassed by us yet.  Love ya Jantzilla, thanks for a fun night!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween night is finally here! My kids have been so excited to go out and trick-or-treat around the neighborhood, even though they've already been trunk-or-treating a couple times this month.

Since we got a little off our schedule for our Halloween dinners, I decided to have our fourth and final one tonight.  We usually have chili and cornbread for dinner on Halloween, but since we had that at our wards trunk-or-treat last weekend, the kids were okay having something different.  Tonight's menu consisted of deep fried "monster toes" (with toenails still intact), scrambled "brains", and "maggots"...

   The family, including Jace, loved it all!  I think these Halloween dinners are affecting Jantzen a little more than the rest of us.  I think he's turning in to a monster!...      For dessert I cut off the kids' ears to make some yummy cupcakes...      Jaedyn helped me make them...      ...she really enjoyed licking the "blood" off the beaters for me.   I'm not so sure the kids liked the fact that I used their body parts for dessert.  I think I left them with a little bit of an earache...  
   That didn't stop Jantzen from devouring the bloody dessert...      After dinner, we picked up Jantzen's friend JoseAlfredo, then we headed out to do some trick-or-treating...      We first went to a neighborhood over by Jaron's school mainly because our favorite neighbor moved over there and he always gives my kids king size candy bars.  That's what they look forward to every year.           I think the kids all had a good time.  Jaron even saw one of his girl friends, Addison, (not an actual girlfriend) while we were out...that made him pretty happy.   After we were all done in that neighborhood, we dropped Josh and Jaedyn off at home because they were getting tired, then I took the boys around our own neighborhood to get some more candy because they didn't have enough.  Can you sense the sarcasm there?   I was able to get a picture of Jaedyn and I before she went to bed.  It only took three times to get her to look at the camera.  She's so stinkin' cute!     While the boys and I were out in our neighborhood, Jaron came across another girl friend of his.  This time it was Sierra and no, she's not an actual girlfriend either.  Jaron has been friends with her since kindergarten.  They had a good time catching up since they go to different schools now.   The boys all had a good time, but they all had school the next day, so I didn't let them stay out too late.  They were all a little bummed that they had to go home, but they would be bears in the morning if I let them stay out any longer.  Next year they can stay out longer because Halloween will be on a Friday...yay!!   HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2013!!!