Together in the temple

This was the first time we were all able to be together in the temple. It was pretty awesome!

Look who has their eyes closed now Mikey!

A new family picture

Shortly after Cameron finished opening all of his presents, I boarded a plane and headed to Reno to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday which was the next day. Look who else was there:

When was the last time this happened and when will it happen again?? ps. This is the exact same pose as a family picture we had taken maybe 15 years ago. Yes we are special.

Cameron's happy birthday

Cameron was a sleepy little guy the morning of his birthday. The older kids were up, fed, dressed and almost ready to leave for school and Cameron was still asleep. Since everyone wanted to see how Cam reacted to the new tradition and wish him a happy birthday, we decided to wake him up. We knocked on the door a few times and called out to the birthday boy several times before we finally heard him waking up. We could hear him sounding a little panicky: "OH! My Birthday! Oh. Okay, okay, my birthday is today." You can tell he wasn't quite awake when he opend the door:

He got dressed and enjoyed his favorite doughnuts from Krispy Kreme to start his day off right.

Then we worked together to make his Star Wars and Sprinkles birthday cake.

Cameron was very patient and waited all day to start the treasure hunt for his presents. He wanted dad and company to get home from school and help him read the clues.

And I think everyone loved helping him.

Matt found this Broncos helmet a few months ago and knew it would be perfect for Cameron's birthday. No concussions to report yet.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Bentley for the Star Wars Trouble game. It makes all kinds of funny R2D2 noises. We all love it. A lot.

And thank you Grandma and Grandpa Marshall for the awesome Star Wars Snow Speeder. You will be glad to know it can even speed around without the snow.

Happy Birthday to our favorite little 4 year old.

A new birthday tradition

Matt and I used to blow up a bunch of balloons the night before a birthday and toss them all over the room of the child whose birth we would be celebrating. That was good in theory. What led to the discontinuation of this tradition was the fact that we never had balloons anywhere when we needed them. And that some kids (read: Howie) loved to pop other kids' (read: Nina) balloons which led to lots of crying, screaming and other annoying noises. And also that we got bored of it. So we changed the rules cause we are allowed to. Now we hang streamers in front of the door and wait for birthday boys and girl to burst through. We'll see how long this tradition lasts. But on the trial run, it seemed to be a fan favorite.

Paper Rockets

Along with the Science Fair, the Museum of Nature and Science was there to host a paper rocket launching event. Or something. Basically, the kids wrapped up a piece of paper, stuck a film container in the bottom and a cone on top and plopped it on some launching machine. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. The launching part that is.

Science Fair 2012

This was our first year participating in a science fair. We were proud of our kids and the effort they put into their experiments. Nina tried her hand at a gardening experiment. She wondered if it mattered which direction you planted a seed. She was certain that the only way a plant would grow was if you planted it vertically. She was relieved to know that it doesn't matter which direction a seed is planted.

Donovan and Howie worked together on their project. They wondered how a no bake cookie is affected when you change the amount of time you boil the sugar/milk/butter. So every Sunday for a month they made two batches of no bake cookies. Bummer for us as we all had to taste them and give our input. Sundays just aren't the same anymore. Sadly Howie was sick the morning we took the projects to the school and Donovan was at Scouts the night of the science fair so we never got a picture of them together in front of their display.

At the end of everything, I learned I don't really care what a no bake cookies looks like, they all tasted pretty yummy and I want some every Sunday. I also learned that I want a better camera after I saw how badly all the experiment pictures looked.

Trusty old pony

There are two things that help me out a ton while I try to grocery shop with kids: 1. The free cookie from the bakery 2. The penny pony Thank you King Soopers.