Thanksgiving was also a birthday in our family this year. So which do we celebrate first? The day started with Jameson finding his birthday present. He and Ella were all over the tools that morning. Doesn’t he look so excited?

That’s my girl. In her brother’s hand-me-down pajamas with a power drill.

Then, these two got a hold of the camera. I have to say, up close and upside-down, these two could be twins.

After naps, our Thanksgiving feast began. I made a turkey, along with potatoes, gravy, rolls, and ice cream pies. Our friends, the Larsens, joined us. They brought some delicious stuffing, carrots, bacon wrapped green beans, and apple pie. We had tons of food, and a handsome turkey carver. Only problem, he doesn’t know how to carve a turkey. I’m sure there’s some specific way, but we do what we can.

After dinner, we let Jamo open some more presents from us. He is big into heroes right now. So, super hero pajamas are only appropriate.

Ella was just as excited.

He also opened up some capes I got at the swap meet while at my Mom’s. He loves them, and I got a deal on them.

A cross-eyed batman. These two super heroes ran crazy for a while.

After presents, Kevin tried to roast marshmallows with the kids. We found out that our house is too drafty. While trying to keep a fire going, if we didn’t leave a window cracked, the smoke would come back into the house. So, we did one round of smores and called it good.

After some smores, we sang “Happy Birthday” and had Jameson blow out his candles before they melted our ice cream pies.

So that was our dinner and birthday. After cleaning up and getting kids to bed, I prepared for some black Friday shopping. I got the honor of taking Lauren out for her first time. We started at Target, ventured to Kohl’s, and then Old Navy. We actually made it home by 3:15 am and got almost everything on our list. It was tons of fun, and Kevin kept the kids quiet the next morning so I could sleep in. Love that man!

Jameson has kept asking when his birthday is. We told him it was on Thanksgiving and it was coming. I decided I would wait to do a friend party till my kids turn 5. They don’t remember before that, right. I don’t really remember birthdays before that. So starting the week of his birthday, our discussions went like this:

J-It’s my birthday?

M- Yup, on Thursday. The day after preschool.

J- And I get a party.

M- Umm, nope. Not this year bud.

J- Yes huh. And my friends are coming over.

M- Umm, no their not.

J- Yes huh, and I get presents.

Well shoot. So, the Monday before I sent an email to a few friends asking them to humor us and come over for lunch and cupcakes. A few friends came over and helped me give Jameson a “birthday party.” So after our preschool group, a few more joined us. We had some chicken nuggets and fries, and then let the kids decorate some cupcakes. They were sweet and brought some presents for him. He was so excited.

Kevin was actually in between jobs this week, so he got to participate in the party, too. Well, once he and his friend got back from shooting that morning. They got back in time for presents and cupcakes. Once the kids went to bed, I got out his present from us. I got this over the summer from someone in the ward. She has stored it for about 10 years and was finally getting rid of it. I’m surprised I was able to hide it in the garage for 5 months.

The next morning, Jameson came running in our room. He looked at dad and yelled, “Dad, guess what Santa brought me?” We laughed and told him it wasn’t from Santa, just us. He was so excited.

I had a last minute baby-shower I was supposed to attend, meaning I found out Sunday and it was on Wednesday. I completely forgot about it the 3 days in between, and ended up remembering once I had already put Ella down for a nap that day. So, I looked around the house, at my stash of presents, and other things I had. My stash of baby gifts is ridiculously low, not to mention, the gender isn’t know. So the things in my stash didn’t apply. I did have a package of diapers Ella grew out of, so I spent the afternoon rolling diapers. I had some plastic binkies left over from a baby shower, so that became my cake topper. Not too bad for a last minute gift.

Thursday, October 27th, I had a very important baby shower to give. A good friend finally had a baby boy after 3 older sisters. So, we went with an “Heir the the throne” theme. Since it was only 2 days after getting home from a 2 week trip, I enlisted another friend to help with the food. So, invitations went out…

The poem read:

The clock struck midnight, the spell did not break

An heir to the throne, finally, for Pete’s sake!

But with three little princesses, what’s a prince to do?

Throughout the whole castle, not one boy hue.

So throughout the kingdom, was sent a request,

Please join us for the Prince’s shower, please be our guest.

The food spread was delicious. We had mini tacos, stuffed mushrooms, toasted bread with a spread, cheese ball and crackers, vegetable tray, and cookies. (Waters were held in a baby bath.)

For dessert, we had white and milk chocolate plus lots of treats to dip.

We also had a place to write a note for baby Slade. These were taken from a friend’s baby shower, but were such a good idea, I had to borrow it. The cards said things like, “Always remember,” “I hope you,” “I hope you become…” I had a little book for her to put the cards in later.

I had a list of questions about Slade as a little quiz. He was about 6 weeks old when we had the shower.

(This was a lady from the ward holding him. Not related by any means.)

As everyone was leaving, they could get a chocolate covered pretzel. There were mint chocolate pretzels and white chocolate covered pretzels. I think everyone had a good time, and she received lots of blue to counter the pink in her house.

(Sep. 29th)

We had a new girl move into our ward, who is pregnant with a boy. I asked if she had a baby shower, and found out she didn’t. So I put together a quick baby shower for her before going out of town. I chose the “Around the clock” theme, to help her get a variety of things, since this is her first baby.

The invitation read:

The clock is ticking, the time is drawing near

Rachael is preparing with baby boy gear.

Each time of the day, requires different needs,

Let’s pick our favorite item, to help her get through diapers and feeds.

The clock will tell you, the hour  of the  day,

Your help is needed, in any kind of way.

Each invitation had a time of day on it, but I forgot to take pictures of those. As guests arrived, there were a few bowls full of snacks with a sign that read, “Snack time.”

For dinner, we had bacon wrapped green beans, coconut rice, sweet and sour meat balls, and pasta spinach salad. The first 3 entree’s were from Our Best Bites.

I also went to The Rootbeer Store and picked up lots of different rootbeers for us. I used a baby bath to hold them in with ice, so they would be cold.

For dessert, we had some cake chocolate and vanilla cake. I dyed the white cake blue, so her cake matched the colors of the party.

We played a game where I played songs that included the words, “baby, boy, dad, or mom.” If the guest could sing it, say the title, or say the artist, they got a hershey kiss. Then, at the end, whoever had the most kisses got the prize. I think I mentioned my polaroid camera earlier. I used it to take pictures of everyone that was there. Then, I had a little book to put the pictures in. As she opened presents, we wrote what the gift was next to the picture of the person.

As a “Thank you,” I had a little box with a candy watch inside. The card on top read, “Thank you for your time.”

For some decorations, I made a few onesies to hang on the clothes line. I also wrapped a few onesies to a diaper wreath.

And there you have our “Around the clock” baby shower. It worked out well for not having too much prep time.

(August 21st)

Jameson needed a haircut, so once again, Kevin mo-hawked it. I told him this is the last time we are doing this, because it is me that has to deal with it every day. We did our typical church attendance with it, though. In order to get him to hold still, I had to give him a candy.

Dad is always so proud of the mo-hawk.

After church, we had the missionaries and the Larsen’s over for Elder Taylor’s last super. He had served his 2 years, and was flying back to Utah in the morning. We’ve gotten close with these two after working with them every week for the last 12 weeks. It’s been lots of fun, and now it’s time for him to move on in his life. (He does seem like a little brother to us though, so he better keep us updated.)

We’ve gotten to know the missionaries in our ward really well over the last 11 weeks. They wanted to meet with us every week and give us challenges to do missionary work. These challenges were things like, get to know your neighbors, or to create a profile on Mormon.org (which I have yet to accomplish, but I did try.) The missionaries have been coming over every week to discuss our experiences throughout the week. This means, we have gotten to know our missionaries really well. We actually met one of them, Elder Taylor, when he was first out and I was still pregnant with Ella. He was a new missionary and we were in another ward. Now, we get to have him finish his mission with us. It was his birthday on the 5th, so we celebrated with them on our normal Thursday visit with some dinner and peach cobbler. (His request.) It tasted good, but I don’t think it turned out quite like it was supposed to. It was my first time making it, though. I also stopped by the Rootbeer store, and picked up a bunch of different kinds for us to have with dinner. His present? A few rootbeers to go. He had to have at least one present on his birthday, but I didn’t want to get anything he’d have to haul around since he’s about ready to go home.

So happy birthday to Elder Taylor! And Elder Minter is a good sport about all the going home talk. He was a newbie when he was sent to us. Poor guy should not have been paired up with someone going home, but they have been working hard. They have kept us thinking about being good members of our church, and have been fun visitors every week.

(July 2nd)

Saturday, we got together for a bbq at a friend’s house. We had a lots of friends and food, minus a few who were out of town. We also celebrated a birthday!

It’s not a birthday without cake, but we had to get a little patriotic. Plus, Lauren loves fruit so it was a win win. This recipe is one from my Ina Garten book, and it is delicious. I forgot candles, so instead, we just sang to the birthday girl.

Lauren and Allison then served everyone the different desserts we had. Thanks ladies!

Tuesday, May 17th, was the reason the house was so full. Weston, my baby brother, was graduating. We had 15 people attend the graduation, and that was leaving 5 kids home with a baby-sitter. my dad and grandma flew in that morning, and took Weston out for lunch. The graduation started at 3:30 pm. Luckily, Weston is taller than most of his classmates, plus he had different colors on for his honor status and high gpa. It made him easy to spot.

(He’s in the white with red sash (I don’t know what those are really called).

They had the graduates stand up to be recognized for all their different achievements. Weston got to stand up about 5 times for his gpa achievements. He’s right in the middle of this picture.

We were smart and sat right behind the lights to help with our pictures. Here he is entering and walking the stage for his diploma.

The program was pretty much completely done by the students, which was a good idea, but there were some people that took advantage of being on the stage. We finally made it through everything, and the graduates left the building.

We headed back to the car to meet everyone else at home. Don took off a little early to start getting dinner on. He was busy at home making ribs and carne asada. Once everyone was back, we made Weston take some pictures.

Dad held onto Ella for me. She was pretty much attached to my leg the entire trip. It was brutal.

We couldn’t leave Kevin out of the pictures. You should have seen my children upon seeing their cardboard “Dad.” Jameson told everyone, “Look, this is a picture of my Dad” while standing in the Price is Right model pose. Ella just loved to stare at him.

Jameson wouldn’t stop playing to come take a picture. Steve had made the trip out for Kayden’s birthday which happened to be the following day, so he was able to attend the graduation also.

And here’s us 4 children. The baby is the tallest and now graduated. Christina wore heels, so I look the shortest, but really, she is. I’m not sure why I didn’t end up with a picture with Mom. I know we took one.

I am really grateful for these times when we are all together. It’s not very often. We each live in a different state (Christina -Colorado, Me- Washington, Paul- Utah, Weston- California) all pretty far apart. I am so grateful my family is willing to travel or we would never see each other. Grandma also comes whenever she can, which I am so thankful for. Dad makes sure to bring her when he comes. They only came for the day, and flew out that night after dinner. The next day, Paul and Jenny left back to Utah, then Steve left on Thursday morning, and we left Thursday afternoon. The girls went back to their mom’s house Friday, so by Friday evening, mom had a quiet house again. It went from 17 people sleeping Friday night to 5 people the following Friday night. It was a little crazy.

(May 7th)

Saturday started with a visit to see friends. Jameson was excited to visit Jake, and we never leave empty handed. Jake passed on a dinosaur to Jameson, which he can’t leave anywhere now. I think he slept with it the first few nights. If you didn’t know these two, you would think they were brothers. They have the same hair color and somewhat resemble each other. And we would be happy to have Jake fill the slot as big brother for Jameson.

(taken with itouch so not best quality)

After some catching up, and fun times, we headed home for some rest before the big party Saturday night. It was Grandpa McCulley’s 80th birthday and we were to celebrate in style. It was a 50’s style theme, so we got the kids dressed up. Jameson was not so excited to take some pictures.

Those are tic tacs in his sleeve. Don’t think I’m a bad mom. Although, my own mother couldn’t believe I let him have a fake tattoo on his arm for the night. It was completely gone by Monday. No worries. The stylish Aunt Steph and Uncle Josh…

Check out those stylish shoes. And here’s some proof for my children that I actually do exist. This is probably one of the only pictures of me during this whole trip.

And here is the birthday boy!

We had a good time visiting with family. We were able to see everyone and talk with those we rarely get to see. So Happy Birthday Paka!