It's Party Time!

We've had a couple birthdays in our family lately. That means lots of cake, presents, and fun! We've also been to a few fun indoor play areas with cousins, watched a cowboy show, and found a golden ticket in a chocolate bar! Keep reading below to see more details!

Leah turns 4 tomorrow and we had a cousin birthday party for her a few days ago. Here she is in the crown that Abbie got for her birthday a few months ago.

With her pink and purple cupcakes (that Mommy worked hard on finding in the store:)!

Painting trains and airplanes for an activity

With her cousins and presents

Yay, more princess stuff!

Hitting the Dora pinata (that we saved from 3 years ago when Abbie had a Dora birthday party)

Candy!

On her actual birthday we got her a big cupcake and had a family party.

She got some more ponies, which she loves!

Porter turned 1 on Nov. 12th! Here he is getting ready to eat his cake!

Mmmm, so yummy!

Sugar-induced blank stare

After we got him all cleaned up, he opened some presents. He got a pirate costume kit and a cool kid-sized tool box set.

I don't want to wear a girl birthday hat!

I'm ONE!

And I'm a big boy!

Jared turned 35 a few days after Porter's birthday and we celebrated by having a few of his brothers over. He keeps reminding me that he can now officially run for president! (yeah, that's not happening!)

My silly birthday boys

See the resemblance? Porter totally looks like Jared's baby pictures in this one!

A cute picture of Abbie and Porter together

And all three kids one random day

Playing at Classic Skating

We had a blast going down the inflatable slides. Here's Abbie:

Leah flying down head first. She has no fear and was going down really high slides and climbing places that Abbie wouldn't dare go.

Even Jared got in on the fun

At Jungle Jim's with their cousins

We had a blast at that place for a couple hours and then had lunch at the Arby's next door. Here we are all walking across a busy parking lot, trying to keep 7 girls in line.

Abbie practicing her cowboy lasso'ing skills

Abbie's kindergarten class has been practicing for a big cowboy program for the past month or two and they learned a bunch of songs and dances. Abbie was always singing them at home and telling us about all the things she was learning about cowboys. Here is her class at the big program! I videotaped the whole thing (on our ancient Panasonic VHS recorder so I can't include any clips on here) but didn't think to take any still pictures until the very end. Abbie is the fourth from the end on the left in the back row.

Jared has been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the kids and so one day we decided to get them a Willy Wonka chocolate bar with a real (aka made by a creative Mom) golden ticket!

Abbie was so excited, she couldn't believe she got the one and only golden ticket!

Fall Fun in October

In October my sister and I made a trip up to Idaho to visit my sister Kim. My mom also came over for a while, here she is with Kaleb (4 mos) and Porter (11 mos):

The cousins having a picnic in the nice summer like weather

Lining up to do the airplane with Aunt Liesl

We put rag curls in the girls' hair after bathtime

Here's Abbie and Leah the next day (the kids sleep in them and then you take the rags out and you get the best bouncy curls!)

Abbie and Leah are also in ballet with a few of their cousins, they love it!

Porter loves this Johnny jump-up that we borrowed from Kim

A week or so after the Idaho trip it snowed for the first time. Abbie and Leah were so excited to play in it they put on their snow gear and went out right after breakfast. Here they are showing me their snowballs (before throwing them at me!)

The snowman they made, they were so excited and loved finding rocks, sticks, gloves, and a hat to decorate him with.

The next day we went to a farm for a preschool field trip. Here is Leah on one of the tractors.

Doing the hay maze with her cousins

Looking for the perfect pumpkin

Leah and two of her cousins with the pumpkins they got to bring home

Abbie's kindergarten class had a Halloween party that I helped out with. The kids played a game where they took turns wrapping up each other in toilet paper and making mummys. Aren't they cute?

Leah being a princess witch (just before going out trick-or-treating)

Porter not so sure about this trick-or-treating thing

My adorable princesses and the frog on Halloween night!

That's a first!

We've had a lot of changes in our family lately with moving and starting over somewhere new. Along with that, a lot of firsts have happened too. Here's Abbie on her first day of kindergarten:

She also lost her first tooth a few weeks after school started!

The tooth fairy also made another visit to see Porter. He got his first two teeth within a week or two of Abbie losing hers!

Leah started preschool with her cousins


Abbie and Leah both started ballet
Again with their cousins!

Porter thinking about crawling (just thinking, though, not moving yet)I got a new haircut

Our first family picture in our new home
We have also had a lot of visitors in the past few months. My mom was the first to use the guest rooom and the kids loving seeing Grandma again!

Abbie had her 6th birthday! She wanted a My Little Pony cake but I didn't want to fork over the big bucks so I made our own rainbow cake and she loved it!

She got a bunch of My Little Pony stuff so she was happy!

As you can see here

Leah was just happy to wear a hat, eat cake, and get Abbie's hand-me-down toys!

She also loved wearing Abbie's birthday crown and jewelry, we'll be using it again for her 4th birthday next month!

We also made a visit to Temple Square for the first time since moving to Utah. Abbie and Leah loved looking at the huge "castle" (temple) and seeing the brides getting their pictures taken.

Pretty gardens and girls

The whole family by the reflection pool

An awesome picture I took just as we were leaving I loved it so much I changed it to sepia and printed it off in 11x14 to frame. It looks like something you'd find in Deseret Book, right?
Well, as you can tell we've been busy. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully it won't take me three months to update again!