Addi turns 8

Addi is 8! I love this little girl so much! She has such a tender heart, she's a great helper, she loves to read, she does great at school, people love to be around her, she likes to organize things and she's very creative! I am so blessed to be her mom and can't imagine my life without her!

This year for her birthday, we had just been in our new home for only a few weeks and didn't really have any new friends yet to have a friend party. I felt bad about this, because turing 8 is an important birthday. She was a sweetheart and was fine just having a family party.

Part of her present was getting her new room ready. This is an old door that I painted blue for her headboard...

The after picture. I think it turned out cute and Addi loves it so I'm happy!

The bedding is from Target.

Then my parents came over (so excited they live less than 5 minutes away now!), we had pizza, opened presents and had cake and ice cream. It was a fun low-key birthday. Sometimes those are kind of nice.

Usually it takes me hours to make my kids' birthday cakes, but this year Addi wanted strawberry cake with chocolate frosting and a strawberry on top. Easiest cake ever! Thanks Addi!

A full shot of her bedroom with her new reading chair and light fixture.

Family Pictures 2012!

There's always an overload of pictures when family pictures are taken, right? I have uploaded them, but in no particular order and I have too much blogging to do to arrange them right now! :) Enjoy!

More July Love

The 24th of July! I look forward to this day every year. Always on the 24th we go to my parents house in Mapleton. Mapleton really does put on a spectacular fireworks show. I know everyone is partial to their own town's firework show, but really Mapleton is the best I've seen. I'm not sure if it's because we have the best seats in town, or if it's because the rich orthodontists on the hill buy the fireworks and feel the need to outdo themselves each year?

We get to my mom's house early in the evening so we can spend some time doing crafts with the kids. Then we have a BBQ and then the most famous ping pong ball drop. The kids get a wrist band, then when they call their age group, they gather around. The helicopter drops a huge bucket of ping pong balls with numbers on them. The kids grab a ping pong ball and hope their number is called so they can win a new BIKE! Hally won last year:)

Then the kids play, we listen to the music and wait for the, oh so AMAZING FIREWORKS! It's the best time ever! I love it! Then after it's over, hundreds of people trample my parents field as a short cut to get to their cars. I'm pretty sure we could make bank if we charged $5 a car for them to park in the field. We talk about it every year.