Miss Sassy Pants Turns 14

This year Whitney's birthday fell on the Saturday of Fall Break, so she had Thursday and Friday off of school leading up to it.

On Thursday my mom picked her up and took her to lunch and then birthday shopping with some money from us and then some from my parents. They also had plans to pick Bella and Tess up from the train to join them for the end of their shopping outing and then for a sleepover at my parents' house.

Whitney saying goodbye to Junie.

Whitney and Bella came back to our house Friday afternoon (Tess went home) and entertained themselves so much I hardly saw them.

On Saturday, we joined my entire family at Wheeler Farms for family pictures. Usually we set up my tripod and a self-timer and hope for the best but this year Robyn's boyfriend (who is a professional photographer) offered to do a photo shoot with us. It's so weird that the kids are all getting so big! Ashley is the youngest cousins and she's now 8 1/2...crazy. It felt like they were tiny for so long and now it feels like they're all teenagers.

After a couple hours of of photo taking, me, Lori, Whitney and Bella went to lunch at Apollo Burger. I took this shot of Whitney modeling her birthday shopping finds (i.e., new shoes, new jeans and new sweater) which she is thrilled about.

She loves, loves, loves these Sassy shoes!

Lori wore her sunglasses during lunch because she was next to a bright window. She could have closed the blinds but she and Bella said the sun felt nice. It was funny to sit across from her wearing glasses though.

Next we went to Color Me Mine (just like last year).

Lori took this fabulous photo of the girls.

Lori and I both painted mugs.

I painted this mug (which will end up being a bright turquoise after it's fired), Bella painted the bulldog, Lori did an ombre affect on her mug, and Whitney did a really cute little sugar bowl, lid and small spoon which she'll probably eat cereal out of.

Later that evening we got together at Lori's house to finally celebrate her birthday (which was September 8th), Landon's birthday (which was August 10th), Andrew's birthday (which was September 29th), Randy's birthday (which was October 12th) and Whitney's birthday...apparently we've had a really hard time getting everyone together. Robyn and Lyman (boyfriend) ended up having a couple Halloween party to be at and Landon ended up going to the BYU-Nevada game, but other than that we were all there.

The spread of gifts. Lori wanted work done for her gifts so Adam and Randy hung a couple heavy duty items, mounted her flat screen tv to the wall and fixed a toilet.

We had cheesecake AND the Oreo Ice Cream dessert.

All lined up so we could sing to them.

We relit candles and put them on Andrew's piece of dessert so he could blow them out and spray as needed.

Rewind--Whitney's 13th Birthday

Whitney talks about her birthday all year long. She is always saying things like "You know what you could get me for my birthday...", or "I can't decide what I want to do for my birthday (she'll say this 5 months ahead of time)." It's pretty funny and not exhausting at all.

I'm not sure how or when we started doing "corner presents" but they have become a favorite part of the kids' birthdays.

Whitney was happy with this stash of gifts.

My mom checked Whitney out of school early so they could drive to Salt Lake to meet up with Bella for some shopping and then a movie.

Bella stayed over that night and the three of us watched "Thirteen Going on 30" together. It was their first Romantic Comedy/Chick Flick and it was hilarious to watch with them since they're both 13. They weren't old enough to swoon and didn't understand a lot of what was funny, but we had a good time.

We had a full day of fun planned for Saturday.

We picked up Lori and went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.

Then we went to Slurp for the first time and had a hard time taking a self-portrait (of course I love dominating the photo...NOT!)

Oh Whitney.

Next stop was Color Me Mine for our misspelled table appointment of fun.

Lori got right down to it, but Bella and I were pretty stressed about messing our projects up. I was surprised at Whitney's hesitation too but her issue may have been because she had too many ideas.

It took her over an hour before she was ready to paint! She made a cool striped design using tape. We were there for 3 hours and had a really fun time. I think Bella and I would be less stressed the next go around.

We had a family party that evening for Randy and Whitney and I had arranged for a friend from church to make this amazingly beautiful apple pie for Randy.

Adam entertained us as usual!

Whitney blew out all 13 candles (I hope she didn't wish for a dog!).

The big crowd.

Everyone gave Whitney cash!

Miscellaneous Monday

It feels like my whole life is one big Miscellaneous Monday post!

I don't remember what song was playing, but these two cracked me up by unexpectedly breaking into some coordinated dance moves! It was so funny!! I had time to grab the camera and catch this shot of them on the tail end of one of the moves. This is not usual behavior so it was highly amusing.  

One Sunday afternoon as I was rushing to get out the door to church, I grabbed my purse so I could get my house keys out of the back pocket. Usually I just dig around blindly to find my keys, lip gloss, or gum but this time I took my purse off the bar stool where it was hanging and set it on the table. I looked down and saw this very ample spider web!! Ew! The thing is that I had used my purse just the night before, so this was a very new web! I was totally flummoxed by this discovery and chose to leave the purse there and go to church without my house keys...needless to say I had a hard time focusing for the first few minutes of church! Fast forward like 5 hours later when I showed Randy the web and implored him to investigate when sure enough he said, "oh there he his!" and proceeded to retrieve and kill the offending spider! D-I-S-C-O-N-C-E-R-T-I-N-G!!!

Here is one of Whitney's latest Barbie creations based on ideas she has seen online.

My mom and I spent a sweaty couple of hours being roasted alive at Landon's football game last Thursday. It was in the 90's that day plus we were sitting on metal bleachers in direct sun. It was NOT pretty! We used her blanket to cover our very pale white legs and then huddled under an umbrella. It was a labor of love for sure.

But he's so cute we just had to be there!

Whitney showed her support by drawing on her hand, but pretty much complained the whole time we were at the game. She ended up finding a tree to sit under, but since she has no interest in football it really wasn't the best idea for her to come with us (I gave her a choice, but I think she hoped we'd get food on the way home...we didn't).

Bella spent the night with us Friday night and the girls wanted to  go see the One Direction Movie on Saturday. We agreed to this in exchange for some weeding (very generous offer on our parts) and Bella happily agreed (even though she'd already seen the movie!), Whitney balked and complained and pushed Randy and I to the very edge of our sanity (this has been happening a lot lately). Needless to say we won't be making any arrangements like this again!

 

Lori turned 37 this weekend but still looks like she could be my love child from a high school romance!

Landon has officially passed her in height!

Birthday Alley--March Edition

 It was a beautiful day to celebrate Adam, our dad and Bella's birthdays.

 We had pulled pork sandwiches, 7 layer dip and fruit.

The chalkboard wall in the kitchen was all decked out for Bella's birthday.

Lola puppy is getting big and oh so cute.

 The girls entertained themselves outside.

 While the adults hung out inside.

I know this is unfocused but I still think it's a super cute photo of Lori.

We always joke that Adam and Amy have too much seating.

The birthday kids.