Happy Birthday To Me

The big 3-1.  I'm officially IN my 30's.  For some reason that is a lot harder to stomach than turning 30 was.  Oh well. Such is life.  So, in my attempt to remain young, I celebrated my birthday by going to Disneyland.  Mom and I spent a day there and the highlight was a special fun dinner at Ariel's Grotto. It was SO cold though that we actually left the parks a bit early.  The entire weekend was cold - apparently record breaking cold and of course it was over my birthday.  I'm pretty sure I ended up with frost bite on my cheeks and nose - as you can see from the pictures they were super pink.
While in CA I also got my hair done, met my friend Kim for lunch (I didn't remember to get a picture with her. bummer.) and spent a night with Calee and Mom.  On my way home I stopped and spent some time with Madison, Rachel and Teri. We had a great time at lunch and riding bikes on the beach in Balboa. It was a nice weekend but I did really miss my boys and was glad to get home to see them.

Thanks to my friend, Lisa, I had some sparkly Minnie ears to wear.  

 Riding the new tire ride in Cars land. 

 Mom and I laughed so hard on this ride because it kepts throwing us all around.  I can't wait to take the boys next time we go. 

 Ariel

I don't know why I like to take pictures on yummy food but I do.  This was the appetizer plates we shared.

 I would highly recommend the tri-tip dinner.  Delish!

 Mom and Aurora - taken specifically for our new little Aurora.  

My favorite princess has always been Belle. 

 Birthday cake.  I wish I could say that the desserts were good but we were so full from dinner we didn't even eat the desserts. 

 I [heart] Pluto. 

 Mom and Calee had never been to fondue so we went to the Melting Pot in Brea for dinner. It's one of my favorites!

We had a great time with lots of laughs and some fun memories. 

Me and Madison 

 We took a break from our bikes to walk on the sand and snap a few pics. 

 These pictures don't reflect how cold it really was but we had a great time anyway.  It was so fun for me to get to spend the day with them.

Teri and Maddie. 

Aurora Mae

Our year was off to a great start when our little niece, Aurora Mae was born healthy on January 3rd. Kolissa and Micah are working to adjust to parenthood. We are excited to meet this sweet girl this summer when we are up in Idaho.  These pictures are from her two day old photo shoot.

New Year's Eve

I don't think it's a secret that I'm a social person, I like to dance and I like parties.  My friend, Kareth, was throwing her annual NYE party again this year.  Mostly people from tennis attended. Ricky decided to stay home with the boys (his choice but he was super supportive of me going out) and I went with Bam Bam who didn't have a date to go with.  We had a fun time eating, dancing and just hanging out.

I'm excited about 2013.  There are a lot of milestones to come this year for our family.  Our 10 year wedding anniversary, Logan goes to Primary, Lincoln will go to first grade, I'm looking forward to a good tennis season and Ricky's Photography business will really get off the ground.  All of that in addition to many other things that will come this year.  Here's to a happy, fun, exciting and healthy 2013 filled with laughter, love and great memories!!

Phoenix Children's Museum

I had heard a lot of great things about the Phoenix Children's Museum.  I don't know what it's taken us so long to get there but we finally made it a point to go over Christmas break.  It's only about 45 minutes from our house but it was an easy drive.  I didn't know exactly know what to expect but it turned out to be so much fun for the boys.  We ended up being there for about three hours and the boys loved every minute of it.  There were so many things for them to do and they seemed to be the perfect age for all of it.  I'm sure we'll be going back there sometime soon.  The day is better told through the pictures from everything we experienced there.

The day started with me and the boys climbing in and playing in this huge tree house like exhibit.  

They couldn't get enough of these machines that would blow air through tubes and spit out rag balls that the boys put in the holes.  

 Logan made a noise maker in the art room.

 Logan did a little shopping in the mock grocery store.  He loved pushing around the little cart and filling it up. 

 He even unloaded the cart at the cash register and made his groceries go across the hand cranked conveyor belt. 

 This is one of my favorite pictures from the day.  I might make a CD mobile for my house. So pretty.

 I thought the sand table was really fun but this didn't actually hold their attention for long. 

 The noodle forest was one of Lincoln's favorite exhibits. 

 Logan sitting in a toothpaste car.

 They had a little break room that sold snacks and light lunch food so we took a little pit stop to refuel and in addition to their sandwiches, of course my boys picked chips. 

 I would say besides the jungle gym, the car wash for trikes was the other highlight of the day for the boys.  They must have spent at least 45 minutes going through the car wash over and over.

 The spinners seemed to be their favorite part.

 This was in the fort room.  Logan actually landed this fall quite nicely since I couldn't get to him before he dropped.  Not a fuss from him. Tough guy.

The boys raced little wooden cars down several different tracks that they had to choose from.  

All in all it was a fun filled fantastic day and a great way to spend a day of Christmas break together. 

Fun Memories

Here are a couple of random pictures that capture some fun memories....

We grabbed dinner at Taco Bell one night.  Both boys played their DS while we waited for our food.  It was a great night for us because it was actually a pleasant experience to eat out with them.  They didn't fight, they ate all their food and it was a little sign that our boys are growing up.

 I took this picture last Sunday as we were getting in the car going to church.  It was Logan's last day in nursery.  This little guys is movin on up to Primary next week. 

Lincoln is totally into Army things right now.  Army guys, tanks, clothes...all of it.  He got this army helmet and shirt for Christmas and they've been well worn already!

Girls Night Out

I forgot to post about my girls night out (which was really a girls night in) but I just got the pictures and it reminded me about it.  The girls got together for a little relaxing holiday dinner at Bam Bam's house.  It was the day after my surgery so I was so glad everyone agreed to wear pj's and just be casual.  We hung out and talked, exchanged gifts, ate a delicious steak dinner that Bam cooked and laughed a lot. I always have a ton of fun when I'm with this group of girls.  So fun to have great girlfriends to hang with.

 Boom Boom, Bam Bam, Me, Kristy and Debbie

 Kristy, Me, Debbie, Kareth

Kim, Debbie, Kareth, Me, Kristy

Other Random Christmas Pictures

Here are a few things that I wanted to capture about this Christmas but they didn't fit into any other specific event.

This is was our beautiful Christmas tree this year that the boys helped me decorate.  It smelled so nice and fresh and was a great addition to our dining area. 

Flash forward 26 days later and this is our poor dead and poky tree.  We kept it watered as directed and the thing still started to die after about 10 days.  Problem is we bought it the day after Thanksgiving. Every few days we noticed it starting to droop more and more.  By the time Christmas rolled around we were just glad it hadn't started a fire and burned our house down. The day after Christmas the boys helped me to take the decorations down and boy did it leave a really big mess.  I was never one to want a fake tree but definitely reconsidering after this year. 

 As I've done every year since we lived here we made goodies for our friends and neighbors.  I was actually not planning on making it this year but one of our neighbors (a few houses down) told me at Halloween that he's heard all about my candy that they've never been given.  I felt bad and then all of the other neighbors told him that I make it at Christmas and if he was lucky he'd get some.  Talk about pressure! Just kidding...but it did make me feel the need to make it. So we did.  

I took a day off work and Ricky and I worked in the kitchen for the better part of a day making carmel chocolate covered pretzels, caramel chocolate covered marshmallows, caramel apples with different toppings and my Oreo cookie sandwiches. This is a small sample of what we had.  I either plated them or individually wrapped them and put them in gift bags.  Later that night we took the boys with us and delivered them to 16 families. 

We were also on the receiving end of WAY to many goodies this year.  This was just a sample of one gift box full of treats.  I think we had at least ten different families drop treats off to us. I'm not complaining because I'm really glad that we have such sweet friends and nice neighbors but we were just on sugar overload.  It was a lot of fun though to try all the new treats. 

This is Logan going through the car wash.  He is still obsessed with them it still brings him great joy to drive through a car wash.  We actually have a car was membership for the month so that we can go as many times as we want.  We figured it was an early Christmas present for him.  He loves it.  I hope one day he'll see this and see how weird/funny it was that he loved car washes so much and then he'll know that we (mostly his dad because he got it) was awesome for trying to support his passions.