A huge mess...

Alie and I decided to make cloud dough (a mixture of flour and baby oil). It's pretty cool stuff. Alie and I played with it for and hour before her friends Kyla and Sophia came over to our house.

It entertained them for another hour. Pretty rockin stuff.

Our new cousin- Aiden Ashby

This is our own version of his birth announcement- but we couldn't help it. Their family loves BYU.

Aleah got to spend a couple of days with us while they were in the hospital. We were excited for her to spend some time with us. They are all home safe and sound now.

Easter Dresses

Yep, you read right... Easter. I just finished them the end of December. These are last years dresses so they are about 8 months late. But hey, better late than never right? I'm not even attempting dresses for this year.

Braxton's 10th Birthday

I can't believe my boy is getting so old! Double digits now. He went to school for only a 1/2 day because it was the end of term. Afterwards, we decorated the house and he made his fruit pizza. Boy, does he love that stuff.

For his birthday he received Lego's, Snap Circuit board, clothes, $, toys, and a bunch more with his friend party too.  It was a weekend celebration.

 The day after his birthday is when we celebrated his birthday with friends. We were shocked to find out all 14 friends he invited came to the party. He was excited. While friends were getting here we played Speed Harry Potter. They went to the basement and played Harry Potter on the X Box for 1 minute and then they had to switch to someone else. So everyone got to play. Afterwards, they were divided into houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw (no Slytherin- I didn't want kids feelings hurt). Then they went upstairs where they made their wands and spell book. No wizard is complete without those.
After they went around putting spells on each other we played our own version of Quidditch (inside the house with lots of people and no flying brooms-darn). They had a balloon around their ankles and if it popped they were out. Then their was the ball they had to get in their basket. They actually really liked that game. They got pretty into it.

The next game we played we took the marshmallow guns (Alie made for Braxton for Christmas). Everyone made paper airplanes (they were the owls). The object was to shoot the paper airplanes down.

The friends at his party were: Asyha, Christopher, Hunter, Eli, Cannon, Gavin, Cameron, Justin, Griffin, Jack, Ethan, Izaac, Aaron, and Jacob

Happy 10th Birthday Handsome!

Alie Fingerpainting

So everyone else went back to school and that left Alie and I to play. So we decided to pull out the finger paints that Grandparent Day got her for Christmas. She thought it was pretty awesome.

How Braxton spends his days

So Braxton has been on a reading kick the last couple of months. He has discovered the Harry Potter books, (he has read books 1-5 already), Fablehaven books (has read books 1-4), and Candy Shop books (read books 1 and 2). This is all since school has started. Quote from Braxton, "I can't help it, they are so interesting."

Happy New Years

This year we weren't going to be party poopers. (Alex hates us on the roads with a bunch of drunks.) So we spent New Year's Eve and Grandparent Days house. We ate, played games, and even had fireworks. It was so very cold. The boys had to come in to fix the fuse on the firework because the hands weren't working outside. So we decided to forgo the sparklers.

We said Happy New Years at 10:30pm so the girls could go to bed. They were very tired. Alie is in the bottom right corner because she did not want to be in the picture. Alex is taking the picture. We didn't get many pictures that night because we were to busy playing.

Jessica's Farewell Party

Jessica's family has decided to leave us and move to the Caribbean for the next 2 years- lucky. Beautiful weather, nice beaches, nice water at the beaches. It sounds wonderful. Not to mention- their view from their bedroom is looking over the beach and is so pretty. So we decided to have a going away party. (She left on New Year's Day). Quinn ended up getting sick, so him and Dave had to stay home. But we still had a party.
We went to a church so we could have lots of room to let kids run and play games. A big success.

 We were having a picture moment. Jumping for fun.

 We played a couple of Minute to Win It games. One that we played was putting the cookie on your forehead and you have to get it to your mouth without using your hands. We video taped most of it- it was pretty funny.

Another game we played, we had to blow the cards so 1/2 of it was still on the table and the 1/2 was off the table. Easier said than done. But we seemed to do a pretty good job :) 

We also played Lightning, Dodgeball and the kids loved having those little balls to throw around.

A bought cake is a big deal in this family. She was pretty excited Mom bought one for her. We were all excited in fact.

Bowling with the Bird Family during Christmas

That picture just above is me bowling for the first time that day. I decided to try something new. And guess what? I got a strike bowling like that. Take that Alex :)  Yea, I decided to bowl a little crazy but it was lots of fun.
Anyways, we went with the whole Bird family. We take over 6 lanes (I think). It's a ton of fun and a tradition I remember doing since I was little. Then we headed over to Grandma Bird's house for some pizza. (Alie likes to call her Grandma Big Bird from Sesame Street.)
That picture of Braxton and Brandon above is what they would do when it wasn't their turn bowling- the Ipod. Brandon got one for Christmas and the kids love all of the games.