"a birthday luau"

for our spunky little "two" year old...

Ivy was not really interested in her party {she took a late nap, due to brother's football game} 

until it was time to open presents... which was at the last 30 minutes of her party. haha

Livi is in most of my pictures because she is the only one in my family who will smile for the camera.  I have officially overdosed my family with taking Pictures ;)

We had such a fun time celebrating her birthday "luau style"

I made yummy Macaroni Salad, Kaluha pork, sticky rice, pineapple/fruit skewers 

and polynesian chicken!

we played "hot coconut" did "hoola hoop contests" and of course the "Limbo." 

One of my niece's friends is from Samoa and she came and taught the kids how to "hula dance" it was soooo darling!  I loved watching the kids learn a little hula routine!

everything was great once Ivy ate her cupcakes and opened presents.  She became our little spunky child once her clothes came off!  Hey it's her birthday she can do whatever she wants, right?!

we love that girl to pieces, even when she is naughty... she pulls at our 'heart strings'

Happy birthday love...

  I made these darling "lei's" for the kids to take home, My friend Jenn who lives in hawaii made one for Ivy for her birthday and sent me all the netting to make the "party favors" 

 they were so darling!

there she is, my happy baby girl playing with all her presents!

conference packets...

If you don't have stuff for your kids to do during conference, here is a great site!  Just print them out and you are all set...I love that they have packets for Nursery age too!  So fun.

We usually eat "german pancakes" while watching the Sunday session of "General Conference!"{in our jammies} my kids love playing conference bingo with their candy corn and candy pumkins.

I look forward to hearing from our wonderful prophet and being very inspired!!

Grand Opening...

Canyon Sports BTC {bicycle transit center} had their Grand Opening on Saturday!  Canyon Sports partnered with UTA to create a year round bicycle center for commuters etc for Salt Lake.  It is located downtown salt lake at the Intermodel hub. {by gateway}  

The Mayor was there and Salt Lake City received an award for being a bike friendly community!  We watched an awesome live band called "Folkadots" who were awesome!  They had giveaways and sandwiches etc to keep everyone entertained.

tonights the night...

Jupiter is at it's closest since 1963! 

Around Midnight tonight it will be directly overhead. Earth will be passing between Jupiter and the Sun  It will be so bright that you don't need a sky map to find it.

Uranus will be also be making a very close appearance!

AWESOME!

Some of our neighbors are setting up a telescope so we can all take a peek.  We also have this app for our Droid phones from Sprint.  Called "Google sky map"  My kids love this app.  It is so cool, we just hold the phone up to Space and we can see constellations of stars, planets and much more.

Click here for the App.

Racing the Cane

My friend Daphne is the one of the founders of "Racing the Cane" foundation.

This is the 2nd year of the race and it is so much fun.  This year also included the "one childrens choir" who sang the song that Daphne wrote!  It's beautiful and not a dry eye in sight, especially when Daph's girls sang a solo!

Beautiful!

The foundation is awesome...after you run you donate your shoes and all the proceeds and shoes go to the Dominican Republic where the kids actually walk that same distance to school EVERYDAY with NO shoes on!  They will go in a few months and host the same race there in the Dominican Republic as they did here.

I am so proud of Daph and all the hard work she puts into this.

It's so awesome. All of it...

 The race, the afterparty

the choir

Kids races

awards

food

massages

bouncehouses

face painting

EVERYTHING!

It's all so fabulous and such a great cause.  I loved that all my friends and their kids placed in every age division.  It was so awesome, we overtook the race! haha

 and i even won skullcandy headphones.

{click here to see last year's race...}

me/summer

jane/daph/me/troy

childrens choir... aubree and madi are on the far right

as if football wasn't enough...

 I now have some 'Cheerleaders'...

Isn't that the cutest thing ever?!

I LOVE our Saturday football games.

 This has been so much fun to watch Boston play,  he is such a great player!  His team is awesome, and they all play so good together.  I love to see them get so excited for each other when they score a touchdown or when they do a great catch, fumble etc... these boys are aweseome kids!
5 weeks left until the season is over.
He totally looks forward to his 4x a week practices with his buddies.

Boston is already talking about playing "Rugby"
oh boy.

The real cheerleaders are so stinkin cute...
 especially because the 5th grade cheerleaders actually want the little girls to come and hang out with them and learn some cheers.  It's Olivia's favorite part of our saturdays.

at every half time the cheerleaders do their tumbling and flips and a couple of cheers and then they take their banner they made for the football players to run through... It is so dang cute!

Boston seems to always be the first one to break through.

Some of these pictures are mixed up from different games.  We played Lehi this last week and they were good. They killed our almost "undeafeated" team.
 I just couldn't pass up these awesome pictures of my football player. #7

we LOVE our fans!!

Canyon Sports BTC

Tomorrow is the grand opening of Canyon Sports Bicycle Transit Center at the

 UTA intermodal hub in downtown Salt Lake.

This is so awesome for Salt Lake and the state of Utah, because we are being recognized 

as the 3rd most bike friendly community in the Nation!

AWESOME!

I love this!
we were featured in the news,

SO cool.

Check out the link below or better yet...

come to the "grand opening" tomorrow!!

{press mute on the music at the bottom of my page}

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

ksl.com - Salt Lake City opens Utah's first-ever bicycle transit center

"two"

My baby girl is "2" today!

This girl pretty much rules the house... and we all love it.

She is "2" going on "5" she truly thinks she is so big.

a Very independent little bugger.

She wants to be with her siblings all the time, loves to play with them and loves to sing songs.

you can sing to her all day, just ask aunt rachel! ;) 

she talks so good 

spells her name

loves,

 books

Dora

mickey mouse

DISNEYLAND

the beach

bike buggy rides

baby dolls

 her blankie

'get your nose'

tickle fights

her momma~wink

& has her daddy wrapped around her finger.

She is such a Joy to be around, and ever since she was born we have all adored her, she is 

definitely our little baby girl, i hope she will always stay that way.

happy birthday miss ivy...

My amazing sil took all these pictures and i love them... more to come!

highly recommended...

I've had so many people telling me about this series and i couldn't wait to start it. 

 When i finally did, i seriously could not put the book down.  

 I read it in 2 days!  

It's fabulous, and i can't wait to get my hands on the second book!

it's about that time of year again that i love...

fall!

i love everything about fall... the biking, the leaves changing color, fall cooking, pumpkin bread and mostly HALLOWEEN!

i've been finding some of the greatest recipe's online for halloween treats and can't wait until "October"  to make this and these!

i also checked the kids out of school and went to our favorite dentist, Dr. Hammond & Ellis

for our check ups and everyone is

cavity free!  yahoo.

Even little ivy went for her first time...

my kids LOVE the dentist and always leave with way too much crap. ha  but they love it and they are awesome little brushers!

school carnival!

We had our "fall carnival"  at the kids school on friday and it was awesome!  

  We had {crazy} train rides, slides, bounce houses, silent auctions, face painting, spook alley

 and tons of games along with awesome Cafe Rio' for dinner!  

 seriously It was so much fun!

ivy helped me when i was working at the rabbit hole game, while cory took the twins to do games.  Boston is at the age where he thinks he 'rules the school' haha.

 He is such a stud!

My kids loved watching their cousin dunk the school principal  in the dunking tank!

It was a very busy night so i snapped just a few pics from my phone.  

they turned out awesome!

i laugh everytime i see this picture...

look at hayes at the side of these boys, acting like a goofball! hahaha

Labor day weekend...

We went camping!

it was so perfect, we went with friends and stayed right on the provo river. 

 The Birchall's parked their RV in the right spot and reserved the perfect spot for everyone!

THANK YOU!

we played in the river, made lots of fires {especially Boston... he thinks he's "Bear Grylls" in the wilderness} roasted s'mores, & more s'mores, made banana boats, watched TV {Yes, tv when camping is awesome!} rode bikes and scooters, hiked to bridal veil falls etc...

check out the beautiful campsite...

these 'banana boats' are so yummy, this time we used rolo's and marshmellows and they were divine!

Good morning girls...

after our breakfast we hiked to 'bridal veil falls' 

It was beautiful...

the kids loved climbing all over the falls even though the water was freezing!