Aaron Turns 6

Aaron celebrated a birthday last month. He turned 6 on May 27th. The lucky kid got to celebrate the entire week. It started the Tuesday before his birthday, when I took treats in for his Kindergarten class. Anyone with a "summer birthday" got assigned a day to celebrate their "fake birthday". And since school got out two days before Aaron's birthday this year, he got to have a fake birthday at school. I took in cupcakes with 6's on the top.


On Saturday Aaron got to go shopping with Grandma Jo and Grandpa Mike. He got some clothes, but his real treasure was this light-up light sabre. Totally cool.

On Saturday (after his birthday shopping) we had his big friend party. I had scheduled a big bounce house and was planning a fun outdoor party. But, we woke to rain and 60 degrees that day. So the bounce house had to be rescheduled, and we had to come up with some last minute games to play indoors. I let Savannah be in charge of games. They played Charades, had a dance party, and had a cake walk (except with smarties instead of cake).
We fed the kids pizza. Then opened presents.
 
Then we went back in the kitchen for cupcakes (he wanted 6's again). AND he wanted a monster truck cake. So I made him a special cake along with the cupcakes.

Next up was his real birthday on Sunday. He wasn't happy that he had to go to church on his birthday, but it made it ok when he got sung to in Primary and got to go to the Bishop's office for a treat. After church he opened presents.

Aaron's favorite present from us was a Darth Vader Mask. That kids really loves Star Wars.

Then it was time for cake. I had used up all my frosting the day before, so I sprinkled the cake with chocolate chips, instead. Aaron was NOT happy about that, and refused to have anything to do with the cake. Scott finally talked him into at least blowing out the candles.
I had used trick candles, so that cheered him up pretty quickly.

Sitting back, thinking he had blown them out...

Then realizing that they weren't blown out and trying again....

Finally, the whole family had to help to get them completely blown out.

And the fun continued on into Monday, when the rescheduled bounce house arrived. The kids jumped all day. And in the afternoon, some of Aaron's friends who hadn't been able to make it on Saturday, came to jump and play with Aaron. I think it was a good birthday week.

Piano Recital

Savannah and Sara finished up this past year of piano lessons with a piano recital.  It came the same week that Owen and Nate came down with Hand/Foot/Mouth Disease (which is highly contagious), so I stayed home with the boys while Scott went to the girl's recital.  I hear they played beautifully.

Sara's New Hair

Sara has been growing her hair out for two years.  I love it long, but it's so hard for her to take care of it when it's long (it's really fine, so it tangles really easily).  So, with the summer coming on, she decided to chop it off.  She had enough inches to donate her hair.

 The before pictures:


During the haircut:

And the after pictures. We all LOVE her cute new short hair. Sara loves it too. It will be perfect for summer.

Owen 18 Months

I am so far behind in my blogging. We've had so much going on (birthday, end of school, swimming lessons, vacations, etc.). I'm hoping to get caught up next week when things slow down.

For now, I wanted to post these pictures I had taken of Owen at 18 months. One of our most favorite people, Miss Catti (from The Little Gym) took the pictures. She is so talented--I LOVE the way the pictures turned out. There were so many good ones to choose from, but since I can't post them all, I narrowed it down to the following:
 
Totally cute, right? And that's just half of them. Catti kept commenting how Owen was the most photogenic little boy she'd ever photographed. The kid is just really, really cute.

And since the whole family was there, Catti snapped some pictures of the other kids also.


And the family shot (I know, I already shared it, but it's too cute not to share again).


And finally, the smiles wore Owen out, and he decided he was done. Catti captured this final shot of Owen on Scott's shoulders with tears in his eyes.

Growing Up

Savannah has been going through a "rough time" lately. Her mood swings are enough to make me want to lock her in her room till she's 20. She and I disagree mostly on how she wanted to dress. She wore sweatshirts every day to school for her entire 4th grade year. She'd argue that as long as she was changing the tank she wore under the sweatshirt, it was ok to wear the same thing over and over. Finally I'd had enough. I made her dress up in some cute clothes I had bought her (and which she refused to wear), and I took her picture. I wanted her to see how cute she could look if she gave it some effort. Her idea of appropriate clothing....

What I wish she would wear....

And it almost worked. That Sunday she wore a "new" dress (she has 6 hanging in her closet that she has never worn, because she likes to wear the exact same dress every single week). And she let me fix her hair....

And then the next day she was back in her sweatshirt. But then the weather started to get hot, and I told her she couldn't keep wearing a sweatshirt in 80 degree weather. So I took her shopping once again. We spent an hour with me picking out a cute shirt, showing it to her, and her saying, "No, I don't really like that". We finally found a few things she would try on, and we headed to the dressing room. I watched her try on a t-shirt, and as she looked at herself in the mirror, she gave a little tug on it to stretch it out in front so it wouldn't fit so tight. All of a sudden it hit me. I said, "Savannah, would you be more comfortable if you had a bra?". She let out a huge sigh of relief and said, "Yes! There are lots of girls at school who wear one now." I tried to not have a huge "my child is growing up" freak out right there in the dressing room, and instead just calmly said, "Well then, lets go back out and find you a bra". And after that, the shopping went much smoother.

And now Savannah no longer feels like she has to "cover up" with a sweatshirt every day, and she is actually wearing the cute new clothes we bought. Like this cute outfit that she wore for her Challenge presentation.

Now if only I could find a fix for her mood swings....