Happy Sweet 16th Birthday, Melanie

She just keeps getting more beautiful.

Melanie wanted to celebrate her birthday in a way that showed how excited she was to finally be 16. (It isn't the driving she is excited about.) She invited a bunch of friends to celebrate with her at the pavilion behind our house with music (provided by Tyler), a bonfire, treats (by mom), and games.

 She designed and decorated the cake herself.

Sunday morning, which was her real birthday, she woke up and opened a few more gifts.

Sunday evening she was recognized for completing her sophomore year of Seminary.

Happy Birthday Jessica and lunch with the Glaziers

I decided that if your birthday happens to land on Friday the 13th, then you better plan a big party. We decided to use one of Jessica's favorite things as the theme, Star Wars.

I was in charge of the food and got some cute ideas from Pinterest.

Warren's Death Star Pepperoni Pizza

Melanie's R2D2 strawberry jello cake with whipped cream frosting.

The 7-Leiah Dip was very popular.

Several friends Jessica knew in high school came to the party. They know her favorite things.

Fun memory about Jessica:  When she was in First and Second grade her school teacher assigned her the number 13.  This reinforced in Jessica's mind that 13 must be her lucky number since it is also the date of her birthday. When I took her to lunch at her favorite restaurant, we randomly got seated at table 13. This Friday the 13th was truly a great one.

One of Jessica's Guatemalan mission companions is in town and so Jessica decided to have a bbq for some of the Hermanas that live close.  Her mission president and his wife also came.

Great story: Jessica's friend, Joseph, was also at the party. He was talking and mentioned that his last name of Djurich. Sister Glazier asked him his dad's name and she almost started to cry when he told her. Turns out when Sister Glazier was a teenager her family hosted Joseph's dad as a foreign exchange student and became very close to him.  They lost touch with him a few years later when he went to school back East. Sister Glazier told Joseph how hard they had been looking to find his Dad. (I guess the Dad changed the spelling of his last name when he became a US citizen making the search more difficult.) She was thrilled to find her lost host brother and left excited to contact him. The Lord has a great way of bringing people together.

It was great to spend some time this weekend spoiling and celebrating Jessica. 

We are so proud of her and love her so much.

Happy Birthday Tyler, 18 Years Old

As a mom, there are some things that are hard to get your mind around... like your baby turning 18. 

Tyler got up early to eat strawberry waffles and open his gifts.

Federica got him a nice hairbrush so he can stop borrowing Melanie's and some conditioner for his locks. He also got some kitchen appliances to use next fall when he is living on his own in an apartment at USU. Tyler loves to bake and cook, so he should be a popular roommate. 

Later, we had a family party. Tyler wanted one of the big sheet cakes from Costco. The candles kept relighting so he had to work hard to get them blown out.

Eighteen things we love about Tyler

1. Hugs before bed. (Mom)
2. He likes to be financially independent (Mom)
3. When he quotes movies (Mom)
4. When he plays his Bass (Mom)
5. When he bakes on Sunday Evening (Jessica)
6. His beautiful hair (Melanie)
7. He is a good friend (Mom)
8. He is super fun to hang out with (Federica)
9. He is funny (Federica)
10. He is protective of Melanie (Jessica)
11. He cleans out the fish and turtle tanks (Mom)
12. He likes to watch Star Trek (Jessica)
13. The color of his eyes (Melanie)
14. We laugh together (Dad)
15. We both like cars (Dad)
16. I enjoy his company (Dad)
17. He plunges toilets (Mom)
18. His compassion (Mom)

New Year's Eve - Happy Birthday Warren

Warren and I looked ahead into the new year and realized that if we wanted to do a family vacation it would be ideal to do it over Christmas break.  We talked about what would be fun and settled on Snowmobiling.  We have talked for years about doing a vacation with the Atkissons and so we invited them along.  It was a lot of work to find an affordable place to stay that had what we were looking for:  a kitchen so we could make our own food, room to play together, and beds for everyone. We ended up in a VRBO in Garden City right on Bear Lake. It was a very comfortable house and there was an affordable place to rent snowmobiles nearby.

Playing games on New Year's Eve 

Of course, we wanted to celebrate Warren's birthday as well. The Atkisson's brought him gifts - a new sweater and socks.  He was very happy with both.  He commented, "How did they know I needed socks?" 

 He tried to be very entertaining while opening his gifts. 

The Atkinson's really know how to sing "Happy Birthday". We didn't have any birthday candles for him to blow out but the "Death by Chocolate" cake from COSTCO was delicious.

We had snack food and played games while waiting to ring in the new year.  Someone nearby shot off a few fireworks over the lake. 

Happy Birthday Graigry

It was nice to have Graigry home for his birthday.  He had a few friends and his cousins over for games the weekend before.  On his birthday, he went to his BYU class and did other errands around BYU.  We had some gifts for him and a special birthday cake made from fresh fruit.

Birthday Week

It was a magical kind of day for Melanie.  She worked really hard to get her grades to all As and Bs so that she could go with the 9th graders to Lagoon Day on her birthday.  When she woke up, the birthday fairy had left some gifts for her.  She was really happy to get some new sandals and some treats and spending money for Lagoon.

Her favorite thing at Lagoon was losing the group of boys that were following them.  She reported that she was on quite a sugar high after eating junk food all day.  There was Memorial Day traffic on top of Rush Hour traffic so it took them 2 1/2 hours to get home.  (I felt bad for the bus driver.)  At least they were on charter busses and not a school bus.

Jessica picked out the black balloon because although it says, "It's all about me!" it kind of looked like, "It's all about Mel".

After Lagoon, she invited a few friends over for a bbq and party.  The party began with a beauty salon up in her bathroom.  The girls were getting beautiful for the boys who would attend and had fun doing each other's hair.

She wanted a tuxedo mousse cake from COSTCO.  Tyler did the cooking for the bbq but her friends ate surprisingly little.  I guess they had been eating all day at Lagoon.

Front: Scott, Ryann, Janette, Melanie, Libby
Back: Liann and Haylee
Not pictured but also in attendance:  Marcus, Izaak, Alora, Amelia, Tori

It has been a little wet this week but after a lot of work they were able to get a fire going so they could roast marshmallows for smores.  They went to the park and climbed all over the playground and swung on the swings.  Milo couldn't have been more happy that they thought it was fun to throw his ball for him.

Saturday, we celebrated my birthday by sleeping in, doing some cleaning in the kitchen, taking Tyler and Melanie shopping, and going out to dinner at Cafe Rio.  It was a great kind of day.  Very low key.

Clean Dogs, an Orchestra Concert, and Celebrating Jessica's Birthday

Everyonce in a while, Tyer and Melanie decide enough is enough and give the dogs a bath.  It was very rainy this weekend which meant lots of mud in the yard so it was tricky keeping them clean.

 

 The LHS and LJHS orchestras had their final concert for the year.  It was mostly fun fiddle music.

It was great to celebrate  Jessica's birthday this week.  It is nice to have her around to celebrate with.  She wanted to have some friends over for a bbq.  Josh and Jennifer, newly engaged, came early to help get ready.  They put 10 pounds of marinated chicken on scewers for Warren to BBQ.

After dinner, they played some card games downstairs.  It was fun to see Kiera and Jerry, post baby and have Whitney hang out for a while. We were also glad to see Jill.

 This was Melanie's Mother's day selfie.

Jessica and Mom took a road trip to go to the temple with Bethany this weekend.