Sophie-Pink Turns 4...

Ever since Hayden and Ana's birthdays, over 3 months ago, Sophie has been anxiously waiting for hers.  3 months is a long time to wait for such an important day!  Almost daily she would ask me, "Is my birthday tomorrow?" or "What comes after Easter, my birthday?"  Well, the long awaited day finally arrived and we now have a 4 year old! 

Soph wanted a Pink-Minnie Mouse-Princess Party... a tall order for one so small.  She was so excited about her birthday, I just had to try to make it happen.  We looked up ideas for the pinkest Minnie Mouse cake that we could find, and upon arriving in MN, Aunt Mimi and I went to work.  As Sophie saw the cake coming together she could hardly stand the excitement... "Oh mommy, it's... it's... so wonderful!" she said with huge eyes and hands clasped together.  That, my friends, made it worth all the effort...

She was a little disappointed that she couldn't invite any of her friends from CO to the party, but she had plenty of cousins, aunts and uncles, and family to share the day with...

Ana even made her a "Pin the Bow on Minnie" game...

She had a smile on her face for 2 hours straight, I don't think she could have imagined a more wonderful Pink-Minnie Mouse-Princess birthday...

Happy Birthday Sweet Punky-Pink...

I almost forgot to document her birthday cake for breakfast (which happened to take place in a fort/bed that the kids made under my sister's pool table)...

Parading...

Something that I've found funny since returning home to MN for the summer (that I guess I never thought was weird before), is how every single tiny, little town (whether the population is 4000 or 647) has to have it's own festival.  The funnier part about it is that they all have to come up with some meaningful name for the festival.  Pipestone, the town I grew up in, calls theirs the "Watertower Festival", because apparently the old watertower in town is really old.  Seriously?  They couldn't come up with a more creative name than that?  And they don't even do anything to commemorate the old thing.  I think it's just an excuse to have a festival.  Some of my other favorite local festival names are Hobo Days, Hot Iron Days, and King Turkey Day:)

Anyway, during every festival there is a parade.   If you have not been to a rural town parade... you haven't lived;)   It starts out with every fire truck, police vehicle and ambulance that the town owns, followed by a long chain of collector cars carrying the mayor and other members of the local government.  Then come the "floats" (if you can call them that), they are basically hay wagons carrying every 4-H group, local business, church group, pageant winner, class reunion... every community organization that exists.  And they all throw candy, and not just a little candy.  The residents of the town line the streets in their lawn chairs, with many of the kids holding gallon-sized ice cream buckets, which by the end the parade are nearly full!  Oh, and how could I forget the tractors, 50% of the parade is made up of tractors, and probably bigger tractors than you knew existed. 

Well, my kids had their first experience with rural town parades this summer. My sister, Kris, is part of Pipestone's Active Living Committee (don't ask me what that is, I think that they try to get people to exercise more). So she invited Hayden and Ana to ride their bikes in the parade with her group.  They thought that was wonderful...

Sophie enjoyed sitting on the sidelines with Grandpa...

Another bonus about small towns is that you can snag your kids right out of the middle of the parade and have them enjoy watching the rest of the parade and collecting candy.  Rural life seriously makes me laugh...

Later the same day, the next town down the road happened to be having their festival as well.  My niece McKindra was in the royalty for the town pageant, so Ana and Sophie got to dress up and ride with her in that parade as well...

This time Hayden was on the side...

they threw out entire ice cream bars!

What a cultural treat we had!  Thanks rural MN for all of your random town festivals...

PS. I just realized that this is my 400th blog post!  Cheers, to all you bloggers out there...

TRUE Africa Fundraiser...

Over the past couple of months I have been helping my friend, Rachel, plan a fundraiser for her family's non-profit organization called TRUE Africa.  The organization provides schools, education and supplies for orphans in Uganda, to get them off the streets and give them a chance at a better life.  We had a garage and bake sale last year and made enough money to send several children to school and buy tons of other necessary supplies.  So this year she asked me to help with it again and be in charge of the bake sale.

We had such wonderful volunteers, 35 people baked things for the sale, and many others volunteered to work at the sale.  In the end it turned out beautifully, everyone did an awesome job...

 My good friend Chelsea helped me at the 5:30am shift to get everything set up...

 We even had some crazy guy dancing on the sidewalk and waving at cars to bring in customers..

The garage sale was probably 5 times the size of the one we had last year.  We had to have it in a parking lot so there would be enough room for everything...

 Rachel, the mastermind behind the event....  

It was an awesome day, (supposed to be two days, but the second day was rained out).  We earned way more money than last year.  I'm excited to see the results of our hard work.  Rachel's family goes over to Africa every year to personally make sure that these funds are put to good use.  Thanks for letting me be part of such an amazing event!

For more information on how you can help this great cause, please visit www.trueafrica.org. 

Sidewalk Painting...

Another one of those times when Dad was "watching" the kids...

Good times are always had when you are unsupervised...

Who Knows??

These are some of those pictures that we will definitely be holding onto to show Hayden's kids...

I have no idea what he was doing, but it was so hiliarious!  We actually had some friends over for dinner when this happened, and as he came into the house their baby started screaming from fright.  He quickly ran over to the baby, ripped off his mask and seriously said, "Oh, I'm soooo sorry.  I was just try to mask my identity."  

Like I find myself saying all the time, that kid seriously makes me laugh!

Chinese Bananas...

This is what happens when your husband is supposed to be watching your 3 year-old, and she gets a hold of a red Sharpie...

It totally looked like she had written Chinese characters all over them.  Thank goodness it was just on the bananas!!

Baseball Birthday...

For Rob's 35th birthday, his parents sent him tickets to go to a Rockies/Dodgers game (his two favorite teams).  We had sweet seats right behind the Dodgers' bench...

It really was a great game, and to top it all off, Giambi hit a walk-off home run to win the game...

  Happy Birthday Rob!

BYU Women's Conference 2012

I was so lucky to get to take off on a super fun road trip weekend with some of my girl friends to go to BYU Women's Conference at the end of April.  What a treat!

Some of us stayed at my in-laws' house and that was a blast.  It was so great to spend some kid-free time with my friends and family, and be spiritually fed at the same time.

The girls (Amie, Tiffany's friend, Tiffany, Brooklyn, Rachel and Miriam, who was apparently really excited)...

 On day two my good friend Marylin, who moved to Utah last year, joined us.  It was so fun to see her and catch up...

I'm so grateful for such wonderful friends that lift me up and make me laugh!  Thanks girls for such a fun trip.  (And thanks Wendy for letting us stay with you and for all the super YUMMY food!)

Spring Break Bucks...

The latest "I caught you doing something good" incentive program...

It seems like we have to change up the routine every now and then.  Over spring break we started giving out "bucks" for good behavior.  The kids cashed them in for little prizes at family home evening last week, so now there is a renewed effort to earn more Spring Break Bucks.  I guess we'll keep going with SBB, even though spring break ended 2 months ago...

Baby Day...

We were so lucky to get to watch my friend's little baby boy a couple of weeks ago.  It was pure entertainment for all of us.  Hayden asked me probably 20 times if he could have a baby brother.  All of the kids just adored him and wanted to "help" him do everything...

Nana and Grandpa...

My parents were able to stop by for a visit on their way to meet their newest grandson in Utah.  It was so fun to see them, the kids just love it when they come...

Easter Catch Up...

We had a really low-key Easter this year with just our little family.  It was wonderfully relaxing and gave us the chance to remember how special Easter really is.

Because it was so low-key... I forgot to fill the Easter eggs.  Which led to the best Easter activity that I could have ever "un"planned for!  It was a beautiful day, so I let the kids fill their own eggs, and hide them for each other.  Which led to finding and re-hiding and finding and re-hiding... for about 3 hours!  It was great.  They had fun, and Rob and I got a nap...

Happy Easter!