Emily's Mermaid Birthday

I can't believe how big Emily is getting! And look how beautiful:

Emily is 5 now!! Where does the time go?  She is growing up too fast and I feel like she was just a baby not that long ago.  Now, according to Emily, she is all grown up.

For her birthday this year, Emily wanted a mermaid birthday.  So that is what we did.  Here is the fun food we made for the party:

Ariel and Flounder cakes with Sebastian or crab cupcakes.  They were a big hit.  Everyone loved the watermelon shark Russell carved too.  This food was fun to make and it was the first time I have worked with cake fondant.  

We had a busy day on her birthday.  First we had the Primary Program practice.  Afterward we came home and got ready for the party.  Emily was able to open one present before the practice that morning:

New clothes!  While we were at the Program practice, Russell set up most of the decorations for the party.  Because it was a mermaid party, we had an underwater theme.  Here is our cool crepe paper waterfall:

Our table decorations were paper Ariel's and Flounders, and sea shells and blue rocks. 

Emily was so excited when all of the kids started arriving to her party.  She greeted each one of them and thanked them for coming to her party.  She even introduced each guest to the other guests!  She introduced her friends to her cousins and her cousins to her friends.  Emily was such a welcoming host.

The first activity we did was colored sand art:

We gave each of the kids a jar to put their colored sand in.  All we told them was they needed to put the colored sand in the jars and it will make cool designs.  When they were done, we had some pretty cool sand jars not to mention a big sandy mess!  Luckily it was outside so it was okay.  In the end the kids had fun shaking their jars so they were just mixed up colors after that.  But the kids loved them anyway.

Next we played our underwater relay:

First the kids had to walk like a crab, then they rode their seahorses to the fence, and finally they hopped like a mermaid to the tree.  At the tree, we found a treasure box.  I told them about how mermaids guard the pirates treasure.  Then each of the guests were able to get a treasure out of the box. 

Next we played Flounder, Flounder, Shark (or our version of Duck, Duck, Goose.)  This game is always a hit with kids this age.  They played for quite a while until everyone had a turn.  The funny thing about this game was it seemed like none of the kids knew how to run in a circle when it was their turn.  When they would say "Shark!" they would run all around the yard like they were playing tag.  It was so funny.  Finally toward the end they realized it is easier to just run around the circle than the whole yard.

Then there was the highlight of the party, the pinata:

Emily told me she wanted "one of those things you hit and candy comes out" at her birthday.  We figured out that meant a pinata.  I didn't want to spend a whole lot on something that was just going to get smacked and broken so I scored when I found this princess pinata at the dollar store.  The kids loved the pinata and each of them got a turn to smack the pinata.  I think Tyler and Russell had more fun moving the pinata around trying to get the kids to miss.  Finally some of the older kids like Paul, Taylor and Chrislyn broke the pinata and all of the kids dived right in to get the candy and stickers.  The pinata was the thing the kids told their parents about most when they went home.

Then it was present time:

Emily got a lot of nice gifts from her friends and family.  She loved everything she got and thanked everyone for her gifts.  Every time she opened a gift she exclaimed, "Oh this is just what I wanted! Thank You!!"  Then she would show me for a picture.  After Emily opened all of her presents, it was time for cake and ice cream.

We all sang Happy Birthday and she blew out her candle.  Then we all had cake and rainbow ice cream.  We had so much cake but we had a lot of people too.  Everyone loved the cakes.  It was a really fun birthday party.  I hope all of the kids had fun.  I know they were excited to come.  After everyone left, I asked Emily what her favorite part of her birthday was.  She said "Everything!"  I am so glad she had a good birthday.

At five years old, Emily now believes she is grown up and can do anything.  To tell you the truth, she can pretty much do whatever she sets her mind to.  She tells me, "I can do that, I am 5 now!"  The other day she came home from preschool and said, 

"Mom, I know who I am going to marry."

"Who?" I said.

"Trent."

"Oh is Trent in your class?" (Trent and Emily sit next to each other on the rug at school.)

"Yeah, and he has spiky hair."

"He must be pretty cute, huh?"

"Yeah, I will ask him to marry me when turns 5 like me."

I couldn't help but laugh to myself and think oh no here it starts...  The next day after school, I asked her if she was still going to marry Trent.  She told me that she asked him to marry her and he said no.  She was kind of sad.  I told her maybe it is because he is not 5 yet so he is not big enough yet.  She said yeah and seemed better.  Oh man here we go....

Happy Birthday Emily!! We love you!

September Birthdays and More

September has been such a busy month for us.  I have not had any time to do anything let alone blog.  It is actually October now that I am writing this post but thanks to Blogger, I have backdated this entry to be posted in the month it is written about.  So September... This month is full of birthdays in our family.  There are nine birthdays this month.  Traci, Keith, Alex, Grandma Farnsworth, Tyrel, Jessica, Braden, Grandma Morwood and Emily! 

We had a blast at Tyrel's rodeo birthday:

We practiced our roping and lassoing skills, had stick horse races, pin the tail on the donkey, and even gathered plastic chicken eggs.  Emily and Colby had a great time.  Logan and Cole had fun playing together too.  It is so fun to watch these two play together and grow together.  They like to poke each other in the eyes and baby wrestle.  

Another fun thing we did at the party was get pictures of the kids in "jail":

These pictures turned out so funny!  Emily and Logan seem happy to be in jail.  Colby, however, is the smart one and realizes jail is not somewhere he wants to be!

The next party we attended was Grandma Farnsworth's 87th birthday.

We had the party at the Tonaquint park.  The kids had fun on the playground but they really liked blowing the noisy party horns!  Grandma Farnsworth has been having some health problems lately which all started from her fall in July.  Since then she has fallen another time, which is why her arm is in a sling, and had other issues too.  Because of this, the family decided to move her into the Meadows, an assisted living place.  She seems to like it but it is definitely something she is still getting used to.  So for her birthday she just wanted to go to a park and be with her family.  So that is what we did.  

We also celebrated Grandma Morwood's 95th birthday this year.  Grandma is doing so well for her age.  It is fun to be able to go next door and visit her from time to time.  Emily and Colby just like to walk over to her house to say "Hi."  They especially like to go over there just before dinner and eat a bunch of the cookies or candy she has out for the grandkids and then not be hungry for dinner!  We love you Grandma!

Jen came down on Sept 27th with her kids.  To celebrate Keith, Alex, and Emily's birthday we all went out to eat at Pirate Cove Pizza.  This whole place is decorated like an old pirate cake and all of the waitresses are dressed as pirates.  The kids had a blast playing in the arcade, listening to the pirate ventriloquist, playing on the little play place, and of course eating pizza.

The "Pirate Queen" even sang "Happy Birthday" to them.  We also learned a great lesson this night.  Never underestimate the length and strength of Logan's arms!  So we had Logan in the highchair next to the table.  On the table was the pitcher of water and the other food.  Well, in the blink of an eye, Logan reached his Go-Go-Gadget arms up to the water pitcher and, in one yank, dumped the whole pitcher of water onto his lap, my legs, Jen's legs, Annalynn, and the floor!  All we could do was bust up laughing!!!!  The waiter didn't know whether to laugh or cry so he just said "I'll go get a mop..." and walked away.  We laughed even harder when we noticed Logan's face when the ice water hit him.  It was so funny. 

The next day, the 28th, was a busy day for us.  It was Emily's 5th birthday!  We woke up early that morning and headed to the church for our Primary Sacrament Meeting Program practice.  As much as I coaxed them and coached them, the kids were pretty restless.  Lets just say they did a lot better during the actual Program.  After practicing we had a pizza party which was the real reason all of the kids came anyway!  Then we cleaned up and came home to decorate for Emily's birthday party.  See the next post for all the fun details of the fun birthday.

After the birthday party, I had about an hour to relax before heading out again.  LeeAnn, Jen, Traci and I headed out for a girl's night.  We went out to eat and then headed to the Stake Center to listen to the General Women's Broadcast.  It was a lot of fun.  I also really enjoyed all of the speakers at the Conference.  I loved how President Monson told us that we never walk alone.  He reminded us to get out priorities right and trust in the Lord and we will realize that during our hard times, the Lord was there for us all along.  He told an amazing story about a woman who realized that the Lord knew who she was just by receiving a loaf of homemade bread from a distant acquaintance.  The story and talk was quite miraculous so read it again.

After the Conference, we headed over to the Meadows to visit with Grandma Farnsworth. The guys met us there with the kids.  It was a good visit.

Sunday Sept 29th was our Primary Sacrament Meeting Program.  My first counselor wrote the program this year but there was still a lot of work to prepare.  The Primary theme this year is "I am a Child of God."  What a perfect theme for Primary.  This is the part I wrote for me to introduce our program:

 " We are all children of our Heavenly Father with our own divine mission in life.  From “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” we learn that “All human beings – male and female – are created in the image of God.  Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.”  This year in Primary, we had the great blessing and opportunity to help each child in Primary know and understand that they are a child of God.  This important truth will help them know of the love our Heavenly Father has for each of them.We hope you feel the spirit and also realize that you too are a child of God."

This was Emily's part that she memorized and gave so perfectly during the program:

"When I pray, I pray for the prophet, to have a good day, and I thank my Heavenly Father for my blessings."

We had each of the primary children fill out a questionnaires and then we put together the parts from their answers so it was like they wrote their own parts.  I think the program turned out really good.  I heard many compliments on how well the children did.  I am not going to lie, I was glad to have it done and then have a week off during General Conference!

Well, that is a glimpse into our busy month of September.  So far October is proving to be just as busy but more on that month later.  See you soon.

Starlight Express

Russell and I finally had a date night!!!  Yes just the two of us!  Russell was able to get tickets to Starlight Express at Tuachan for $2 so we jumped on the opportunity to go.  We were originally supposed to go on September 7 which was when these pictures were taken:

Don't we look so cool!  Like I said we were supposed to see the show on Sept 7 but when we got there, the sky was really dark.  As soon as the actors sang the first song, it started pouring rain!  Yeah September was kind of a rainy month for St. George this year.  It rained just about every day for the first two weeks of the month.  Anyway, they postponed the show for about 20 minutes to see if the rain would stop.  By the time the 20 minutes were up it was pouring even more.  So the show got cancelled.  We were kind of bummed but we still had a babysitter so we took advantage of that and went out for frozen yogurt at Menchies and dinner at Irmita's.  Both were very good.

So we scheduled round two for Starlight Express for Sept 26.  When we left for the show, the sky was dark again so we were worried it would be another rain out.  We were in luck though and the show went on.  I thought Starlight Express was good.  It is a story about toy train sets that comes alive and race to see which set is the best.  I don't want to give away the story but of course the old steam engine wins because the diesel and electric trains were too cocky.  Oh yeah and he gets the girl!  The cool thing about the show was that all of the actors were on roller skates and the race track extended into the audience so the "trains" were actually racing through the audience.  It did start sprinkling close to intermission so the show was paused so the crew could dry off the stage and track so that the skating actors wouldn't slip.  We enjoyed the show.

Rodeo

The Dixie Round-Up Rodeo is back in town.  This is always a fun time for the kids because they love seeing all of the animals and they love horses and cowboys.  I took them to see the animals after going to the library and they had a blast.  It had been raining the past few days so we had to battle the mud as we walked along the corrals.  

On September 12 we headed to the Rodeo for Kids Night.  All kids got in for free this day.  Actually, we all got in for free because Russell was in the flag ceremony during the opening.

The kids had fun watching the cowboys and cowgirls ride their horses before the rodeo and during the opening introductions.  Here is a picture of our friend, Brittany Fisher; she is the Enterprise Rodeo Queen and she is in our ward!

Like I said before, Russell was in the opening flag ceremony with the fire department.

The flag ceremony was really awesome.  First a skydiver flew into the arena with the flag.  Then all of the modern heroes came out to hold up the flag.  These heroes were police officers, fire fighters, Paramedics, and military soldiers.  Russel is one of the firefighters in these pictures.  It was an awesome way to honor these heroes and the flag.

Then it was on to the rodeo!  All of the events were really fun to watch and the cowboys did an amazing job.  During the Mutton Busting, one little girl held on to her sheep forever!  That sheep ran all over the arena and the girl was not letting go.  After about 10 second (but what seemed like more) she finally fell off and she was the winner.  My favorite part of the rodeos are the barrel racing.  I love to watch the girls race and see each of their techniques.

After the final event, the bull riding, we had another treat to watch.  The Motocross racers came out with their ramps and we got to see them ride and jump.  It was really cool.

While setting up the ramps, one of the workers got his arm in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He got slammed by the bucket of the loader and busted his arm.  Yeah that had to hurt.  Poor guy.  They hauled him off in the ambulance and the show went on.  

We loved the rodeo and I loved it because we got to have fun together as a family.

Snow Canyon Homecoming

High School football has always been really fun to watch.  When I was in high school, I loved being in the Pep Band and cheering for our team.  Now we get to go to the football games to cheer for Tyler.  Even though he plays for Snow Canyon, my high school rival, it is still fun to watch.  Snow Canyon's homecoming football game was September 13th and they played (*ahem*...the best team ever) Pine View.  We were totally there to watch this game!  I told Tyler I was going to wear my Pine View Letterman jacket and black and maroon to the game.  I even joked about painting "PV" on the kids cheeks.  He told me I wasn't invited to the game!  How rude!  In the end, we went and sat on the Snow Canyon side to cheer for Tyler.  

There he is number 62.  What a tough guy!! 

And here is Russell, a Snow Canyon alumni, showing off his football state champion hat and ring (oh and his way cute little son, Logan!)  He is so proud!

Lets just say this was a very interesting Homecoming football game.  We got there during the second quarter and Pine View was up by like 20 (Woot! Woot!).  Then we watched the nice half-time show where they crowned the Homecoming Royalty and the Eshelles and cheerleaders danced.  Then it was on to the third quarter.  About 2 minutes into the 3rd quarter, the officials stopped the game due to lighting.  The game was postponed for 20 minuted to see if the lighting would go away.  Now this was really annoying because the lighting was still miles away out passed Ivins!  You couldn't even hear the thunder after the lighting so it had to be farther away.  Well the football teams headed inside the locker rooms for safety while all of the viewers had to stay on the metal bleachers during the lighting!  Yeah that sounds like we were safe!  Anyway, a 20 minute postpone turned into a 2 hour postpone.  In the meantime, we watched the Homecoming fireworks that were supposed to be after the game.  They were pretty cool, too bad the football players were not allowed to watch them.  After about 45 minutes, it started to rain and there was another postponement.  We decided to go home because we were sure they were going to cancel the game.  We were so mad that they postponed the game because if they would have played through, the game would have been over by the time the rain started.  As it turned out, the game did go on about a half hour after we left.  By then it was pouring rain and the players, the ball and the field were soaking wet.  Pine View, I guess was pretty much unstoppable and they totally won Snow Canyon.  Sorry Russell and Tyler but it was a bummer game.  GO PINE VIEW!!!

First Day of School

Emily had her first day of preschool on September 3rd!

She is in preschool at Sunset Elementary.  She goes 4 days a week for 2 hours a day.  She LOVES it.  She was so excited to start school.  Emily had been looking forward to it for so long.  Here she is in front of her cubby at school.

Each day they play and learn new things.  They split into groups and do different stations.  When we pick her up, she is excited to tell us all about what she has learned that day.  Her teacher, Ms. Mitchell, says she is doing very well in school and she is very smart.  She has meet a new friend named Brinley.  Ms. Mitchell says Emily and Brinley are the are the most advanced ones in the class so they are always in the same group.  It is nice to know Emily loves school and she is doing well. 

Labor Day Weekend

What a great, relaxing Labor Day weekend we had this year.  We didn't go camping or anything, we just hung out at home and spent time as a family.  Neither Russell or I had to work so we got to have fun with all five of us.  That doesn't happen very often.  Every night, Emily and Colby ask us who is going to watch them the next day.  Some days we say mom or some days we say dad but whenever we say mom and dad, they cheer.  So we had some happy kids this weekend.

We started our fun on Saturday.  We spent some time at the park:

We had a blast swinging, going down the slide and just playing.  Logan loved swinging.  He smiled the whole time.  Colby enjoyed pushing Logan in the swing and sliding.  Emily also loved climbing on the playground, having Russell help her cross the monkey bars, and swinging.  She did realize she was getting too big for the little kid swings.  Too bad these are the only swings at the Tonaquint Park.

After playing, we walked around the park to the duck pond to see the ducks.  The kids love seeing the ducks.  It was so hot this afternoon though and the ducks were not on the water they were bedded down in the shade of the trees.  It was cool to see their nests.  We also saw a bunch of water turtles in the pond this day.  It was very interesting to watch them surface the water and then dive back down.  I have never seen the turtles at the pond before.

Finally we decided we were melting from the heat and, because it was overcast, it was very humid too. We decided to head home and fill up our little pool and go swimming:

Have you ever seen happier kids?  They LOVE the water.  All three of them could swim and splash and play in the water all day long if we let them. We had a blast jumping in the pool and making huge splashes.  We also sprayed each other with our water blasters, and poured water on our heads with the watering cans.  Believe it or not but all five of us fit inside of our little kiddie pool!

Sunday we spent relaxing at home.  Monday we wanted to do something besides sit around the house so we headed up to Red Cliffs for a picnic and hiking.

We have not been to Red Cliffs for a long time, probably since Emily was a baby.  It was fun to go on the old hiking trail up to the ponds.  We love looking at all the red rocks and getting red dirt in our shoes, a true sign we are from Dixie!

We stopped along the way to take some pictures of the cool landmarks like an old dead tree, rock caves, and a shade tree while resting.  Russell also took Colby and Emily rock climbing up over a mountain of red rocks.  

Finally we made it up to the ponds.  The ponds were pretty low and the river was pretty much dried up but the kids still had fun putting their hands in the dirty water.  They also had fun throwing rocks into the water.  It was nice to sit in the shade and relax a bit before heading back down the trail.  Before we left, we found a baby frog that still had its tail!  We caught it and Emily and Colby got to pet it before we put it back in the water.

When we got back to the day use area at Red Cliffs, we let the kids play in the little stream and cool off.  It was a hot day so it was nice to get wet and sit in the shade.  They loved it and didn't want to leave.  Even Logan liked putting his little feet in the water.

Later that night, we got together with my side of the family for a barbecue at Tami's house.  After the barbecue, Tyler wanted us to help him ask his date to the Homecoming Dance.  Since he was asking Makayla Norman, a girl in our ward that babysits Emily and Colby, he wanted Emily and Colby to ask her for him.  He got her some flowers and a note asking her to the dance and then had Emily and Colby deliver it to her.

They were so excited to give MaKayla her flowers and see her again.  They love it when she babysits them.  They were so cute. They said, "Will you go to the dance with Uncle Tyler?"  We were glad we got to be a part of the fun.  

Happy Labor Day!