Happy Birthday Five-Year-Old Girl!

Happy Birthday Ashlyn!

You are five years old today and we are in denial! How can my baby be five?

Homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast - your request!

To have fun on your birthday, we invited some of your friends to the park for a playdate which turned out to be a great way to spend the day.

Ella, Caroline, Ashlyn

Brent Johnson came, too.

It was a scorching-hot day so we enjoyed Tutti Frutti. The kids LOVED it and it made for an awesome party that wasn't a party.

The other kids went home and Caroline stayed so they played with Ashlyn's new Barbie toy and then ran in the sprinklers again and again.

They had a blast!

After Christian's baseball game, John made it back in town just in time to have birthday dinner . . . at The Habit - Ashlyn's request.

Then home for presents!

Her school was the next day so she brought treats to her class; fresh-picked strawberries and homemade cookies. They were all a hit!

Happy Birthday to our big girl!!

What I Find on My Phone

If I forget what has happened during the week, I suppose I could refer to the pictures stored on my phone. My kids, or even their friends, are commonly known to play with my phone and I am often finding random shots that I never knew existed.

Here's what I've found from the past couple of days.

Christian running the bleachers during track practice. Baseball practice was cancelled due to the soaked fields.

Christian running by. Love that hair action.

Day-after-violent-storm clouds. Beautiful.

Always reminds me of the song that says,

I like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain,

And ponder on the beauty of the earth made clean again.

Looking out out on the field as a team stretches.

Me, bundled up and freezing. Come on! It's almost April. We were teased with warm weather last week and now there's snow on the mountains again. I'm not complaining though.

I think it must be all that global warming.

Caroline and Ashlyn at the park (Church Park as we call it).

More park, with the Hipstamatic App. Love it.

On a side note . . .

All this beauty is needed after the shocking news of the plane crash last week. I don't normally follow the news closely, especially the local news, because it's depressing, full of drama and theatrics and now mostly just plain Hollywood. But when you hear about an airplane crash, and know personally the pilot, it becomes all too real and devastating. I've known Kenny for many, many years and my heart goes out to his wife, his darling baby girl, and the rest of the Cruz family. Randy says at least he died doing what he absolutely loved.

Called to Serve in the Beautiful Island of . . .

. . .

Boise, Idaho!

Land of the potatoes.

Hence, this uber-creative baked potato CAKE

How cute and lifelike is that? Tommie's friend Tami expertly made this wonder.

We had the wonderful opportunity of attending CJ's farewell. He reports to the MTC next week. After the awesome farewell talk given by Elder CJ Norris (who also received his Eagle Award the night before), we all congregated at his home for good food, good company, and good music.

How many people can cram in one family room? I should also mention, good movie (Finding Nemo). And this was only a fraction of the bunch at the house.

Elder Norris, ready to harvest that field.

Even with all the people over vying for his attention, CJ still finds time to spend with Christian (who idolizes him).

Farewell CJ! We will miss you!

Spring Sprang Sprung

The fields and hiking trail at the end of our street are our hang out. We walk Cole their nearly every day and if he ever gets out, that's exactly where he heads.

Right now it's abloom with the springy-ness that's so pretty. Ashlyn and I took some pics with my phone because everywhere we turned, there were more flowers that weren't there before.

Look closely, teeny tiny purple flowers carpet the ground.

Wild flowery bushes everywhere

Wild Cucumber - very strange porcupine pods filled with white bubbly goo and giant green bean-like pods. Poisonous. They are fun to stomp on though.

Foxtails

Looks like a meadow of wheat

Bee-Lovin' Bush

Rosemary

California Golden Poppy

My Sunshine

Sweet Alyssum

Pink geraniums back at home at the end our walk. I love Spring.

Tis the Luck o' the Irish

The little leprechauns were busy at work this morning whipping up a green breakfast (and they even turned the toilet water green).

Then they really got to work and made Ashlyn's hair into a darling shamrock. All dressed in green, everyone was safe from being pinched.

After school the kids got to cool off with a lime/kiwi/spinach smoothie . . . refreshing!

Batter Up!

If all the other activities weren't enough, going to track practice four days a week, with the first meet being this weekend, Christian is in baseball, which practices twice a week, and now has games twice a week, too.

He's on the Dodgers and has wonderful coaches and a great team. He's learning a lot and improving his skills each game. They won their first two games, and came super close the third.

He earned the 'game ball' at the 2nd game of which he was super proud.

Go, Christian, Go!!

Now I'm off to help John sort more track uniforms. Being president is a lot of work!

A Heart Attack, Basketball, and a Road Show

Happy Birthday Madison!

A good morning started off with her request of blintzes. Then it was off to school, piano lessons, track practice, quick dinner, then basketball practice. (We went out to dinner to celebrate as a family the night before knowing that Tuesday night was way too busy.)

In between it all, her Beehive class came over and heart attacked her room. She was able to see it quickly as she ran upstairs to grab her basketball shoes.

They also left a nice plate of cookies! So cute - Young Women is so fun and she can't wait to be a full-fledged member.

Every Friday night has been spent at her basketball games. Sadly, they never won a game, but have made tremendous progress when compared to their first game which was the first time the team had ever even been on a real court. They didn't know what the lines meant or anything.

This game was super exciting; the team did so well and were neck-and-neck with the other team the whole time. Madison scored nearly half the points and they only lost by 2 points. The last 10 seconds when our team was about to take the shot, the opposing girl ran into our girl, completely barreling into her and knocking her flat to the ground -- then the buzzer sounded. The foul definitely should have been called, but wasn't. It really could have changed the outcome of the game and what a sweet ending to the season it would have been to have won the last game, especially against a high-ranked opponent.

This was Madison's first try at basketball and completely loved it. It was fun to watch her improve and learn. I still have a lot to learn--man! there are a lot of rules in these sports. I don't know how anyone can keep them straight.

Since she made it to twelve in time for the Road Show, they let her practice, which was a lot of fun for her. She invited her friend Gabby to attend, too, which was a great missionary experience for her and they both had a blast!

It was 80s themed, which was like, totally awesome.

All in all, it was a great birthday week - starting with a surprise party and ending with the road show AND being able to stay for the all-cast dance afterwards. Twelve is a big deal!