Valentine's Dinner

I decided that for Valentine's day this year I wanted to invite family over and have a fun dinner.  We had different items like a sausages, sandwiches, jello cups, salad, brownies, forks and napkins on a menu with secret names.  Nobody knew what they were, and they had to choose what they wanted for each course (there were 3 courses).  We put all the food downstairs in the kitchen so that nobody could see what it was...next time we will just keep it upstairs.  Poor Rob had to carry people's plates and Riley up and down the stairs about a million times.  ha ha.  Not a very relaxing dinner for him!  :)  We had chips and salsa on the table in case anyone ended up with just a drink and a fork and napkin for one course.  We are too nice!  ha ha.  Anyway I thought it turned out really fun and hopefully we can make it a tradition. 

Everyone got these fun glasses. 

The kids love them and still wear them around the house sometimes.

Riley even likes to wear them. 

This is the only picture of any of the food that I took!  Doh!  I was too busy serving to take pictures.  Next time I'll do better.  But this was the thing that took the longest to make!  I started two days before the party to get them done!  

Rob and I cut out some hearts to stick on the kids' door while they were sleeping.  They woke up to fun valentine's on their door.

At the party, we also had a little photo booth.  Emery by far enjoyed it the most!  For 2 days after the party, she would grab props and have me take pictures.  IT was funny.  So here are the photo booth pictures. William slept through the entire dinner so he isn't in any of them. 

I gave Rob the job of taking the pictures while I got stuff ready for the meal.  I should have told him to squat down a little.  He is pretty tall...but I think they turned out great anyway.

Sleepwalking Sadie

 A few days before her birthday, we found Sadie is an awkward place.  We had put the kids to bed and we ourselves were in our bedroom reading or something when I heard a weird noise.  But I always hear weird noises so I didn't think anything of it.   I had gotten myself some ice cream earlier in the evening so around 10:20 or so ROb brought my bowl back out to the kitchen.  I was pretty close to being asleep, but I remember when Rob left the room I could hear loud breathing.  I thought that was odd, but just thought maybe it was because Emery had a stuffy nose.  Well, Rob came back from the kitchen and said "Lindsey, I know you are almost asleep but you have GOT to come see this!" So I got up and we saw this:

Sadie had sleepwalked over to our lego table and crawled into the tiny hole in the middle and fallen asleep.  So funny!  She sits there a lot in the mornings because it is right on a vent, so it makes her warm.  But she was fast asleep.  It was kinda hard getting her out of that small hole while she was asleep, but we did and Rob brought her back to bed. 

Inversion...

 In Utah, sometimes we get something called an inversion, which is where somehow a bunch of pollution gets trapped in the city.  If you go up in the mountains, I hear the air is clear, but down low, the air is really gross.  A couple weeks ago the inversion was SO BAD.  It looked like there was fog everywhere but really it was the pollution.  We couldn't even see the mountains from our house.  It was super bad.  So we stayed inside most of the time during that week.  So here are a few things we did while we were stuck inside. 

 We did a lot of sticker books.  I looked up and saw Rob looking like this...and I couldn't stop laughing.  I thought it was hilarious.  I still do.  ha ha.

 I decided to try something that I saw online somewhere.  I got a bucket of snow from outside and colored some water for them to paint with in the snow.  

 They loved it!

 It kept them occupied for a good 30 minutes.  We will be doing this one again.  But our snow is mostly gone now, so we might have to wait until next year.

 Meanwhile, Riley ate some snow. I tried to dig down under a little bit so it wasn't so dirty. 

Then I had to run to the store to pick something up.  This is how Riley was dressed and at least 2 people called her a boy.  hah!  I don't get offended at all when this happens, I just think it is hilarious that someone would guess that she was a boy when she is wearing a pink and red dress, and sucking on a purple pacifier.  But oh well.  It just makes me chuckle.  :)

Sadie is 8!

My oldest child is 8!!  I can't believe it.  Really.  How did this happen.  I think I say that every year...but they just keep growing.  It's crazy.  Sadie is such a delight in our family.  She is eager to help with almost anything.  She loves helping out with Riley especially.  She loves to play with Zac and Emery and she is a great example to them and to me.  She is going to be baptized in a couple weeks and she is so excited and a little nervous.  She was really excited when the leaders of the activity day girls decided to invite her and Rob to the Daddy daughter dance that was just a few days before her 8th birthday.  They had a great time and the leaders did a great job planning the whole thing.   They had dinner, took cute pictures and danced the night away.

THis was the best picture I got before they left.  Don't they look great?!

 I love these pictures that they took at the activity!  

 It's fun having a photographer in the ward who likes to share her talents like this!

My friend Robyn made Sadie a cool heart cake for her birthday.  It had candy inside that spilled out when she cut into it.  

This was the first picture of the day.  My Sadie is 8!

We decided that since it was her 8th birthday she could have a party at the trampoline place near our house.  I didn't get very many good pictures there since everyone was bouncing the whole time...but here is what I got:

Sadie is the blur in the back who is about to jump on the vertical trampolines.

Here she is with her friend Hallie.  We lasted an hour and then went home for cake and ice cream.  It was a fun day.

Here is Rob setting up some streamers for Sadie to run through in the morning.  And I got 8 balloons for her because she is 8!!

THis picture is just to document our fun Valentine decorations. 

Sadie got to start gymnastics on her birthday (hence the leotard).  For her birthday breakfast, I made egg-in-hearts.  :)

Aren't they cute?!?!

Sadie and her friends.  Cute girls!

I forgot to take a picture of her cake alone, but you can kinda see it in these pictures.  It is a heart with sprinkles on the edges.  

And yes, she did blow out all of the candles in one breath!  

We sure  love our Sadie girl.  It is so fun to see her growing into such a fun, loving, beautiful inside and out young lady! 

Photo Shoot Fail

 The other day we were all hanging out in my bedroom and the lighting was really bright so I decided I wanted to try to take a few pictures.  My only goal was to get a picture where they were all smiling at the camera.  Hah!  Even though I didn't accomplish my goal, I love all of these pictures.  They show the kids personalities so well.  I love them.

 This is the best picture of Riley.  I see this face so many times during the day and I'm glad I could capture it on camera.

With all these next pictures, I kept telling Riley to smile and she did, but for some reason she always looked right at Emery.  It was so funny! 

 

This is my favorite picture of them all.  Riley's little smile, Emery's grimace at Zac, and Zac just looking at the camera.  I love these kids.  I just wish Sadie were home so she could be in all of these!