Rachel and Henry’s birthday (July 2011)

Rachel and Henry share the same birthday, so on July 30th Rachel turned seven and Henry turned 3.  Daniel and I were not going to be there on the big day (my parents were here with them while we were in DC), so we had an early birthday party the Sunday before we left.

Oliver had really wanted to buy something special for Rachel with his own money.  He begged and begged for me to let him get her a pet, so we finally settled on a betta fish (he bought the fish, I bought the bowl and food, etc.)  He was so excited to give it to her, and she was thrilled to get it. 

If you are wondering why Lizza is looking so grumpy in that picture above it’s because she wanted to give Rachel a special card she had made, and nobody was paying attention to her.

There we go.  “Rachel, Happy Birthday”

Here’s Henry, ready to open some presents.

He got three dinosaur puzzles:

And a Batman shirt:

Then it was Rachel’s turn.  The present she had been anticipating the most was a porcelain doll that I got when I was a little girl.  Earlier in the year I had told Rachel that if she finished reading all of the American Girl Samantha books before her birthday, then I would give her the doll as a present.  She finished a few months before her birthday, and then was just waiting and waiting.

She also got the Molly books:

And probably her favorite thing, a scooter.

After presents we had some chocolate pie with coconut cream sauce:

I hope these two never grow out of thinking it is extra fun to share a birthday together.

Henry spent the rest of the evening figuring out his new puzzles.  He gets super focused when he has a new puzzle to challenge him.

He had them all finished in no time:

On their actual birthday, while we were in DC, my mom and dad took lots of pictures so we could see all the fun they had.

They started out with their breakfast of choice, Lucky Charms:

Then the kids gave Rachel and Henry cards they had made and presents they had bought with their own money.  They were so excited to finally be able to give them – they had wanted to do it on Sunday when Daniel and I gave our presents, but I made them wait until the actual day.  My mom told me it was fun to see how earnest and happy they were in their efforts to make sure Rachel and Henry had a good day. 

Rachel and Henry were both excited about Henry’s new nerf gun:                                  

This picture makes me happy, and it’s not because Rachel just opened a pack of Kit Kats from one of the kids – it’s because in the background I can see that my mom was making a spinach smoothie and also had Cynthia’s bottle of milk all ready to go, and I just love how she was taking such good care of my family while we were gone.

I think this is my favorite picture of the day.  Rachel just looks so darn happy to be getting that gum from Oliver, and I can tell Ollie is feeling proud of having given such a great gift, and maybe giving some instructions or directions about it, and Henry is looking on like, “yep, this is a  good day.”

At some point during the birthday afternoon, they all went to the pool.  Here is my dad with the kids.  Sometimes it doesn’t hit me how many kids I have until I see them all with someone else, and then I think “wow, there sure are a lot of them.”  Also, nice pose, Lizza.

For dinner they picked pancakes with strawberry sauce, and my dad whipped up a few t-rex and butterfly pancakes for the birthday kids:

I didn’t want my mom to have to worry about making fancy birthday cakes, so before we left I let Rachel and Henry each choose out a special pie.  Rachel picked chocolate cream, and Henry picked a coconut cream pie.  I think it made a big impression on him – he mentions it to random people all the time, about how “last day when he turned 3 he had a coconut cream birthday.” 

Happy birthday to two wonderful kids.

The rest of July 2011

(I fixed the videos, so the ones that said private should be working now)

July was a busy, busy month for us.  We got back from our big road trip on July 4th, then my sister and her family were here, then the next week I had my sister trip, and then the week after that my mom came and Daniel and I went to Washington, DC. 

Here are some of the things that were going on in July in between all the vacationing:

Everyone loves giving Cynthia rides.

On horses:

On scooters:

In boxes:

And most of all, in little doll strollers:

Cindy loves this so much.  Her squishy bottom barely fits in the stroller, so she is kind of wedged in there tight, but she doesn’t mind.  She just sits back and acts like she is a queen in her carriage.  If she ever gets fussy when I’m trying to make dinner I just ask one of the kids to push her around, and it never fails to cheer her up. 

Henry is great at counting to 10, but after that things get a little hazy.  He had been listening to Lizza practice counting to 100, and he thought he had it all figured out.  He told me he was pretty sure he could count to 50. 

My favorite things about this video are 1) watching his stomach muscles while he counts.  Clearly counting is hard work and good exercise!  2) How appalled Oliver gets when Henry gives him the credit for teaching him his counting skills.  3)  Henry’s thumbs up at the end.  That’s my special sign I give to him when I think he’s done a good job at something, and I guess he felt pretty proud of himself after all that counting.

 

A back-tickling line while watching Cast Away:

My kids love this commercial for Huggies jean diapers.  One time they were at Wal-Mart with me and spotted a display of them for sale.  They couldn’t believe they were real, and begged me to get some for Henry.  I agreed to get just one box.  They were a little disappointed that they weren’t actually made out of jean material, but everyone still thought Henry looked pretty cute in them.

Tristan and Oliver decided to make their own commercial, with Henry as the star.

Rachel and Lizza are the fancy ladies who watch him walk by.  I love how they lower their sunglasses, just like the ladies in the commercial.  Oliver is supposed to be like the guy on the scooter, and Tristan is Henry’s driver (somehow he decided this meant he should be in army clothes.  He explained that he was kind of like a bodyguard.)  They were going to add sound to it later, but we never got around to it. 

Rachel is my crafting queen.  She decided to make a purse out of paper.  Then she made all sorts of things to go inside it.  I love her birthday shopping list:  cake mix, ice cream, frosting, pizza, candy, and party hats. 

And of course, everything that Rachel makes, Lizza makes, too.  Here she is with her purse and phone:

Rachel, Henry, and Elizabeth all reading on the couch at the same time:

In some ways Oliver is getting so old, but when I see how much fun he still has getting dressed up I realize that nine-year old boys are still just little kids in their hearts. 

And here are a whole bunch of little kids tackling Daniel.  This is still one of their favorite games.  Daniel has always felt it is important as a dad to play physically with the kids, and I love that.  Cynthia has decided she’s big enough to join in the fun.  She is a good little wrestler. 

And lastly, here are some dancing videos that Oliver made of Elizabeth and Rachel.  This is going to surprise you, but they have had no formal training – all of this skill is natural. 

Sister Trip - July 2011

One week after my sister and her family left, Cynthia and I flew to Utah for my Sister Trip.  I have five sisters and one sister-in-law, and we get together with our mom every year (or every other year, depending on the schedule) for a weekend of relaxing, talking, eating, shopping, etc.

We flew into Salt Lake City, and then I got a ride with one of my sisters down to my parents’ house in Orem.  Even though it was late, Cynthia got right to work finding fun places to explore.

This year was definitely the year of the babies!  We always leave all the older kids at home with our husbands, and just bring nursing babies (or kids under two who can still fly free), and usually this works out to mean that a few of us have kids there, a few of us don’t, and some of us are pregnant.  This year two of my sisters are pregnant, and all six of us brought a baby, plus our sister-in-law had her first baby the week before, so there were seven babies there!

Here is my sister-in-law Lindy with the newest little cousin, Wayne.  I think he is only 5 days old here. 

The very first thing we do every year is our sister gift exchange.  We all buy or make something special to give, and then bring one for everyone.  Usually we take a picture of each of us with the gift we gave – somehow we forgot this year.  Everyone gave fun presents. 

After that we tried to organize a photo shoot out in the front yard with the seven babies.  Ha!

Here I am trying to entertain five of them while we try to find the other two (that scarf I am holding was my mom’s gift – she brought us all scarves from her recent trip to China):

Here they are in age order.  Lindy was so nice and brave to let us include little tiny Wayne in the picture.  She placed him down right at the last second, in hopes of avoiding the most abuse from the other kids.  He’s lucky he wasn’t next to Cindy, or it might have been his nose she was trying to pull off, instead of the next youngest cousin’s (sorry, Victor!)

This one kind of worked:

With all those babies there were lots of highchairs set up all over.  Cute little eaters.

The next morning we all went walking together.  My parents moved to this house when I was in 9th grade, so I lived there from age 14 until I went to college.  I love this house, this yard, and this neighborhood – Daniel’s family used to live right across the street, so our families were in the same ward and that’s how we met.   It was fun walking around the neighborhood and seeing how much is still the same. 

Later that morning our friend Trish (in the middle, front row) came out to my mom’s house to give everyone haircuts.  Those of us who don’t live in Utah anymore love to schedule appointments with her whenever we’re in town, so we decided it would be easier (especially because of all the babies) if she could just come over to the house, instead of each of us driving down to Provo at separate times.  It was a fun morning.

Cynthia loved having other kids her size to play with:

She had to borrow some pajamas from one of the boy cousins, and she ended up being twinners with another of the boy cousins.  They decided not to sit still and pose together for the camera. 

On one of the afternoons we went over to my aunt’s house nearby to go swimming.  I think this was my favorite thing we did.  We went swimming all the time when we were growing up, but I don’t remember the last time we were all together at a pool.  Even my mom got in on the fun, teaching us how to do fancy tricks off the diving board, and going down the slide face first, etc.  

Dinner.  I love cooking and eating with these girls.

Bathtime (wildness!):

Pedicures!  One of my sisters introduced us to Sally Hansen “Salon Effects” nail polish strips.  They are great. 

The best part is it stays on for a really long time – perfect for me (I never do my nails because it seems like such a hassle).  My feet are the ones attached to the tan pants:

On Sunday we surprised my dad by visiting the BYU student ward where he serves as the bishop.  I think when we all came walking in with our babies the whole ward was surprised, not just my dad.  That was for sure the noisiest sacrament meeting those students have been in for awhile.  Here we all are with my mom and dad in the middle.  Our youngest brother, David, is on the end.

After church we took more pictures in the front yard.  Cynthia was so tired;  she kept trying to fall asleep during the picture taking.

My mom with her six girls and the babies:

Me and my sisters, in age order:

The babies entertaining themselves with all our purses while we took pictures:

Me and Cindy:

Tired girl:

Making dinner.  My sister let me borrow her fancy sling/wrap contraption, and Cindy loved it.

After dinner Daniel’s mom came over for a visit (she doesn’t live across the street anymore, but still within 10 minutes).  I was so glad she was able to come over and see Cindy – I miss living in Utah where the kids got to see their grandparents at least every week.

We also got another picture with our brothers.  Alex just got married last year, and David is 16, and the only kid still living at home.  This is 8 of the 9 kids:  we have one more brother (Victor) on a mission in Argentina.

The last day we drove up to South Weber to see my youngest sister’s new house.  We managed to fit in a shopping trip at the Down East outlet store on our way up.  We ate lunch and toured the house, and then those of us who were leaving that afternoon went to the airport from there. 

My sister Marian and I had flights leaving at similar times, so we hung out together.  Her little boy Victor and Cynthia were airport buddies:

Now that it’s been a few months and I’m looking at all these pictures, I want to do another Sister Trip right away.

Thanks to my mom and sisters for being so great. 

And thanks to all the husbands for watching the rest of the kids and making it possible for us to get together.