Playing Catch-Up

Since I feel like I am Soooooo FAR BEHIND on my blog I am going to try and just post photos of our summer to catch us up.

It has been a VERY crazy summer. One of the hardest of my life. We have been stuck on a roller coaster for most of the summer with the whole house process. We've had some highs, LOTS of lows, and lots of unexpected turns. But we have finally arrived at the station and have gotten off the roller coaster in our NEW home! And it was TOTALLY worth it!!!!! The ride really sucked but the end result made it all worth it.

Despite all the craziness that we went through I still tried to add some fun things in for the kids to do. All my grand plans of the kids setting goals and working on them daily went right out the window and my kids were "plugged" into electronics WAY more than they should have been. But we made it through. So here are some highlights of our CRAZY summer!!!

Celebrating 4th of July with Family
Celebrating Charles & Katelyn's Birthdays
CHARLES BAPTISM
Family Reunion
Beach

 Fun at the Splash Park

 Cow Appreciation Day

 Fun at The Cove

 Roller Skating with cousins!

This was Charles' 1st time skating

 L.A. Temple Visitors Center

 Cheesecake Factory 1/2 price Cheesecake for John's Birthday

 

John's Birthday with the Anderson's

  

Just Hangin Out!

 Playing at the Park

 Fun with the hose and some buckets

 Saying "Goodbye" to our Old House

 MOVING

 Meeting a New Friend in our New Yard

 Fun with a MUSTACHE

 One last trip...to the OC Zoo and Irvine Park. My favorite place

We did NOT Finish everything on our Summer To Do List, but I think we still had a GREAT Summer!!!

Some of the things not checked off got completed after we moved. We just didn't take the list with us.

1st Birthday & 8th Birthday

We decided to do a combined birthday party for Charles and Katelyn since they both were big birthdays. 

It worked out great!!!

We had the party right after the baptism. We started with lunch. Charles chose hot dogs so I cooked them in the crock-pot and provided all the fixings and asked our guests to bring a side to share. It worked out wonderfully! After lunch we told all the adults they could sit and chat and we would entertain the kids. 

We played Guess What with the kids and Toppling Towers. Both were great games for kids of all ages. (We had kids as young as Claudia and all the way up to 13 playing.) I think everyone enjoyed the games. 

 

Oh and we did our 1st Birthday photo game. Where were everyone has to try and guess the correct order of the photos of Katelyn for her first year. 

Since it was Charles' party too we did a game for him too.

 But instead of each month we did each year. I always love to get the adults involved in some of the fun too!

 And it's fun for everyone to see how the kids have grown and changed. 

After the games we opened presents and then had dessert. 

Since we were having such a larger crowd I decided to change things up a bit and have cookies and ice cream instead of cake. I made the cookies ahead of time and froze them. (Which saved a ton of stress the day before and day of the party.) I think there was like 6 different kids and we served it with several different ice cream choices. There seemed to be something for everyone. 

I didn't forget to make a small cake for Katelyn for the traditional eating of her 1st Birthday cake. 

She wasn't as interested as the other kids were but she did enjoy herself! 

 
It was a FABULOUS day filled with the Spirit, Love and lots of FUN!

Thanks everyone who joined us!!

BAPTISM

 On July 6th (Katelyn's birthday) Charles entered the waters of Baptism and became a member of 

The Church of JESUS CHRIST of latter-day Saints. 

It was a WONDERFUL baptism. The spirit was SO STRONG!!
 (And I'm not just saying that because I am the mom, I had several people make that comment to me.)

I was so happy that the stake baptism day fell on Katelyn's birthday. It will always been an easy date to remember for him. Another Awesome thing is that Charles got to be baptized with his BEST FRIEND Adam. Adam's birthday is exactly one month to the day before Charles' and he missed the June stake baptism day by one day so he and Charles got to have a joint baptism. It was GREAT!!!!!

John performed the baptism. My Dad and our Bishop, Bishop Barney were the witnesses.

And John performed the confirmation along with my Dad, Uncle Richard, Uncle Daniel, Uncle Bobby, and  Bishop Barney.

The talks were Fabulous and Charles and his cousins along with Adam and his brother's sang Nephi's Courage. It was so cute! The closing song was my all time Favorite primary song, He Sent His Son. Just reading the title I felt the spirit so strong and could hardly sing the words. It was beautiful!

Thank you everyone for coming out and supporting Charles on this VERY Special day!!!!

John's sister Jennie had this beautiful towel made for Charles. It has the CTR logo and his name and baptismal date on it. Thanks Burkes!

4th of July

As we celebrated the 4th of July this year I couldn't help but think that this time last year I was hugely pregnant and over due! And wishing our beautiful baby would join our family. And now here I am one year later with an 8 year old and a 1 year old having a blast with family. It's great not to be pregnant!! hahahah!!!

 We had John's family over for dinner and Fireworks and I made the Red, Blue, and White (clear) drink again. This time we made it in one great big dispenser. The kids LOVED it!!!

Maybe we'll make this our 4th of July tradition.

We have an 8 yEaR oLd

Man do I feel old when I say that out loud. My son is 8! And it is GREAT!!!!

We celebrated his actual birthday by taking his best friend Adam with us to Seascape. We met up with Janica and her kids and Jennie and her crew for some fun in the A/C. We ♥ that place! 

And then we went to Sonic for slushes (gotta LOVE half price drinks for HAPPY HOUR)

 and then we met John at Red Robin for dinner. It was a wonderful day!

I think Charles and Adam enjoyed themselves!!!

PuZzLeS

Claudia's new favorite thing to do is PUZZLES!!! She LOVES them! And she is getting better and better every day. It surprises me how well she does them. I guess she has a good memory like her daddy.

This puzzle is a 24 piece puzzle and it says for ages 5+ on the box. 

Boy do I LOVE this little smarty pants!