My Dad's Birthday

My dad was out of town on Father's Day and his birthday is this week, so I decided to throw him a little party this weekend! We just had a BBQ at my house, but it was so much fun! I love hanging out with my dad and my brothers! We did not grow up together, my dad and mom separated after my sister was born and I was 2...my brother Travis was born shortly after. We have never been tight knit. My dad never really spent much time with us. My sister and I went over to my dad's approximately one Sunday a month, we did not have a room at my dad's, we maybe spent the night twice growing up. But I always have loved my dad and my brother's and love the time that I get to spend with them and be a "family" and not strangers!

My dad has always been a partier! Loves his boat, his beer and his BBQ! So I decided to make him a beer cake...not made out of beer, but looking like a glass of beer! My dad loved it and instantly ate one of the fondant pretzels! :)We had fun just hanging out...until Travis decided he could not let Kaitlyn show him up on the trampoline...Kaitlyn did 3 backflips in a row and my 6'1" brother decided he could do it too....well at the end of his second, he was right on the edge of the trampoline...his fiance Jackie and I were yelling "no" when he went for the 3rd flip...he ended up landing on the hard metal edge with one knee and one shin! Luckily after a couple of minutes to catch his breath, he got up and hopped up the deck to ice them...and then after we ate, decided he was good enough to play basketball...so hopefully that means he was ok!! :)

They played 2 on 2, Bowe and Jason (both around 5'10") against my 2 brothers (both over 6'....like 6'1" and 6'4")! Jason said when Chase was guarding him, all he could see when he looked up was a black shirt! It was fun to watch! When they were done, they were all sweaty and we went in to cut the cake!My dad inhaled his cake - and once Chase and Travis see how much he liked the cake, they decided to feed him some more! :) My dad had fun with it though!I am glad we got to spend some good time together and it is all planned out to keep it a yearly tradition! This morning, Kylee is leaving for 4 days of Girl's Camp. She is so excited! It will be so much fun for her! Along with their list of items to pack, they were also given a questionnaire to fill out about themselves for a secret sister (like secret santa). So we got another girl's list and we were told to get 3-4 presents and to keep them all around $10.00. One of the girl's favorite things to do was "hanging with friends". So Kylee and Jason found a frame that read friends, I added some ribbon to assume the "hanging" portion of the phrase and added some little decorations to the photo mat. Her favorite scripture is Psalms 24 which essentually reads to have clean hands and a pure heart. So we got her a little heart pin with some antibacterial hand sanitizer.Lastly, her favorite colors were yellow, purple and green (which is also why I chose the colors I did for the frame) so we tied on some colored hair bands to her favorite treat, which was brownies! Kylee was super excited to give these to her secret sister! I hope she has tons of fun!!

4th of July Weekend!

OK, so this post actual begins last week - the week before the 4th of July weekend! :) Because I thought posting parade pics from both at the same time would be better! :)

My son was in the Pleasant View parade last weekend for the Weber Warriors football team! Here is Jason, just waiting for the parade to start!
And finally it began and Bowe came with the football team! I cannot believe he is going to be in High School! Yikes!

They through out footballs...Bowe took it upon himself to autograph a few with his number (well...hopefully his number since they have not been assigned numbers yet!) Silly kid!

I posted before on another post that we gave our kids the option to have presents for their birthdays or to get a room makeover...and they all chose makeovers! So I had a LOT of work to do this past week getting the room made over in time for his birthday party! Sunday night, he picked out his colors that he wanted and I gave him several options in bedding to choose from that night as well. So between Monday and Friday, we cleared out the room, took off the wallpaper border, washed the walls, painted the walls, got new carpet, painted a geometric design on the walls, touched up the ceiling and baseboards, painted the closet doors, painted the wall shelves, put together 2 new black bookshelving units and put the room back together...whew! A lot of hard work and a sore back later, we were done - for the most part at least! We have not gotten the the yellow wall shelves up yet and in the pictures we had not gotten a lot of stuff back into the room yet. There are a few little things to to...but you can see the overall jist of it! TONS better!

Here is a small pic of before...we had almost everything out of the room before brilliant me thought about before pics. Nice sports theme, but not fitting of a 15 year old high school man to be! :) (of course the Kobe Bryant thing WILL return somewhere in the room later...hopefully like behind the door!)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Kilz paint! It will cover anything! No primer here...just one coat of gray paint and there were only a few little places here and there that I could see the red or blue through! one quick second coat and I was done!!

The lighting is terrible in this pic, sorry, but it was late. It does, however, show you a good view of the BEFORE carpet! Nice orange baby-poop-esk color!

And here is the AFTER! Much better! So much more sophisticated! I did paint some square shelves yellow that are going to be a part of the black geometric pattern that I painted on the wall...but not up yet!

You can see the same yellow color on the closet door knobs! And look how much better the new carpet is!

We did not even realize that the carpet was almost EXACTLY like the carpet we had put in the hallway, stairs and living room...see off to the left! You can hardly tell a difference! Perfect!!

Friday night we had my family, Jason's family and Bowe's friends over for a BBQ. Bowe wanted a baseball cake. So I decided to make a bat, a mitt and some baseballs! I really liked how they turned out! And everyone loved them! of course the boys did not eat any until later...since they ate SO much at the BBQ!! One of Bowe's friends alone ate 5 hotdogs, 2 hamburgers, a bunch of watermelon, chips, and pasta salad...along with some pop and water! Jeez, I am glad I only have ONE of these growing boys living under my roof all the time! Yikes!I made the baseball mitt cake a chocolate cake with Oreo cream filling, the baseball bat and baseball cupcakes are vanilla cake with vanilla cream filling for the cupcakes.

They boys were having arm wrestling contests...so naturally Jason had to join in!

(Spoiler alert...Jason won!)

I think they all had fun...plenty of food, arm wrestling, jumping on the trampoline, basketball, football in the street, frisbee, doorbell ditching some of the boys around the neighborhood and toilet-papering Bowe's girlfriend's house. Yep...pretty sure they had fun!

My little nephew Maguire even had fun!

Kaitlyn stopping to pose for the camera!

Tavin playing with the mannequin arm! Fun was had by all! :)

The next day, North Ogden had their Cherry Days festivities! Jason got up at 6:30 and ran in the 5K. It was his first 5K and he did pretty good for only starting to train about a week before! He did it with 3 of his friends and even though Jason was the last of them all, they only ranged from 24 minutes to 30 minutes...so he kept up pretty good! I was so proud of him...although I was way to tired from the day before to get up and get ready just to take some pictures....I will have to get the one he took off of his phone!

Kaitlyn rode her bike in the children's parade just before the actual parade began.

I tried to get a picture of her and I...hmm...why the crap will she cheese it up for all other pictures, but to take a picture with me, she sits there like she is bored out of her mind??? The parade finally started and Kaitlyn and Dacee were just waiting for some candy!

Bowe and the football team again!

Kylee danced with her dance team in the parade this year and she had so much fun! She even got to wear her favorite colors...black and hot pink!

I cannto believe how grown up she is looking! Boys check her out all the time and I just want to tell them..."avert your eyes...she is ONLY 12!!"

That night, Jason had to go watch the UFC fights, Kylee went to the fireworks with her friends and Bowe went with his friends, so Kaitlyn and I went up to my grandma's house to watch fireworks from her backyard. My sister, mom, Alexis and Emy were there too! Alexis was alseep the whole time, but Emy liked the fireworks...when she wasn't being grumpy and tired! :)

Obviously this new peace sign with the tongue sticking out is Kaitlyn's new signature!

The next day (Sunday) we decided to head up to lava Hot Springs. Some of our friends were up their camping and told us to come up for fireworks and some tubing down the river. So we packed and headed up! Kaitlyn sitting in the middle rubbing both Kylee's and Bowe's backs (she did the same on the way home too...man I wish I was sitting back there!)

What??? No tongue sticking out?? :) Jason, Kylee and Bowe went up to the top where it was a little more rough and tubed down. Kaitlyn and I got in when it was a little more calm!

Here is Jason!

Bowe going down one of the spills...I thought for sure he was going to tip off, but he saved it! And here is Kylee - she looked a little off center too...but she also saved herself!

Jason was having so much fun! You cannot see too good in this picture but he is yelling "WHOOOO!"

Shortly before this picture, Jason turfed it out of his tube...and Bowe is cracking up about it!

Hi Kylee!

Kylee lighting some parachute fireworks for the kids to run and catch!

And as everyone is looking up...Kaitlyn is off!

Jason relaxing from his hard day on the river! He got beat up!

Jason showing me his ouchees! His left knee instantly swelled up and turned blue!

And here is Bowe's ouchees. I did not get a picture of Kylee's, but her knees were the most bloody! Poor things! That is why I got in at the calm part!

The kids playing tetherball

The kids doing some sparklers

and watching some fireworks! It was a fun night! And when we came home, we picked Dixie up from Jason's mom's house...she was so excited to see us!

It was a long, hectic, run-around weekend...but we had SO much fun! I absolutely love my family and I enjoy being able to spend such good quality time with them!! Love you guys!