Memorial Weekend

This was a busy weekend!  Friday night after work I met up with Diane and her girls and Bobby for a girls night out.  We went over to Zupa's for dinner and played cards for 4 or 5 hours.  Amy brought this really great card game called 'Table Topics' or something like that.  She would pull out a card and ask everybody the question on the card.  It was a great way to get to know each other! (They were questions like 'do you take baths or showers', etc.)

Saturday morning I went to lunch with Dad and Aubrey.  After lunch we stopped at Mom's grave and put some roses on it.  I told Dad we were all meeting on Monday morning, but he didn't want her grave to go empty all weekend.  Aubrey tried REALLY hard to keep one of the roses.  When we left she hopped on top of Mom's headstone and gave it a big hug.  So cute.  When I came home, Zac went to go work on my co-worker's parents house for the rest of the day/evening.

Sunday night we headed to Amy's house to celebrate Diane's birthday.  She put together a family feud game about Diane.  We split up boys vs. girls.  I am surprised at how we are ALL competitive.  Diane said Zac is competitive with a 'swagger.'  It was a really fun game.  Everyone got really into it.  Afterwards we ate her favorite dessert, ice cream sandwiches.

Monday morning we went to Mom's grave to decorate it.  Dad made sure all the kids got to put flowers in the vases for Mom.  It's amazing how after 6 years of her being gone, it's still so hard.  I always thought it would get easier with time.  It doesn't.  If anything, I think it gets worse knowing all the things she's missing out on, and seeing, and being a part of.  I'm really lucky that Diane likes to talk about Mom whenever we want, and she joins in the conversation.  All of Diane's girls encourage talking about her too.

After the cemetery I took Lily in for her 9 month pictures.  She did really well and I get them back 1 1/2 weeks from now.  I brought Aubrey along to ensure I would get a smile.  Whenever Lily looks at Aubrey she smiles.  I have to WORK for her to smile at me.  That night we went back over to Dad's for a BBQ.  After we ate the rain finally stopped and we headed over to the elementary school to play some baseball and volleyball.  Zac was actually playing BOTH sports and was doing well!  Who is this guy?  He has NEVER played sports with me.  I have tried and tried to get him to play and he won't.  Then this weekend he buys a baseball mitt and starts playing.  He hit the ball so hard he broke the casing on it!  I like this new side of him!  I was shocked to see Dad diving for the ball too.  I knew he played baseball while we were growing up, but I haven't seen him play in a long time.  He hit the ground going after the volleyball more than anyone else!  It was really fun.

Lily has started doing her stinky/squinty face.  All of our kids have done it.  She will randomly look at us and stink/squint her face.  Then she laughs.  She is growing up too fast.  She has also started to climb up the stairs today.  Darn!  She loves to crawl into our cat's bed.  It annoys him so much.  She will crawl and chase after him, but she's not very fast.  As soon as she reaches his bed she climbs right in.  Our cat sits next to her waiting for her to get out.

 

Random pictures.  Aubrey wanted me to post a picture of her eating with her chopsticks for Uncle Matt.

Mmm raman noodles.

Happy Birthday Eric!

Wow - lots of pictures this post.  Today is Eric's 8th birthday!  I can't believe he's already 8!  We had a party for him on Saturday (the only day it didn't rain last week) and it went well.  Before his party the kids had baseball games:

Aubrey's game started 20 minutes before Eric's game.  By the time Eric's game was finished, we had a 1/2 hour to run home and set up for his party.  The guests started to arrive 10 minutes early, and for a good while there, it was mainly girls.  Yep.  His teacher's right, Eric loves the girls.  When we were writing out the invites I asked Eric how many people were in his class.  He started to guess the number.  I then told him to draw out on a piece of paper where everyone sits, then I will count the desks.  It worked.  There were 31 desks.  I saw one desk all by itself in the front of the room by the wall.  I asked Eric if that is where the teacher sits.  "No.  That's MY seat.  Mrs. Bean sits right next to me."  Wonderful.

Eric wanted a "backyards olympic" birthday party.  We started out by playing belly burst with balloons.

Next is the backwards crab walk.

We did a relay race of carrying cotton on a spoon.  If you dropped the cotton, you had to go back to the starting line.

Hula hoop relay.

Pass the sand.

Clothes pin drop into a cup.

Paper plane making contest.  Tucker won for his original design.

Paper plane throwing contest.  Eric won that.  He was so excited.  He told me that out of all the games, that was the one he needed to win.

He really wanted a tank cake for his birthday.  He has been asking for this cake the past 3 years.  I finally was able to order it early enough for the store to have the tank he wanted.

Jennifer enjoying some cake.

Eric and Aubrey all dressed up.

This picture does not do it justice.  Aubrey decided she wanted Jennifer's hair to look like her cousin Madison.  If you see the longest piece of hair, ALL of her hair was that length.  Aubrey also cut in several layers into her hair.  Luckily, since Jennifer's hair is curly you can't tell how bad it was cut.

Our usual Sunday picture.  It started to rain while we were outside.

Finally, Eric's birthday.  He got a lot of very exciting presents this year- a suit, scriptures, and cub scout uniform and book.  Although it's not the "funnest" present for kids, it was still pretty pricey!

We did splurge and get Eric 2 toys.  He got a star wars lego set and a light saber.

Zac's brother lives in Misawa, Japan.  He sent us all a package today.  Perfect timing for Eric's birthday!  The kids were so excited to open up their own package.

Eric squealed, yes squealed, when he saw the uniform.

Aubrey LOVES her Hello Kitty pillow and pencil set.  I don't understand the fascination with Hello Kitty but Aubrey loves it.  She is always asking for Hello Kitty stuff.  Matt did well!

Jennifer loves her bear too.

Eric couldn't wait to put on the uniform. 

To show you how big this bear is, Lily conveniently curled up her legs for this pictures.

Okay, she caught us taking her picture.

Zac is going to kill me for posting this picture.  But I say, if you don't want me to post the picture, then don't POSE for it! :)

Matt got me some beautiful Japanese bowls and chopsticks.

He got the kids a lot of Japanese candy.  Everyone was immediately digging in trying the different flavors.

This is a Lilo and Stitch bar thing.  Aubrey loves Lilo and Stitch.  Zac wanted to document her experience with tasting it.

For the record, it smells like dehydrated fish.

It stunk up our garbage can.  So gross.  Thanks Matt for all the wonderful presents from Japan!

Father and Son Camp out

This past weekend was the Father and Sons camp out.  Zac and Eric headed up Friday night to Little Moab.  Eric had a great time and loved to play in the dirt and around the fire.

 Zac talked Eric into sleeping in the van vs. sleeping in a tent.  Zac took out the seats in the van and put in an air mattress.  They were parked on a little bit of a hill so the entire night they were playing "rollie pollie" with each other.  Eric thought it was hilarious.

Eric wanted to eat a hot dog so he put it on a wire hanger.  The wire wasn't very strong and the hot dog immediately hit the bottom of the fire.  By the time he was done cooking it the hot dog was covered in ashes.  Zac just told Eric that it is "scout pepper."  The picture below was suppose to be of Eric behind the fire.  When Zac went to take the picture this kid jumped in and posed.  So weird.

When they left the camp out Eric told Zac he had the "best time ever camping ."

Aubrey really wanted me to take a picture of her hair so she could see it.  Then she wanted me to post it.  So this is for you Aubrey:

Yesterday Zac and I went on a date up to Park City.  While we were there we spent several hours at the outlets.  They had an amazing deal at the Children's Place for clothes.  They had a lot of racks of clothes for $2.99 each or $4.99.  This rain coat was only $4.99.  We got the kids several clothes for school and summer.  Aubrey wanted to model her rain coat.  After Zac was making fun of the kid on the camp out jumping in the picture, he did it to Aubrey.

She got mad so I took another picture of her.  This time Eric jumped in last second.

Finally she got her picture.  Zac and I headed up to an Italian restaurant after our shopping spree.  It was really good food, but I had a coworker show up there while we were eating.  It would have been fine but she was sitting with her family right next to us.  Every time I would look at her she would look down at her table.  And I did the same to her, not realizing it.  It was just awkward.  When we got up to leave we finally went over to them and said hello. 

Our usual Sunday picture.  I don't know what's up with Eric and Aubrey's smile.  Jennifer was upset before the picture because her flip flops were on the wrong feet.

Lily got her first tooth last night!  She has been a little fussier than usual, but I didn't realize she was teething.  Zac told me he saw a tooth and I didn't  believe him.  Sure enough, she got her first one through.  It's on the bottom.  I tried to take a picture of it, but all she wanted was to grab the camera.  This is the best shot I got of her.

Zac's latest trip to Walgreens is below.  He purchased $135.37 worth of product for only $8.43, which equals a 94% savings.  He's going back tomorrow to get some more dish washing detergent and candy bars.  For the record, Zac is buying so many candy bars (or getting them close to free) because he wants our house to be the "cool" house on Halloween.