Happy birthday my love!

What studs!!

Yes, this is another birthday post. We have three birthdays in July (don't worry, that's all until February, when there is another overload). Today is the 28th birthday of the most amazing husband and father in the world!

He is an amazing Daddy!

My wonderful hubby turns 28 today. For those of you that are keeping track, yes, that means that is is just over a year younger than me, but he has never acted like it. He is my everything! We are so thankful for all that he does and is for our family, and we are excited to spend the next 50 birthdays celebrating with him!

He is such a good sport! The girls adore playing with him!

"Playing the bum drums."

The love of my life!

Helmet Heads

I was in charge of bringing treats to each of the wards for girls camp, so when the candy was all gone, the girls played with all the leftover containers. They have found many uses for these Ring Pop buckets, but this is my favorite. They walked around saying "we are the helmet heads."

Hilarious! They walked around like astronauts making funny noises all evening.

My beauties

We finally got Lizzie's two year portraits taken today. She has been REALLY hard to work with in the past, but I wanted to try again anyway. Just to throw more craziness into the even I also REALLY wanted a picture of my three angels all together. Needless to say, Tom and I braced for the normal portrait madness plus Owen's normal crankiness. We were very pleasantly surprised! Owen didn't want to smile, but he didn't cry either. Our entire sitting lasted just over 12 minutes....this sets the record! Even when we were doing portraits of Tori on her own we took longer than that! HALLELUJAH! Here are the results:

Aren't my babies GORGEOUS?!?

Happy Birthday to Me!

I am a day late, because I couldn't decide how painfully lame it would be to do a post of my own birthday, but since I subject the general public to my "journal" you can read it or not. I need a record though, so here you go. On my last year in my twenties I am looking forward to moving (hopefully), starting teaching again (maybe), and continuing to raise the three most incredible little people in the world. I am so happy to be married to a man who supports me and loves me. I am absolutely certain that there is not another soul in the world that is as blessed as I am!



I also had the great opportunity to see and old childhood friend who I hadn't seen in over a decade. Emily I were baptized together about 21 years ago now, and we have many fond memories. Although we were raised in different states, we were very close. Well, we finally had a mini reunion. Happy early birthday to me! Thanks for coming Emily (and Lily, Colin, and Kate)!

Your backyard friends...

THE BACKYARDIGANS!! Lizzie chose a Backyardigans themed party this year. The bright colors made it pretty easy as far as decorations and party bags went, but I struggled a little bit with the cake. I finally found some ideas online and ended up making a "Pablo" (a blue penguin for those who aren't fans) cake and "Tasha" (a yellow hippo) cupcakes. They turned out ok. Actually--I was pretty proud of Pablo! The best part is how excited Liz was about them.

We went to Nana and Papa's house and set up outside. We played pin the bow tie on Pablo using masks without the eyes popped out (then we out the eyes and let them wear them). It was fun. Can you believe that all the kids are family?

Sophie, Brayden, Shane, Tori, Lizzie, Lily, Jace,

Jake, Marlee, and Hunter

The cake was messy, but fun! I didn't actually get to eat any, but I heard that it was pretty tasty too! Thanks everybody for helping us celebrate my princesses birthday!

The party continued at home when Liz insisted on entertaining "Broyer" with the balloons. Lucky for us, Owen didn't seem to mind. Thanks everybody for helping us celebrate my princesses birthday!

tagged

Ok, Katrina tagged me DAYS ago, and I am a total slacker. Now that I have been retagged (yes, I am making up words here) by Kim I guess I better get on it! So here you go...

Two names you go by:
1. Jenn
2. Mommy

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. Flip flops
2. Shorts

Two of your favorite things to do:
1. Scrapbook
2. go on dates with my hubby!

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. Air conditioning
2. Ear plugs

Two pets that you have or have had:
1. Pippi (aka "Pimpy")
2. Noah (Tori's fish)

Two things you did last night:
1. Started to reread Eclipse
2. FINALLY finished my FHE board

Two things you did today:
1. Went walking
2. Helped (or hindered) the cleaning process at my sister's house

Two things you ate today:
1. chocolate chip cookies!
2. Kix

Two people you last talked to:
1. Tom
2. Angie

Two things you're doing tomorrow:
1. Cleaning my house for company
2. Lizzie's birthday party (better late than never, right?)

Two memorable vacations:
1. Florida when I was a little kid
2. MAUI

Two favorite holidays:
1. Christmas
2. Mother's day--weird but true

There you have it!

Lizzie is 2!!

Well, I am totally copying a friend on this one. Mindy did posts detailing the births of each of her boys, and I thought that was a neat way to document the event. I will be doing one for each of my babies on their birthdays. Today is Lizzie's birthday. In some ways it is so hard to believe that she is already two, and in other ways I can barely believe that she is only two. Either way, the story went like this...

Mid June--high cramp in my belly--way too high and constant to be a contraction, but since it was after hours for the doctor, they wanted me to go to the hospital to have everything checked out. I vividly remember telling everyone on the way in that I was NOT in labor, and would be heading out soon. Well, I was in labor, and progressing nicely. Unfortunately for me, Lizzie wasn't due until August. This little ordeal left me on bed rest--with a two year old and a husband in a new job. Not the best scenario, so my fabulous sister in law, Susie, came out to stay with us! She took care of everything, and my family and friends pitched in to help too. We are still so grateful for the huge blessings we received. Four weeks later, I was taken off bed rest. Susie left that night at around 7 PM and my water broke around midnight. Poor Susie was here for four weeks and didn't even get to be here for the best part. Anyway--because my first delivery had gone so quickly, and because I was in labor for about four weeks, the doctors said that I would need to rush to the hospital if my water broke. My mom came over to stay with the sleeping Tori, and Tom and I were off...until we hit the highway closure. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?

We finally made it to the emergency entrance--dripping wet. I walked the halls for over three hours and then gave up. I told them that I was ready for pitocin. I laid down, they started it, and then I asked for my epidural. The anesthesiologist had just finished putting it in and she told me that I had barely any medicine in me, but I could use the button to get more. Before I got to push the button, the nurse moved it away and said it was time to push. SERIOUSLY? Anyway--about 30 minutes later Eliza Gail Peterson was born. July 11, 2006 at 6:52 AM. She weighed 6 lbs 10 oz (and they considered her a preemie! HA!) and was 20 inches long. She is the only kid that I have had any complications with, she is the only baby that had her name picked out ahead of time, and she is as stubborn now as she was then. She always wants things HER way! We joke that it is a "Horton Hatches the Egg" story because Liz looks a lot like her Aunt Susie. That is her story--certainly the most eventful, and the most fun to tell!

Happy birthday my princess! We love you and are so thankful for you!

A special shout out to Uncle Ty for remembering her special day and bringing slurpees for all the kids--it is our "7-11 baby" tradition now!

Since we were having her party later, we decided that going to Cici's for dinner and Baskin Robbins for dessert would have to do for a birthday celebration. When you add in the balloon "pegasus" and the "candy game" in the mini arcade, it was a great day!

Food

Owen had his very first taste of food today (if you can call it that). He is getting so big so fast! He has been fussy lately--well, even more fussy--and so we decided to try to fill his little belly. He loved it immediately! The only thing he didn't like was waiting for the next bite.

Fourth of July Fun!

Fourth of July festivities started out with Grampy's "shape pancakes." He is truly amazing. He can make whatever you ask for. This time it happened to be Belle, a turtle, a monkey, a T-Rex, and then of course the traditional "soccer ball" etc.

Next was the cake (which would double as a birthday cake while we celebrated three of our birthdays, Lizzie's, Tom's, and mine). Two years ago Aunt Susie was in Colorado for the fourth of July (taking care of me while I was on bed rest with Lizzie) and she made a flag cake with Tori. This year we were all together again (plus two more kids) and she made the cake again. This time Tori and Lizzie both got to help. They had so much fun!

Liz was NOT interested in blowing out the candles, so Tori did it for her.

We had a great barbecue and then we got to do fireworks--thank heavens they aren't illegal in Vegas! The girls thought they were awesome! They even got to do their own sparklers--with only one minor tragedy. Lizzie's pajamas did not make it through the ordeal...poor little accident prone child of mine!

Owen didn't love being held by the girls, but he did love the fireworks!

One small hole in the pj's...small price to pay for a fun night!

Dressing up!

Great Grandma Dorothy gave Grammy some scraps to "do crafts with." Since these weren't really craft scraps, the girls used them as dress ups instead. They had such a blast! Tori insisted that she was the queen and Lizzie was the princess and they were going to a wedding. Hmmm....such a girl!

So many sequins, so little time!

Do you love the clip on earrings? HUGE! So funny!

They couldn't leave Grammy out! She is such a good sport!

prizes

The girls have become very used to Grammy's "prizes". Grammy always has silly little surprises that she gets for them, and this trip was no exception. The girls had a blast with the balls, the goggles, the watering cans and the water guns (gotta love the dollar store)!

Ok, so this is just here because he is so stinking cute!