Camry's Kitty Cat Party

Camry pretty much had the best 6 year old birthday ever. She was spoiled rotten pretty much all day, but I always say your birthday is only once a year so you gotta milk it for all it's worth! :)

Camry was lucky to have her birthday fall on Spring Break so we could have her party right on her birthday. The bad part was that there were a few friends that were out of town so they couldn't come to the party but it worked out just fine anyway. Honestly, there were plenty of kids there and I don't think I would have wanted anymore there anyway!

Actually, let me back track. The first picture that I took for Camry's birthday was on the friday before her birthday when I took in some brownies to her class. This is why Mrs. Cerutti is awesome! One of the girls brought in a toad from the nature area and she didn't even flinch! The kids were all crazy because they saw me with the brownies and then in comes the toad and she took it all in stride. A sign of an excellent Kindergarten teacher. I just love her and hope the rest of my kids can have her.

Camry and a few of her friend on the playground.

The night before her b-day, I was getting sort of emotional at the thought that this little baby could be turning SIX. That's crazy to me. So I snuck into her room and snapped a picture of her sleeping so I could freeze the last moments of her five year old life. Claira begs to sleep with Camry every night and Camry lets her most of the time without too much of a fuss. They are so sweet.

And while I was at it, I snapped a few of the other kids sleeping since they were all in the same room. Yes, Pacen has his own bed but once he's read his books and if Claira is up in Cam's bed he'll climb in Claira's bed. I love my sweet little sports boy snuggled in a bunch of pink sheets.

And then there is the sweet Gentry on top of her blankets and backwards.

Camry was super lucky that Than was able to stay home from work and so we opened presents right when she woke up.

I had to find a new place to hang my birthday banner because I didn't realize how huge it was in this house. And you can see some of our yarn kitty cat decorations hanging there too.

I love how excited my other kids get. Claira knows that whatever Camry gets she gets to play with too so it's a pretty exciting day. :) And poor Gentry just wanted exactly whatever Camry had opened and it was difficult to distract her. It's hard being the 18 month old!

Camry changed into Loren's dress as soon as she opened it. It was a hit!

Her 'real' makeup was also a favorite. But lets be honest, everything is a favorite at one point or anther. The moving, meowing toy cat has also been cried over a lot so that was also a favorite. Both favorites. :)

I wanted a picture with the birthday girl.....

And then it turned into a picture with two girls....

And then Claira wanted one with just me.....

And then Pacen wanted one.

And then I looked at them and went in to fix my hair. It was getting a little funky.

We were all ready for the party!!! We had ears (that camry made almost all by herself) and tails for everyone, and sweedish fish and goldfish for the kitties! It looked cute in there.

We also had the little yarn balls when you walked into the house hanging from the light, but I never got a picture of them. Than said I was being out of control. Kaylee would say that I was making it magical. I'll take magical any day!

When they got there, we painted a nose and whiskers on everyone. This picture makes me happy.

We played pin the nose on the cat. I have mad drawing skills, I know. You can hire me for all of your parties for a small fee. :) Camry and Claira colored it and it was done in 5 minutes. I'm all about getting it done quick!

All the kitty cats.

We had a few other games. Cats licking ice cream out of their cat bowls. Thank you dollar store for making this party possible. :)

A mouse hunt....

Aren't these cute mice?!?!? It's a good thing Cam's birthday is by easter.

A game of Cat and Mouse...

Than was the cat. Dads make everything a little more fun. He's a good sport, too, with the ears and whiskers.

And we played Cat, Cat, mouse and the cheep cheep game but instead it was called the meow meow game. You can make a cat came out of anything!

Time for cake! Every time I make a cake for my kids I wish Jana were here to make it for me but I think I did pretty good on this one! It's totally ghetto but Camry loved it!

Make a wish.....

Open some presents....

Hang with some friends.....

And pretty much have the best birthday party ever!

Happy Easter!

We had the best Easter today! Than and I were actually talking about how we haven't really made Easter a big deal in our house and we came up with a few reasons why. #1--BYU doesn't have Spring Break so we never went home to celebrate the Easter holiday with family. We would always spend our Easters with Kathy which was totally awesome, but we would never drive home to our parents house because we never had the time off. So our Easter tradition was dinner with Kathy and now we don't live next to her. :( But she did send the kids an easter package and they were super pumped about it. #2--Last year we spent Easter in Alabama for Loren's wedding so there were no Easter traditions done then. #3--The Easter before that was right around my mom's birthday and since it was the first one we had to celebrate without her so we were in Julian at my mom's house and that was just us surviving through another 'first' holiday without my mom so that was that. #4--I don't know...it just kind of sneaks up on us.

This year we didn't do anything monumental. I guess it's good that we don't go crazy over the easter bunny and we do try to teach the kids the reason why we have Easter in the first place. I did a little FHE on Monday about the resurrection and taught the kids the song "Did Jesus Really Live Again?" from the Primary songbook. We are definitely not the Von Trapp family singers but I kind of like it when we are all singing in our out of tune ways. And I love it when Claira tries to say big words like resurrected that sound like "wesuwected". And I really love it when they remember throughout the week what we did at FHE and talk about it. It makes me feel like my work is paying off! I often use www.ayearoffhe.blogspot.com because it is so fast and easy and we did their little activity and Claira was sooooo proud of it.

Today we just got ready for church in our super cute new Easter outfits that Emily helped me find while in SD. Aren't we cute?!?!?! This is the "hurry and get in a picture quick and then run in the car so we aren't late for church" picture. Not perfect, but we were on time for church! And that is impressive for us looking so cute and doing easter baskets before 9 o'clock church.

The only photographic evidence of easter baskets....or bowls in this case. The easter bunny was out of easter baskets at Target the night before Easter. That's how we roll. We are so prepared all the time. :)

Church was awesome. Camry had a matching dress with her friend in her class. Claira just thought she was a princess in her beautiful white dress and kept it so clean all day. She was so careful about everything in it. My sunbeam lesson went really well. It was probably because it was basically the FHE I did with my fam and so it was like I was doing it a second time. And my little three year old sunbeams are getting to be older and in the swing of primary and they just did awesome today. I love that.

After church, our neighbors invited us over for a little easter egg hunt.

It was Gentry's first Easter Egg hunt and she did a fabulous job. And the funny thing was that she would dump out her eggs and pick them up again....and then dump them out and put them back again. It never got old!

All the kiddos. You can tell I was into holding the camera crooked today. Seriously my kids are so cute! Pacen was actually being a punk about taking his picture in front of his friends so I kindly whispered into his ear that if he didn't take a good picture for me I would take away all of his candy. That's a good way to parent, right??? But hey! Look at that picture. He's a stud.

More searching....

She was so cute.

The little girls....

The two lone boys. Good thing they have each other.

After that, we had some friends of ours over that we know through Than's work. They just moved here and don't really have family in the area so we had dinner with them and their two kids and it was just fun and relaxing. Dinner was yummy....veggie tray, deviled eggs, cheese and crackers, ham, potatoes, asparagus, salad, rolls and Shellie Shultz's strawberry pie. I really need a double oven on days like today because everything took way too long to cook and my pie didn't set very well but it was still super yummy.

We have always been lucky that even though we don't live right next to family, we have good friends and neighbors that can fill that void for us. Our church grammy gave the kids all sorts of treats. The kids basically got Halloween 2.o and have enough candy to get them through until october. We got to enjoy our house and yard and the wonderful weather with friends and eat yummy food. We got to teach and learn and listen about Jesus Christ and the Resurrection that gives us hope and strengthens our faith. I think that is what Easter is supposed to be about and we loved every minute of it.

Happy 6, Cam!

Yesterday was Camry's SIXTH birthday!!!! We were partying too hardy for me to take a minute to post how wonderful she is, so here I go a day late.

Favorites:
Color: purple
Food: Hot Dogs
Book: Junie B. Jones
TV show: Doc McStuffins (that's a new one. we've been watching strawberry shortcake and my little ponies all year long!)
Number: 6 (I knew it!)
Toy to play with: Her new Furr Real kitty cat that really purrs and opens it's eyes and meows. It was the closest thing to a real cat that we could find!
Game: Disney Apples to Apples
Thing in School: Writer's Workshop
Primary Song: I love to see the Temple
Letter: C
Movie:
Favorite person in her family....her loving mother, of course! She just went on and on about how much she just loves me and wants to spend all of her time with me. Okay, she didn't say that but I'm sure she was thinking it. :)
Now the kids are watching a show so she's out of here. We had the greatest day yesterday. The night before her birthday she kept getting up out of bed to tell me that she couldn't sleep because she was too excited for her birthday. It was so cute....but not because I still had to wrap her presents and was waiting for her to REALLY be asleep. :) We decorated all night and got everything birthday ready and when she woke up and saw her banner and balloons and presents it was basically the best day ever. I have all the pics but I'm at Emily's and may not do it until I get home on Sunday. We had puff puff pancakes, opened presents, played with friends, had the party and then hopped in the car and headed off to Emily's to spend the rest of our spring break in the san diego sun. The party was awesome and the kids had so much fun. And Pacen was all about it and played with all the girls even thought it was a kitty cat party. He put on his cat ears and cat tail and painted his face just like everyone else. He's the best brother. Camry was all smiles all day. I guess except when either Claira and Gentry tried to take her new toys which was basically all day. :) I just love birthdays! I love them and I want my kids to feel special on them. They get one day a year for it to be all about them and I'm all about that. What else do I want to remember....I got camry a pair of shoes with a little heel and she felt like Miss Thang. She has been begging me for a real shoe with a heel and she loved it! And Loren got her a dress that she was obsessed with! It was perfect for her because she's all about dressed again.
I guess what I want to remember about Camry at age six is that she is just awesome. Like really, really awesome and she's someone that I I would want to hang out with. She's smart and she's a thinker and she's helpful (when she wants to be) and she's funny and she loves to sing.

Oh and the best song EVER is Life's a Happy Song from the Muppet Movie. Buy it now if you don't have it and dance around the living room with your kids because that's what we've been doing all week. It is the BEST!!!!!!! Camry and Claira will say, "Mom, put on your favorite song!" And we do and we do our best dance routines to it. And the great part about our downstairs is that at night you can see their reflection and so we can really work our dance moves.

And the other thing about Camry that I love is that everyone in our family gets along with her. Pacen loves to play with her everyday, Claira would be completely lost without her and lets her sleep in her bed every night even though she'd much rather sleep by herself, and she plays so well with Gentry and knows exactly what she needs even sometimes when I can't figure it out. So basically, I love Camry. I love love love her and I'm so glad that I can be her mom and hopefully not screw her up too badly. But I think we're doing good so far. :)

Mom's birthday post.

Today is my mom's birthday and I can only wish that her birthday can fall on General Conference weekend every year! I loved being swept up in the uplifting talks all weekend and looking at the positive perspective that the gospel of Jesus Christ can give us. She would have been 62 today. I still think of her everyday. Everyday without fail something will remind me of her. I think that is crazy. I still get emotional anytime I hear any cancer story and my heart goes out to anyone going through it and relatives going through it with them. My sister wrote on her facebook, "File this one under Cancer Sucks." And it does. I think I will always fantasize what it would be like if she were still here. Would we have driven down to Julian to celebrate her birthday since it's spring break this weekend? Would Erin still live there and would we be getting all the grandkids together and would she be making cookies with them and would we go out on the horses? I like to think that we would have.

But like I said, I'm so thankful that conference fell on her birthday weekend. I had her and life's plan on my mind the whole time and this is what sort of stuck out to me.

Elder Scott's talk on Saturday afternoon. This is more or less what he said. (I am no scribe!)

Imagine this is sort of quotes....it's not perfect but it's pretty close. I'll put it in italics so you know these are not my words but Elder Scott's.

I believe we move in the presense of heavenly messengers and of heavenly beings.. We are not separated from them. We are closely related to our kindred, to our ancestors who have proceded us into the spirit world. We cannot forget them. We do not cease to love them. We always hod them in our hearts and memory. we are associated and lifted by them by ties that we cannot break. If this is the case with us in our finite condition, surrounded by our mortal weaknesses, how much more certain it is that those who have gone beyound can see us better than we can see them? That they know us better than we know them. We live in their presence. They see us. The love us now more than ever. Their love for us must be greater than that which we feel for ourselves.

I believe that. I don't feel her like right there everyday hanging out at my kitchen table, but when I'm out with my kids and we're playing baseball or we're at the park or even in silent moments when I'm home by myself and it's late at night when Than is gone, I can sort of feel her, you know? Like she's giving me a big pat on the back saying, "You're doing it! And you're doing a good job." If she were really talking she'd say, "Who loves you baby!?!?!"

President Monson also gave some good consel on the topic of Why are we here? Where do we go after we die??? He says we know death is not the end. And we do know that and it definitely helps and it gives you peace even if you still miss all the day to day things. You can feel peace and sadness at the same time I think even if it doesn't make sense on paper.

This is what I found from his talk on lds.org:

He quoted from Alma 40:11-12, which explains that the “spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body … whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life,” and that the “spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow.”

Further, President Monson declared, “The answer to Job’s question, ‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ came when Mary and others approached the tomb and saw two men in shining garments who spoke to them: ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.’

“As the result of Christ’s victory over the grave, we shall all be resurrected. This is the redemption of the soul. Paul wrote: ‘There are … celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another’ (1 Corinthians 15:40).

“It is the celestial glory which we seek. It is in the presence of God we desire to dwell. It is a forever family in which we want membership. Such blessings are earned through a lifetime of striving, seeking, repenting, and finally succeeding.

“Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go after this life? No longer need these universal questions remain unanswered. From the very depths of my soul, and in all humility, I testify that those things of which I have spoken are true.”

I love conference weekend! I love listening and the feelings of, "Yeah, I need to be doing a little better on that." or even the, "You know, we are doing pretty good" feelings. But I guess most importantly the feelings of, "I do have Heavenly Father that loves me and has a plan just for me. I have a Savior that made the ultimate sacrifice for me and my family and I can recieve answers to all of my questions if I live worthily of the Holy Ghost and keep the commandmentsn and read the scriptures and pray." You feel all geared up for the next six months and I just love it. I really do love general conference. Keeping the kids listening is always a challenge. Or keeping them awake!!! This was them during the final session. :)

Plus, Scotty was here so that added an additional challenge for my kids to watch, but we loved having Walt, Becky, and Scotty here. That's why we live in California after all....to see family more often and we love it! They came yesterday and stayed until the afternoon and it was just fun. We introduced them to a new restaurant in which they were hesitant (surprise surprise) but ended up really liking it.

They gave Camry her first birthday present and she loved all the swim stuff. And who wants to give Gentry a kiss?!?! Love that snotty nose and hickey pacifier lip!

Overall, a very awesome weekend. I miss my mom still a lot and I love it anytime my kids mention her. Here's to her Happy 62nd! I'm having an extra bowl of ice cream tonight just for her! :)