::happy happy birthday, Chloe dear::

Chloe turned 6 (6!!) this weekend!

I still can't even believe I have a 6-year-old! It sounds so much older than 5 don't you think?

>>fRiEnDs PaRtY<<

We decided, since we're 6 and in school, and have lots of cute little friends, that we needed a friends party. I was a little nervous about it since it was our first one. Were the kids going to like it? Was it going to be fun? Were they going to think it was dumb? Was anybody going to come?

Well, all but one little girl came, and it was SO fun! It was a princess themed party (a shocker, I know), and all the little girls wore princess dresses. I have to say it was just dang cute.

We made princess clipboards with princess paper and some mod podge. The girls got some princess coloring book printouts and some crayons to take home with it. They turned out pretty cute.

Then they played a "put the princess in her window" (a variation of "pin the tail on the donkey") game and did a pinata in the garage.
They all loved those games.
They had so much fun with the pinata.
There was somethin' fun about watchin' such dainty princesses smack that pinata and then dive on the floor of the garage and fight over the candy.

Portie got in a few whacks too...

Then they did presents (she got a Snow White doll, a princess blanket, & a Littlest Pet Shop set). She loves ALL of her presents. The girls had cake and ice cream and played together for a bit until their moms took them home. It was such a fun party!! Chloe loved it!

>>FaMiLy DaY<<

Saturday was her actual birthday, so we took her out to eat. She loves Wingers, so we went there. I wanted to go to Cheesecake factory, but it wasn't my birthday ( :) )

>>FaMiLy PaRtY<<

We had our family party on Sunday afternoon after conference (actually the official time was after the Cowboys game)

Chloe wore her Snow White outfit which is also her Halloween costume this year, so Portie wanted to wear his cosutme too. He's Buzz.

Our house gets a little small with both sides of the family over at once, but we love it that way. It's fun for us and for the kids on their birthdays. We love all of our family, and it's fun to all get together.

She got a few presents

She got TONS of awesome presents! We love them all! We played late last night, and all afternoon today. We even called a best friend over today to help us play with all of these awesome toys! We are so grateful to have such wonderful, sweet, generous, thoughtful family who love her so much and know Chloe so well to get her such great things. She knows who each gift is from, and truly loves each one.

Thank you!

Then we had some cake...

After almost everyone left we gave her our little gift. It was a girly little Razor scooter.
She loves it! She rode it all around the kitchen last night and rode it over to Brianna's house to "pick her up" to come play today, and she took it up to Grandma & Papa's house tonight.
"And it can fold up and fit in the car!!"

It was a great birthday. She was telling me how much fun she had and how much she loves her birthday, and then she started telling me about what she wanted at her next birthday party...when she turns seven!!

::6 years ago today...::

...we met this little beauty...

...and our life has never been the same.

::happy fall, y'all::

This is what I saw out my kitchen window yesterday...

(snow SNOW! in the mountains (and these are just little mountains) on the 30th of September)

::just us girls::

We planned on a MammaChloeDay just to get a few errands run--nothing too special.

We started out at the hair salon.

She brought lots of stuff so she wouldn't get bored--cause it takes a while.

she did a pretty good job entertaining herself...

--talked to ALL the stylists--spun in most of the chairs--touched lots of the products--ate lots of their Hershey's Kisses--poured lots of her own water--looked at lots of artwork--looked at lots of jewelry--played with my phone--colored--read her books

Since we were already downtown, we made plans to stop by and visit Grandma and Papa and get a mini tour of the Smith Building.


then Billy and his boys met all of us here for lunch...


it's so good!!

Look at that food!! How 'bout that brownie?!!?

Then Billy suggested we all take a little walk around Temple Square

and we're so glad we did--what a great day for it! The weather was so warm and it was beautiful out!

We said a few times during the day how we missed Dadduh and the Bubbas, but we also said a bunch of times how it was fun being just the two of us. I remember walking into Tai Pan, Chloe said "Mom it's fun being 'just us girls'."

I couldn't agree more.

::a movie wiss dadduh::

No major plans tonight.

Just a popcorn & a movie.

...but how can you really enjoy a movie without a fort??

the fort construction...

the "pop co-ihm" preparation (and a little bit of the consumtion)...

Coopie was a little scared of the sound of the popcorn maker--can ya tell??

...the movie viewing, fort enjoying, and popco-ihm consumtion...

...all wiss dadduh.

::uh oh yard::

So, I was leaving the house this morning to go volunteer at Chloe's school, and when I was backing out of the driveway, I noticed there was water running out of our yard onto the sidewalk. I called Jennie (who was babysitting the little boys for me) and asked her to check the inside of the house and the outside faucet (where we hook up the hose) to make sure nothing weird was going on. She said nothing was wrong. I called Matt, and he called and had her check a few more things.

Long story short, we were scared it was our main water line into our house, and so we (actually our neighbor) shut off all water for about 3 hours (until Matt got home from golfing-haha).

the water...

the problem...

turns out, after they dug up a way bigger hole than they really needed to, it was just our main sprinkler line (whew!). It was a pretty easy fix (a clamp had just come loose).

the fix...

just a little tightening and adjusting and it was back together

now for puttin' the yard back together...

...hopefully it'll grow back together and we won't even notice ;)

BIIIIIG thanks to Matt's dad for helping, and to Susan for delaying the weekend getaway a bit to loan Richard to us :) And a big thanks to Jennie for babysitting this morning and checking on all the water stuff for us. Love you guys. Don't know what we'd do without ya :)

::snack friend::

Portie got to be snack friend at preschool yesterday...

...he took Buzz Lightyear fruit snacks & juice, and his "scary dinosaur" for show and tell.

Me: "Was it fun being snack friend?"

Port: "Yep"

Me: "What did you do?"

Port: "I helped da teachih, I was da line leadih, and dey wehen't scahed of my dinosau-eh"

::arrrrrr!::

This weekend we celebrated Grandma Kitty's birthday with lunch here...

it's a new restaurant with lots pirate stuff to see and games for kids (the food's a little eh, but it's a cool place).

It happened to be "National Talk Like A Pirate Day," so we all got free drinks if we threw out a "Shiver Me Timbers" once in a while.

They sang to her cause she was "the birthday girl" I'm not too sure about her, but the grandkids loved it!

She got some icecream from the pirates and a few little gifties from all of us.

After Matt and Kevin left for the BYU game, we headed over to the arcade inside the restaurant. The kids all LOVED it. They played some whack-a-shark, skee ball, shotgun shoot, need for speed, and some other ones.

After that, we headed over to Billy and Suzie's new apartment. They just moved into a duplex, and it's super nice. It's much bigger and their yard is BEAUTIFUL!! They'll have much more room for when baby Mia gets here.

So...the cousins loved playing together (as cousins often do :) ) and the grown-ups kind of just talked.

It was nice.

We're glad we were finally able to get together for her birthday (which was back in August!!)

::whoops::

Do you believe I accidently got them the same shirt?

I must've really liked it.

::peach days::

This weekend was Brigham City's Peach Days...

We raced the Peach Days 10K...

...Mom and I walked almost the entire race. We finished in about an hour and a half. It was our longest time, but because of her recent health scare and heart issue, we decided it was safest. It was fun anyways. We got to talk the entire time (which is hard to do when you're running) and we weren't SO tired at the end.

I love doing races with her. We started out running and only got a few feet when she said she had to walk. I was a bit surprised. I knew she wouldn't be able to run very much, but I was still surprised. This is my mom-to me the definition of strength, and here she "can't" do something. This experience was a first for me. She'll get better, and overcome this, but it was a new experience for me (and her too, I'm sure) nonetheless. She kept telling me to go and run and leave her to walk to race, and I said no, I'll walk if she walks. I wasn't going to leave her. We were going to do it together. Then she kept telling me she was sorry to be holding me back. She didn't know how precious the time was to me. We finished 3rd and 4th from last and I wouldn't have traded it for 1st and 2nd for the world.

Because we were so slow, Matt didn't get us finsishing up the race...

...so I reenacted it for him.

We went to the parade right after the race, but none of us are big parade people, so we left after about an hour (it's like a 2 1/2 hour parade!!).

Later in the day we went to the carnival...

...where we enjoyed dutch oven dinners, funnel cakes, carousel rides, fun houses, "dumbo" rides, truck rides.

We love Peach Days!