Audree turns 8 !!

Our sweet little girl just turned 8!!



She requested that I make 'ring' cupcakes-again. So I decided to change things up a bit and make them into cupcake cones. Yummy! I hadn't has these since I was a little girl. Oh, and since she has a super sweet tooth, just like her Mother, she helped me dip them in colored sprinkles after we frosted them.

Here's Audree getting ready to blow out her candles. We just had a simple little party at home since we would be having the baptism with all the family members later on in the week.

The following Sunday was the big day!! Grandma and Grandpa Evans even got to come, and Grandpa snapped this shot of Audree getting her hair done before leaving for the baptism:

All ready and patiently waiting . . .

Audree was baptized by her Dad. We are so proud of the decision she made to do this!

Kory and his 3 girls. They all seem so angelic now. Life is going to be interesting once they all hit their teens ;-)

Our family:

All in all it was a great baptism. We had all the family members that live in the area here-plus my parents. We are so grateful that they made the trip up to share Audree's special day with her.

Girls' bedroom make over . . .

We've been slowly re-doing the rooms in our house for the last 4 1/2 years.

Because Audree and Sophee were pretty young when we started the process, they never really expressed a desire for me to re-do their room (unlike Kaylee and Josh who nagged about it constantly until I finally dropped everything and did their rooms). So for the past year or two they've been bugging me about the fact that their room 'sucks', and everybody else's room looks good.

So a few months ago I had the girls pick a color that they both could agree on. Originally it was blue. Then Audree changed her mind and said that she wanted it to be green. So, I set out to find some bedding that had both blue and green. The cheapest thing I could find was about $60 a piece, and that didn't including shipping. I really didn't want to spend over $120 on bedding. So I waited. And waited. And the girls nagged, and nagged about how I promised we could fix up their room. Luckily, with it being 'back to school' time I was able to find some cheap twin bedding that had both of the specified colors.

Here are the before pics:
(I didn't bother picking anything up before taking these pics-just keeping it real for ya'.)

Here are the 'after' pics:

(Taken before the girls got home, just to make sure that it looked good and clean.)

That cute little tree is a sticker. When I showed the room to Kory he was so impressed with it-until I admitted that I didn't actually paint it myself.

I plan to paint some flowers on the grassy hills, but my SIL is supposed to help me do that, and she had some things come up at the last minute. So once that's done, I'll post more pics.

I made the curtains from a $3 bed sheet and a couple of spools of ribbon. They are just stapled to old pieces of wood I had laying around, and mounted with brackets.

The little shelves were once used to house some of my stamps. They used to have doors on the front, but a certain child of mine colored on the front of them with a permanant marker, and I couldn't get it off. So I just took the doors off-they would've just been in the way.

Something should probably go on that bare wall over the bed. But, Sophee likes to put her feet up on the wall at night when she's tossing and turning and trying to get to sleep, so I've decided to just leave it blank for now. I'm sure when the girls get older, and accumulate more stuff, we'll have to put up a few shelves.

I made these memo boards out of some material I've had laying around, and some ceiling tiles I grabbed from the tire store:

Hopefully I will actually finish up with the flowers soon. The beds also need a face lift-but that probably won't happen until we get new carpet and have to take them apart.

The girls are beyond thrilled with it-and that's good enough for me. For now.

Back to school

Well, since it's almost time for me to go back to school, I should probably post about the kids' first day back before all my homework causes me to be MIA.

For those of you fortunate enough to live in the blistering heat of AZ., you get to send your kids back to school at the beginning of August-Wahoo!!

So here they are-all ready to go on their first day.

Sophee & Audree: Sophee is now in 1st grade. At the end of the school year last year she asked me if she could be in her same teacher's class for 1st grade. She was a little disappointed when I told her that she couldn't, and that everyone gets a new teacher every time they move up a grade. Weeeeeellll, come to find out, her teacher ended up moving up a grade, and she get's to be in her class. Sophee was super excited. Especially since this teacher is soooo awesome with the kids.

Audree is a big 2nd grader now, and as I walked the girls to their classrooms the first day, she quickly bounded off to her class without the need of me :-(. Sophee, on the other hand, asked me if I could stay in her classroom with her all day.

Next, we have the ever cool Jr. High student, Kaylee:

Kaylee is in the 7th grade this year. She is super thrilled not to have PE on her schedule (for this quarter anyway). She is in advanced band, and honors language arts, and seems to be enjoying all of the 'socializing' she gets to do.

And last, but not least, Josh:

Josh started High School this year. I can't believe my baby boy is in High School. I'm getting old.

So far things seem to be going great for him. All the Special Education kids get to 'work' in the cafeteria to earn a free breakfast. Josh is thrilled with the idea that he now has 2 jobs-one at the High School, and one at the Tire Store. He is also thrilled to be able to take PE again-as they have an adapted class for the SP.ED. kids. Through out high school he will get the opportunity to learn more life skills-like cooking, doing laundry, etc. He keeps telling me and Kory, "I'm going to learn to cook dinner for you guys". Boy, that would be heaven!!

Anyway, there you have it. I will be starting my '3rd year as a Sophomore' (as Kory puts it) next week. In march I will put in my application for the Dental Hygiene program. Wish me luck!!

Happy Birthday Josh & Sophee!!

For those of you that know my family really well, you probably know why I'm posting about Josh's birthday this month-since his birthday is actually in July. Sophee's birthday on the other hand, was in March.

It was just made apparent to me, as I was scrolling back through my previous posts, that I forgot to put up anything about Sophee's birthday.

There goes my 'Mother of the Year' award. Well, enough wallowing about it, let's get on with the post.

My baby boy is now 15!! Sniff, sniff. Where has the time gone? I can remember the day he was born like it was yesterday, and today I just dropped off his registration for High School. I can't believe it. We had a low-key party (just how I like to keep birthday parties) with some cousins.

Josh opening presents. He's a huge fan of nerf guns and Toy Story.

Every year for his birthday Josh asks for cupcakes. Cool, that's easy enough for me. No fancy cake to decorate. We have recently added root beer floats to Josh's birthday menu too, since we took root beer floats down to the shop for his birthday last year-now he considers it a tradition.

That's kind of how he works. You do something one time, and Josh gets it in his head that that's how we have to do it all the time.

Make a wish!!

Happy Birthday Josh! We love you!

_______________________________________________

And on to Sophee. . .

I just have to say, that is the cutest hair cut on her.

Okay, here's my baby with her birthday cake.

Once again, we had a small party, with just family. That's how I roll. Here are some of the Burgess cousins:

Soaking up the moment of cake, ice cream, and presents. Boy, for a 6 year old, it doesn't get any better than this!!

Happy un-birthday to my baby!!

Family Reunion

Since my little sis, Ally, already posted about this family reunion on her blog, I figured I'd better step up and make sure I did a post too-just to make sure my cute kiddos were represented. Also, my Dad took over 500 pictures of the 3 day event, so we gotta' put these pics to good use. (He's the self proclaimed family historian, so 500 pics is nothing when your capturing memories :-)

In mid July we traveled down to my Mom's house in Southern AZ. When we left for the trip @ 5:30 in the evening, it was 123 degrees. The next day when we got to my Mom's it was barely 93. The following 2 days were only in the upper 80's. My kids were in heaven being able to play outside!! Here's Audree and her cousin Jarom:
And this is what my family does best, congregate in the kitchen and eat:

Sophee and Jessica:

This is Kory's favorite pastime whenever my family gets together:

Sophee was such a willing participant to be photographed:

The grand kids enjoying Grandma's homemade pizza:

(This is only about 1/2 the grand kids. There are 17 with another one on the way).

How many kids can you cram onto a teeter totter??

Good food, good times. And hey, Kory was even awake this time . . .

It was so cute how Josh 'teeter tottered' with Joel. He was super careful not to send Joel flying through the air-especially since he's got over 100 pounds on him.

What family get together would be complete without one of us girls getting their hair done?

Hey, we're a thrifty family. Plus, it gives us girls an excuse to hang out in the kitchen and just talk some more. Kory gets a little sick of just 'talking' all the time-hence the many naps.

My brother Stephen just got home from his mission a couple weeks before the reunion, it was so great to be able to see him again. He's still just as goofy as ever.

While the women were happy to just talk, make jewelry and bows, do crafts with the kids, and eat, the men had to do something with all of their testosterone. Enter the shooting range:

We also got to celebrate my Mom and Kory's birthday-which happens to be on the same day!!

Here's their cute cake:

Kory sharing the spotlight-a rare occurrence-with my Mom:

The fabulous Evans women (minus my cute SIL Candace):
Me, Erika, My Mom, My SIL Becky, Allison, and Emily-who is expecting her 1st baby-WAHOO!!

The funniest birthday gift of the night definitely had to be this book for Kory.

It's called "What's your Poo telling you". Thanks Becky, it was good for a bunch of laughs and anytime the kids have friends over they run and grab the book to 'show it off'.

All in all we had a great time. I can't think of anywhere else I would rather be than hanging out with my family-they are truly my greatest blessing and I love them sooooo much. Thanks guys for all the memories. Let's do it again next year. My house. I'll supply the food, housing, and entertainment-which will be in the form of sanding and refinishing kitchen cabinets-Wahoo!

Mark your calenders now!!

Boy was I surprised!!

Kory and I celebrated our 16th anniversary last Friday, and boy did he have some some serious surprises planned for me.

Thursday night he took me out to go clothes shopping (Yay!!). He had previously tried to buy me a new outfit-on his own-without much luck since I have 3 different sizes of clothing in my closet, he didn't know what size to buy. So, he figured he would just have to take me with him.
We dropped the kids off at his Mom's house (since Kaylee was at girls camp), and went shopping, then on to dinner. After dinner was over Kory started driving towards our house. When I told him that we still had to go pick up the kids, he said that his Mom was going to watch them for the night so that he could take me out to breakfast (before he had to go to work) on our anniversary. I didn't mind that one bit, and was excited to have a quiet evening to ourselves-plus, I loooove going out to eat breakfast, so I wasn't going to argue.

Friday morning we got up early (since he 'had to be to work' after breakfast) and got ready to go.
When I got out of the shower I noticed he wasn't wearing his work clothes, so I asked him why, and he said he was going to change into his work uniform after we ate. Ok. That was a little odd, but, whatever. I was getting breakfast, I didn't care what he was wearing.

As we drove to breakfast, we passed by Denny's, Big Bear, and IHOP. Hmmm. I guessed we must be going to eat at the casino's. Nope. Not that either. We started to head towards Vegas.
I was really confused. So I said, "We're going to Vegas?". And Kory said, "Yep." At that point I figured Kory had made some plans for us to spend the day in Vegas. Ok. I could handle that. I quite like shopping in Vegas. Buuuut, we soon passed the exit to the mall, and I began seeing signs to the airport. I finally figured out that we were going to go out of town but where?

Imagine my surprise when we get to the airport, get out of the car, and Kory not only pulls our suitcase out of the car, but our passports too!!!

We were going to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico!

So, by Friday afternoon, this is the view we were looking at from the balcony of our room.

The room, and the super soft bed. Notice the robes neatly folded on the bed?

The resort we were at was called "Dreams Resort", and it was all-inclusive. Not so good for my diet, but hey, it's not every day that your husband whisks you off to a fancy resort in Mexico for your anniversary.

That evening we went to the 'Mexican Fiesta'. They had tons of yummy food, this is just the dessert table . . .

The entertainment for the evening was a Mariachi band, mexican dancers, and a guy that made up bunch of different balloon hats for everyone. After finding out that we were there for our anniversary the guy makes us this hat, and calls it the 'hoochie coochie' hat:

When we got back to our room that night, this is what we found on our door:

Kory said he didn't ask them to do that. We did mention that it was our anniversary when we checked in though. I thought it was so sweet.

They also left us a little fruit basket and note welcoming us to the resort:

The next morning we took a little walk down the beach to go eat breakfast at their beach side restaurant. I love the wooden walk way:

Here we are, just waiting for our food:

Yes, that's a toaster on the table. They brought out a basket of breads, and you could make your own toast.

Here's Kory's breakfast. Poached eggs, I believe:

Here's my fruity waffles:

After breakfast we decided to take a cab and go back into town to do some shopping. We wanted to do that first, since it was pretty humid there. The temps where in the low 90's, but the humidity was super high.

Here's one of the shops along the ocean:

We came across these sands sculptures, and thought they were really neat. I believe the one on the left is Jesus and John the Baptist:

There was also some more 'abstract' sand sculptures. I couldn't tell you what these are supposed to be:

This is a church in the middle of town, it's very lush and green there. Then end of June, July and August are actually their rainy months, so we got sprinkled on a few times while we were there, but it wasn't bad at all-just humid.

While eating lunch that day we spotted this creature. I think it's an iguana:

Since we were at another one of the resort's outdoor restaurants for lunch, and it was kinda' hot, they brought us some wet cloth napkins that smelled like peppermint to wipe our faces with:

Kory ordered the fajitas:

And we both shared a slice of cheesecake for dessert:

We had a great time just lounging on the private beach:

Here's some pics of the sun setting:

Us hanging on the beach, waiting for the sunset:

Jelly fish in the sand. They looked like ice cubes. I was so afraid I was going to step on one:

The sunset:

It was a super great, super surprise trip! I have the best husband ever. Thanks babe!! I love you!