When the Bousquets were in town, we had a Harry Potter Birthday party. It was so fun to share our love of Harry Potter with some of our favorite people!
Cute Caleb!
Pretty Joy!
Grandpa and Grandma getting in on the fun!
Pretty Hannah and Pretty Chrissy!
And the fabulous Baker Bunch! Ben is such a great Draco!
I got a new shirt for the occasion!
Harry Potter (Aiden) even came to help us celebrate!
And adorable princess Leeya!
Team Slytherin in the house! (Eva and Xander)
We even managed to fit everyone in our family room to watch Harry Potter. If you look close you can see lots of flying keys hanging from the ceiling
And of course, floating candles in the dining room!
These sweet younger kids (Leeya and Griffin, (and Andy, not pictured) ended up playing and watching Octonauts in the living room. So cute!
It was a great party! We'll have to do it again someday!
On July 25th, Grace turned 12! She had a party with the Rogers and then she had a fun party with lots of her cousins at Grandma's house. She so lucky that the Bousquets are usually in town on her birthday.
Such a pretty young lady!
Cousin party!
Grace is now in 7th grade, doing great in online school. She is also doing two different Cantus choirs (normal and audition) and she is doing voice lessons. She's a really great helper with Daniel, I don't know what I'd do without her. She's so good with kids, and she's such a great girl in general. We love our wonderful Grace!
He wanted a rocket cake again this year, but purple and with a Rocket Scientist. Grace printed out a rocket scientist for his cake and Mark laminated it. Very cute.
We love this sweet, fun boy! He loves to build things with duplos, build car tracks, watch Octonauts and play Minecraft. He started Kindergarten in August, and after a bit of a rough transition, he's loving it.
In June, the girls went to girls camp (BethAnne went from Tuesday evening to Wednesday night). Grace wasn't even quite 12 yet (she turned 12 in July) so it was a treat for her to go for the first time.
Grace on a hike
BethAnne and Mark drove up the second evening and met the girls at a restaurant in Cascade for dinner. Grace got sick that night, so maybe the food didn't agree with her. But she felt better in the morning.
They had a color run at camp. Lots of messy fun!
I love this picture of Grace. They had an activity where they were blindfolded and had to hold onto a rope and follow instructions to get to the picture of the Savior.
Pretty, tired BethAnne
Mark stayed up at camp as one of the Priesthood leaders the whole time BethAnne was at camp and I was on my own at home with the little ones.
And then we got our Grace back after 4 days away and I'm not sure who was happier, me or Daniel. She's my right hand man and we missed her!
Daniel was able to celebrate his first birthday a few times. It started with a Baker family party the first Sunday in May, where we celebrated the May birthdays. He and Hannah got some little cakes to smash to celebrate. Here's Daniel's cake, I had fun decorating it.
But Daniel wouldn't touch his cake, like at all. He seemed to go to great lengths to avoid even touching his cake. It was very cute.
Hannah figured it out pretty quickly though and got right to smashing. Daniel did end up with a little frosting on his arm at the end.
On Daniel's actual birthday, Sam and Livi were baptized so he got to dress up all fancy. I love his little bow tie.
I like this picture of me that my Mom took later at the lunch after the baptism.
The next day was Mother's Day. Mark and the kids spoiled me with cards and presents, it was so sweet. It was also 6 years to the day since we lost Cecily. That was also a Mother's Day. Mark and I took some flowers from our garden to visit her and Mary's graves.
Then that evening we had a party with the Rogers and Grandma and Grandpa to celebrate Daniel's birthday again.
Aunt Tena made an adorable stuffed robot for him.
He doesn't look too enthused by this cake either (which was a brownie) but later after Mark broke it up in little pieces, he loved it! We're so grateful for this sweet baby boy in our lives. He is about 34 pounds and super tall. He's giving us strong muscles! He's happy most of the time and we sure love him!
So now I'm caught up on my blog posts for now. If you haven't read for awhile, you'll have to click on "Older Posts" at the bottom of the blog page to get caught up with all our recent posts.
Time goes by so fast. Here are some pictures I've taken this spring.
I thought this sunset a couple months ago was breathtaking.
Mark fixed our swing set, and the kids have been having a great time, and now it will last for a long time too.
A couple months ago, BethAnne made a homemade projector that projects images and movies from her phone onto the wall. It reminded me so much of Mark (on our 2nd date we watched a movie on the TV he made from spare computer parts). Like father, like daughter...so smart!
One day I found these boys together playing with wooden toys. They played together for a long time, it was so cute.
On April 27th, BethAnne and Grace had their Spring Cantus Choir Concert. It was amazing! I was so impressed with the quality of the choir and I was thoroughly entertained by it.
Grace had a big solo at the concert, below is the link (I wish I had a better video of it). She did such a great job and it was an honor that she was so singled out.
BethAnne went to her first Stake dance in April, it was Outer Space themed and so she made a Star Trek insignia. She had a good time with a friend in the ward.
I love this picture of Grace and Daniel. She's my right-hand-man, the 2nd mommy around here. She does a great job helping with Daniel and Andy, she's a great babysitter!
Here's Andy's Preschool picture. I thought it was so cute. He's grown up so much this year. He's very interested in rockets and he loves ChuckerCheddarCheese (Chuck E Cheese).
Speaking of ChuckerCheddarCheese, here's a couple pictures of Andy and Daniel on some rides. It was Daniel's first time riding rides.
And finally, here are some pictures of Daniel I took a couple weeks ago. He is so tall now. He can reach all sorts of things a 1-year-old shouldn't be able to reach, like the stove-top. So we have to be pretty vigilant. He also loves to stick random things in his mouth and just chew on them.
I love his little dimple on his left cheek.
The next post will cover his 1st birthday. And then I'll be caught up for awhile!
