Happy Birthday Joy!

 We didn't get a lot of pictures of Joy's birthday parties (whoops), but on her actual birthday she had a pumpkin carving/caramel apple party with a couple of friends and her cousin Livi.  

 Pretty Birthday girl!

 Mark helped a lot with the carving. 

 Some caramel apples (we still haven't quite figured out how to do it right).

 And the finished pumpkins!

Two days later, she had a birthday party with the Rogers family.  It was a fun party with yummy cheesecake and presents.  I'm not sure how I didn't get any pictures of it. But Joy turned 9, and we're so grateful for her in our lives. She is kind, sweet, shy, joyful and an amazing artist!

August Pictures

Here are some pictures from August. We had a fun swimming party at Chrissy's with the cousins with pools and a big water slide.

 Cute Andy

 Adorable Daniel and Grace

 Handsome Mark

 Andy on the cool waterslide!

 Cousins!  We were missing the Llewellyns, but still a fun crew.

 Anniversary flowers!  We picked these out together at Costco during our Anniversary Date.  I thought it was funny that we made a Costco run on our Anniversary date, but it's fitting considering our stage of life.  It was still a great date.  I'm so grateful for 19 years with my sweet Mark!

Adorable Daniel loved the outside this summer!

 He loves to swing!

We sure love this ball of sunshine!

Harry Potter Party with Cousins!

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!

Grace turns 12!!!

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!

Happy Birthday Andy

In July, Andy turned 5 years old.

 That's one excited birthday boy!

 

 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.  

Girl's Camp

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's 1st Birthday!

 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. 

Love,

Aubrey