Grandpa's 70th extravaganza

lots of this....

Tons of this...

even some of this....

and plenty of random fun like this....

We all met together in Vegas to celebrate Grandpa Young's 70th birthday.  Jessica was also the birthday girl (happy 23!)

but instead of relaxing like a birthday girl should, she was the one who was behind all the party planning, and everything turned out great.  Of course all that the kids wanted to do was run around Grandpa's house like wild banshees (which they did). We also had a pizza party (good idea), ventured on to the strip (bad idea)

while the girls went swimming (good idea).  For the actual party we had a barbeque, a "toast" where each family got a chance to share some thoughts about Grandpa,

then played "pin the hair on grandpa"

and had cake and ice-cream (where the kids argued over who got to eat grandpa's eyeballs).

I always take a few (okay more like 50) too many pictures at family functions, but I love seeing the cousins playing together and want to capture every minute (which I literally did).  It was such a fun weekend and a great excuse to celebrate a wonderful man, happy birthday Grandpa, we love you !

"Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars..."

".....I could really use a wish right now, wish right now". Your welcome for getting that song stuck in your head. It was stuck in mine all day.

 

 
I'm fighting a losing battle with the wii when it comes to competing for Jayden's time.  Not only is that all he wants to do, but then he's mad at me when his daily time limit is up and he's not in the mood to do "girly" crafts with us. I finally piqued his curiosity with paper airplanes.  We searched on-line and found some different models and this was his favorite.

Moo

I'll admit it. Maddox gets neglected. Since school has started he spends the majority of his days parked in front of the TV, playing cars and trains by himself or being dragged around on errands. He's such an easy going kid, which also makes it easy for me to ignore him. I decided I need to make a conscious effort to enjoy the one on one time with him, and that's why I've taken him on two (yes count it, uno, dos) outings in the past month. So sad. This was our second big outing to Superstition farms and I had so much fun with my little man. I love that all it takes is a few animals to feed,

 a little hay ride around the cow farm

and some of the best homemade ice cream to get him excited (the ice cream got me excited too).

When we got there he clung tight to me so that the animals wouldn't eat him.  Finally he atleast got on the ground and would feed the chickens,

 and before long he was brushing all the animals (the chickens didn't like that too much),

chasing Toby the farm dog around and pretending he was a dog (with cow poop on his shoe that he brought home as a souvenier),

and trying to feed the animals goat poop that he had found on the ground. lovely. How cute is this little 2 day old calf??
I loved spending the morning in his little world.  I really need to do that more often.

(Farmer Jason took this picture and emailed it to me. Apparently Farmers now day carry iphones and have facebook pages for their dogs)

P is for....

Even though summer is over, the kids haven't wanted to put an end to the "summer of fun" (ha, I flatter myself. Okay, I should say Kylie has still wanted to do crafts, Jayden would much rather play the wii or legos, surprise).  We've still been fitting in a few crafts between homework and friends and here are the latest:

Playdough- Koolaid Playdough: 1 C flour, 1/4 C salt, 2 Tbs cream of tarter, 1 Tbs veg. oil, 1 pkg koolaid mixed with 1 C water, glitter (optional- you can also add extra food coloring if you want)- cook all ingredients over med heat until ball forms, remove from heat and knead dough on floured surface until no longer sticky, store in airtight container- this is the best homemade playdough recipe I've found, it stays soft for a really long time.

Pretzels- once again, ode to the Rhoades dough! (dipped in powder sugar/milk frosting.mmmm.)

Puppet show- you can get kits at the store, but my kids (or should I say, Kylie and her friend) spent hours creating their own puppets, scenery and writing up the play (too bad it took so long that her friend had to go home before they could perform it and then Kylie was mad at me for all of eternity, or atleast until the next day when I bribed her with an otter pop to let me take her picture.)

Perry Pool- according to my kids the Basha pool is way more cooler and the life guards are way more nicer. Apparently they're little pool snobs, but they still had fun with their friends.

Puzzles- my kids love puzzles and I love that you can get them anywhere for cheap (I got this United States one at Wal-mart for $2, but the dollar store has plenty also).  I also love that the little chubby fingers could help too.

(the more he concentrated, the bigger the puddle of drool was under his chair)

Peter Pipers Pizza- enough said.

Picture scavanger hunt- The kids love this (even Jayden). I give them a camera and a list of things to take pictures of (like "something shiney", "something pokey", "something really old", "something stinky", etc.).  They had all their friends running around the house taking pictures then I would guess what they were.  It was fun to see what they came up with.

Paint- corn syrup paint, it's so cool! A little messy for the little monkey and it takes a while to dry, but it turns out really cool.  Just mix a couple of drops of food coloring in a couple of tablespoons of cornsyrup.  Draw the picture out first with a crayon (the site recommends glossy craft paper, but regular paper worked just fine)