Happy Birthday Tyler!!

This little boy turned 5 on Feb. 17th.

And no photo-shoot of him would be complete without some spiderman poses. :)


We've decided to do birthday parties every other year for the kids, and just do smaller family parties on the year that they're not having a big party. I was a little nervous telling Tyler he wasn't going to have a party this year, since he's had one the past two years, but he didn't mind at all! He was just concerned he wouldn't get to have Ironman be apart of his big day and wouldn't get any presents, but once we assured him that wasn't the case he didn't care a bit that it wasn't going to be a big shebang.

I just did a simple set-up on the table with some balloons, cake and his presents for him to see when he woke up. There were also some balloons and streamers I snuck in his room the night before to put up as well-which he came running into my room at 6:30 in the morning to tell me, "MOM! It must be my birthday because there's balloons EVERYwhere!" ha ha-and then I made him go back to bed.

About an hour later I heard him and Kylee whispering in the kitchen and I walked out to see them just sitting here in the dark starring at everything on the table, telling each other all the different things they saw. ha ha!




So even though he wasn't having a party he still wanted "an Ironman birthday", so I picked up this cake (a set of 12 cupcakes frosted together) from Walmart and I swear to you I will never bake my own cake for a birthday again. For less than $8 I got this fun little cake with a spinning/light-up Ironman that Tyler got to keep and it was the thing he talked about all day!


He also had pre-school that day, so I picked up some cupcakes for him to take to school and share with his friends. He's recently become obsessed with Captain America (Bobby's showed him some clips from the movie)...


...and I knew he would LOVE these superhero cupcakes with the cool rings on top that all his friends would get to keep.


After we dragged Bobby out of bed, we lit up 5 little candles and sang him happy birthday! He thought it was THE. coolest. thing. EVER that when the candles lit up, it looked like fire coming out of Ironman's feet as he was flying!




After a nice, healthy cupcake breakfast he got to open his presents.




I don't know what it is, but Kylee loves to wear Tyler's old jammies-especially his toy story ones!


This is the first birthday that I've had a really hard time with. I've just loved watching him grow up, and learn, and discover life, and become his own person but there's something about him being 5 that terrifies me. I think most of the reason is because it means that he'll being starting school in 6 months. And starting school means that I won't be the one that's there for all those moments of learning and growing and discovery. It means that he's really starting his life as his own little person-picking out what he wants to wear, who his friends will be, what his interests are, what he believes in. It means that fairly soon, I will no longer be the center of his world. And...it just makes me feel old. Like really old. I have a 5 year old. What?!?! I still have memories from when I was five.

Just looking at this picture makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.He was SO worried that those darn balloons were going to blow away so he was holding onto them for dear life and kept saying, "mom, I just CAN'T let go! Make sure they don't blow away ok mom?!" And then I look at that sweet face and I just see everything that he is: happy, playful, determined, excited about life, kind, sensitive, and completely everything I've ever wanted in my life.


After daddy was done with school for the day, we headed over to the Fun Park and had fun playing all sorts of arcade games-where Tyler beat Kylee at air hockey, and then I CREAMED Bobby-9 to 1...booyah!


Look at that look of determination...ha ha!


I promised he played lots more than just gun games... :)


They also ran around together in the little soft play area for an hour-I need to come here during the winter more often!


After we scored hundreds of tickets, we "purchased" all sorts of crazy knick-knacks from their ticket shop-that have mostly by now been thrown away-and headed to Tyler's choice of Firehouse Pizza for dinner (he also chose this last year!). It was a friday night and the food took forevvvvver to come out, but the kids were so good about coloring and keeping themselves busy.


Daddy and Tyler being weird.


Mommy and Kylee being...well, Ky's being pouty because she was HUNGRY and just wanted some food!


About 15 min. after we got home, Amanda knocked on our door! She came up from Provo to stay the weekend with us (since it was a 3 day weekend) to surprise Tyler for his birthday and he just fled into her arms and would not let go of her! He told me that BY FAR, it was the best part of his birthday! It was so fun to have her here with us for a couple days and she helped him build legos, play with his new Ironman toy from Grandma, play games and be his teacher in primary (I happened to be subbing in his class that day so Amanda came with me).

Sat. night Amanda and I escaped away for a nice girls night! We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and shared some Ribs (sooooo good! I'm salivating just thinking about them!).


Then we went and saw The Vow, which we both loved! I'm so happy I had her to go see it with me, as Bobby refuses to watch movies with actors that have 2 first names. :) (and seriously...if I woke up from being knocked out, and Channing Tatum told me he was my husband I would not question that!!)


He's pretty excited to be 5.


Happy Birthday little man. I love you.

Valentines Day

We had the BEST valentines this year! We kicked our celebrations off the weekend before Valentines with a 'couples only' party-best. thing. EVER! My friend Tess and I decided we needed a night out and thought since it was valentines it would be okay if our husbands tagged along...and then we decided it should just be a party! I took care of the decorating and she took care of the games and we both helped with the food. We opted not to have it be a dinner party because we wanted to do it later at night, so we mainly just did appetizer type things and dessert.


I know the big ol' crockpot in the back sorta throws off the pretty red and pink vibe, but it housed bacon wrapped smokies so all was forgiven. :)


We invited 6 couples which was just the perfect amount of people to have it be fun and loud and crazy, but intimate enough that we could play games and really enjoy each others company.


And of course, what Valentine party would be complete without a little '7 minutes in heaven'???? And yep, you know that was my idea!


We made it totally old school, with a backdrop for pictures and everything for all the dates to get a shot in front of (including having a professional cameraman take our pictures-Tess's dad :) This picture is just from my camera tho cause we don't have ours back yet.) We also took a group shot in the form of a 3 level pyramid. Awesome. I am DYING to see it as we had 2 pregnant women on board!! ha ha!


After talking and eating we played The Newlywed Game and Tess's mom was our host. Funniest thing EVER!!! My cheeks hurt so bad from laughing so hard. We are SO lucky to have such great friends as neighbors, this was such a blast! In this picture, the couple on the left, Kayla is trying to explain why she answered a question a certain way and Caleb is shaking his head in disbelief...we saw this a lot. ha ha!


These two in the back were crying they were laughing so hard.



*And just in case you're wondering...Bobby and I totally lost. We got a total of 2 questions right.
1. Within 3, how many pairs of shoes does your wife own?
-I said 15, he guessed 12.
2. What is the first thing your husband will say he noticed about you the first time he met you?
-Let's just say...he got this right. such a man.

Moving on...

The next game we played was pictionary and we played boys against girls, and they CREAMED us!


Bobby was on FIRE, guessing almost every single one of the guys pictures within seconds of them drawing it on their board. I mean he actually guessed 'Kentucky Blue Grass' with a squiggle of grass drawn in 10 seconds and was right! Who is this man I married?! And where was he during the Newlywed game when he was on my team?!?!

Seriously one of the top 10 best nights I've ever had! Maybe I need to get out more. :)

On Valentines day, the littles woke up to a little Cupid mischief! Rose petals everywhere, treats, love notes, pink milk and a fun breakfast! (the little birdhouses on the table I made for them earlier this month and we've used them to slip love notes in every morning...you can read more about them here.) The roses on the table were given to Kylee and I from our boys the day before because the Bobs was afraid they might die in the car overnight before we got them. :) The red one is mine from Bobby, and the yellow one is for Kylee from Tyler. I'm not typically a flower type girl (well I LOVE flowers, I'd just rather spend the $ on something else) but I just love our tradition of one simple rose.


Cupid's arrow from heart shaped pancakes with sprinkles and cut up bananas.


This particular morning, I left the love notes in their 'love shacks' and Bobby wanted to leave them a note also so he left them on their plates...

In case you can't read it, it says...
"Tyler, I {love} you because you are becoming my little man. You are getting so tough someday soon you will be able to beat daddy. {love} dad."
*complete with drawings of a knife, a rocket-ship and a gun. SERIOUSLY!! I about died. Do you want him to "beat" you or kill you?

Thankfully Kylee's was slightly less dramatic...

In case you can't read it, it says...
"Kylee, I love you because you are sweet and loving when I need you, and tough and crazy when Tyler needs a whooping. {love} dad."

During breakfast Tyler's pre-school teacher called to say she had to cancel school that day because her kids were sick. Tyler was seriously bummed because they were supposed to be having a valentines day party-which they made up yesterday-but when you're that excited about something it's hard to wait!! So I let him play a little game on my phone to cheer him up.

Yep, Angry Birds. He is obsessed and flies through the levels. I don't even know how the game is played. Silly boy.

Later that day, the kids helped me make these cute Valentine Chocolate dipped Oreos for some neighbor gifts. I got the idea from Lolly Jane-and I love how they turned out! And they are soooo yummy!


I boxed them up in little treat boxes (I got them from JoAnns), tied a bow on and added the tag (free printable from Lolly Jane.) -easy peasy!


That night we did our traditional homemade heart pizzas! I looove cooking with the kids and watching them get their hands dirty and having fun-Bobby was going crazy! He kept saying, "but they're getting flour everywhere Angela!" ha ha. I guess it just has something to do with me being with them all day and watching them constantly getting dirty with something!

They just used a cookie cuter to shape their pizzas.


They have pretty simple taste when it comes to pizza. Sauce and cheese for Tyler. Sauce, cheese and pepperoni's for Kylee.




So cute!


The front of her shirt was absolutely covered in flour, but I have no idea how so much ended up on the back of her!


They were happy with how their pizzas turned out!




And we polished off our pizzas with some mini cupcakes! Yum!


As the kids were heading off to brush their teeth, we heard a knock at the door and found a note from Cupid sending them on a scavenger hunt to find their present from him! Absolutely the best part of the ENTIRE day! We just did the same scavenger hunt as last year so you can find it here if you're interested, but they loved it just as much as they did last year and it was a perfect way to end the day!

I hope your Valentines was everything you hoped it would be too! (To read a little more about some of the things we did for Valentines this month check it out here)