Aaron's 6th Birthday

Aaron turned 6 on Thursday, May 19th so for his birthday he chose to have a party at Peter Piper Pizza. He invited neighborhood friends and school friends. They all had a great time. It's always an easy party when you can leave the mess behind!

Pizza time...

Present time...

Birthday Cake time...

This is actually cake #2...the first cake didn't want to come out of the pan and ended up in about 16 pieces. It became the after school snack for the boys. Pre-party cake is always delicious! So cake #2 stayed in the pan...I wasn't taking any chances!

When you get this for a birthday present...

You get this for children...

And the sidewalk is decorated...

And socks that look like this!

It is all washable and made for interesting baths. Nothing like turning the bath green as you wash off the colors!

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

Mother's Day 2011

Joe & the boys spoiled me for Mother's Day this year. This morning I woke up to a table filled with flowers and a working mom's survival kit, basket filled with many items including 3 different kinds of chocolate. The best part was after church Joe had special shirts for 2 of my boys to wear. They say "My mom is hot!" Tyler put one on just for the picture, but Aaron loves his and is still wearing it! Tyler made a cute tile container in Cub Scouts and brought it home from church today. I got to take a 2 hour nap and Jacob keeps asking what he can do for me...an all around great Mother's Day!
Aaron made this at school. He waited until after church today to finally give it to me.

Jared wanted a picture taken of him. I told him to smile, but his mouth was full of cereal and this is what we got! I love it!

Tyler Baseball Pictures

I finally remembered to bring my camera to one of Tyler's games. (Thanks to Tyler reminding me to put the camera in my car before work one morning!) Sadly I haven't made it to very many of the boys games this year. With school, work and 3 boys playing at 2 different fields it has been lucky that they have made it to all of their games at all. (Thanks to Grandma & Papa for helping shuttle boys and bring us an occasional dinner at the ball park!) We are hoping next year is a little easier! But we know this is our life as long as we have 3-4 boys that want to play ball!

1st Day jitters

Monday, April 25, 2011

Joe insisted I needed a 1st day on the job picture for posterity. So here I am the morning of my 1st day with the Mesa Police Department 911 Operator. I have been at it for 2 weeks now and can say I am loving it. Now I haven't started the official training yet and probably won't for another month, but I love going to work. The boys are doing great getting themselves off to school in the morning and have been very good for my afternoon nanny and greatest babysitter ever, Jessica. I'm so glad I took this work opportunity. Getting used to 10 hour days has been a challenge, but I know it was the best decision to do this.

Easter...Catching up

Saturday, April 23, 2011

This year the Primary was in charge of the Easter Party at church. Since I am in the Primary Presidency, I had the task of buying and filling all the Easter eggs. With the boys' help, we filled approximately 2700 eggs. We planned a potluck breakfast at the church with the Easter egg hunt following breakfast, out on the front lawn of the church house. It was a big success. The room was packed with plenty of seating for everyone. We had the food in the YW's room and we buffeted the line from the hall & then had the families eat in the cultural hall. The reason for this is that our building is very small, but our ward is quite large. Our goal was to get as many tables set up in the cultural hall as possible. We ended up being able to get 22 tables in the room and every seat was taken. Here are a few pictures taken that morning...Notice the cute centerpieces the other Primary counselor came up with. The cups were filled with Peeps and M&M's! Cheap and really cute! I love this picture of 3 of my 5 boys. Pictured from left to right, Tyler, Aaron & Joe
Aaron, Myself & Tyler

Out on the front lawn of the church. We had about 100 kids show up, which sounds like a lot, but was not even 1/2 of our Primary. We had the "big" kids on the big lawn and the 4 and under group up on the top and side lawns. It worked perfectly!

Jacob's take

Tyler only collected green eggs!

Aaron with a weird smile!

Jared

Hoppy Easter!!

Baseball/Softball Injury #2

Lucky me! I have the 2nd sports related injury for this season. This past Monday at Joe & my coed softball games and overzealous teammate (male) ran into me out in right field. I was watching and waiting for a high fly ball to come down and out of no where the right center fielder slammed into me. My left foot got the brunt of the injury, but I am sore on the entire right side of my body. Luckily my foot is not broken, but here it is 3 days later and still swollen. The bruising is just starting, I'm sure it will get much worse. In the meantime, my doctor has me wearing a boot to protect my foot.

Wednesday morning I was not wearing my boot while getting Jared dressed for school and learned the importance of wearing the boot. Jared was being silly and accidentally stepped on my foot. I cried out in such pain, all the boys immediately sprang into action. My boot was brought to me, an ice pack and many kind words. I don't think they have ever seen me is such pain. Needless to say, I keep my boot on whenever children are around.

Hopefully I'll only have to wear it for a week or so. No softball for a week also, bummer. If it's not feeling better within a week or so, I have to go get it re-x-ray'd to see if there is a minor fracture that didn't show on the first x-ray. It's beginning to feel better but still very tender.

Until then here is my new fashion accessory.

This picture is to show the swelling. My feet usually are veiny, like the right one. You can also see the bruising beginning just at the base of my toes. Pretty cool!

The top of my foot took most of the force, but you can see how the swelling goes to the side of my foot also.

My new protection!

Interestingly enough, they found on my x-ray that I have a bone island on my left heel. They say it's nothing to worry about, but could give me problems in the future. I had to google it to figure out what a bone island is and I still don't fully understand. But basically it's a birth defect in the bone and I never would have known it was there except for the needed x-ray. If I begin to have pain in my heels I'll need to see a foot doctor for treatment. Something to look forward to!

On another note, I start my new job with 911 this upcoming Monday! Had my last day of preschool today, it was bitter sweet.

Jacob Baseball Pictures

I finally made it to Jacob's Baseball game. He is playing kid pitch baseball. As you can tell by the pictures, he is really having a good time!
More pictures??? Come on, Mom!