a pink tutu and cupcakes.

Birthday cake monster!
We celebrated Mataya's 1st birthday. We had a fun party at the park complete with games, bubbles, food, cupcakes, and great company.
The party girl in her pink tutu. Yummy cupcakes....brought to you by Betty Crocker. That lady knows what she's doing in the baking department.
Perfect weather! Mataya just crawled around as happy as ever. She had a doctor appointment the day before where she had her heel pricked and 5 shots! But she didn't act any different than usual, just a mellow, sweet little girl. Lexi came and found a comfortable spot at the table with some fruit and dip:) Parker and Madison blowing bubbles for Mataya. This cake was so much grander in my head. But my day consisted of swim lessons, birthday shopping, visiting teaching, present wrapping, cake baking, and keeping my head from exploding! And I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was set apart as a Relief Society Instructor on Sunday. So this is the cake. Parker attempted to hold it on his lap on the way to the park, but Mataya reached over and grabbed the cake right above the flower on the left......So I want Mataya to know the appearance of this cake in no way reflects my love and adoration for her!
No trip to the park with cousins would be complete without Parker being buried in the sand up to his neck. And him screaming, "Mom, come take my picture!"Mataya had a very serious look on her face when we were singing "Happy Birthday" to her. I personally think she had her game face on and she was gearing up for a cake throw down.
She was double-fisting it! She couldn't take bites fast enough. We got all the kids to pick a present and open it for Mataya. It worked out great:)

4 year old's are funny.

While waiting at Pizza Hut for our pizza I let the boys buy some Mike and Ikes from a quarter candy machine. (I know, great parenting letting my kids eat candy right before dinner!) I gave them one quarter and told them to split the candy....they each got six. And as you can see from the picture those last two orange candies made a detour before being eaten.

I really enjoy hearing Spencer say, "Mom, watch this....grab your phone so you can take my picture!"

red velvet cupcake.

My day started out like any other. I got up at 4:45...went to the gym and did Body Pump and some running, came home got ready, drank a diet rock star, got the kids ready and headed to swimming lessons at 9:30. (Okay, who am I kidding my days don't normally start out that way?!)

As Mataya and I were hanging out watching the boys swim I remember a coupon I had in my purse for Sweet Cake's. It was a buy one get one free cookie coupon. I knew the boys would love a giant delicious cookie (who wouldn't?)!

We pull up at 10:45....they open at 11....we waited a bit. We could see in the window as they were setting up sweet breads, cupcakes, and cookies and finally that moment arrived when they unlocked the door. My boys practically busted the door down because they wanted to in Parker's words "the first customer of the day!"

I decided to take a red velvet cupcake to my sister who lives close by. She loves these cupcakes and so do I! It was her day off so it worked out great. We had a fun time playing, swimming, and chatting.

So that is the picture above of the infamous red velvet cupcake that they make. It is TO DIE FOR! They are so delicious I can't put it into words and I ate it with a fork because I couldn't take a bite with that mountain of yummy frosting. I could dedicate an entire blog post about the frosting, but I won't. Just know that they are heavenly! And everything they make is gluten free.

Check them out....you won't be sorry!

living planet aquarium.

After leaving the Homestead on Memorial Day we went to Salt Lake to go to the Living Planet Aquarium. We've never been and we knew the kids would love it.
We were clearly very excited about the big frog. The sting rays....Cory was the only one who was brave enough to pet them:) You can't really see his face, but Parker was very excited. He LOVES sharks! We got to see a lot of cool stuff like snakes, alligators, a huge lobster, a scorpion, tarantula, penguins (we even got to see them feed the penguins), and lots of cool fish. Mataya wasn't exactly 100% that day, but she's a little trooper!

happy birthday angel girl.

Happy Birthday Mataya Mae!

This beautiful girl joined our family 1 year ago. I didn't think life could get much better with my two cute, rowdy boys...then she came along and my world felt bigger and brighter. Leading up to the days before she was born I was miserable, of course, and I would go to her room and open her closet door and look in at all the tiny pink and purple clothes and longed for the moment when she would join our family and I could dress, feed, bathe, and hold her and she could sleep in her crib and be all ours.

June 4, 2009......our little girl arrived. Soon after she was born I held her as she looked all around with big blue eyes and I never knew anything more beautiful than this perfect gift straight from heaven. And knowing that she was of MY daughter....almost made my heart burst!

Thanks for joining our family! We love you beautiful girl!

the homestead.

We rented a room that had seperate room with bunk beds in it. The boys loved it. They were very excited about their new life jackets and were getting ready to go swimming.

We made it to the pool. The boys were loving the life jackets and so were we:)

We went to the activity center to check out a game to play. I really wanted to play Mouse Trap. Cory never played it as a kid and I knew the boys would love it. So we got all set and it was game on! I was the first one out and then Cory and Parker got a little competitive and Spencer eventually lost interest, but we all had fun!

The next morning we woke up and got ready and went into town and got some breakfast and went to a park and ate and played. We all slept until 9....so I guess it was technically brunch at this point.

And back to the pool for one more swim. This time they swam outside since it was a really nice day. The water was a little cold, but they didn't seem to mind much.

Mataya stayed on the side with Mom and Dad. It was a little bright outside:)

Then we got the boys dressed then we were off to one more fun place...I'll post about that later;)

our fun weekend.

After church Sunday we decided to surprise the boys and go out of town. We didn't go far, we headed up to the Homestead in Midway. We've never spent the night there and always wanted to. My parents go there a lot and they love it. Plus we wanted to take advantage of the long weekend and do something fun.We walked all around and explored and played. Mataya had a few french fries with dinner and she managed to get one stuck under her chin and she didn't realize it. The weather was perfect and we ate dinner outside by a little pond. There were fish and some ducks in the water and then we saw a snake. The boys loved it! The snake kept swimming back in forth in the water.