In other news

Well the first and most important news to report is...

CHRIS PASSES HIS PROPOSAL DEFENSE!!!

can I please hear a 

HALLELUJAH!!

Now let's be real for a second, was I worried? No. Not one bit. I mean come on the man is brilliant. Was he worried? Yes. Yes, Yes, YES! He greatly underestimates his abilities. His defense was on the 13th, his birthday was on the 12th. One of the biggest reasons I didn't do anything big or fun for his birthday was because I knew he wouldn't enjoy a second of it. In fact I am pretty sure he was mentally in a room in front of a board of professors presenting and defending the entire day of the 12th so birthday festivities would have been pointless. He was a ball of nerves Wednesday morning and counting down the seconds til 10:30 arrived. I think we both were, every two minutes I would check the clock and think about what he was doing at that moment. A lot of his nerves probably stemmed from the fact that the last 3 students in his department to do their proposal defense failed and had to start over.

At 12:02 I got a call from a very happy man. He had passed. More than passed.  The entire board had nothing but positive feedback and compliments. And so just like that we are on to the last final months of this PhD journey. Hang on folks, we just might make it through this.

Next on the news feed is our floods... yes floodS with an S.

  

It started about a month ago. One Sunday we walked downstairs and found very wet squishy carpet. After much searching and wall bashing and grass cutting the plumber determined the flood was due to an old sprinkler line that was left open and somehow turned itself on (cross talk between wires) and flooded the entire backyard during the night which then ran down into the foundation and flooded the basement.  We did a little sprinkler work and problem solved. So with that my entire basement was unloaded into my garage, the carpet was ripped up walls torn down and 4 weeks of repair painting and cleaning took place. This Saturday everything was suppose to be moved back downstairs and I was going to get my basement and my garage back. 

---

Yesterday I spent the day at my mom's house. When I got home late last night I smelled a familiar disgusting smell.... dirty flood water. I walked downstairs and sure enough same flood same area, problem  NOT solved. So I guess it might be another month before I get my garage and basement back. For now we will continue to park our cars in the driveway since the garage looks like this...

This make flood number 4 in 2 years.... I think we have reached our flood quota for a lifetime! :D

And that is the news for now.

Then, he turned 29

Chris's birthday was kind of boring this year. haha.  The very next day was his proposal defense (more on that later) so he spent the majority of the day at work. His birthday present was suppose to be the bikes we bought for the family earlier in the month so I didn't really have any fun surprises for him. The kids make it hard to go anywhere fun to eat dinner so I just made his favorite dinner (enchiladas). As I was brainstorming during the day what I could do I asked Kaden for some ideas. He said without hesitation "I want to give daddy a treasure hunt" so we did. Kaden made all the clues by himself. I have never seen such an excited little boy. He couldn't wait for daddy to get home. As soon as he walked in the door Kaden said "DAD WE HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU!" Then he handed him the first clue.

Chris was such a good sport. He played right along and searched extra hard for each clue before finding it.

One of the clues was a pan

The final clue was the car where there was a nice little hot pink "treasure" box waiting for him

Inside were a few little things for his bike, some squirt guns, his old watch that I had fixed and a bag of milky ways. 

For his cake I made mini cream filled lemon cup cakes... which are TO DIE FOR. Seriously, I have never had a better cupcake. Sweet tooth fairy ain't got nothing on these.

One cake mix makes 75 mini cupcakes... we had a lot to go around.

I had to get a picture of Kadens "clues" he drew for Chris. They were so cute. My favorie was number 3-the "TB" which was the T.V.  

1- Piano
2- Basketball hoop
3- TV
4- Computer
5- Bed ( he had a hard time with that one)
6- Tub
7.- Frig
8- Pan
9- Car

Happy Birthday Chris we all love you so much. You are the greatest husband and father a family could ever hope for!

Girls Weekend

The first weekend in June Chris was kind enough to send me away for a girls weekend with my sister Jenny. Maybe he did it for his sanity as well as mine, I think that I was running a little low on the sweet and patience meter. Either way it was a good time.

We started the night shopping at City Creek and then headed to Hale Center Theater to see the Sound of Music. It was a fabulous musical that we both thoroughly enjoyed. 

We spent the night in Salt Lake at the Pavilion Inn. They gave up complimentary tootsie rolls. :)

What is a hotel stay without a few jumping on the bed pictures?

The next morning we went and got massages from the massage school in Salt Lake. Our hotel clock was running 10 minutes behind so we were a little late for the massage but it all worked out. Our plan afterward was to go to a water park and spend the day. When we pulled up at cowabunga bay it was so windy that it blew my hat off so we opted to find a free pool somewhere. 

Jenny's friend in Provo suggested a free pool to us and we headed out. When we got to the pool I realized it was just a pool at some college apartments. I was a little hesitant to go but figured it would be fine for a few hours, then we saw a HUGE pool party sign with balloons and a bbq being set up. I REALLY didn't want to stay then, I felt so out of place and awkward. Jenny insisted it was fine, and that I didn't look like a 27 year old mom with three kids crashing in on a college pool party... hahah....yeah. I agreed to stay for a little while, but once the music started blaring and and the pool was swarming with 19 year olds I called it quits and we went to get a jamba juice.

 

After the pool fiasco we headed up to Aunt Bettys Cabin up Provo Canyon. Grandma Halladay, Aunt Betty, Mom, and Aunt Julie were all up there. It is so beautiful up there and we spent the next 2 days eating and hiking and eating and playing games and eating. :D

Monday on our way home we met Chris picked up the kids and headed to Cherry Hill for the day.

It was such a fun weekend and a great way to recharge my batteries. 

My ballerina

Can anyone tell me why blogger is washing out all of my pictures??? UGH. They look horrible on here.

Taycee Lynn had her first dance recital last night. She was adorable for the whole 2 minutes she was on the stage. She has only been in the class for about 5 weeks so she really had no idea what she was doing and mostly just followed the other girls but it was still darling. I mean come on what 3 year old in a ballerina costume isn't?

Here she is lining up outside the stage.

 Daddy got her flowers for afterwards. She kept saying "are these rosies all for me?" She was pretty excited.

Best Daddy Ever.

Here is the Taycee I know and love.... hahaha

My pretty pretty girl

I am sure there will be many many more of these in our future. ;)

My Bug is 5

He did it. Without asking permission or considering my feelings he grew up. Kaden turned 5 on the 30th of May. He woke up that morning shot his arms straight up in the air and said...WOAH I am so much bigger. He had been asking about his birthday since Christmas.I had promised him his first friend party this year and he wasn't letting me forget. It was a highly anticipated day around our house. In April I started brainstorming party ideas, the possibilities seemed endless and overwhelming. I  picked the five I thought would be most appealing to him and decided to let him choose. He X'd all of my ideas and said "I want to have a bug party." Guess I should have asked him to begin with. A bug party was the perfect idea considering the fact that I call Kaden "bug" way more often than I call him by his name :)

Ideas filled my head and I spent the next few weeks planning and purchasing. Many nights I stayed awake because I just couldn't stop thinking and planning. hah.... I got a bit carried away.

First the invites were made. A special shout out to Heather for the awesome design.

Decorations were put up

A snail cake was assembled. 

And 13 little guests arrived right on time 

We started the party by having all the kids crawl through a giant spider web I had made with yarn in the back yard. Once they made it through the spider web they got to put on a bug mask and they got a bug tattoo on their arm.

Then they each got to paint a wooden snake

Once the snakes were painted and all the little hands were mostly paint free we played pin the oreo on the lady bug. Each kid took an oreo and split it in half then they were blind folded and they had to try and stick their oreo on the missing spot. I think their might have been three kids who didn't peek through the bottom of the mask so most of them got the spot dead on. :)

Next we played "eat the ants" each kid got a plate filled with chocolate sprinkles "ants" they had to race to each the ants without using their hands.

They played for awhile on the swing set while I made our homemade puff paints. 

The kids each got to make a bug out of the puff paints on a square of cardboard. Once they were done we "cooked" them in the microwave til they were puffed up and hard. I didn't get any pictures of this part, I guess I was too busy cooking 13 bugs.

The main even of the party was the bug find in the green slime pool.

Each kid got a bug net (that lasted about 30 seconds) to dig through the slime and find bugs.

By the time we were done we had lots of slimy kids running around.

We ended with presents, cake and dirt cups.

The kids went home with a bug kit, a bug mask and their projects from the day. The party was a success, Kaden said thank you about a million times. 

Bug,

 I can't believe you are 5. I am so proud of the boy that you are. You have such a quick mind and tender heart. You are so eager to please and love to be my helper. You are a ray of sunshine in our home and your smile lights up a room. You love to learn and are so smart. You are already reading words and you can count to 39 although you always skip 15, 17 and 18. Your favorite past time right now is playing the wii. I have to limit your wii time or you would sit on the couch from sun up to sun down. Your favorite game to play is Zelda, actually you just like to watch your dad play Zelda. You ask him every night to play "Zelba" with you. A few weeks ago you were watching him play, you were so intent on everything he was doing and then you said emphatically, "Dad, you are the greatest man I know!" You are always saying funny things. A few nights ago there was only a sliver of the moon showing and you said to me, "Mom, I have to tell you something terrible" I asked what was wrong and you said "something crashed into the moon and broke it into a tiny piece." I asked what you thought we should do and you told me the moon would have to grow back. You said it didn't need seeds or anything it would just grow on it's own. We went to Cherry Hill yesterday and you went down a slide with daddy. When you were done you came back to sit by me and said "mom, I didn't like that slide, it made my heart go bump." I guess it must have scared you a little bit. Tonight Addi was in her high chair and was saying "bababababababa" you looked at dad and said "I think she really likes the letter B"

  Your favorite food is cheese and chicken nuggets although you also really like meatballs, enchiladas and fruit snacks. You love the book Monster at the end of this book you have the entire thing memorized and still ask me to read it to you every day. You like to sing songs, you make up songs all day long but get really embarrassed  if you catch me listening to you. You have to have a cup of water and ice every night before you can go to sleep. You are the size of an 8 year old haha at your kindergarten check up you weighed 53 lbs and you are 47 inches tall. You really want to reach the 4ft on your growth chart in your room and ask me almost daily if I will measure you again to see if you are there yet. One day you told me you needed to take more naps and eat more vegetables so you would be to the 4.

  We love you so much. I tell people I want to have a hundred more boys if they are all like you. You are my little buddy. Happy birthday bug, try to stay little for a bit longer okay?? 

Love you forever,

mommy.