Briannes turns Eight!!!!

I can't believe I have another girl old enough to get baptized. Brianne turned 8 this December, we had a fun friends birthday party for her a few days before her birthday. She wanted to go to a place called Jump on it for her party. So I let her invite a few of her friends and we all had fun jumping in a room full of trampolines.

For her birthday party I decided to make a doughnut cake. My girls love doughnuts and I hardly ever buy them so it's always a fun treat. Here she is ready to blow out her candles:

Here is the whole group of friends ready to go to Jump on it and have some fun:

Here is Brianne opening her prestents:

We were in Idaho on her Birthday so she got to have a party at Grandma Thorntons house with her cousins. I made a snowman cake for her. I'm not very good at decorating cakes but this one wasn't too hard:

Blowing out her candles:

Opening her presents Kaylee is always jealous because Brianne is around family over her birthday and gets more prestents. I guess having a birthday so close to Christmas isn't all bad.

Happy Birthday Sydnie!!!

Well as usual I am behind on my posts. But this very long post will officially catch me up. Starting with most recent first. My little Sydnie turned 4! I can't believe my little baby is already 4.

Sydnie has been such a fun little girl that I get to call mine. She is so loving and full of smiles and laughter. Even when she gets in trouble, which she does her fair share of the time, she tries to soften things by laughing or smiling, truth is sometimes it works, certainly better than crying and throwing a fit would. She is so generous with her hugs and compliments. Of course I have to laugh when she tells me I look beautiful when I am dressed up in one of my crazy outfits for contest photos, but I'll take it anyway. When I brought the balloons home for her birthday party she ran up to me and said "Thanks Mom! You are the BEST" then she grabs my hand and and yanks on it and says "Mom, I need to give you a hug" It's times like that I wonder where this little girl comes from.

Some fun things about Sydnie at 4 years old is: She loves penguins, she has penguin stuffed animals penguin books, penguin figures, penguin movies and even has a special penguin walk she does. She wants to be a penguin for Halloween but I am trying to talk her out of it because I already bought a Rapunzel outfit. She also loves Rapunzel but not quite as much as penguins so we will see if I can change her mind. Sydnie also loves the color orange, she always has since the time she was little, she even had a special name for the color, wish I could remember it, I think I wrote it down somewhere but I can't find it. Anyway she loves anything orange and if she had her way she would wear the color orange everyday.

We had a family birthday party and went to Artic Circle to celebrate and play on the toys. When we got home we opened presents and she blew the candles out on her Penguin birthday cake.

Sydnie opening her presents

Yay! a Rapunzel doll

And a cute little dog from Grandma:

A few days earlier we had a friends birthday party for her. She invited 3 of her cute friends and we went to a place called Kangaroo Zoo. They have a bunch of blow up slides and bounce houses the girls had a great time running around for an hour.

When we got home we had pizza and blew out the candles on a donut cake made with Orange donuts.


Sydnie with her cute friends and two sisters


Josh and Jenny come to visit

We had a surprise visit from Shaun's brother Josh and his family. And as always we had a great time with them. We drove to Strawberry reservoir to take them cray fishing. The trout were biting that afternoon, each of the girls had a chance to reel one in.

The girls checking out their catch:

Sydnies turn to reel one in:

Thanksgiving Point

We have had some really pleasant weekend and have taken advantage of them by doing some fun things with the girls. One weekend we went to Thanksgiving points petting zoo.

Riding the horse drawn wagon:

Feeding the goats:

And of course riding the horses, here is Kaylee she chose the largest horse:

And Brianne, she might have chosen this one because his bridal matches her shirt:

And Sydnie chose the littlest horse and had a great time!

State Fair

The weekend before that we went to Utah's state fair. The girls had fun riding a ride and looking at the animals. One of the highlights was a mother pig that had just had babies. There is nothing cuter than a baby pig, and nothing uglier than a mother pig:

The girls at the fair they each got to chose one ride Sydnie chose the merry go round.

Happy Birthday Kaylee!

I can't believe my oldest is 10! Where has the time gone? I think Shaun and I are both having a hard time wrapping our minds around this number. Wasn't she just a baby walking around on her tip toes? Now she is in double digits!!!

She had a great birthday, the Friday before she invited a few of her close friends to a birthday party at a place called "Jump on it" they have a huge room full of trampolines, all the girls seemed to have a lot of fun. Afterwards we had cake and opened presents. Brianne was so cute she had about $5 of her own birthday money left over from her Grandma, and took it to the book fair and spent it all on her older sister. She didn't spend 1 penny on herself. She was so excited for Kaylee to open it. She loves her older sister so much. I was so proud of her for being so thoughtful.

For her real birthday we went out as a family to In and Out Burger, and then came home and opened presents. She got a Webkins Ice dragon, Super Mario Brothers for the Wii and some fun things from her grandparents.

We love our Kaylee not only is she getting older in years, she is also starting to act older. She is very responsible, and we are not afraid to leave her home to take care of her younger sisters for an hour or so here and there. She is such a good girl and is always trying her best to do what is right. We love you Kaylee.

Here are a couple pictures from her Birthday. You would think will all the things I am learning about my camera, I would be able to take better snap shots. I think I am getting better with my other photo's, but getting worse with my snapshots. I had to convert these to black and white to even sort of make them presentable. She looks cute anyway.

Blowing out her 10 candles, she had cake for her friends birthday party but wanted cherry pie for her real birthday.

With her Webkins Ice dragon:

Two Birthdays!

I am so far behind with my blogging. I am planning on getting caught up in the next week so be prepared to get a bunch of post from me this week. I thought I would start with the Birthdays. We have two in our family right before Christmas. First is Brianne's then the next day is Shaun's.

Brianne had a great birthday. The Saturday before her birthday she had a friends Birthday party. She chose to go swimming for her birthday. So after cake and presents 5 of her neighborhood friends went swimming at the local indoor pool.

Here is Brianne ready to blow out her candles at her Birthday party:

A few days later we celebrated her real Birthday, she turned 7 this last year. We just got invited to the 8 is great meeting this Sunday. I can't believe she is almost old enough to be baptised. (well not for another year, but just going to that meeting reminds me it is getting close.)

Here is Brianne opening up here presents:

Is she all done? Nope there is another surprise dad is bringing up from the basement. What could it be?

Wow! She was surprised I don't think she had any idea she was getting this, just look at her face!

A new bike! Sorry this picture was out of focus not the greatest but the only one I got with her and her new bike.

Happy Birthday Brianne! We love you!

Shaun's Birthday

The next day was Shaun's Birthday and quite a story. It's also the reason I am so behind on my posts. My plan was to post about Brianne's Birthday and his Birthday on his birthday so I would be all caught up for the Christmas posts to come. Here is what happened instead:

Shaun called me early the morning of his Birthday. He has to be to work early and I usually get up early to exercise. He said he was going into emergency room to get some antibiotics for a cold. I wondered why he couldn't just wait and go to an Urgent care later in the day, he said he had time now and didn't want to wait. Well after the fact I think he wishes he did wait. Shaun told the emergency room doctors that he had a bad cold and that he though it was settling in his chest and he was having trouble breathing and even felt a little dizzy. With Shaun's family history of heart troubles the doctors immediately jumped to heart attack. They did a million test and found high levels of an enzyme that only is in your blood stream if there has been damage to the heart.

Well Shaun was in denial and the doctors were very poor at explaining things and we were left wondering what we should do. Should we do all the test they were calling for and miss out on Birthday plans and Possibly even Christmas (Christmas Eve was the very next day.) Or could things wait until after Christmas. After a lot of frustration on our part because of the doctors poor communication we finally decided to go ahead with all the tests. He had an ecocardiogram, x-rays of his chest (to check for blood clots) and finally on Christmas Eve they decided to do an angiogram. The whole family was really upset I had to calm the girls down from crying several times that day. Not only were they worried about their daddy being okay they were also worried about him not being able to be there for Christmas morning. Sydnie kept saying "Daddy's heart is broken!"

Well things ended up turning out okay. We were blessed and all of the test came back negative for a heart attack. He did have to stay in the hospital almost the whole day on Christmas eve. We got home from the hospital around 9:30 that night. Just in time to read the Christmas story out of the Bible and open Christmas P.J's. But we were all happy because it could have been a lot worse.

So Happy Birthday Shaun! It probably will go down in the record books as being the worst Birthday ever, but we are just glad to have a husband and a Dad who's "heart is not broken". We love you!

And You Thought Your December Shopping List Was Big....

We have a very busy December at our house. Not only do we have to shop for Christmas, we also have two birthdays to think about. Brianne's was yesterday, and today is Shaun's. Actually is some ways it is nice I usually get all of the shopping done then just decide later which is for Christmas and which is for birthdays. Kaylee's Birthday is in January so I usually get her birthday presents at the same time.

Happy Birthday Brianne.

Brianne was superstar of the week last week in Kindergarten. Her teacher asked me to come and share some special things about Brianne and read her favorite story. I brought pictures to help me show some of the things Brianne likes to do. I also brought a picture of her as a brand new baby, and told about how Brianne was suppose to be born in January, but decided to come 3 1/2 weeks early. We got to bring her home from the hospital on Christmas Eve, just in time for Christmas. She was our extra special Christmas present that year. I teared up when I was telling the kids this, and almost couldn't read the story I brought. Brianne continues to be our special Christmas present every year. We are lucky to have her in our family.

Brianne on her Birthday in the Hospital. This is the picture I shared with her class.

We had Friends Birthday party on Saturday. You might recognize the horse pinata from last year. Only last year it was painted purple and disguised as a unicorn. This year Brianne wanted a Christmas/Birthday party, so the horse got turned into a reindeer.

I thought this was a super cute picture of Brianne. The cake however was a disaster. Half of it didn't come out of the pan and I didn't have time to start over so I attempted to glue it back together with frosting. I was laughing so hard that tears started coming out of my eyes. Brianne wanted to know what was so funny. Luckily she didn't seem to notice that her cake was lopsided. And once the sprinkles and candy canes were on it, it didn't look so bad.

Brianne ready to hit the pinata.

All the kids going for the candy.

Brianne on her birthday. She decided to have donuts instead of a cake. After opening her presents (she got a razor scooter, new snow pants, pajamas with feet, and a jewelry box), we went to Kangaroo zoo.

Happy Birthday Shaun !!!

Shaun probably will wonder why I chose this picture to share. But I thought it was so cute of him and Sydnie. Sydnie really loves her daddy, and it shows in this picture. We are so lucky to have Shaun in our family. He is a great daddy and a hard working husband. We are so grateful for all he does for us. We love you. Happy Birthday Shaun.

Happy Birthday Dad

Grandpa Thornton!!!

Today is my dad's birthday and I just wanted to do a quick post to wish him a happy one. My kids love Grandpa Thornton he is always down in his workshop making little toys and fun things for the kids. My girls love getting teased by him, and he is always ready to read them a story. My dad is always willing to help me out with my little projects that I am always coming up with. Thanks for being a great dad and Grandpa, we love you, have a happy birthday!!!

All tired out from reading stories.

This is a picture of my Dad and Brianne when she was about 2 1/2.