Avery is 5!

Our sweet Avery turned 5 on Sunday!  I was not planning on doing a party for Avery, 

but she started planning one all on her own, a rainbow party, so I went with it!

I told Avery she could invite 5 friends for her 5th birthday party.

We sent out invitations and last Friday was the big day!

We started out the party by making crowns!

Then we played some minute to win it games!  They were so much fun!

They had to use a straw to blow six pom poms across the tape line

They had to sort the skittles into the correct colored cup

This one was the best!  They kids had to put a pair of tights on their heads.  The tights had an orange down one of the legs.  Without using their hands the kids had to swing the orange back and forth and knock over 4 bottles.  It was so fun for all of them and hilarious to watch!

In this last game we had two soda bottles taped together with gumballs inside. 

 The kids had to shake the bottles until all of the gumballs transferred from one bottle to the other.

  They had fun and some kids went a little crazy!

Then is was dinner time!  One of Avery's favorite things to eat are peanut butter and honey sandwiches so that was what was on the menu.  We also picked something for every color of the rainbow!  I am kicking myself for accidentally deleting the picture of it, so you'll just have to use your imagination for a little bit.  We had a platter lined up with strawberries, carrots, bananas, celery, blue corn chips, and purple grapes!  It was so cute!

After dinner it was of course cake time!  I am so happy with how Avery's rainbow cake turned out  It looked great as I put it into the oven and I'm so glad that when we cut into it that it looked awesome!  

going in to the oven 

After we cut into it

When everyone was filled with yummy cake we went over to open presents.  

Avery has some great friends and she got some fun things!  

We finished off the night by taking some silly pictures!  They kids wanted to keep going and trading props, 

in the end they traded props four or five different times.

It was a fun night and everyone had a great time, especially Avery!

On Avery's birthday she was sick.  Avery and I were both up all night with her throwing up.  

I think we got a accumulative of 3 or 4 hours of sleep.

  So by 5:30 when she stopped throwing up she was so tired!  She fell back to sleep around 8 and sleep for several hours.  When she woke up she was better, but still not feeling well.  She was able to eat some food and thankfully keep it down.  

Since she seemed to be a bit better we had her open her birthday presents.  

Even being sick she was very excited while opening presents!  I am glad she was able to enjoy it.  

The rest of the day was spent laying on the couch and eating when she could.  

Not the best way to start your 5 year old year is it?  

My favorite part of Avery's birthday was at about 12:30 A.M. I asked her how old she was and she of course answered 4.  

I shook my head and she got this HUGE smile on her face and said 5?  

Avery is so excited to be five!  I think it's going to be a good year.

October

October seemed to last a long time and now here we are almost half way through November! 

 Here is a catch up on what we enjoyed in October!  

I already blogged about Louis' birthday so we'll skip that.  The next fun thing was General Conference!  This year I put together 12 brown lunch bags with a picture and the name of each member in the First Presidency as well as the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.  (only 12 bags because we didn't know who the three new Apostles were going to be!)  Whenever a member of the First Presidency or an Apostle got up to talk, Avery and Mary got to go find their bag and there was something fun inside for them to do.  Here are some examples!

Louis' sister Tifannee received her mission call to Eugene Oregon and is leaving NEXT WEEK!  Louis and I were able to go to the Ogden temple with her.  Which was wonderful!

 Louis and I had not been there to do a session since it was renovated.  

We got a new niece!  Alisha and Jonathan welcomed their second child Rachael into the world.

We enjoyed the mild fall weather.

Tifannee took our family pictures for us before heading out to Oregon.

I have too many favorites to put up on this post, so I'll do a separate post for our pictures.

There was a lot of Halloween fun around here this year!  It started out by going to the Pumpkin Walk

 followed by carving a pumpkin for (I'm pretty sure) the first time as a family.

The next week we had our Halloween party which I already blogged about.  

Then it was Halloween!

Louis doesn't usually like dressing up for Halloween so I didn't plan outfits for us. 

 The weeks leading up to Halloween though he kept acting like he wanted to do a group costume. 

 So we were able to throw something together the week before Halloween for Louis and me.  

We were the Dread Pirate Roberts and Princess Buttercup from the Princess Bride! 

On Halloween Louis took the girls trick or treating down main street

 and for some Halloween fun at the library.

We also went to Macey's and Smith's for the trick or treating.  We wanted to go to Lee's, 

but the line was sooo long when we drove by!  

That night we went to Jake and Celestial's ward trunk or treat and chili cook off.  

The kids had fun getting to be with their cousins!

We had planned on Ethan being a monster for Halloween, but the costume was a bit too small!

Instead he was Clark Kent!  Such a handsome little guy!

That was our October!  Lots of time together having fun!

Halloween Party

Last year Avery kept asking to have a Halloween party.  Now I don't really like Halloween, but my kids sure do!  This year Avery started asking to have a party again so we got to planning!  Avery was literally counting down the days until the party, "Only 4 more sleeps until the Halloween party Mom!"  The day of the party came and Avery and Mary were both in their costumes 3 hours before the party started.

It was finally time for the party and the girls were excited to get started!  The first thing we did was take pictures of all of our cute guests!

Then we headed inside to paint some pumpkins!  All of the kids really enjoyed this.  After our pumpkins were finished we went over to the coffee table and drew some faces on jars for a Jack-o-lantern and a ghost and we colored.

Then it was time to eat some spooky food!  We had mummy dogs, jack-o-lantern juice, monster cookies, spider eggs, and chips with a dip filled pumpkin.

After dinner we danced and played then we made some fun crafts.  We made a monster magnet and a Halloween mask.

When the crafts were finished we read some Halloween books and finished off the night by watching The Great Pumpkin.  It was a fun night and all of the kids enjoyed being together!

My Louis

We celebrated Louis' birthday a little over a week ago!  He is now 28 years old.  Or if you ask Mary, he's just 8!  I've probably put this on here before, but Louis feels like his birthday gets over shadowed by conference, so over the years I've done a lot of birthday weeks for him!  We did more of a low key birthday week for Louis this year, but we did kick it off with a party!  

The idea of a party popped into my head about two hours before Louis was supposed to get home from work, 

so I am quite happy that everything turned out so well!

We filled in the heart with pictures of why we love Louis!

I felt pretty proud of how the cake turned out with how little time I had!

Louis when he walked in the door and saw his surprise!

Mary helping Louis check out one of his presents.

His favorite one he uses it all of the time!

Singing happy birthday

 We love our Louis and he is a blessing in our lives!  He keeps us having fun and being silly!