One Year Older and Wiser Too

Becca turned 11 recently. I think the above photo was when she opened the card telling her that she could have her ears pierced after soccer season is over. She is really excited. The girls have been begging for years. She has to wait till soccer is over ( mid November) because they're not allowed to wear earrings during games.
Jon always looks a little tired in these pictures because he just spent half the night before awake making his cakes for the kids. I love it - such a sweet memory. They love to talk about all of their past cakes. "Oh - yeah remember when I was 5 and I had a polly pocket cake, etc, etc." Definitely a labor of love.
Kate and Evan being goofballs. See the ballerina suit that Kate is wearing. She wears it every other day. On the "other day," she's wearing a pink one.

Becca had a fun "friend party" this year. She invited a few friends over and we had a crazy spaghetti dinner. We put a plastic table cloth down and the girls opted for no plates so they ate right off the table. They put their hand in a bag and pulled out the utensil that they would eat their dinner with. They had so much fun. I heard some of the girls saying that this was the best party ever and that their mom would never let them eat like that at home. It was funny - towards the end, some girls were eating with their hands. They were a mess. We decorated cupcakes and that was just about as messy. Then we went to the pool. Thankfully no one else was there. I threw $60 in coins in the pool - including some cool dollar coins and then they all dove in and gathered the money as fast as they could. They got to keep what they found. Then they swam and played for a while. We went home and watched a few minutes of "Soul Surfer" while parents came to get their kids. Turned out to be a fun night.


Emma got a flower cake this year and a bouquet of flower cake pops. This was the first time we'd done cake pops - I stayed up and helped Jon with that. It was fun, but took quite a while. It would be fun to try again.
I just had to throw this picture (above) in there because this face Emma is making is one that I see frequently. :) She just turned 9 - and technically I shouldn't be seeing "teenagerish" type faces until at least 12 - wouldn't you think? Or maybe she's just getting it out of her system earlier- yeah - that'd be o.k. with me!
Emma talked Jon into secretly taking her to sea world for the day - for her birthday. They planned it months before. None of the kids knew. As I was driving the kids to school that morning, Evan finally said, "Where's Emma?" I was prepared for a meltdown when I explained that she was off spending the whole day at Seaworld with her dad. Luckily the meltdown didn't happen. The kids were good sports - they did mention, "Aww - that's not fair." But no tears or screams. Jon tries to spend some one on one time with each of the kids - on dates. It's not usually a day at Seaworld, but they each get a turn doing something. Jon works with a guy, whose friend works at Seaworld with the penguins. So, they got to go back (behind the glass) with the penguins and feed them. Jon said they are pretty big - some over 100 pounds - heftier than the average penguin in the wild.
Well, we finally decided to join the rest of the world and get a flat screen t.v - now Jon can finally be happy - ha ha. We got it so that we could enjoy General Conference better :) We figure that eventually we'll fill in the media niche where the old t.v. was with shelves, however, we found that it is quite the popular place to sit and play and watch t.v. The kids were all taking turns - Carter even slept in that little box of a seat - all crumpled up - didn't look too cozy. He must take after his dad - able to sleep anywhere.
What a cute grandpa and grandma!!! We had a great birthday /general conference weekend with grandma and grandpa here.
Carter turned 13 a few weeks ago. We have a teenager in the house - help! Carter requested a solar system birthday cake. I think Carter's to the age now where he's not really requesting cakes that reflect his likes and interests, he's mainly thinking, " what would be really hard for dad to do?" "What wold be harder than the Salt Lake Temple?" (actually nothing will be harder than that cake was)