E² Birthdays

THIS crazy cat turned 11!!!!

He told me EXACTLY what he wanted for his birthday:

1) spaghetti with meatballs for dinner

2) a blue baseball backpack (to match his current baseball team)

and baseball gum

and 3) a junk box

(check out Royce's face, HA!)

I delivered in all of those requests, but after looking at these pictures, I'm starting to think I should've provided a shirt too. 😏

His birthday part he invited a ton of his school/church friends to a park where we had pizza, cupcakes, treat bags and kickball.

(again, no shirt)

The left fielder was tough. She only got hit and knocked down by a ball once.

Everly also shares her birthday in April and she turned three. 

Here's my E².

Everly is........how shall I say this.......... a liability. 

She is a master-sneaker, food/treat-stealing, quiter-than-an-injun-walking sweetheart.......

who happens to be an EXPERT in drawing on eyebrows (when she goes through my make up of course)

This picture must be documented as well.....because she has clothes on. 

You see Everly is a nudist.....

MUCH to all our dismay.

Everly also likes things juuuuuust right to go to bed. Which means her blanket and her three books.

I don't even READ them at bedtime to her, she just has to sleep WITH them.

You cannot add a different title either. They MUST be 

"Spaghetti with the Yeti"

"You Can Go Jump"

And "Go Dog Go!"

I guess someone IS worse than me with books in bed!

Despite all her sneaking-nudist ways, the whole family loves "Belch" (what her brothers call her. Infact SHE calls herself that too when you ask what her name is)

I think we'll keep her.

I found Everly in Kellyn's (toddler) bed on her birthday night.

Now that she's 3 she can raise her CHIN UP and bring on an awesome (or stinky) year.

My Birthday Gifts

The first of April I turned 36. WHAAAAT?!?!

(sounds a lot older than 35)

Although Camden didn't TECHNICALLY do this for my bday I consider this a gift to me. He learned how to change diapers! 😆

He started babysitting for a family that had a boy in a nighttime diaper. Camden assured them he knew how to put one on. The kid ended up with it on backwards. So here I am teaching him.

We started with an UN-moving baby and then moved on up. I decided not to overwhelm him with the twin-challenge. ;)

A birthday gift to me would be all of us sitting quietly, watching Conference and taking notes on those inspired words.

Yea, THAT didn't last long. This was more like it.

Because every precious moment with these two is a gift, here's one of those no-personal-space kind of pictures of the girls in the bath.

A gift (and a challenge) is a household of girls who want to be like me. They watch everything I do and that's scary sometimes and I know I don't always do this job justice. But it's sweet when I hear Aleeya talk about wanting to be a mom when she grows up.

This was TECHNICALLY not for my birthday but we got the BEST THING EVER my birthday week. 

Meet the Sasquatch. 

The newest member of the family. #iminLOVE

On my actual birthday Brooks was working and the day was PACKED with games and practices. It was the first time I had six kids that needed to be at 5 different places at the same time.

Happy flipping birthday to me huh.

BUT I bought myself a papaya to muster through it all. MMMM-mmm

Being the taxi driver isn't the tricky part, it's taking Kelly, Everly, Wynn and Iley with me and keeping an eye on them that's tricky. Thankfully I have friendly babies that crawl to strangers to be held.

And I can bribe Aleeya and Iris to keep tabs on Everly/Kellyn for me.....because keeping track of Everly is a job in and of itself!

Three of my friends (Candi, Autumn and Jenn) had a birthday brunch for me as well. Probably the best french toast I've ever had. It literally was a FEAST. 

Oh, and Emerson gave me a container of Tic-Tacs because he said my breath stinks. Nice.

Can we just go back to the Sasquatch for a minute though...... I love LOVE driving that thing. It's SO smooth and gets a LOT better gas mileage than the Yeti did. It's quieter, turns better, has an AC that works and now thanks to Royce it is one window short!

The knucklehead saw the height on the Sasquatch (it's so tall......I mean, I can't even go through any drive-thrus because of the height. haha) and wondered if he could throw the baseball from one side of it to the other.

And in case you are wondering, he can't.

Brooks and I told Royce that he probably will owe us for YEARS for that window in jest. Then Brooks said he had to vaccuum up all the broken glass. Royce cocked his head to the side and with his mischevious grin asked, "Can you pay me a dollar if I vaccuum up all the glass?" #facepalm

And no, he didn't get paid!

Award to the Winners!

St. Patrick's Day Award:

Since the boys were all gone on St. Patrick's Day we had our Annual Jellybean Race a week later.

The first heat was Royce and Iris

Iris won

Aleeya vs. Emerson

(quite the pose Emerson..... apparently it helped because he won)

Everly and Kellyn moved the jellybean all of 4 inches before they realized it wasn't worth the effort and ate them.

Camden and Bronson

Surprisingly, Bronson won.

Now the winners battled it out. Iris with the head start and hands down STILL was no competition for Emerson's skills

(Note the box on the right with clothes hanging out. That's as good as it gets folks. THOSE are the boys' Sunday clothes. They come out of the laundry room and sit in that box until Sunday morning because I hate hunting down their clothes. And yes, this rec-room area IS infact Bronson's bedroom. No privacy for that kid!)

Camden's goal in life is to photo-bomb my pics. I have to say he nailed it this time..... the start of the finals....Emerson vs. Bronson

AND THE WINNER IS EMERSON!!!!!!

The prize? He picked to go eat at Golden Corral. No surprise there.

These next two outings get the awards for the Best Girl-time of the Month.

1)Beauty and the Beast with friends

As much as they liked the movie I think Iris still liked the escalators more.

Aaaaaaaaaaand 

2) General Women's Conference with Aleeya. 

Dinner at Subway first 

We got DRENCHED running into Subway and later to the church!

Here we are at the church before it starts.

Adventure Award:

Goes to Miss Iley May...... who is a climber, and would rather climb on top of her sister's high chair to eat HER food. 

Character Award:

as always, goes to Kellyn

Cuteness award:

kind of a given, right?

Sneakology Award:

This is the ACTUAL certificate Brooks presented to Bronson at the dinner table

He was awarded this for walking a few miles to a phone store with Camden, buying a phone and effectively hiding it from Brooks and I for a month w/o us catching him. Impressive.

MARCH MADNESS

As a boy, every March since Brooks was 8 he and his brothers went to the NCAA tournament to watch games on Thursday/Saturday. Then on the Wednesday and Friday of that week, they would golf, golf and more golf. 

This year, Brooks gave that experience to the three older boys.

They flew back to Utah to meet up with their boy-cousins and uncles.

And of COURSE first thing they do when they get there ?...... be fed and spoiled by Pat and her scones.

They would walk down to the train station to catch a ride to SLC for the games.

Here's a whole lot of handsome-Smith-ness

 Brooks did as he was told and took a ton of pictures for me......even if they were random and.....kind of ..... of nothing.

 THEY MADE IT!

Playing games with their cousin Luke on the way home.

 Eating out

While at home Emerson and Lincoln had a little too much fun playing video games. These two are two peas in a pod.

But my FAVORITE interaction with cousins captured would have to be this video Uncle Gabe sent me of Bronson with the snake at the golf course. I might add, as SOON as I saw the smile on his face (and saw that Brooks had just whispered something to him) I knew EXACTLY what he was going to do.

When I receive a picture like this I can't help but think, "And you let our son WALK IN PUBLIC with his shorts like that?" Whatever.

 More bus-waiting....

and games.

The stories the boys are MOST excited to tell me about are the ones where they would ask fans that were leaving if they could have their tickets. With deceivingly-harmless-looking-boys asking you for your ticket, chances are that you will hand it over.

Welp, they got their hands on some second row seats!!!! (Emerson is in the yellow hat)

Camden even sold a ticket for $35. Emerson ended up getting the most.....no surprise there.

They were so thrilled with their new seats.

See?

On Sunday Brooks and the boys drove up to surprise my mom with a visit. She had no idea they were in Utah. I called her on the phone when I knew Brooks was close just to make sure she was home, etc. She's on the phone with me in this video.....her surprise scream is the BEST! #doubletake

They got to eat, jump on the trampoline, play ping-pong and hang out with two of my brothers and Whitney.

They also got to go up and see my Dad's gravestone that was just recently...um....intalled? Not sure what the proper term is with headstones.

My brother Matt with my favorite man.

I love these pictures because my childhood home is up on the mountains behind them. I grew up looking out over and driving past this cemetary.

One last round of golf with RA on Monday before they boarded the plane......apparently this is the one Emerson was the worst sport on? I'm just shocked it hadn't happened before! :)

All packed up, at the airport and ready to fly home to me!!!

Oh, and speaking of packing up......

this letter was left taped on the outside of Aleeya's door one Sunday.

And she was RIGHT. She packed up and walked right on out to the backyard. Her clubhouse in the corner made a great run-away place to hide. She sat there getting eaten by mosquitos for quite a few hours before she decided she would rather move back in and participate in Sunday Game Night.

I chose my timing wisely and didn't make her unpack/put-away her bag until the next day.