Family Pictures

Thank you Shelly!

And Sarah, Lindsey, and Karen for help in the wardrobe department.

And MAC for my fake eyelashes.

Vain

Someone likes her new pigtails.

Green

green sugar toast
fun afternoon at the river ranch
corned beef, cabbage, soda bread

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Blurry Backgrounds

are nice.

Especially when she is standing in front of this:

Birthdays

Mario mushroom cupcakes for preschool (3/11)

SALLY'S BIRTHDAY

We had planned a party for her at Oakland Fairyland 2 hours away. We had been driving 1 1/2 hours when I called to see if it was doable in the rain and they were CLOSED cause of the rain! Ah! So Plan B ended up being the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose. It was an awesome museum. The kids all loved it. Our guests were nice about the change of plans. But I was disappointed...maybe Fairyland was more for me (it's patterned after fairy tales, not fairies)?

She loved this Wells Fargo carriage and kept going back to it.



We did cupcakes quick outside before the rain started again.

They're supposed to be daisies.
And I don't know what her hair is doing...I always feel the need to explain its craziness.

They traded party favors.


Owen was feeling left out not having a birthday this week so we pretended for him.


DREW'S BIRTHDAY

We got a babysitter so Justin and I could take Drew out alone. Owen was supposed to be at a birthday party but was too shy not knowing anyone other than the birthday boy. So he just came with us. Drew probably had more fun that way anyway.

As much fun as a kid in a candy store.


We did black light mini golfing as a family. Loved it.




It's convenient that his name has any many letters as his new age.




Happy birthday to Drew and Sally (and Owen for pretend)!

Now excuse me while I go into hibernation.

Staff Sergeant

That would be Justin's new title.

He got promoted March 1 by our friend Aaron.


Which was so cool...we know him through church but since he's a Marine who is higher ranked than Justin he was able to do the promotion.

That night we had a Taco Bell party to celebrate his graduation and promotion.

Cause when someone graduates from Arabic, it makes sense to eat Mexican food.

Or really because it's his very favorite.

He likes Taco Bell even more than authentic Mexican places (i.e., Tia Rosa's) in AZ!

I made his shirt that says "Yo quiero Taco Bell" in Arabic.

We like when our guests fit in sombreros.

The Rest of the Weekend

2/27 - Oakland Temple balcony. I like that Justin's dad took even more pictures than me.

Friday was gross weather. We did go to Lover's Point for tide-pooling before the rain started but it was super cold and windy and Justin's dad got drenched with a huge wave. That afternoon we drove to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park to hike through redwoods. Right when we got there it started raining. The guys all went hiking anyway and I hung out in the van w/the kids.

Saturday was nice again. We went to the Oakland Temple. Christian recently went through in AZ for the first time to get ready for his mission. He's going to Vera Cruz, Mexico in April...the exact same mission Brett just came home from! So it was cool we could go through the Temple here with him since we couldn't be in AZ.

Last picture with Uncle Christian for awhile...

Thanks to Brett, Justin and I got to go in together for the first time since living here.

All these pictures were taken from the balcony at the top of the Temple. Anyone can go up there and see the awesome views of the San Francisco Bay.

Then we went to Mountain View (near San Jose) to visit Justin's uncle Wayne and his X-BOX.

And to eat more Chinese food.

The honey pecan chicken here beat out our honey walnut version.

SO good.

Kind of like our weekend.