Happy 16th Birthday Jonny....

Jonny had a friend party too, the first one ever he announced to his friends during the party.

We had a small family party too on his birthday.

I can't believe he is 16! Where does the time fly....

He hasn't really asked to drive much yet either......lucky me!

November Birthdays...

This was the year for having friends over for a birthday party. I usually keep it to family since we have so many birthdays so very close together. In fact we have about 1 a week starting with Emily on Oct. 23 and then Jonny, Kristina, and then Katie on Nov. 24th.

With the Thanksgiving break during the week of Katie's birthday we had a combined party for Kristina and Katie and their friends. They all ate pizza and watched Toy Story 3 on the wall. All the movie candy they could eat too.

And then the requested ice cream birthday cake too!

Emily's 3rd Birthday....

I can hardly believe she is three now. Time just goes by much too quickly. Emily has really caught on to the idea of birthdays and all that goes with it. She had so much opening presents and blowing out candles too. She even sang the birthday songs to herself with the rest of us. She has brought such a ray of sunshine to our family, we all just love her to pieces! She has been so much fun these last three years. She will be my only child in Primary when she moves into Sunbeams in January!

Build-A-Bear.....

I received a coupon in the mail for a free animal up to $12 or that much off of a more expensive animal. Steve and I took Emily to the mall, our only visit for the year, to choose her animal. I had showed her all the choices on the website before we went to get an idea of what she would like. She chose the Kipper look-alike dog which was great, it was $12. When we got to the store we walked her by all of the animals and said she could choose anyone of them. After seeing all of her choices she went back to the beginning of the line and chose the same Kipper dog that had seen on the website!

You can put a sound box into your animal. They range in price from $4 to $8. I said no to the sound box. Steve however said yes to the one on clearance for $1.50. Great! It's the Jonas Brothers.....Emily's favorite! (Not! She doesn't know who they are) But she has music in her dog and she will dance to it or have her dog dance to it. It really is cute! It is worth the $1.50 to watch her dance with her dog!

It is fun to watch her face as she goes through the process of picking her animal and stuffing it, washing it, and giving it a name on the computer. The most fun however is watching her carry her box. She is determined to do it herself and she carries it all the way to the car.

November Birthdays...

(Jonny's 15th Birthday)

We have 3 birthdays in the month of November, all about one week apart. By Thanksgiving we have celebrated 5 birthdays since September 1st. I really love decorating cakes and I get some good practice in this time of the year.

(Kristina's 13th Birthday)

The kids get to choose their kind of cake and their favorite dinner too. As they are getting older there is more variety to the choices. Jonny wanted pizza for dinner, Kristina wanted Aunt Tami's homemade noodles in homemade chicken soup. And Katie wanted my homemade bread bowls with homemade broccoli & cheddar soup.

(Katie's 11th Birthday)

Katie chose an ice cream cake made by Aunt Tami. I got to write on it but that is it! Whew... (Katie received gifts too, I just don't know why we didn't get pictures...birthday burnout maybe, sorry Katie!)

Steve was in Arizona for Jonny and Kristina's birthdays and so he participated in the celebrations via Google Video Chat! It was fun when he showed them their gifts over the video. After 12 hours of intense driving Steve made it back to actually eat some of Katie's ice cream cake! Having Daddy home was a great present for all!!

Happy 11th Birthday Carson!!!!

Carson has the hardest time waiting for his birthday. It seems like is birthday is last even though it is in January. All the other children's birthdays start with one in September, one in October, and 3 in November. Then he has to wait through Christmas. All of this waiting is painful for him. I have to be sure that his birthday doesn't lack any of the excitement given to the other kids.Carson had a very specific request for his cake. He wanted a layer of strawberry cake, a layer of chocolate cake with strawberry frosting between these layers and the entire cake frosted in chocolate frosting. This was quite a yummy combination. And after all that he only ate one piece of the entire cake!The newest craze is Bakugan. Carson received some of the Bakugan game stuff for Christmas and so it was easy to add to that new collection and he was thrilled.Steve happened to hit the 1/2 off sale at Sam's Club and got some good deals on Spy gear and a few other toys too. This boy had Christmas all over again! Many times a day you can hear the warning alarm of the motion sensor before the spy gear shoots little blunt arrows at the offender. Emily is her mother's daughter and loves chocolate cake and chocolate frosting! She was all too happy to sit with Aunt Tami and help her out in cleaning her plate!

Happy Birthday Kristina!

Kristina turned 12 yesterday, Nov. 17th.
Some of the items on her birthday wish list were:

German Chocolate cake with My Little Pony toppers.More accessories for her doll house.She wanted more clothes. She also got a sewing machine from her Aunt and a movie and doll house people from Grandma.For her dinner choice, Aunt Tami's homemade chicken noodle soup! Yum!

Happy 1st Birthday Emily

We are all grateful for this little ray of sunshine we call Emily! Her birthday(10/23/07) has come much too quickly! This last year has flown by. I am so glad we have had the blessing of another child in our home. No one would have ever convinced me when I got married almost 22 years ago that I would adopt 5 children, going half-way around the world to do so and then give birth after I turned 40! It has been an incredible journey, a daily thrill ride of adventure. While we were getting ready for the party Emily was in her seat at the table. She decided she had had enough of that seat and she wanted the book in the middle of the table. So she climbed out of her seat and got that book! The adventure of this infant/toddler is going to be fun!

Emily's First Birthday cakes.
I bought her the little one to eat and destroy and
I made the second one for everyone else to enjoy!
Emily's birthday celebration really began the week before her birthday with a visit from Steve's parents. It was a beautiful day, the kids were out of school for Fall break and so we had lunch in the park and opened a few presents. Emily has really enjoyed the musical book, phone, and piano. Emily really enjoys music. She will start her wiggle-dance whenever she hears any kind of music. She had a musical toy in her hand, her piano at her feet, and she would lean over and push one of the song buttons on that piano and put her foot onto the keyboard so she had 3 kinds of music playing at once. She did this over and over! She will come and sit under the piano when I practice too. Maybe #6 will actually play the piano!Emily was a little tentative with the cake. She just looked at it. We even stuck her hand into it.
Then Grandma gave her a bite and that was it all it took!This is all that was left when we finally took it away so she could open presents.
I don't think cake will be safe around Emily any more.

Happy Birthday Logan!

Logan just turned 11 on Monday! Time sure seems to go by faster and faster! I remember when he started walking, and he was born talking! I remember him dressing himself before he was even two years old! He is a sweet, tender-hearted boy! We love him!
Logan wanted to a have a few friends over for a small party. He wanted to play video games and so we limitedthe number of friends to the number of controllers for the game system. We had his family party the week before when the Murphy grandparents were passing through town.

I don't usually do friend b-day parties. I have limited it to when you turn 12 and we'll go from there maybe to 16. After Logan's birthday the 1st of September, I have 4 birthdays now, all a week apart starting in October and ending on or near Thanksgiving on 11/24. Since we are not independently wealthy and Christmas follows so soon after the last birthday in November, we limit the party to family only.

Logan doesn't like most baked sweets. So the birthday cake is not really for him, it is for the rest of us! At Sam's Club I found the coolest cake, it was two huge cookies with frosting in the middle, a cookie cake. It was huge too, what you see above is 1/2 of the cookie! The chocolate chip cookies were really good too.