A Happy Birthday Weekend

Belle turned 6 years old yesterday! Eek! We had her party on Saturday, since Annie and her kids and the Krucks were here to help celebrate.

I sent out the invitations:

For Belle's birthday, we had Grace, her soon-to-be step sister, come over for the weekend. Friday night we went swimming at Aunt Char and Uncle Tony's with the Krucks and Warrens and Baba and Grampa and Zach and Rochelle. This was a nice little start to a wild weekend. We got home from swimming and the girls were going to attempt to "stay up until midnight!" Grace fell asleep on the couch around 10:30pm. I noticed this and we told Belle "You aren't going to make it to midnight if Grace is sleeping." She went over and shook Grace and said "Grace! You have to stay up! We're staying up until midnight!" and Grace looked at her like "what the heck?!" and jumped up and headed to Belle's room. She turned off the bedroom light and got into bed. Belle was ticked off and flipped the light on and said "what are you doing?!" and Grace, emotional now, comes hauling out of the bedroom on the verge of crying "Belle won't let me go to sleep!!" So, Belle stayed up and Grace went to bed. Belle fell asleep about 10 mins later and Tren and I put her in bed with Grace.

Saturday I woke up to the sounds of the kitchen chairs screeching across the floor. I went out to see what was going on and found both girls on the counter getting down bowls. I see the cereal on the counter and the milk and sugar out. Perfect. SO, I decide it's time for me to really wake up and get on with the day ahead. They played nicely together and I would get the occasional "Mommmmm, Grace won't let me play with the blah blah blah" or "Emmyyyy, Belle won't stop bossing me around..". Then it was time to head to the party. They both chose to wear black dresses. Perfect for the kind of party I was having. (I didn't tell Belle anything about her party. I had shown her the invitations and she told me what kind of cake she wanted.)

Presents:

Then for the cake! Belle wanted an ice cream cake. I remembered Randi had gotten a cake for Vince once that had his picture on it. I got the details from her and had Belle randomly select the picture she liked the most, out of a few different ones and then had Albertson's make the cake and put the picture on it. Now, Belle loves the twilight stuff. Everything about it. She understands it and knows all the characters. She has a crush on Edward, of course. (Who doesn't?) I have never seen Belle truly embarassed before. When I brought the cake out, everyone was hooting and hollaring at the cake. (I think I heard a few yips! too.) Belle saw it and turned a little red. I think she almost even cried because she was pulling on her eyelids, which I think was her way of stopping from crying. She was embarassed that everyone was wooting because she had a crush on Edward. Then after things were calmed down I asked her if she liked it and to cover up the embarassment she said "Well, I wanted Alice on it, not Edward." Either way, she DID enjoy the cake and I think it was great. And it tasted delicious, too.

As usual, I had balloons for the birthday girl to release. Red, like drops of blood. :) he he..

After the party we went to the Dam with everyone and swam and soaked up the sunshine. Then we went home and the girls played with the new Polly Pockets. Finally, around 9:30, Grace stands up and shuts the bedroom light off and jumps in bed. This upsets Belle and she comes out practically crying "Grace just stopped playing with me and got in bed!" She sat on the couch with me and fell asleep a little while later. Girls.

Sunday we had another birthday party at Jesika's house. They had fun there, too, playing with all the other kids in the pool and slip-n-slide.

Around 5:30 we loaded up and headed to the meeting place to send Belle and Grace to Shem's house where they would have Belle's party there. What a weekend for those little ladies. 3 parties!

Needless to say, I think they were exhausted...

I was too. I think if I saw another kid or had to attend another party, I would have puked. Too much for one weekend. But I survived and Belle had a wonderful birthday weekend.

Love you tons, Bellami Bea.

4th of July!

Tren and I took the new Jayco up to Lake Fork for the 4th of July weekend. It was a great trip! The Jay was perfect!! We went down to Browns pond, the creek part of it on Saturday. We made the long walk down and crossed fresh wolf tracks and a monsterous bear track. YIKES!! When we finally broke through to where we could see the creek, I hardly recoginzed the place! The creek was now filled with sand. Many trees were missing or laying in the place they had been ripped from the ground. Looking to the right, the creek was torn wide open and a ways off where you would go through the forest to get to the gorge, was piles of trees that had been washed down. It looked like, what I would imagine, was the scene after a tornado or hurricane.

This is standing on the bank looking across from the upper side of the log we would jump off of into the water. Notice all the sand in the water now, instead of just deep water?

This is looking down stream where there used to be the little "rapids" and where it was easier to cross. Look at the trees that are still standing and see the bark scraped off by passing trees?

This tree laying down used to be standing at the base of the stump of the tree we would stand on to jump in.

Just an example of how high the water was...

If you look closely at this one, you can see Tren in a blue shirt on the left of the picture and Zeb in a black shirt on the right of the picture. And again, look at the missing bark at the water line.

We could not believe the destruction. It was unreal. We went to the gorge and also barely recognized the place. I didnt take any pictures there. The rocks had been moved and there is now a very nice "honey hole" for fishing. After fishing the creek, Tren and Zeb went for a solo ride down to check out the pond itself. Here is where it all came together...

Brown's Pond 7/3/10:

The dam broke:

I hadn't heard that the dam broke. My mom said she saw it on the news. I just couldn't believe how much one "pond" could have an effect on everything. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. Im thinking we'll need to take a trip down there again.

Oh.My.WOOT!

Tren and I have been scouring craigslist for a while now, searching for a sweet Tent Trailer. Tren finally posted a "wanted" ad saying what we were looking for. This Sunday, someone responded. And need I say more, but:

We are going to get it cleaned up inside and out and then move on in for a 4th of July weekend trip. I can't explain how excited I am that Tren bought this. I can't wait to use it! Belle doesnt yet know of the new addition. I think it is going to be quite hilarious when it is in the traveling position (closed up in a little box) and I tell her "This is our new trailer for camping." She will look and think to herself "How are we going to fit in this?" Then I will point out the little bottom half of the door and I will open it and tell her to see how she likes it and see if she crawls in. I just can't wait to see her reaction when we get it all set up! She will love it!

Thank you Tren, for getting this for us.

Thank you Grandma Brenner, for letting us park it at your house.

John Deer Tractor vs Backhoe!

Tren's nephew is turning 2 tomorrow. I, of course, offered my help with making his cake. Cassie (the mother) said I could just make it for him since they wouldn't be in town until late the night before anyways. She had asked Gage (birthday boy) what kind of party he wanted... either a tractor or a backhoe party, and being nearly 2 he said "both". So, she did a tractor vs backhoe birthday invitation that was A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E. and I started googling cake ideas. I found a few different ideas I liked and sent them to her to choose from. I liked this one (below) and I thought I could do a tractor and a backhoe each:

Then I liked this one and digging in the cake!

Or a tractor plowing a field! Plus, with the toys on the cake, he could keep them and use them! Perfect!!

Cassie had already bought a tractor toy to put on the cake, so she gave me that one and then I did some looking on the internet for a matching sized backhoe. This was difficult, so we ended up just buying a tractor with a mower attachment and a backhoe.

Tonight we made the cake!!! ((I need a boy to make cakes for! Seriously! So much different than pink and princesses! Ugh!)) I think it turned out absolutely delicious!!

What do you think?!

Big Boy on a Little Trike!

Off to a good start.....

Uh-oh!....

Aw crap!....

He would not let me take a picture of the bruises from the handle bars. They were on his inner thighs and a bit high up! Pretty close to doing some serious damage.

The Dam

So, this weekend in Emmett there was a lot of flooding or near flooding. Tren went driving around with a friend to get a look at things. He came home, we went to see Shrek and then he said we had to go up and see the Dam. He told me "this happens once every 15 years!". I'm not sure if that is true, but it sounded good. So we all went up to check it out. YIKES!






It was getting late and it was cloudy, so this is the best picutre I got. Every now and then a huge tree would go over the Dam and then you'd see it go floating by. The water was a really tastey (not so much) brown color from all the dirt and stuff in it. Then we headed up towards Montour/Sweet and took a look around up there. There was lots of gophers out in the road and we decided it was because they were flooded out of their holes in the ground. It was a watery drive.

End of year Ballet Recitals

I finally got the information for Belle's last two ballet recitals.

June 2nd (Wednesday) 7:00pm at the Emmett Middle School
Cost is $3 to get in.

June 18th (Friday) 5:30pm at the Band Shell during Cherry Festival
Cost is free. I am not even 100% sure she will preform at this one. The note said they will dance according to time they have available. So, we shall see.

I really hope to see everyone there!

Delicious

I love flowers....

Tren and I bought these at a yardsale two years ago, when we moved into the house we are in in Emmett. We got, I believe, 2 cookie tin cans for $5 each. The lady was foreign and when I asked her what color the flowers would be she said "purrrrple". As you can see, they are white. Oh well, they are perdy and I love them.

Some day when we have acerage, I'm going to have my own 5 or 10 acres and just grow flowers of all kinds. Can't wait! You can come and walk through my flowers, if you'd like. I guarantee it will make you feel amazing!

Henry Hen Hen!!

Henry is a little over 6 months old now. He weighs in at 21 lbs. Rooster will be 3 in September and is a modest 13 lbs. I have the hardest time getting a picture of the two of them still and together. So, I took a picture with them just now. Yikes...

They were very excited to be in the house. Rooster looks a bit peeved that I'm holding Hen, too and not just her. (I look scary.)

I don't know how to capture the massive-ness of Henry. Here he is standing next to a 5 gallon bucket. Maybe that will help...

He is just huge. And he is only 6 months old!!

A while ago, we had Tren's mom and niece over for dinner. They were outside playing and Rooster and Henry were out and running around and jumping like usual. Blake is not used to this. Tren sprayed Henry with the hose and we made an awesome (sad) discovery. He. Hates. It. Hen disappeared for about 10 to 15 minutes and then I realized he was gone and panicked that he had somehow escaped. We called his name and he slowly came creeping around the corner of the house. Then he sat here:

Are you laughing? Because I am! He was so scared it was hysterical! I had to coax him out of the flower pot and over to me and he was still a bit on edge...

He is too cute and too huge and too everything! But! We love him. And we love Roosty too. She is my sweet girl.

Dammit Doll

For Mother's Day this year, Jesika wanted to do some crafting for her gifts. I'm always up for this. Jesika found what she wanted to do and sent me the link. I went to the Craft Warehouse and found some great "country" looking fabric. Then on Friday night, we had Karin come over to watch Belle, Peyton and Bailey at my house while we did our work and watched the baby. We didn't follow the instructions because we did not want to hand sew this entire thing. So. We started out with cutting out our body and then the first one we sewed right sides in and then turned it inside out. This looked like it was going to be one skinny doll. So, the next one, we sewed it with the right sides out. This was going to be a much fatter doll. Jesika stuffed the skinny one and I stuffed the fat one. It was hilarious watching them puff up. As we stuffed, Jesika's started looking more like a voo-doo doll and mine was just plump. I liked the healthy look and she liked the voo-doo look, so I used the plump one for Annie. (I had wanted to make one for Annie all along, but I loved the fabric so it was working out nicely that Jesika didn't like the fatty.) Then we cut another body out for her mother-in-law.

Here is my fatty pants:

I put a little set of spicy red lips on her... they crack me up!

Jesika made a cute belt and button necklace for hers.

I didn't know what to do for mine. So, I came up with a cape/shall thing for her. We tried different colors of material on her and couldn't decide on one so I made her a few different options.

Then into the cans they go!!

And for some reason, I don't have a picture of my dear sweet in her can.

Lastly, the poem that goes along with these Dammit Dolls:

When you want to climb the wall,

And stand right up and shout.

There's a little Dammit doll

You cannot do without.

Just grasp it firmly by the legs,

And find a place to slam it.

And as you whack the stuffing out

Yell Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!

If Dammit's not a word you say

Then twist its little neck

And grumble out repeatedly

Oh Heck, Oh Heck, Oh Heck!

And once you're done abusing it

Just sit it on the shelf.

But hug it first, as I'd hug you

If I were there myself.

(Sorry Annie that you will find out about this before you get your red lipped beauty. You werent supposed to have a computer until June, again.)