Maddio's Art Camp

Over the past few weeks Uncle Maddio’s has been hosting Art Camp for Kids on Saturdays. We’ve been to two of them so far and they’ve been really fun. Last time they had their faces painted. The kids got to paint T shirts this time. The Horlacher’s joined us for the fun and the kids had a blast.

Surprise!

I must say 34 has been my unexpectedly best birthday in years! I guess it is because there is nothing you really celebrate about 34, so I had no expectations. Hooray for being plesantly surprised. :) And VERY surprised I was when, after my kids were in bed asleep at the end of the day (while I was sitting on the couch, wet hair pulled back into a bun, wearing yesterday’s mostly clean clothing and watching In Her Shoes on TV) when 6 of my dear friends showed up for a surprise birthday party! They came with THE cake of my dreams (I’ve mentioned it so many times in the past it’s embarrassing...) and Nate set up the LCD projector and we played RockBand. It looked like we were having a mini rave from the outside of our house and our neighbors asked us about it the next day. :) It was a lot of fun and a really great way to spend a Friday night.

Olivia

Olivia is a two year old extraordinaire. She has the sweetest little personality and its fun to watch her interact with her brothers. Nate snapped this one of her snuggling Jonah this morning after they’d both just woken up. I love how this picture also demonstrates her amazing Bed Head capabilities.

7 Weeks

Jonah is growing like a weed. He is so round and yummy and generally pretty easy so far. He’s already 7 weeks old, almost 8 and it just keeps flying by. I look back at the millions of pictures of Owen I had by this age (literally, I don’t think I did anything but take pictures of him all day...) and he looks a lot like Owen did at this age. The other day at the pool he found his thumb and I couldn’t resist snapping a picture.

Princesses

Our friends, the Hadleys, stopped by to visit us the other day. It had been YEARS since we had seen them and it was really fun to catch up with Denise and the girls. They have two girls who LOVE to play dress up, and were thrilled when we brought out our dress up clothes. We just had to snap a few pics of the girls all dressed up. It was too cute to see them all clacking around in their heels and princess dresses. Little girls are so fun. :)

6 Weeks

I just love my snuggly little guy. Today he is 6 weeks old and we are still loving every little bit of him each day. He is growing so quickly. He started smiling last week, on purpose! Not just those accidental smiles. It is so fun to just stare at him and I love how a newborn slows down the pace of family life. We love our Jonah.

Owen's 5th Birthday

For Owen’s birthday this year Olivia and I picked up a few doughnuts and headed over to his preschool to help him celebrate. There is nothing better than walking into a classroom of five year olds with donuts. They could not have been more excited. I love that about this age.
His teachers made him a birthday crown and gave him a little ring with a soccer ball and a coin purse with 5 pennies in it! We sang Happy Birthday, ate donuts, then Owen showed me all around in his classroom and the kids danced and sang a few songs. It was really cute and we had a great time. It looks pretty great to be FIVE.

We had a great time celebrating Owen’s birthday this year. He was SUPER excited about it and it was really fun to watch him enjoy his day. We decorated his room while he slept and he woke up to balloons and streamers in his room. He thought that was pretty cool. His party was that afternoon and we had about 15 kids at the house. We jumped in the jumpy castle (thanks to our neighbors for loaning that to us), made balloon animals and swords, had a water balloon toss, decorated goody bags and had cake and ice cream. Good times.

Happy 34th Birthday Alli

Another good year. I celebrated this one in Utah with Nate’s family. If one has to turn 34, I really recommend doing it like this:
Waking up late
Going for a walk with Jill
Shopping at the Park City Outlets (with spending money even!)
Nana watched the kids while we shopped and they baked a cake for me :)
Eating dinner at Cafe Rio
Cake and ice cream with family out on the back porch
Making sure fire extinguisher is nearby as there were MANY candles on my cake. My eyebrows did not get singed, and I count that as lucky. Here’s to the next 365.

...in your life seen such cute shoes? My sister, Cheryl, gave these to me for my birthday this year. I love them so much I am going to restructure my whole wardrobe around them. :)

Trip to Utah

While in Utah we went up Weber Canyon to spend a few days at the family cabin. It is so pretty up there and the kids loved hiking around and “playing tennis” while daddy and uncle jordan played. It was fun to see them have so much fun and to spend time with our cousins we don’t get to see very often. :)

While in Utah we were able to see and spend time with several of my family members. We went to Seven Peaks one day, which is always one of my favorite things to do. My kids LOVED it and we had to drag them away at the end of the day after spending at least 6 hours having fun. We just love the water and both kids really enjoyed the slides, even the big ones. :)

Because we all love to go bowling together, Owen equates Bowling with Utah. :) We were able to go not just once but TWICE this past trip. Owen was in heaven!

We had a reunion of sorts with both sides of the family while we were in Utah. Here is the Johannesen Clan. The first picture (above) is all of us and the second picture (below) is just the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We are not short on numbers in our family. We had a great time seeing everyone and catching up.

At the Richard’s family reunion we played loads of fun games. Nate and Owen were on a team together and I made sure Olivia and Jonah were happy. :) They had all sorts of events: shot put, volley ball, basket ball, soccer and an obstacle course. We had a great time. It was a beautiful, sunny Utah afternoon. It is so fun to catch up with all of Nate’s cousins and their families.

We blessed Jonah in Nate’s parent’s ward and were able to have my 3 oldest sisters and several of their children come. It was really fun to have so many extended family members present for his blessing. Jill made Jonah’s blessing outfit and I just love it. Jonah behaved really well during the blessing, while my other two had a much harder time not being wiggly during sacrament meeting. Such is life with three I guess. :) Afterwards our families came down the street to the Anderson’s house for a luncheon. It was another fun opportunity to visit with everyone.

We always try to get a family picture with all of Nate’s siblings and their kids when we visit. This gets a bit harder as the years go by as we keep adding smaller people who don’t really like to hold still or look at a camera. But we keep trying. :) Here is the most recent Anderson Family picture.

Yum. I can’t remember the last time we made s’mores. For family night with the Andersons, we headed up Millcreek Canyon. (I cannot express how wonderful, cool and dry air felt to those of us coming from the hot and humid south. ) We had a great time watching the fire, roasting marshmallows, making and eating s’mores, throwing rocks into the creek and visiting.

Nate’s parents asked him to go through all of his stuff. You know all the stuff one leaves at one’s parents house? It was a lot and Nate, lovable pack-rat that he is, went through it all. It was really fun to see so many fun, memorable things. Here are his tennis shoes that he really did want to bring home to Atlanta. Sadly (for Nate), our luggage was already filled to capacity, so these had to make their way to DI. But we took a picture for posterity sake. Good.bye early 90’s tennis shoes. Thanks for the memories and for a good laugh on a Monday night. :)

Face Painting

Nate took the kids to Maddio’s today for a Kid’s Art Camp they were hosting. Each of them wanted to have their face painted and I thought it turned out pretty cute. I am amazed they each held still for that long. :)