Father's Day

This year for Father's Day Josh wanted to take the boys camping. He had been wanting to for months and it just worked out that Father's Day weekend was the best for our family, Bryan's family (his bro) Ben and Jake (Bros-in-law) and for Brad (their dad). So they went over by Jake's parent's house (Josh's sister's husband) and camped there by the river. Then the next day they got some of Brad's hoses and rode for a while.

For Father's Day we also got Josh a new car. (haha) Okay it was actually about a week before Father's Day, but I think that counts as a good present. We went down to Utah and came back with a black Toyota 4 Runner. It's old but very sporty and actually in pretty good shape. It'll be a good little second car for Josh to take the boys around in on his days off. Here are some pictures of the trip!

Utah Trip (New Office Furniture for Tiff and New Car for Josh)

We decided to make a little trip down to Utah this past week - with two main goals in mind.

1) A trip to  Ikea for me to get office furniture (and can I just say - Ikea is amazing!? I spend five hours in there… Josh took the kids to Cabela's.)

2) A new car for Josh to have to drive on his days off when he wants to take the boys somewhere and I want to stay with Avery or go somewhere else. We have survived with only his police SUV and the minivan for a while now, and we had a good run, but it was getting to be time for a second car. We ended up deciding on a used Toyota 4 runner and we were so lucky to find one that was in really nice shape and was a really good price. After we had looked at about 5 that were total stinkers, we were about ready to give up hope. This was the last one on our list to look at. We are so excited we found one we like! (and to still be car-payment-free! ;)

My office is still in the process but here are some picture of the furniture I got. I repainted it all a blue-green teal color and a still working on putting stuff on the walls.

Quick Story

This all happened in the course of about 10 seconds - seriously. First Josh flipped his spoon at the table, then somehow Caleb did the same thing at the bar. I guess eating cereal can be very difficult for the males. Guess who got to clean it all up though? And people wonder why I spend so much time cleaning...

Caleb's Golden Birthday

Well, I remember my own golden birthday like it was yesterday. I turned 11 on the 11th of July back in 1995. I remember my biggest want at that time, was to become a movie star and ride around in a limo. So for my golden birthday party, my mom threw me this amazing Hollywood themed party. I had about 8 friends over (and my little sister) and we played some kind of movie star games, dressed up in these gowns that my mom probably bought at Goodwill that week, and had a grand time. (Yes, I was 11…not 5. I still liked playing dress up and I still do. haha) But really the whole icing on the cake (the figurative cake - I had a real cake too, probably with real icing) was that I had BEGGED my mom to rent a limo to drive around me and my friends for an hour or so and take them all home from the party in. She had repeatedly said "no." It was like $100 or something crazy to rent the limo for an hour and she was totally not budging on the idea. So I was bummed, but I had accepted it by the time my party day had arrived. So imagine my surprise, when right at the end of the party, my friends start FREAKING out and telling me to go outside! There it was - a white stretch limo - my dream had come true. We all piled in there with our long, Goodwill gowns and treat bags in hand (yes, I know, still 11… haha) and drove around town for about an hour and then started dropping off the girls at their houses. It was probably one of the best days of my life. (Or at least that's how I remember it.) So OF COURSE I wanted my little Caleb's Golden birthday to have the same effect on him!

Did it? I don't know, probably not. haha But I think it was a really fun day! Caleb kind of has this Eyore complex. He gets in these "Nobody likes me… my life is so horrible…" moods. There were a couple of points during the day where I wanted to just shake him and be like, "This is your Golden Birthday! Have fun, dang it!" Most of the time he did, but Josh said there was one point where all eight little boys went running scared out of the playhouse because Caleb was having a "I am missing a Power Rangers Card!" meltdown. haha I was out getting the pizza and missed that. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday (Friday, June 6th) was his actual birthday. We went to Kiwi Loco for some frozen yogurt and to McDonald's for dinner. He got his presents from our family (two Power Rangers toys that he had pointed out on Amazon one day) and also a couple of Transformers that he really liked from my dad that came in the mail. So he had a good day and was anxiously counting down the hours until his party. (He had also been counting down the days for about the past month.)

This morning, we started by picking up his friend, Brayden Calkins, and then picking up Cash (Josh's cousin's little boy, so maybe Caleb's second cousin?) to go to Flips Gymnastic's Center. Diane (Josh's mom) came down from Ashton and brought with her Orrin and Asher (two more cousins) and then Heather brought Berrick and Wilder. Then Bryan brought Brennan and Janelle brought Carter and Tyson, so it was quite amazing that Caleb actually had ever single boy cousin on Josh's side at his birthday party! They all went crazy playing at Flips for about two hours in the foam pit, trampolines, slides, etc.

Once it was about 12:30, we all headed back to Rexburg to our house and I went and got pizza (missed the meltdown) and we had the DQ ice cream cake already in the freezer ready to go. Caleb had requested ice cream cake this year! He picked out one with lots of forest animals on it. Then everyone played at our house for a while and we wrapped it up about 2:00. It was a pretty long birthday extravaganza in my opinion!

Then Caleb and I went to Idaho Falls, where he was planning to pick out a present at Toys R Us from my mom. Let me tell you…. that boy…. he gets his crazy indecisive nature from me. I swear we were in that store for over an hour as he picked up 30 different toys and thought them over before putting them back. Finally, after losing most of my sanity and still needing to go to Winco, I suggested that we go home and he thinks it all over for a few days and then I can order whatever he decides from Amazon.

So he ended up leaving the store with just a canister of Spiderman silly string! haha I am sure he will think of something to spend that money on that is just burning a hole in his pocket! ;)

Some fun facts about Caleb: He wears a size 8 clothes, size 1 shoe. He probably weighs about 70 pounds (yes, about as much, maybe a little more than Gabe) and he has a lovable/hilarious/moody and sensitive personality, depending what time of day it is. ;) He loves Power Rangers, Superheros, Transformers, BeyBlades, Legos, playing with water guns, being with his friends, riding his bike (which he needs a bigger one right now…) and snuggling every night before bed with me. He actually makes me promise when I leave the room (after the first snuggle and tuck in) that I will return to check on him and snuggle him some more, even if he is sleeping. Every night. He may be big, but he's still my baby boy. ;)

Here are some pictures of us at Kiwi Loco on Friday and a couple on Saturday (yes I just realized he wore the same thing two days in a row…) and I need to still download the ones of his with the cake and all of his cousins! I am having camera issues. I can't find my cord. So all of these were taken on my iPhone!