Baylee's Birthday

So, this post is a little late but on Saturday night our good friends and neighbors the Whitney's had a family birthday party for their darling little girl Baylee, who turned 5!

It was at Randy's Tumbling in Pocatello and the kids had a great time playing in the foam pit, the trampolines, the slides, and many other things. This is Baylee, the queen of the night. I tried to get a picture at a bad time (right when she decided she wanted to open her presents but it wasn't time yet) so I'm labeling this pic "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to." She actually was taking the bad news pretty well though.

Jennie & Halle

The kids had a great time in the foam pit. McKinley loved getting buried.

Chandler, Justin, & Curtis getting in on the fun.

At the end, they pulled out this huge rubber band thing that you used as a sort of human slingshot. It was pretty funny to watch, even the women tried it. Lucky for me, Amber and I got to use the pregnancy excuse. Here's the boys ( the video is Justin, Chris, Chandler, and Chris's brother-in-law Spencer, Celeste's Dad Marshall is in the pic) giving it a whirl, enjoy!

Baylee, we had a great time at your party! Hope you had an awesome birthday!

So much for mother's instinct.....

because I completely thought I was having a boy. I had a name, a plan, and was practically buying boy things. I even told countless people about my theory on the oldest child always knowing the sex since I felt I knew about my younger's brothers and sisters and McKinley was certain this was her brother and that Halle was a sister. I thought it was an intuition that the eldest was always granted.

Well yesterday we found out that we are having another girl, yes, that's right. 3 GIRLS! When the lady said, "well guys I think you have another girl" Chan and I just started laughing. Now this is fine with us and we are looking forward to another sweet girl. However, the next time we have a child (and yes, this now also means that there WILL be a next time) the pressure is on and it will be immense since Chan does want his boy. I'm already dreading the tension in that ultrasound room the next time around..... but for now we will revel in the joy of how much money we'll save and the thought of another beautiful girl!

McKinley is getting used to the idea. She went from "but I wanted a brother" in a "I don't get it" sort of tone. Then it was "BUT I DON'T WANT TWO SISTERS, I WANT A BROTHER!!!!!!" and "I DON'T WANT ANOTHER HALLE!!" all this while crying and yelling. Now she is joyfully telling the grocery store checkers that her mom is having another girl and she is getting another sister, so hopefully it's sinking in. Halle, on the other hand is blissfully unaware of the fact that her world is about to be rocked.

Finally, due to my being sure I was having a boy we are completely out of girl names, so any suggestions would be helpful. FYI - we like names that are on the different side but not so different that you hear it and go "What the....."

Happy 1st Birthday Halle!

Yesterday, my precious baby girl turned 1, can you beleive it? I think McKin was more excited than Halle was. She was like "we have presents to wrap, we have to decorate, make a cake (which was actually bought) and clean up for the party, it will be fun but it's a lot of hard work." She was so nice to her sister on her birthday. We had a fun party with the fam, pizza, cake & ice cream and lots (way too many)of presents. We love our little Halle Pal, she makes us laugh everyday and knows how to make her mom feel really loved, what a blessing she is! We also happen to think she's pretty dang cute but we are a little biased.

Thanks to everyone for making an effort to celebrate Halle's birthday, we had a great time!

Congratulations Marc!

This is a shout out to my wonderful brother-in-law Marcus Gene Bradshaw. Marc recently interviewed for and got a position as an intern this summer with the Idaho National Laboratory. They interviewed lots of students from Idaho State, Boise State, CSI, BYU-Idaho and only hired 4 people for the coveted position so it is quite an accomplishment and will lead to great opportunities! WOO-HOO!

I just happened to be there when they got the news and got this photo to document the occasion, HA HA!

PS. Just remember that we may need a loan when you're rollin' in the dough someday!

Easter

The Saturday before Easter, we took the girls to Jensen's Grove for the Easter Egg Hunt. Had we been 30 seconds later we would have missed it, so we just ran to the closest area that looked like it had kids around McKinley's age. So the siren went off and the madness began, soon after I looked over and realized that was the 0-2 area. So McKin was really cleaning up and had a lot of eggs, so I grabbed her and ran over to 3-5 but the eggs were pretty much gone. I didn't feel too bad since there were tons of parents grabbing eggs for their 5 month old babies, seriously they can't even eat the candy!

McKin got her picture taken with the Easter Bunny, Halle was way to content in the stroller to be bothered with a picture. On Saturday night I told McKinley that she needed to stay in her room all night and not come into our room in the middle (which she frequently does) because she would scare the Easter Bunny and he wouldn't leave her anything. Sunday morning she was very proud of herself for not scaring the Easter Bunny and has also written him about 50 letters that I told her we would deliver to the forest where he lives. If anyone is really sure where the Easter Bunny lives, McKinley may appreciate a better answer. The girls loved their Easter Baskets and new little toys. Well, Halle didn't really know what was going on but seemed to like the excitement. Then we got ready for church, the girls looked beautiful in their new matching dresses..

McKinley's "Fake" Birthday

So at McKinley's pre-school they choose each summer birthday gets a day during the school year to celebrate their birthday. Her real birthday is July 30 but last Thursday was her pre-school birthday. For a girl that asks every day how soon her birthday is, this is a little confusing for her. She was very dissapointed when they didn't sing to her in Primary on Sunday. However she did have a very fun "fake" birthday. She requested that we bring cupcakes with purple frosting since that is her favorite color, and they actually turned out ok. McKinley was in charge of the sprinkles on top. She was very excited to take them to school.

This is her after the party, she had a great time!

Chandler's Heaven

When I saw these two stores side by side at an outlet mall I had to take a picture because this is what I think is my husband's idea of the perfect world..