birthdays wear me out!!

I don't know how we managed it, but all of our children have been born between the months of February and July, and most of those are 2 days apart in 1 month.

Mariah turned 7 on March 26th

We were in Utah for Spring Break and we had a really great day riding TRAX, seeing some really fun sites in Salt Lake, and visiting cousins!

But....
The only pictures I got are on my phone and I don't know how to put those on here.

So, I have to post pictures from a couple days later when she was going to take her clogging pictures.

Some things to know about Mariah:
(in her own words)
*some things I am good at: drawing and clogging, and I'm good at cleaning my room
*something I wish for: to know what the new baby is
*a fun place I want to visit: Disneyland
*what do I like to do with my mom: help her do jobs and clean the house
*what do I like to do with my dad: work outside with him while he fixes the car
*my favorite things to eat: ramen noodles, salad, and pizza

something that embarrasses me: my crooked teeth - I really want braces!

Mariah is super easy going and just loves spending time with us no matter what we're doing.

She rarely gets upset about anything and is always willing to help.

She has the sweetest personality and when anyone is unkind to her it makes me really mad because she is never mean to anyone!

Akayla turned 16 on Monday

I have no worries with Akayla dating.

She is a good girl with high standards in the boys she wants to spend time with.

She has had many many boys chasing after her since she turned 12 and she has mostly been really good and followed the rules we have.

Because her birthday fell on a super busy day (I still had to teach until dinner time and Dave has class from 6-9 on Monday nights this semester for his masters) I was very worried that she wouldn't feel very loved on her birthday.

I wanted to bring balloons and pizza at lunch but didn't realize lunch was earlier so I missed it.

Her good friends were going to decorate her locker but didn't get to it for some reason.

Basically her school day was a bummer.....

until 4th hour....

Her choir class sang to her and gave her all kinds of attention and gifts, and near the end of class one of her favorite boys who goes to another school brought 2 dozen long stemmed red roses to surprise her!

Several other guy friends brought her gifts also so her hands were very full when she came home.

Later in the evening one friend brought her a jamba juice and her best friend (a guy) brought all the stuff to make italian sodas.

She got jewelry and money to spend on clothes or towards her prom dress (she's been asked by 2 boys so far and the dresses we've seen around here are close to $400. Now I regret not sewing!)

I did make her nana's authentic spaghetti sauce with meatballs and Italian sausage. It's a real treat at our house because it takes a few hours of preparation and many many hours of cooking on the stove BUT it is sooo worth it!

She even got asked to go on her first date for the next Friday.

At the end of the day she said it was one of her best birthdays ever!

Collin - making Italian sodas

Adriana turned 11 on Wednesday

that's right - 2 days later!

I kidnapped her from school and we went out to eat at a fun 50's restaurant.

We had burgers and fries and hers even came in a cool 50's car.

We got huge shakes and listened to Elvis.

Then she got to come home with me and watch Biggest Loser while everyone else was still at school!

I had a group lesson planned with all of my students for this day so I made it a birthday party.

We had 18 students so we broke them into 6 groups and they each had the melody of happy birthday on a paper. They had to come up with the accompaniment.

We met in the church so each group had their own piano in a separate room.

It was perfect!

All of the accompaniments were fun and creative!

Then we had cupcakes to celebrate.

Adri chose pesto pasta (homemade) with grilled vegetables for dinner.

She got lots of great presents: books, jewelry, Taylor Swift's newest cd, new clothes from aeropostale, a Justin Bieber poster, and money.

She chose to watch Harry Potter 7 so we put the younger kids upstairs watching another movie and we watched it in our theater room.

We went to bed way too late but it was a fun day.

The next birthdays aren't until June........thank heavens!!

good things:

leftovers

It's almost Friday

things to look forward to