Happy Birthday to Me! (My party with the Jardine side of the family)

I got to have two fun parties! One with Jared's family, and one with mine. I made sure to play my favorite games at them (Catch Phrase and Charade's) And everyone was so generous, and loving! I'm so blessed to have such great family! And I had a wonderful birthday!

Hope

David and Missy

Chad and Janice

Scott....enjoying a cupcake, and some M&M's.

Kip and Linda

Seth and his kids, and Breanne

Luke

I love to have lots of fun stuff to munch on when throwing parties. This gives you an idea of the menu! YUM! (And of course, on nights like this, calories don't count!!!)

Happy Birthday to ME! (My side of the family party)

My sisters got me this beautiful mirror that I really wanted! Thank you!!! I got a lot of other great gifts from a lot of other great people too! But this was a good picture! Thank you to everyone and all the wonderful gifts!

Jared and the kids made me a cake and he stuck ?? candles on it! It was a CHOCOLATE cake.....of course!

Cheryl and Eric, with all the kids around them on the couch!

The 24th of July!

FIREWORKS!

Breanne and Eli

Scott LOVED the fireworks!

All the fireworks, lined up and ready to go.

I'm sorry that there aren't better pictures of this event....my camera wasn't doing to hot. So most of the photos are really dark. But it was a really fun time, none-the-less. We don't usually celebrate the 24th with fireworks, but we figured that becuase we had family in town, we would. I'm so glad that we did! Everyone had a really good time! We had most my family and most Jared's family there! So It was pretty cool!

Family Time Means Good Food and Good Fun!

Janice and Caroline just chat'n!

Hope showing off the yummy ribs we had that night.

The kids love to jump on Grandma and Grandpa's trampoline!

The small table the kids get to sit on for dinner.

My wonderful husband, Jared!

Joshua. (I love that expression on his face!)

The girls...Breanne and Ella!

Field Trip to the BYU Bean Museum

We had a lot of fun at the Bean Museum, and I think it might have been our largest group yet. It is a fun place to go. The kids really enjoyed it.

THE FRENCH DOOR!!!

Another renovation project...done! Well almost done. We have to put the molding up and stuff, but overall, it is in place.
It took pretty much ALL day and into the night, but they got it in. We love it! It looks so much better! So along with scraping the ceiling, and painting and stuff, this room will look awesome! And I have to give a BIG thanks to my brother-in-law, JAKE, for coming and helping Jared! He was a life saver! Thanks Jake!!!

Here's a picture of it from the back yard. (Now I just want new windows to match........someday!)

Here's Jared, taking the old door out.

Out to Lunch with the Girls!

We were lucky enough to get away one afternoon, and go to lunch together. While my sister-in-law Missy is visiting, we thought we better take the opportunity, and it was so much fun! Now we will have to go again when my other sister-in-laws get here.

Thanks guys! I needed it, and loved it!

Scraping the Ceiling!

When we moved in, we noted that there were some things that would need changing, and updating in our house. One of those things was to scrape the thick and ugly texture off the ceiling of the dinning room! So we did it on Saturday! And let me tell you...it was hard and messy!!! But so worth it! We took down one wall, and are planning on removing the other wall that is between the kitchen, so it would have looked really bad to have this different texture on one ceiling. Plus the texture itself is just bad. So it had to go. Now we just have to retexture the ceiling, (along with every other ceiling in the rooms upstairs, along with most the walls) and paint, and "walla"...we will have beautiful ceilings throughout! We have a lot of projects to do to make this house "ours", but it is a lot of fun to finally be able to do what we want with our space. Unlike renting, when you just have to put up with everything. And I'm a big HGTV fan, so I'm always watching those shows, and I love to see the before and after. And I couldn't wait to be able to remodle my own place. And now we are doing just that. It is hard work, and it seems endless, and we are so tired, but I think it will look awesome when we are finished. I need to take some pictures so you can all see the "before" and how it looks right now. So you will appreciate the "after" pictures of when I am done. Maybe when I've spent some time cleaning, and I feel like I can take some picts, I will. Hopefully some time this week. I know lots of you have asked to see them! So stay tuned!!! But for now you can kinda see the awful green cabinets in the background. And just know that those are definately going to go!

Field trip to the Scera Shell Museum

The kids loved visiting the Scera Shell Museum. If you haven't been, I would suggest it as a fun place to go! It had lots of fun and interesting things about Orem and how it was many years ago. We only spent about 45 minutes there, because of the age of our kids. But you could spend longer. The kids thought it was pretty neat. I think it was a successful field trip!

Making the best of it.....

VASELINE IS HARD TO GET OUT OF HAIR!

The other day we found Scott, and he had found the Vaseline! And he was covered in it! Thankfully, he wasn't eating it, but he did put it just about everywere on his body. And let me tell you, that stuff is hard to get out. But with a couple different suggestions from the internet, and a couple of baths later...it did eventually come out. But in the mean time, I figured I would use it like gel in his hair, and give him some "style"!!! He's a cutie! And I've made sure the Vaseling is in a secure and "high up" location!