7th Birthday Craziness

I don't know how it happens but since we've been in Utah Addi's birthday has turned into a 3-day event!

I tried to avoid that this year...to no avail.

 She had a pool party on Friday night, she invited every friend and every family member.

(So as to avoid multiple mini-celebrations)

There were 18 children...at a pool party...I don't know what I was thinking.

Being responsible for that many lives, or as I thought of them, possible drowning victims was a leeetle stressful.

Luckily, I did have Randall, my brothers and sister to send in the water. While my Mother and I patrolled the pool from the deck.

So that you can read on without suspense there were no drownings...or even near drownings, a feat I can only credit to the Almighty.

 There were friends and gifts galore!

 I constructed an ice cream sandwich "cake" for its easy grab and go and rinse off in the pool convenience.

 Addi & A in their team suits

 It was pretty much swimming mayhem for a solid 2 hours...again I'm just relieved that no one died.

 They were never all in the same place at once, so this is the best I could do for a group shot.

 It is possible that the best part of the party was watching the real-live ninjas practicing as we were leaving.

 (Kendo?)

Then on Sunday Grandma got Addi a beautiful cake with her name on it.

 She was very excited.  She wanted to save the flowers, so they were displayed on a plate for all to apppreciate.

 Then on Monday morning one of Addi's friends (we still don't know who) surprised her with a Happy Birthday poster on the garage door.

 I think this is such a cute and thoughtful idea.

It doesn't take too much time or effort and Addi felt incredibly special.

Happy 7th Addi.

Quiet Christmas

 After all of the Christmas Eve hubbub Christmas Day was wonderfully peaceful.

Addi woke up not to early (bless her) to open her gifts.

Mostly books, a few games and a knitting loom.

The big one is pillows

 (It's pretty much official that I need to re-learn how to use my camera...I'm becoming the blurry picture queen)

 Santa also brought this magnifying glass, for inspecting things.

The Haul.

Randall treated us to waffles, then we all went to Church and sang all of the songs I love to sing on Christmas. I do love a Sabbath Day Christmas.

Christmas Eve

As explained by the previous post we were all a little tired for our family Christmas Eve Celebration.

We had lots of delicious food that we hardly touched because we'd just returned from the wedding dinner.

 But we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves with our family.

 Gracie was Mary and Addi was the Angel in our Nativity play.

When All of the other children wanted to be Wisemen or the Donkey, my brothers stepped in to be Jospeh and the Shepherds.

My Brother Ryan stole the show as usual playing the Innkeepers complete with accents and hilariously diverse dispositions.

Merry Marriage

My little sister was engaged to be married in January but when they found out that her fiance was being deployed the first week of January for 7 months to a year they decided to get married when he had leave at Christmas.

Luckily her dress had already been ordered and arrived and my sister-in-law is a real live wedding photographer. 

(Unfortunately her pictures are not here, these are mine)

And so on Christmas Eve, they got married.

 Here's Addi at the wedding, bearing up well even though she did not get to be a flower girl.

The Nutcracker

Randall took us gals to the Nutcracker this Christmas.

We went to the production performed by my old ballet school.

Addi and I both loved it...Randall is anxious for the day when it will become a Mother-Daughter event with Aunts and Cousins.

 

We were in a mad dash to get to the performance on time so this was taken after the performance at the "fancy" restaurant we went to later.  (Brick Oven)

Addi felt all grown up and sophisticated.