If You Loved Twilight, I Think You'll Love This Book!

I just finished "The Hourglass Door" by Lisa Mangum last night, and wanted to spread the word that it was really good. It reminded me of Twilight all throughout the book. It's almost 400 pages, but I read it in about a week. It's totally clean - no swearing or anything, and the author is from Utah. Anyway, that's my suggestion for a good read. Now I can't wait to pick up the second one in the series "The Golden Spiral".

Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere!

Okay, so I feel like I know somewhat what I'm doing when it comes to flowers, but apparently I don't know as much as I thought. I know that petunias are annuals. I mean, I did purchase them in the annual section of the greenhouse, and in years past I've had to repurchase & plant them yearly (that to me would mean "annual"). Well, this year we did the same. For the first time in three years we planted regular petunias instead of wave petunias, and what began to randomly start growing in our flower beds two weeks ago? WAVE PETUNIAS!!! This is too cool to us, so I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of this happening.

The petunias I planted this year:


The wave petunias we planted last year coming up from seed (unfortunately I thought they were a weed at first, so I weeded out most of them). Here's what they look like:



Here's one of the wave petunias that grew and has mixed into my regular petunia plant:


So, speaking of flowers, I thought I'd show some pictures of two of the flower hair clips I just made this morning. I've been wanting to make some since before Ashlie was born, and I'm finally getting around to it. Most of the ones I made are much smaller than these, but the girls chose the big ones today!

Here's Paige:


And Megan:


Okay, I'm adding this photo in later in the day. I went crazy & spent 3 hours making flower clips today. So I made these plus Megan's currently wearing a blue one in her hair. Now I know why women sell these. It's so easy to make a TON! I have about 65 clips leftover plus oodles and oodles of flowers. I think I have a fun new addiction!

Ashlie Turned One!

We now have a cute little one year old crawling around! I can't believe she's been with our family a whole year. It was our first year having the three birthdays in eight days, and I think we did pretty well. It was crazy but fun. The celebration kicked off with a birthday call from her grandma & grandpa Woodward (which had her smiling and giggling while her grandpa sang to her over the phone). After church my parents, McKenzie, Shalyce, & Jordan all came up to our house for a little party for one cute little girl...

It was a struggle, but we did manage to get her to help us open some of her gifts:


Here's her playing with one of her new toys later last night:

And this morning:

BIRTHDAY CAKE TIME! We sliced the cake into three pieces (for Ashlie, Megan, & Paige), but I still think she did all right with her portion...

Here's the Before:



And the After:

And the In-Between:



Overall, I think this is what she thought:

Summer Fun Part 1

So far our summer has been really fun and really busy! We started things off by spending a week in Park City. During that week I turned 30 (I still can't believe it!). My dad took Megan on her first ever ride on the Alpine Slide, which was definitely a highlight for me. I thought she'd be really nervous, but she LOVED it - I was so proud of her!

Here's a cute picture of her riding up the ski lift with my family:

Megan and my dad coming to a finish:

We couldn't wipe the smile off her face!

June and July is Birthday Mania on the John side of our family. Along with father's day, we have my birthday, Jordan, Alyssa, Brooklynn, my mom, Julianne, Megan, Paige, and Ashlie -- all within 3 weeks of each other. My parent's decided that they wanted to spend time with the grandkids for their birthday present this year (especially because Brooklynn was up from Arizona), so they created an itinerary called "The Birthday Blast that Lasts and Lasts". We kicked things off by going to Temple Square. It started off great, and then Megan scared us all by fainting (we're assuming from the heat). She was completely pale, her lips were blue, and she was totally limp in my arms. We had to lie her down in the entryway of the visitor's center, where the missionaries hurried and called and got us some help. My brother-in-law Paul ran and grabbed my car for me (Brad wasn't with me) and I hurried Megan home to my parent's house. After that my parent's were wondering how the rest of the activities would go, and I'm happy to say that everything else was great.

Paige at the Salt Lake Temple:

My sister McKenzie did Megan's hair (and Brooklynn's & Alyssa's). They were all gorgeous!

Later that night Brad was with the kids and they went in the hot tub, roasted marshmallows, and camped out in my parent's backyard. Where was I? AT ECLIPSE!!! It was so fun! I got to go with all four of my sisters. The release of the movie was midnight eastern time, but we got to see it at 8:45 because my sister got tickets through her work. LOVED IT!!!

Paige in the hot tub:

Megan ready for the tent (with swimming hair!):

In the morning we all went out to eat for breakfast at Granny Annie's in Kaysville. Most everyone ordered hot chocolate & scones. The scone was more than I could eat. Then we swam at the Roy Aquatic Pool.

Paige working on the whipped cream atop her hot chocolate:

On the third day of all our fun, my dad took the grandkids to see Toy Story 3 in the theater, then my mom took the kids to Boondocks to miniature golf. The kids had such a fun week, and made lots of good memories.

We've now celebrated both Megan's 7th, and Paige's 4th birthdays. I'll post some pictures of Ashlie's birthday hopefully next week. She'll be one!!!
Ashlie and I enjoying Megan's birthday breakfast:

Brad and I were sure surprised with how much she loved her new sandals for Church! This photo reminded me of some of mine when I was younger (the cheesy smile):



Her cake:


She got lots of fun presents, but her favorite (which was also an early b-day present for Paige) was the trampoline waiting for them outside! Brad set it up late at night after they both went to bed the night before.

Yesterday Paige had a very happy 4th birthday:

Paige loves Aerial and Sleeping Beauty, so I kind of went with a Little Mermaid themed birthday for the most part.
Here's her cake:

This has to be her favorite of all of her presents. Her birthday was just yesterday, and I know she's done this puzzle at least 10 times. Probably more. When Brad and I woke up this morning Paige was in on the kitchen floor already working on it. It's 3 feet wide.

Both Paige and Megan got beach towels for their birthdays, and Paige decided last night that it would make a great blanket:

Megan wanted me to take this "freaky" picture (those are her words):

Well, with all this fun, we managed to squeeze in the Kaysville fireworks, and the Provo parade. We'd never been to that parade before, and though it didn't toss candy, and though we barely got a 4 foot wide space to sit, the floats were really great at this one. We were impressed. Plus, as we drove into Provo we saw 9 hot air balloons (including a giant pig and smokey the bear). We see hot air balloons all the time at home, but these were different and fun to see.
Paige, ready for the parade to begin:

I loved these balloons. I know there were at least four different ones:

Everyone stood for the flag of course, but also when the LDS missionaries walked by!

They had some great floats:

We hope all of you had a GREAT 4th of July!

Love, The Woodwards