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

Megan's First Grade Report

Today Megan turned in her first ever "Report". Everyone in her class got to choose an animal to research, and she chose "The Owl". We read about 5 owl books and she chose her favorite parts from each that she wanted to write about. Brad and I were super proud of her. She was begging every day to work on it! Anyway, here it is - today she gets to share it in class:
Cover:
Page #1:
Page #2:
Page #3:
Page #4:
Page #5:
Page #6:

It's Over...

Here's my shout-out for LOST!!! For six seasons now Brad and I have watched it without fail. We never missed a single episode in six years. Last night I got all teary watching the finale (yes, I'm admitting it). Teary more because it was over than anything. It was on Saturday for 2 hours & again on Sunday for 4 1/2, and we loved every second of it. I'm SOOO sad it's over. It's crazy to think that we started watching it clear back when Megan was just a baby! I'm going to totally miss that time with Brad each Tuesday. All my fellow twilight fans - you'll love these characters just as much. It was so good, & I'm missing it already!!

Another Great Mother's Day

I sure got treated well yesterday! This photo makes me laugh - I received all of these lovely gifts while at church yesterday. I could barely carry everything out to the car! :) The potted plant is from Megan's primary class, the pillow is from Paige's class, and the two ceramic pots with flower seeds are from Sharing Time, and the candy bar is from the bishopric. Church was definetely the place to be yesterday!! :)

Brad made me a yummy breakfast in bed which included scrambled eggs, ham, orange juice, a heart pancake & small XOXO pancakes. It was cute. I guess I was too hungry to stop and pick up the camera. He made a super delicious dinner of halibut & gourmet salad. He was making candied walnuts to go on top of the salad, and he was creating his own special sauce for the fish, which was super tasty. He's a great cook. I love it when he cooks for me. I asked him earlier on if he'd thought of a dessert (because that's what I live for you know), and he was like, "uh, no". So I made myself some chocolate cookies to top off his yummy meal. What's a Mother's Day meal without dessert, right? He treated me special all day long. I love Mother's Day!

Megan took this photo of us, & it makes me laugh because Brad's all red & sweaty from running around the kitchen like crazy! He was grilling, slicing, dicing, keeping his eye on the walnuts in the oven, & on the rice, etc. He was cute! For all those wondering, yes, I helped when I saw that he was trying to multi-task a bit too much! :)

To top the whole day off, Brad got to talk to his brother Brian, who is serving a mission in Texas right now. Brad's family all did a big conference call, so they had Brad, his siblings, his parent's, and his aunt Kaye all on the phone with Brian at the same time. That was definitely Brad's favorite part of the day, I'm sure. Not only did he get to talk with all of his family, but it got him out of doing all of the mother's day dishes!!! :)

Saturday we spent the day at my parent's house, and it was a rare occasion when our whole family was together. Not the best of circumstances brought Julianne & Paul up for a visit, but it was great to see them & their kids even if it was for only a few hours. It's fun to see all of the grandkids together...See our three 2009 babies!

Our Heber Creeper Train Ride

We just had a great morning! The library story time group was able to purchase tickets for the train at an amazing discount (amazing as in $12.00 for the 4 of us!!). Brad spent from 10:15 - 1:00 with us, and it was super fun to have him along. It was his first time on the Heber Creeper, since he was in Pennsylvania for work the last time I went. Miss Sally (who does story time) had a train hat for each child, & some fruit snacks, and sang some fun train songs while we were on our ride. It took us halfway down Deer Creek Reservoir, which was further than I'd gone before. As I said before, it was very fun.
This is Paige, Ashlie & I with friends from our ward - Pam & her daughters (her baby is 10 days younger than Ashlie), and Kitty & her daughter. Their daughters, Lydia & Miriam are Paige's age.

Paige & Brad - she was so glad he could come!

Posing by one of the parked trains:

Paige & her seat buddy & good friend, Lydia: