July 6th I threw a double birthday party for Megan & Paige. I figured Megan's 8th and Paige's 5th birthdays should be a big deal, so we put on a luau in the backyard for 15 kids! Thankfully I had Brad, my parents, and two of my sisters, because every child came! It always surprises me how quickly we burn through my activites that I plan. Every 10 minutes you need something else!! :)
July 7th was Paige's birthday, July 9th I got to see two of my sister's racing in a triatholon in Logan, & July 10th was my brother-in-law's mission homecoming in Idaho. We spent a couple of nights camping in my in-law's backyard since there were 30 of us visiting at their house for the weekend. It was crazy, but so rare that so many of us were together, so it was wonderful. July 11th was Ashlie's 2nd birthday, July 13th we went to Lagoon with Paul & Julianne and their two oldest kids (while my parent's graciously babysat our younger kiddos).
Finally, the best part of the entire month... Yesterday, July 16th, my little Megan was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was glowing all day long, and has been all day today as well. It will always be remembered as a beautiful day for me. I love that girl so much!!!
Ready for pictures???!!! Here they come! Hopefully I can eliminate a few - I pulled aside 46 that I liked. Here we go...
My mom on her happy 60th birthday. I hope I look this good in 29 years!
My mom with all her daughters and granddaughters. She was feeling the love!
A beautiful baptism & blessing day for the Odell family!
A very happy 8th birthday for Megan! Her favorite gifts were her scooter (so she can ride with Paige, who has one!), and the huge dollhouse we got her (that's taller than Paige). I bought it used off of KSL.com, and it is awesome! It's a two-sided house on wheels, and it came with about 50 pieces of furniture that are large enough for Barbies. It's been great! I love seeing my girls give the homemade gifts that they've thoughtfully made for each other. Paige was so excited to give her 2 cards that she made for Megan. She cuts things out, glues them on paper, puts stickers all over, and finishes her projects off by writing Paige on the front. Megan loved her two cards!!!
I was thrilled when Megan requested a different dessert other than cake for her birthday. She wanted an ice cream pie with oreo crust, oreo ice cream, frozen whipped cream, and strawberries and chocolate syrup on top. It was good stuff!!!
Fourth of July Parade! I'm glad I got this photo. I don't know how many more times (if ever) I'll be able to get a picture of my dad in front of his childhood home, since it's up for sale (to be used as commercial property). This is grandma's house!
Paige was so excited when she was thrown a popsicle in the parade!
The afternoon of the 4th, my two cute younger sisters threw a "water party" for all the nieces. All five granddaughters on my side of the family have their birthday between June 25 and July 11. My sisters bought a slip 'n slide, a ball for trampoline dodge ball, and water balloons, then we got in the hot tub. I seriously have the cutest sisters....and yes, I participated! I learned that I had to bail on the slip 'n slide every time before I'd hit the inflatable part at the end (just so I wouldn't pop it!!!).
Here's Ashlie enjoying the water party:
Our luau party was so fun! My favorite part was the decorating. We made tiki faces, and made our own tiki pole, played pass the parrot, crack the coconut, the limbo, we erupted 2 different volcanos, made sand art in little jars, played pin the parrot on the palm tree, & had fruit shish-ka-bobs (that I skewered on colored straws), and cupcakes with umbrella toothpicks on them. A lot of work? Yes! Worth it? Definitely!
This is one of our two tiki poles. Cute, huh?!
My parent's stayed after the luau and gave birthday presents. They are spoilers! Megan was so excited about the new scriptures she was given for her birthday / baptism gift. It was a sweet reaction that I was thrilled I got on camera:
Paige's 5th birthday! Brad and I bought this play kitchen from the same person as the dollhouse. That was definitely an unplanned purchase (she asked if we might be interested in it when we went to pick up the dollhouse), but one that our girls have been loving! They have lots of play food, and I got her some hot pads and play aprons to go with it.
My short-waisted Barbie cake! Oh well, she was happy.
My amazing sisters who are nearly finished with the Logan Triathalon. They had finished their swim, bike ride, and had done half of their run at this point:
You're awesome Julianne and Shalyce!!!
Finally, Brad & his siblings are all together!!! We were all in Franklin for Brian's missionary homecoming. It's been fun to have him home.
Happy 2nd birthday to my cute little Ashlie!
Ashlie's main gift was a big duffle bag of Mega Blocks. I bought a package of pink and white legos, and for some strange reason there was a large yellow Lego block in there. That made us question if the package had been opened before, so we ended up dumping them out and counting them. Sure enough, it was missing twelve pieces. So, a week later, I was able to get back down to Toys R Us to switch it out for a new bag. By the time her birthday came around my house was no longer clean, & I was all for "anything simple" as far as her cake was concerned. Her cake said Love you (heart & u) Ashlie! with m&ms. She enjoyed everything we had for her to open - she'd bring Brad and I every gift to have us start ripping it for her. Words can't describe how much we love this little girl:
With my sister's employee discount, our family & my sister's family were able to go to Lagoon for $10 a person with free parking! I didn't get to spend too much time with Paul & Julianne while they were up from Arizona, so I am so glad we had this day together! Julianne commented to me while we were at Lagoon, just how fun it was to see our kids experiencing the rides for the first time. So true!
We're the caboose!
Paige & Landon:
Landon trying to be a little gentleman, as he tries to buckle him and Paige:
Uh, help please!
Hydro-Luge!
You can't tell really well, but we are all SOAKED from this ride! Especially Julianne, whose shirt & head were completely drenched.
And finally, my favorite moment of the entire month - Megan's baptism! Every single person from our immediate families were there except for the Andrus' who unfortunately had sickness in their family that kept them from being able to come. That's pretty cool considering we have people in Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina, & Texas. We put on a luncheon at the church, so I rushed from the primary room where she was baptized & confirmed, to the kitchen, & regretfully I didn't get a single photo of Megan in her white dress on my camera. Luckily I got these cute photos of her in her jumpsuit beforehand, and a month ago we took a whole bunch of photos of her in her dress for her invitation. This morning in church the bishop invited her up to the front, and then he invited her (like he always does) to sit up by the bishopric if she wanted to. She wanted to, but there were 7 men up front (4 from the stake). She looked back and forth like "I would, but I don't know where to sit", so she happily came and sat back down with us. The bishop said, "That's the first hard decision these little eight year olds have to make!".
Congratulations Megan! We're so proud of you and love you so much!
