Elle's 1st Birthday!

I cannot even believe that Elle turned 1 today! Didn't I just bring her home from the hospital yesterday? Didn't Ashley just get married and I pretended that my water broke at her wedding last week? WOW, I think my philosophy is that when you are pregnant, life goes SO SLOW! When you have your baby here, life goes way too fast!

Elle is the best little baby ever! So easy going and happy! She even tolerates her sister picking her up and cuddling her a little too hard! We are so blessed to have her in our family and we love her SO much! I still kiss her at least 300 times a day-just can't help myself because those cheeks are irrisitable!

Happy Birthday Baby ELLE!
{By the way, we call her ELLIE, but I am hoping that by spelling it ELLE, the E will not be silent at the end and will act as a long vowel!}

Party Time

We had a Family Party for Elle's Birthday and it was FUN! Thanks to everyone who came! We had finger foods in honor of Elle since that is mostly what she eats nowadays!

Elle's Park Lunch

I thought and though about what we should do for Elle's birthday, and finally I thought, Elle LOVES to swing, so we took her to the park with a picnic. After we ate, we swung her forever, and when I thought she had enough, I got her out and she got so mad because she wanted to keep on going! I love Riley and Elle's hair once they went down the slide--Static!

When we came home, Elle was SO SLEEPY and fell asleep on the chair! The Birthday Girls can do whatever she wants on her birthday-she is QUEEN for a day!

THE COOLEST Birthday Cake EVER!

So I felt like I needed to redeem myself after creating a barbie cake disaster for Sunny's birthday in May! I put the whole barbie body in the cake instead of half of the body--it totally cracked in half!

So, this year, I was inspired to make a fondant cake after watching the Food Network's Cake Challenge Show! They make the most amazing cakes and the judges would have ripped apart my cake for sure-but that's okay, I still think it is cool!

I made a homemade Vanilla and Chocolate cake that was super soft and moist, iced it, then put white fondant on top of it and decorated it with a bunch of colorful dots! Riley & Sunny had a ton of fun helping me with the dots, kind of like play dough!
Regan came home from work while we were making it and wanted to help, so I put him in charge of the letters and the little girl! I think he did a great job creating a girl with fondant!

I even made Elle her very own little cake to dig into, but for some reason none of my kids ever want to do that! Elle just lightly put her finger in the frosting and licked her finger-no diving in for this dainty girl!

After this experience, I would love to take a cake decorating class and get better at it because it is fun to make a Cool birthday Cake! Riley is already planning what he wants his birthday cake to look like, and his birthday isn't until March!

My husband is FAMOUS!

Regan found this online when he googled his name yesterday. It is a newspaper in England that somehow found a story of this crazy guy who ate 28 donuts in a bike & donut race! His name is Regan Fackrell and he got a sugar rush! Well, that's my husband!
Here is the article!
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/outside-edge-1761455.html

Sticky fingers of the week

Phil Mickelson, the nicely rounded American golfer, obviously has a sweet tooth. Why else would he be nicknamed "Figjam"? But his latest business venture causes further fears for his figure – he is bidding for a chain of 105 Waffle House restaurants. More toothsome news from this year's Tour de Donut, a 21-mile cycle race in Illinois in which riders have three minutes deducted from their time for each doughnut they eat en route. This year's winner, Regan Fackrell, managed a cheek-bulging 28 as he pedalled round in 1hr 10min 37sec, giving him an adjusted time of minus 13min 23sec. Some sugar rush.

I think it is time that Regan needs to go national with this new found talent of his! If anyone hears of somekind of eating competition, let Regan know! We could capitolize on this and become RICH!

Last day of Summer

We made the most of our Labor Day yesterday! Regan and I each had a long list of things to do around the house and the yard so we woke up early and did our chores from 7 am to 2 pm and then decided that we needed to have some fun! We decided to get our bathing suits on and head to Cowabunga Bay {a new water park in Draper}. We had SO much fun! Even if you don't want to get wet there, you have no option! There is just SO MUCH WATER there! Even the steps to go up to the slides have water shooting out everywhere! The kids had a ton of fun and so did Regan and I! There is a HUGE bucket of water that dumps on people every 5 minutes and it is crazy to get that much water dumped on you!

So now we move from having a great summer to starting to get organized for our crazy lives ahead! I am starting to feel like the limo driver now. Tuesday/Thursday's Sunny has Ballet Class, Tuesday afternoon's Riley has Violin Lessons in Cottonwood, Thursday/Saturday's Riley has Judo, I teach violin lessons everyday, volunteer in Riley's Kindergarten class on Monday mornings, Meetings for Relief Society Presidency, PTA Bulletin Boards, and putting dinner on the table after violin lessons will all be an interesting year! But I am up for the challenge!

She is everywhere!

So this is pretty much Elle these days! She is climbing stairs, crawling everywhere and getting into EVERYTHING! She found a bag of butterscotch chips and LOVED every second of eating as many as she could before we could clean them up! WOW, she is just growing up SO fast! She will be turning 1 in 2 weeks from TODAY! I swear I just had her in the hospital yesterday!

Thanksgiving Point

We went to Thanksgiving Point last week with my Aunt Linda and Grandmother. The kids wanted to especially go to the children's gardens, but I wasn't prepared with swimming suits. That did not matter to Riley, he wanted to get wet so bad that he just went right into the noah's water arc. Looking at this cute picture of him just takes me back to childhood and remembering how simple and fun life was without any pressure!

Beauty Night

I just got home last night from the THE FUNNEST GIRLS TRIP EVER! My great friend Britta moved to Hunington Beach a few months ago and I have honestly had a really hard time with her gone! So, we decided to get some fun girls together for a great Girls Trip to see her! We all had so much fun on this trip.
What Girls Trip would be complete without mud masks, pedicures and hair cuts? This trip was full of a great Beauty night! We all were beautified, then painted our nails, then all 9 of us got on Britta's bed and just talked. Next thing we know, it is 3 AM! I haven't stayed up that late since college! All I have to say is that I had a great time, I feel rejuvinated, ready to conquor the world again, ready to be the worlds best mom and wife again, and eager to maintain these great friendships I have with these lovely ladies!
{We even played Truth or Dare but you better believe I'm not telling what I did for my dare!!!} Thanks Britta for a spectaclar weekend, I miss ya and I am glad I was able to be with you again! Thanks girls for making this Mom of 3 remember what it is like to be 15 years old again!!!

Beach Day

Britta lives right by Hunington Beach, so we played in the waves and had a TON of fun at the beach one day! I couldn't stop laughing because the waves were so powerful, even right by the sand-in fact, so powerful that as we were getting one of these pictures taken by some italian guy, they knocked Jen over, then brought her back into the group. I seriously felt like I was a little girl again enjoying the fun waves!

The other beach day was at Corona del mar by Newport beach and we went to the tide pools and collected awesome shells! This beach was absolutly beautiful and so relaxing! I actually got a lot of thinking & contemplating done just about what is going on in my life right now! Fun memories!!!

Six Flags: Magic Mountain

We all went to Six Flags and lets just say that I went along just because everyone else was. Regan warned me before the trip that these roller coasters and rides are the craziest he has ever been on! Nothing is crazy for Regan---but now I can see why he said that to me! He also made me promise him that I would go on every ride that the girls were going on and that if I didn't.......?
SO-I held true to my promise to him and I went on EVERY ride those daring friends of mine went on! Lets just say that 4 days later, and I am still feeling dizzy and light headed!

The picture of me making an X with my hands is obviouslly BEFORE I rode the X2 ride! The picture of me looking like I am some crazy homeless person is obviouslly AFTER riding X2! The only word I can use to describe this ride is: INSANE! I shut my eyes the whole entire ride and I was so sick afterwards!

I also hate rides that just drop you straight down and I went on plenty of those rides and they totally freaked me out! I am a screamer, and lets just say I couldn't even scream because I was so scared that I wasn't breathing!!!! I am just glad that my friends had a blast on the rides and I am just glad that I survived!!!!!

Our Trip To Alaska!

We had a great opportunity to visit Regan's parents in Anchorage, Alaska for a whole week! I think Regan's favorite part of the whole trip was all of the delicious food we ate {what's new?} The best for him was having all you can eat fresh crab in downtown Anchorage. Riley's obviouslly was the chocolate! The very last day we were there, we finally saw a moose in the backyard! Riley was excited at first, then annoyed when it wouldn'leave because he wanted to go in the hot tub! After more than an hour, it finally moved!

Anchorage was just a beautiful place and we really enjoyed our week stay there!
Thanks to Bud & LeeAnn for being great hosts to us! We had a great time!

Candy & Hikes

We went to a candy factory and the kids had a hard time deciding what to get since they could only choose 1 thing! Riley wanted the $43 chocolate fish, but we told him he needed to get something else! Regan however did not have a hard time deciding what to get-a hand dipped chocolate ice cream bar with sprinkles! yum!
The other picture is at Flat Top overlooking all of Anchorage! It is such a beautiful place!