Happy 5th Birthday Anna!

There's been a whole lotta partying going on at our house the past few weeks. We had Anna's birthday party for her friends last week so that her cousin Kaylee and aunt Sarah could come.

Anna wanted a princess party theme, so I got a little crazy with the crepe paper streamers and balloons!

We asked all the girls to wear their finest princess attire to the party, and they all looked beautiful!

One of the games we played was "kiss the frog prince", although no one was able to turn the frog into Prince Charming (or Prince unCharming for that matter).


Taking a whack at the pinata!

Cupcakes!! Yum!


The day after the party I got to go up to Rexburg to visit some of my best friends from Ricks College. We had a really great time hanging out, going to movies, checking out all the new stuff on campus and of course, visiting our favorite restaurants. Meanwhile Kent and the kids had a great time at home eating corn dogs for every meal and playing xbox.

Anna's actual birthday way this last Thursday, I can't believe my first baby girl is already 5! She is such a sweet, helpful and smart girl, plus she gives the tightest hugs! I didn't make the Cinderella cake (I'm good, but not that good!), which we had for lunch that day-it was a pretty awesome day!

Happy Birthday Anna girl!

Happy Canada Day?!

Hey Everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I updated this blog, but I've been waaay too busy eating otter pops and crashing the neighbors pool parties. Aaaaahhhh summer...
Did you know our neighbors to the north, AKA America's Hat, AKA The Great White North, AKA Canada celebrates it's Independence day on July 1st? We do since for the past couple of years we have had our very own Canada day parade in our neighborhood.
It's pretty awesome since it comes right past our house and they throw LOTS of candy!

It's a fairly short parade, but they did have horses, a fire truck (which is why Matt is covering his ears), floats and convertibles containing minor celebrities.

The official mascot of Canada Day: Mister Maple Leaf.

Who knows who's behind those tinted windows!

Random, non-Canada Day related photo taken by Anna.

Anna and Matt watching a video on my ipod.

We had a good 4th of July too, mostly just stayed home and did projects around the house, but Kent managed to make Beth crazy with his firework shenanigans. My brother and his family came to hang out for the evening which was pretty cool, although we couldn't get the sparklers to light-it must have been the "extra safe" model of sparklers. Happy Independence Day!

Mr. Funny Face Goes on Vacation

This past week our family and Kent's parents went on a trip to California, and we had a great time! As I was looking through the photos of the trip I noticed how many featured Kent making a face. So here's a pictorial log of our trip, count how many faces Kent made and post in the comments.

Cruising in the van with Grandma and Grandpa McLean

Playing "Old Maid".


At the fabulous Jelly Belly factory



Ye olde Golden Gate bridge.

This one's for you, Kaylynn.

Yeah, Disneyland!

M&M world in Las Vegas.

Bellagio Fountain.

It was a really great week, I'm glad we got to go. So how many crazy Kent faces did you count?

Set Phasers To Stun: Beth Finished the Marathon & Matt Turned 3

Yep, Kent and I finally got to see the new Star Trek movie this past week. It was awesome! Really a fun movie, it had action, comedy, and nerdiness galore!
Saturday was the day I have been training for since the end of December, the big one-the marathon. It was a really fun and beautiful race down Ogden canyon. I did really awesome until about mile 15 when I realized I was very, very tired! I did manage to run/walk the last 11 miles and finish in 5 hrs and 15 min-not too bad for my first time.

Me at mile 23, only 3.2 more to go!

While waiting for me to get to the finish line Matt stuck his head through the barrier to get a better view! It meant everything to me to know that Kent, the kids, and my parents would be waiting for me at the end-you guys are awesome!


Finally crossing the finish line!

Smiling.


Not smiling anymore. About 15 min after I finished I started feeling very nausous,and dizzy. Kent took me to the medical tent where some very nice nurses and doctors gave me an IV of electolytes. I felt much better after that-elecrtolytes are the best!

Today was Matthew's 3rd birthday! I can't belive it-the time has gone by so fast! He is such a cute, helpful, and all around awesome kid.


Matt requested a Darth Vader birthday cake, I think it turned out delicious!

"Everybody remember where we parked."-Capitan Kirk

Still Haven't Seen Star Trek

Kent and I still haven't seen the new Star Trek movie, but here's some other stuff we have been doing in the mean time...

Lately the kids think the most fun thing to do is to take everything they own and shove it into their play tent. This would not be a problem, except they never wanted to help clean up. So I finally got fed up with this routine and repo'd all their toys and the tent. Aaaahhh... the play room was nice and clean for about a day and then they discovered that it was just as much fun to pile up all their bedding and pull all their clothes out of their dressers and pile those up too! Who needs toys! (insert huge sigh here).

Speaking of hairy situations, I got a new haircut! I haven't had bangs since 1991-we're talking waaay back to the first war in Iraq, the super NES was tops, and Arnold was still the Terminator. Anna took this picture of me-not too shabby!

We went kite flying yesterday to test out the rhomboid box kite my parents made, the kids flew some little kites too.

We went up to the top of this hill that is popular with hang gliders-definitely some good wind there!

Anna and my sister Sarah

Matt and Grandpa Davis

View from the top of the hill.

My Dad winding the string to his kite. I didn't get a picture of the kite, but it is pretty cool!

Until next time remember, "I signed aboard this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget." -- McCoy

Birthday Bonanza

Howdy y'all. Friday was Kent's Birthday (35 whatup!)and we have been celebrating all week. He got to choose one present each day this week to open. The only present worth mentioning is the bologna bubble gum I got him. Instead of a birthday cake I constructed this awesome tower of rice crispy treats and chocolate!

So delicious!

The other event of the week was that I ran in the Salt Lake half marathon on Saturday. It was a perfect day for it! It was really fun running with so many people and I finally know how it feels to grab a Gatorade, chug it down and then toss the cup like those guys in the Olympics! I finished in 2 hours and 5 min, which is faster than my goal so I was pretty happy about that. My parents came to cheer at the half way point, and my Mom made this awesome sign-it really helped to have someone cheering for me!
By far the coolest souvenir I got from the race was a bloody shoe! I didn't even notice it until after when we were walking around, it didn't hurt at all, but it turns out I a lost a toenail. (aaaakk!! that is so gross even typing that!)

Kent and the kids met me after the race. They actually missed watching me finish because they stopped to get doughnuts (as per our Saturday tradition). I was really glad to see them, it meant a lot to me that everyone was there. An awesome day. I can't walk down stairs now because my legs are sore, but it was an awesome day!

No! That Means You

We had a wonderful conference weekend. It was really fun to have Grandpa and Grandma McLean, and the Derricott cousins visiting us! We have had a mostly normal week-but a couple of cool things and a couple of funny/frustrating things happened. And oh yeah, somebody won something!

I'll start with the funny. Anna has had this thing lately with not wanting Matthew in her room. So the other day, she was coloring and she starts asking me how to spell "that", and "means", and "you". After I spelled all the words out I walked over to see what she was drawing, and I saw that she had drawn a boy with a circle around him that was crossed out, and then written,"No that means you" around it. I just busted up laughing-I thought it was so funny that she had made her first "no boys allowed" sign. Here's a picture of her after she taped the sign to her bedroom door. And yes, she is wearing a swim suit.

The funny/frustrating thing that happened this week involves our car tires. On Monday Kent had the day off, and when we got in the car to go do some errands we noticed that the tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS), that little light on the dash was alerting us that one of our tires was a little low. No problem, we swung down to the local Top Stop and put some air in the offending tire. At this point Kent declares that the tire pressure gauge that we have is no good, so we went next door to the handy dandy auto parts store to get a new gauge. When Kent came out of the store he had a new gauge and a new gadget. Little did we know that this new gadget would be the down fall of two tires. The new gadget was a new set of tire valve caps that could indicate if the tire pressure was was low just by looking at the cap! No more having to test each tire to see which one was the low one making the TPMS light come on-perfect! So he puts the new caps on and we are on our way... first stop, the car wash. As we are going through the car was the TPMS light comes on AGAIN! When we got out of the car wash the tire was completely flat. The new tire caps are bigger than the regular old non-gadget type and it had caught on the car wash track and pulled the entire valve off the tire! No problem, change to spare tire, go to tire shop yada yada yada...good to go. Fast forward to Friday I was going to pick up Kent and stopped to get a beverage at a McDonald's drive through, when I got a little too close to the drive through curb and...yep, you guessed it, the same thing happened to another tire. Luckily there was a tire place right across the street from McDonald's and they put my spare on for free. When I picked up Kent he was checking out the tires and noticed that there was a NAIL in one of our other tires!!! I couldn't help laughing at this point-it was so crazy! Three tires in one week! We have now gone back to the regular old Amish type tire valve caps.

And the winner is...Kent! There was a biggest loser contest at his work and Friday was the final weigh-in. He lost 6.9% body fat, making him the winner(or loser). I think that is so awesome! Way to go hubby!



Happy Easter everyone!