Bonfire!

On Saturday night, we went to my sister Amy and her husband Sam's house for a bonfire! They live out in the country, so there is a lot of room for the kids to play. They played on the tire swing, bounced big bouncy balls, and just ran and ran and ran!

 When it was time to eat, we put hot dogs, brats, sausages, and hot links on long forks and roasted our food. The kids really liked getting to cook their own dinner.

 Watermelon is always yummy on a warm day outside!

As the sun was setting, it was time for the marshmallow roast!

  

S'mores!!

It was such a fun night!!! Thanks Amy & Sam for hosting it!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to a mom who:
Let us take over her entire living room to play "town", dragging everything we owned to make stores.
Got 9 children up, dressed & ready for school, & packed our lunches, every morning.
Attended every basketball, football, soccer, & baseball game, track meet, wrestling match, cheerleading event, concert, and play.....for years.....
Let us be loud, messy, and have fun.
Got several kids dressed in layers to go out to play in the snow, just for us to come back in a few minutes later and dump said clothes in the doorway. (And she made hot cocoa too!)
Celebrated our good times, shared in our sadness, corrected our mistakes, and showed us how to be a good person.
Makes the best homemade cookies.
Loves our children as much as we do.
Has always been there and will always be there.
Happy Birthday Mom! We love you SO much!!

Riley's Birthday!!

We started out Riley's Birthday celebrations with treats for his class on Friday afternoon. But first I had to make them! He chose blue cupcakes in ice cream cones with blue frosting to make it look like ice cream with sprinkles. That wasn't complicated at all Riley...... ;0)
I made them Thursday evening. When I was finally done with them, after baking them, putting a skim layer of frosting on, going and getting more frosting, and piling a ton more frosting on, then putting sprinkles on top, (while telling my 3 children: stop coming in the kitchen; no you're not getting one now; stop trying to lick the frosting!!) I got these:

Then I needed this:

:0)

The kids finally got one after I was all done. Lily really liked it:

My brilliant husband made this for me to transport them to school:

Thanks honey!

Then on Friday Lily & I went to Riley's class so he could share these yummy treats with his friends. He got to sit in the front of the class and they sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

Later on, after Jeff got home from work, Riley got to open his presents from us.

I think Lily & Zach liked Riley's presents as much as he did.

After that we headed to Red Robin's for dinner and then back home for cherry pie!

On Saturday, we got ready for Riley's party with family!

Aunt Mary made another fabulous cake! Riley had asked her to make the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo!

She did a GREAT job!!

After a yummy lunch that Jeff smoked on his smoker, Riley got to open more presents!!

Thank you everyone for his gifts! Riley is so lucky to have such loving family! =)

Then it was time for the cake!

I can't believe Riley is 7 now!! Where does the time go?!?

Riley, I hope you had a wonderful Birthday!