.. a pioneer day buddy ..

{ me and j*}

so every year on the 24th of july in the great state of utah, is pioneer day. yes it is a legit holiday, although i don't ever get it off of work - sad day. ever since i was a little girl and first moved into my neighborhood my neighbors and their families have had a block party. now we are talking a pretty large block party. like 40 houses worth of families. oodles of people. we have had things like rock climbing walls,  bouncy houses and even live bands. we all congregate across the street from my house and have a huge BBQ. everyone brings a salad and dessert to share and your own meat and it is just a fun time. i have done this every year since i was 12. this year is no different. so we started up the party and had a good old time. my neighbor's kid, j*, is my buddy. i taught him in sunday school since he was 18 months old. he is a cute little fella. so we hung out. we ate food, including cheetos, played ball and hide and go seek. and of course watched our famous firework show. he doesn't like the noises so i got be ear muff person. i got to hold his ears for about 40 minutes. love this kid. meet j*

{ we made the craziest faces we could}

{ oh and again, except all he did was go cross eyed}

this kid is hilarious. love him to pieces.

.. a graduate ..

alright so here is the schpeal {yep a made up word, deal with it}. i feel old. my baby brother, although i have to admit he doesn't look very little any more, graduated from high school. um WHAT?!?! i am 10 years older than him, so this was like a sucker punch to the face watching him walk across the stage and call high school quits. This handsome dude has officially joined the ranks of adult, his announcement {which you can see here} turned out awesome and he wasn't even phased by it. 

{cody and I at graduation, right before cody blew the air horn we smuggled into the arena}

{ his party, graduation cap and him at his graduation - he is in the center with the slightly orange cap}

congrats J* we are super proud of you and your goals!!

oh and don't you worry we did get him a rocking graduation present. we took him to washington dc, which you can see here. 

.. an old man's celebration ..

over memorial day weekend i had the chance to go up to my grandparents house and celebrate my grandpa's 80th birthday. he is wonderful and grand, he is awesome and hilarious. we surprised him and told him we just wanted to come visit since we had a free day, little did he know that everyone - minus a missionary and my brother m* and his wife e* - showed up for lunch and a birthday celebration. 

we had pizza, salad and cupcakes. naturally cupcakes rule. 

{ here is the whole crew that came, big family huh? }

my grandparents have 5 kids, 12 grand kids and 1 great grand kid { soon to be 3. no i'm not prego, but my sister and my cousin m* are}

{ gramps, gg, uncle steve, uncle scott and my mom }

{ we tried to do a group hug picture, all my uncle could do is choke my gg and laugh! }

{ my handsome gramps and gorgeous grandma (hence the gg) }

These people are wonderful, I am so glad that I have such a wonderful family that I could share this with. so here is to you gramps, happy 80th birthday. hope it was great and wonderful to celebrate. the one great gift he got was the birth of his first great granddaughter on his birthday.

Happy birthday!!

. the big ONE .

{jet bug after playing with his birthday toys}

so, as i had mentioned in an earlier post, jet turned ONE on january 16th. so naturally we had to celebrate. it was a crazy day though, so it was small. forgive us bud, we can do it grander next year. 

of course we had to have a birthday hug / kiss. jet wasn't as fond of it if you can tell. but he tolerates us, he is great.

grandma was super nice and helped us out by making us funfetti cupcakes, and little baby ones for jet and his friends daisy and roxy. he was so excited he could barely contain himself.

can you see the excitement?

dad fed him about 4 cupcakes that night (against mom and her requests), which resulted in terrible smelling gas. but he enjoyed it so we had to indulge. he is too cute, especially on his birthday.

Happy Birthday Jet!!

We are so glad you are our puppy and love you much too much

. mom & dad .

.. gingerbread houses ..

this year we were invited to a gingerbread decorating party put on by my sweet sister in law e*. cody and i in our 5 years of being married have never once made a gingerbread house. we always talked about it and had plans for it but it never really did pan out. this year was perfect. we had a fun night with family and some friends and got the chance to decorate gingerbread houses. we decided to be original and go outside the box and not buy a prefab house. we made our own. we settled on a mobile home. the night before we perfected our designs and i baked the gingerbread. we spent about an hour building and decorating it all up. i have to admit it was pretty great.

we used licorice nibs for the walk way to the street. nerds for gravel, pretzels for the playground, bench, and the broken tire swing. oreos for the tires, a dead pile of them and also the spare on the house. and gummy bears for the little kids and of course dots {my favorite} for the bases of a lot of things.

we won the best gingerbread house of the night, but i think everyone had great houses.. here they are!

.. matson & erica's house ..

.. kevin & heather's house ..

.. kellyn, chris & jarett's house ..

.. our trailer sweet trailer ..

.. side view of ours, notice the spare tire ..

.. the broken tire swing, our gummy children were upset ..

.. the overseeing mother ..

.. kiddies sitting on a bench ..

.. a few kiddos playing soccer by the teeter totter ..

.. gingerbread white trash dad peeing in the snow, yes he did pee matson's name ..

.. the stoplight on the corner ..

.. the path to our front door and gravel ..

.. our kiddie play pen, yes one did fall out cry and pee his pants ..

did you decorate a house this year? any creative ideas for next year?