Millie's Birthday and Disneyland trip

This cute little girl turned 4 last month!  We had wanted to go to disneyland this summer but didn't make it so we decided to go for millies birthday.  We didn't tell her that we were going untill the morn. of her birthday.  She had actually asked for a hello kitty suitcase for her birthday, it was all packed up with her clothes for the trip when she opened it.  We asked her why she thought it was all packed up... she said so excited "because we are going to memphis!!?"  poor girl!  then when we told her we were going to disney land she was just... pleased. haha.  (She was more excited that aunt Lin was going to be meeting us in california. She loves her aunts. thanks lin for being our special helper)

She did get more excited as the day went on. She wanted to get "all pampered" to get ready for disneyland. Also notice, she is wearing her favorite birthday present, her "wild kratts" shirt.  (Wild Kratts is her favorite show on pbs.)  She learns soo much stuff from this show and it always makes me laugh when she says stuff like "mom, did you  know proboscus monkeys have a resonating chamber in their nose?" the back of the shirt says "Millie, saving the planet with creature power!"

 

There are a lot of pictures in this post... I had a hard time narrowing them down because we just had such a fun trip!  I LOVE disneyland, and probabally enjoyed it more than Millie.  Millie liked it but we were going to take logan home for a nap mid-day.  We gave millie the choice to stay at disneyland or go to the hotel.  She wanted to go swim at the hotel... disneyland was too crowded she said. haha!

We saw sleeping beauty first thing when we entered!  I think Millie liked seeing the princesses more than going on rides.

Loved all the halloween decor they had up!

Logan had a good time too.  He just loved walking around and seeing all the cool stuff.  He loved the jungle ride, but was afraid of all the indoor rides (I don't blame him- they are loud, and kinda creepy!)

These gals were hillarous! they really stayed in character.  Millie started to hug the witch she she goes "ahh! a CHILD is touching me!" it was pretty funny

 

 

 Millie wore her special Minnie Mouse dress to disneyland...

 before we went to disneyland I had seen a commercial with one of these caramel apples in it.  I was anxiously anticipating eating one of them.  I knew it was going to be pricey, and it sure was, but I enjoied every bite of my $10 Micky Mouse apple. well worth it!

 We couldn't resist a trip to the beach.  We went to newport where my family would vacation when I was a girl.  We saw a seal...  Logan LOVED the beach.  he and josh were running from the waves, he was totally soaked and freezing but wouldn't get out of the water.

 

 

 We also had to hit sea world for this creature loving girl.  She loved the beluga's.  She got a stuffed Beluga that goes everywhere with her now... she named it biscuits.

What a fun trip! can't wait to go again!

Rainbow Brite Birthday Party

Millie has been planning on a Rainbow brite birthday party for the last 8 months. When me and my sisters were little we loved rainbow brite! I have the DVD's of the "rainbow brite" show and Millie loves to watch them. She also wanted to be rainbow brite for Halloween so it worked out perfectly. She had a birthday party last year, and I think doing a birthday party for her every year would just be the end of me... I stress to much about the details. But since we were new here, and trying to find friends, I thought a fun party would be a good idea. This was a really fun party to plan!

 

(for favors we made rainbow swirl star crayons, and put in gumballs, rainbow bouncy balls, rainbow star suckers from amazon, and lipgloss for the girls)

 

The cake!!! I bought the figurine on etsy and made the rainbow out of fondant.  (In case you want to make it, here is how: I bought white fondant and died each color seperatly with gel food coloring- otherwise you will not get deep colors. (Ameri color brand is great... I have heard that the "icing color" does NOT work as well.) I rolled each color out and then put them together to make the rainbow. I used a little water between each color to help them stick... then I let it dry overnight) and put gumballs around the bottom. This was a fun cake to make!!!

 

 Inside the cake were all the colors of the rainbow :) My photo isn't very good so the red and orange look the same. Also use the gel colors for this. split 1 cake recipe or 1 cake mix into 3 pans so your layers are a little thinner... I also froze the cakes for a day so they were less crumbly when I frosted it.

Rainbow pretzils with "star sprinkles" (you know, like rainbow brites star sprinkles") and a rainbow archway made out of streamer.

 We made sure millies favorite game of duck duck goose got a showing at the party (and you can see millies rainbow brite costume I made) we also borrowed a rainbow parachute to play with.

 The rainbow pinyata was of course a hit!

 

Millie and her cute friends!

 

  This was her (blury) invitation.  we used the rainbow starburst liccorice.

october

October was a fun month.  Our friend up here has horses.  Logan and Millie are in heaven every time we go over there!  they love to look at there chickens, horses, and dogs!

 

 

 Logan loves anything that is a stick or is connected to a stick, or has handles (ie: corndogs, drumsticks, curtain rods, suckers, corn)

 discovered pudding

 Our yard was really pretty in the fall.  We have several aspens in the back that gave us a lot of fall color! there is a little playhouse in the back, and a sand pile that we have spent many hours playing in

 This girl is so funny!  she is always doing something silly.  This is her being a "witch pop-star"

Millie is very very interested in animals!  We went to the wild life festival and saw lots of fun woodland animals, including this wolf.  They both got to pet it.  Logan just thought it was the greatest thing. not intimidated at all by the huge thing.  (this one was about the size of a great dane)

 

We visited the pumpkin patch in snowflake and had a good time.  Logan was trying to pick up all the pumpkins... he wasn't always very successfull

 

 We didn't have many leaves to rake in memphis... just alot of pine needles... so millie was enjoying making piles and running and jumping into them.

September

 September was spent around town.  I went on a date with millie.  She likes the "Fancy Nancy" books, and there is one where nancy makes a beauty spa for her mom and "pampers" her mom.  Millie always talks about getting pampered, so we went to get her nails painted.  She thought it was pretty cool! (the lady in the background is also pretty cool)

 We had an apple tree across the street.  Everyday logan would try to venture over there by himself... so we ended up talking daily trips to pick apples. Because of his love of apples, he learned to say apple at the early ago of 13 months :)

 Even though I don't always think our town is pretty in general, I have seen some really pretty things.  In september the whole town is filled with these yellow wild flowers.  This is one of the trails we have run on.  Although, I am nervous to run on trails very much because I'm afraid of being attacked by a bear.  haha, but true.

 Because we loved our first triathalon, we found this one out in snowflake.  It was super fun!  The swim was in a pool, and the gal in charge of my lane must have been quite confused.  She made me swim an extra lap (I think everyone in my lane must have had to do an extra lap), but at least I still won so I could just count my extra lap as much needed swimming practice!  Josh did the race first, then once he finished I went and got in line to start.  this is a fun way to do it because then the kids get to watch.  Millie was able to run with me for a little while and that was really fun!

Late summer

We moved to Pinetop-Lakeside Az. in the middle of July.  It is a small town up in the white Mtns. in Eastern Az.  Josh had a job here with his bro. in law who is an opthamologist.  They are really enjoying working together.  We Moved from the big city of Memphis to this "quiet life"  above is our back yard and view from our porch.  We love the house we are living in right now.  We have had an interesting time adjusting.  Even Millie still has breakdowns every now and again saying she misses her memphis house, and her memphis target, etc. etc.

 There are horses in the pasture behind our yard, which is heaven for millie and logan.  Logan especially LOVES them.  If I ever give him a carrott, he will walk towards the door and reach the carrott out to the horses.

 This is the main scenery of the town. We had a friend in memphis, who was from idaho.  He commented that Memphis was too green, with too many trees, and he wanted to go out with his chain saw and start cutting them down.  I feel like that sometimes. haha

 

This lake is right across the street from our house. It is georgous! we can see it out our front windows, and many days, it is my saving grace.

This little cutie turned one in August!  (1 yr photo taken by tracy hill)
- good walker (started at 9 mo)
-says a few words (including mom, dad, ball, and Duck!)
-loves to "chase" around dad and millie
- loves his bike
-loves animals - especially ducks!
- loves mac & cheese and strawberries

 

 

 Poor little logan was so sick (sinus infection) for his birthday.  I made him this duck cake (because ducks are his favorite) but he didn't want to have anything to do with it... he was just grouchy and sick...so we don't have any exciting cake eating photos to share.

 

Some of my family came out to visit.  We went out to eat at a mexican restaurant and had a long long wait.  My sis Lindsey had a bunch of quarters, so we bought these mustaches from a vending machine :)

 

This is just a random photo of millie that I thought was hillarous.  She insisted on wearing her winter coat to eat her breakfast in. 

Josh and I both got road bikes after his graduation (I got one for josh for his graduation present, and josh got me one for my birthday).  So, we decided to do a local triathalon because we had some family doing it.  we were both nervous because we had only gone swimming twice in our lives (in the "proper form" that is) and we had both only biked once or twice... but it actually went really good and we both ended up loving it!

We went to the rodeo in snowflake.  we had a good time!  Logan of course loved looking at the horses and cows, and millie had a fun time going out in the arena to chase chickens (with a bunch of other kids)

family photos

My little sister tracy is an amazing photographer (recently featured in Utah Bride).  She is in the BYU photo program and will graduate in another 1 1/2 years.  We love these family photos she took in July!!!  check out her blog (www.tracyhillphotography.blogspot.com)