Happy 6th Birthday Holdy-locks!!!

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLDYN!  We had a great day with our little

6 year old!  For her Birthday Breakfast she chose Donuts...She LOVES them!!

 Here is the birthday Princess opening her presents!!

 Here is Cody 6 months and just about crawling!

 We had some of Holdyn's new friends over for a birthday party and we had a blast!

We had an awesome treasure hunt, running from place to place.

 Played some pin the tail on the donkey!

 We had a bean bag toss, but I don't have any picts from it...

then we played an awesome game where the kids had to pick up as many marbles

as they could in 30 seconds with their toes and put them in a bucket.  They had

a blast with this one!!

 Gia, Chani, Grace and Holdyn.

 Kimber ROCKED this one!  Who knew?!

She won grand prize with 16 marbles!

 Then we had this creepy clown pinata...don't be mislead by the ginormous size of it.

I'm sure only one of his feet had candy/prizes in it.  I scored this pinata on a clearance rack for a few bucks at Albertson's!

 L to R Chani, Kimber, Haiden, Grace, Alex, Gia

Camie, Holdyn, and Cody

The PARTIERS!

 A few weeks ago I asked Holdyn what kind of cake she wanted and she said one like Grandma Baker had on her birthday.  So I had to track down the maker of it (THANKS MARTHA) and I gave it a go. She didn't want sprinkles or colored frosting or anything...."JUST LIKE GRANDMA BAKER'S" Yes, I am proud of myself, it didn't even come from a cake mix...I had to go all from scratch on this baby.  Turned out great.  

After Ben got to go to Red Robin and get sung to for his birthday, Holdyn was pretty dead set on getting to go there for her birthday.  She kept asking me when they were going to sing to her ;)

What a cutie pie. They did come and sing and she was on cloud nine!  

We love you Holdyn and we are so thankful to be a part of your life!  You make us better each and every day and you teach us so much!  We LOVE YOU!!!

July Fun 2012

We are still doing our best to fill each day with fun!!  

This splash pad in in Albuquerque is our hidden fun place.

We rarely see anyone else there which makes it great for a relaxing outing ;)

 This has to be one of my favorite shots!  Kimber, our friend Camie Greenfield, and Holdyn in the Rainbow.  LOVE these gals!

 Our wards Young Women had a fund raiser for Girls Camp.

It was an awesome spaghetti Dinner and a little carnival for the kids.

We had a super-fun time!  

The girls were overly excited to get rainbows painted on their cheeks!

The Butterfly emerges!!

A few weeks ago....Ben was at the kitchen sink and saw a caterpillar on the outside wall.  He went out and brought it in for the girls to put in their 'bug jar.'  Within 24 hours it was already in it's chrysalis/coccoon!  We were soo excited!  But week after week, we began to wonder if it was still alive!  Well, this morning, this is what we found!!!!!!!

 She was HUGE!  Her wings wouldn't open all of the way in the jar, so we took her outside and let her out.  She spread her wings and they were still wet, so she must of just hatched!!

 We watched her as she moved her wings and eventually flew up to a nearby bush,

and then flapped her wings and flew away!  

It was quite the adventerous morning!!!

More fun, ABQ style

So we've been doing a pretty good job of filling in the days with fun activities.  

For Kimber's Birthday we went to the Aquarium....we got a great deal on a season pass to the zoo, aquarium, and the botanical gardens.  We've definitely been taking advantage of it!! 

We have been going to one of the 3 places each week and have enjoyed each one.  

 The picture above is a slide down the log at the botanical gardens.  

 Kimber at the aquarium, by a HUGE fish.

 They look forward to Friday's because they can sleep on the 'couch bed'

They really look forward to it all week!

 The girls voted Zoo last week, so we went for a quick trip. 

Below is us on the train....pretty much our family these days...

we miss Ben, but are super glad he is doing so well at the Hospital.

 It was the perfect morning to go to the Zoo...all of the animals were out and moving!

 Zebra's are one of the girls favorites!

 After they'd had enough, we played on the jungle gym play area (above the girls in the pict) for about an hour, then they were hot....so before we went home for lunch they got drenched on the splash pad.

It was hilarious!  The water randomly shoots up out of the grate in all different places.  The girls had a ball chasing it and ended up little wet rats.  They giggled the entire time so it was well worth it!

We've decided weekday mornings are thee best times to go places like this because the crowds aren't bad and it isn't too hot!   Come and visit and we will take you to the awesome places too!!

Happy 4th of July!!

We had a wonderful 4th of July!  Ben was given the day off (HUGE SURPRISE) and our ward did a Pancake Breakfast and bike parade at the church.  It was a perfect, overcast morning and the girls had a ball!!

 Here are the girlio's eating their pancakes, ham, eggs, and banana!  DELISH!

 Cody doing what he does best....just being cute!

 Then came the bike decorating!  The girls were superstars and had so much fun!

 Holdyn and Kimber sporting their colors!  

I tried to get a good picture between the American Flag and the New Mexico flag, 

this was the best one I captured :)

 Then it was home for some fun in the yard and an awesome BBQ!

Since Ben had to be to work at 4am the next morning, we stayed home and did

sparklers in the rain.  It was a happy day!!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!  

We are thankful to live in this AWESOME Country!

Land of the free and the home of the Brave!!

ABC Library Fun

In my efforts to find fun activities to do with the kids here in Albuquerque, while Ben is working,  a friend from church told us about the local libraries activities!  Well, THANK YOU Albuquerque Bernillilo County Library system for the AWESOME fun!

 Each Tuesday they do an activity for kids during the summer months.  We missed out on some good ones before we moved, BUT, the last three Tuesday's have been great!  The first one was a group of people from some organization that studies the sun.  They had 4 HUGE telescopes that we got to look through to see the sun.  We could see the sun spots and sun storms....it was pretty neat!

 The next Tuesday, they had a drum festival!  There was a man there with about 80 different drums and percussion instruments he let the kids play on and taught them some rhythms.  We had a blast!!

Yesterday, they had a world famous and prize winning storyteller come.  She was from Australia and was AWESOME!  She acted out 4 different stories as she told them and had the kids attention the entire time!  I didn't get any picts of her, but we are really loving Library day!!  They also have great prizes for the kids if they come with a paper signed that they read so many books (or had them read to) during the week!  The girls have gotten a book bag, stuffed animal, and a big squishy ball as prizes.  Thanks again ABC Library system!  We are glad to have taken advantage of you!  Tomorrow we are going to go again because they are doing balloon animals  :)  SO FUN!