Scooby scavenger party

For awhile now Hunter has loved Scooby Doo. I think we have rented every Scooby Doo movie at the video store. Hunter loves mysteries and they are wonderful because they are not scary but you still have to figure out the mystery. Deke and I wanted to do something really fun for Hunter's birthday so we decided to plan a scooby doo scavenger hunt party for Hunter. We decided to call it the "Mystery of the Missing Birthday Cake" Deke and I came up with seven different clues and using a cute icon from the internet I made some clues for the boys to find. Then we picked six different businesses in a shopping center that the boys would go in and out of to find their clues. We contacted the managers and told them what we were doing and asked if we could hide clues in their stores. We started at Grandma Burch's house with all his boy cousins and they were given the first clue which led them to Sports Authority where they had to search the store and then find the next clue which led them to Burger King where they had to run through the playground on all fours barking like dogs two times to receive their next clue. They then headed to Peter Piper where they each got four tokens and played games to recieve tickets. You get the idea. One of my favorite parts of the whole thing was when they arrived at PetsMart. They had to each put together a Scooby mask to wear and then had to go to the front of the store and sing "Who let the dogs" out for the cashier's. Then they finally arrived with the last clue to the Fry's bakery where they picked up Hunter's hamburger shaped birthday cake. Aren't the little cake french fries cute? It all came together but it took a lot more planning and time then I thought it was going to. In the middle of the hunt as we were running up to one of the stops one of the boys said, "Hunter this is the best birthday ever," Hunter excitedly replied, "Yeah it's exactly what I was wanting it to be..."Deke and I overhearing this looked at each other and just grinned. Watching his joy as usual made it all worth it. Between Hunter and Avery both having birthday's a week a part it is always fun but by the end of it we are always partied out. Happy Birthday Bug, we love you!!!!

Shoe party

Of course when it came to deciding what to do for Avery's birthday party the choice was easy, a shoe party of course. I went over to K-Mart and got these cute little girl shoe boxes and filled them with all sorts of foot related items: they each got princess shoes, toenail polish, princess socks, strawberry foot lotion, shoe string licorice, and even found some high heel fridge magnets. Then I made some little shoe cards to go in and the party boxes were done. We had her party at Lisa's with her two girlfriends and Dylan her best little guy friend. I had bought some foam at Michael's and some rhinestones and stickers and they each decorated a high heel. I was worried that they would breeze right through the project but they didn't. They spent like thirty minutes decorating them and giggling. Avery's present for her birthday was a little tutu. I will post pictures that I took of her alone in her tutu in another post that are absolutely adorable. These pictures don't do it justice :)

She had a little cake just the right size for the four of them a cute little icecream cake. Lisa gave her the book "Pinkalicious" which is so cute and Avery absolutely loved. After they decorated their shoes Avery gave them each their boxes and they giggled and played with all the things inside their boxes. It was so cute and they were so sweet, she is getting so big and we love her so much. Her party turned out just like I hoped and she loved it and so did the other little girls. Happy birthday sweet girl. More cute pictures to come :)

My friend Erin...

This is my friend Erin, she is one of my favorite people. We met up in PV and when she moved into the ward I was called to be her visiting teacher. At that time I was serving as a counselor in the RS Presidency and she was called to be a RS teacher. Between visiting with her each month and working with her and the other teachers in RS a friendship began to develop. Talking with Erin was instantly easy for me, I connected to her quickly. I loved her love of the written word like mine, I loved her love of the gospel and everytime we were together we would always end up laughing and smiling the whole time.

My friendship with Erin has continued to be this way. She is more like a sister to me than a friend. We have cried together, had spiritual discussions, shared our dreams and laughed together. We have now know each other for about three years and when we moved to the valley I worried that we would drift apart. However it is just not like that with Erin, as soon as we are together whether it has been two months or six it is comfortable right away. To make it even more special she has a wonderful husband who is such a nice person that we also love. It is rare to find a couple that you both get a long with the husband and the wife. The icing on the cake is that they have three sweet kids that get along great with our kids. The kids love each other and play together so well, we love their kids and they love ours and it is always comfortable and fun to be together. Since we have moved away we only see each other every three to six months. However when we do see each other we are so excited we hardly close our eyes to rest when we are there. Every time we get together we never see our beds until at least 5am. Then we will take shifts with the kids in the morning, run hard all day and then stay up playing games and visiting until the early morning hours again the next night. We headed up to Prescott for the 4th since there is always a lot of fun things going on up there. The kids just had a blast playing with each other and running around the backyard together finding all sorts of creatures (like this cute little snail that Hunter found) and playing. They enjoyed some water play and some imaginative play.

We played games, ate all weekend, visited, went to see fireworks, visited, played more games and had so much fun.