Kierra's 12th Birthday!

We have a tradition in our family of going out to eat, as a family, to celebrate birthdays. The one having the birthday gets to pick the place to eat. We went out to lunch after Kierra's volleyball game. She picked Subway. I thought we would go somewhere nicer than that. Dale knew that she loves Olive Garden so he suggested that we go there. She said "really?...ok!" We had a great time and had super yummy food. She even tried the pepper in the salad. The best part about it was that we had so much food that all the kids had their leftovers for dinner that night.

After lunch, Kierra went to a party with her Sunday School class. When she got home from that, she found that our front door had been decorated by her new Beehive class. She is very excited to go into Young Women's.

She got a new outfit to wear to church for her first Sunday in Young Women's. It's hard to believe she is 12 years old and moving out of Primary. I remember the day she was born very well. I remember going out to dinner at Applebee's and feeling really weird on the way home but not knowing what it was. She wasn't due for another month. I didn't got into labor with Jadon so I wasn't sure what I was feeling. When I went to bed, I was still feeling some pain but thought it would go away. About 2:00 a.m. I woke Dale up and told him we needed to go to the hospital. We scrambled to get everything together and on the way out the door, he said "Grab the name book!" We didn't have a name yet. During labor he was looking through the book. He found the name Sierra and said "How about putting a K in the S place? I thought it sounded good so we went with Kierra Marie Byers.

Kierra is a great girl with a lot of wonderful qualities. She is extremely artistic and creative. She is a great big sister and her little brothers and sister love her very much. She is always coming up with activities and games for them to play. She is a good friend and has a lot of friends that she loves doing things with. She is a good student and her teachers love having her in their classes. She is turning into a cute young lady, which is hard for us to accept, but I am happy that she has set some good goals for herself for her future. She will be a fantastic mother someday. She has always loved babies and loves her baby sister so much! We are lucky to have her in our family!

Girls Night Out!

Tonight Kierra and I went to her last activities day activity. It was a mother/daughter dinner. The theme was "Freaky Friday". That explains why I am wearing Kierra's glass that, while they look cute on her, make me look like a librarian. Since we were suppose to switch rolls, Kierra insisted on wearing make-up. I agreed as long as she promised to remember that she isn't wearing it on a regular basis until middle school. We had a great time together. She has had a great time in activity days but is very excited to move on to Young Womens on Sunday!

Gotta love your neighbors!

When Dale and I got home late last night, this is what we found in our yard. Actually, the neighbor across the street had one in their yard too except it was a "Home in foreclosure" sign. Happy April Fools! I thought it was pretty funny.

This morning when I drove Kierra to school, they were all over our neighborhood. Some of the neighbors even had full size yard arms with open house signs in their yard. We have a realitor in our ward who was behind this great prank. It actually led to other funny April fool's jokes. My friend told her kids to look outside for a surprise. When they saw the "for sale" sign, they were all excited that they were going to get a new house. Oops! I hope our new bishop doesn't think everyone wants to leave our ward!

And the baseball season begins...

So, this is technically the first week of baseball. Jaxon started last week but Jadon and Kyson didn't start until this week. This is Kyson's first year playing baseball and last night was his first practice. He was so cute! He was excited all day and kept asking me what time we were leaving. He kept looking at the clock to see if it was time to go. When we got there, he got his baseball bag and off he went to practice. It was cold, so Katie and I sat in the van and watched. Every once in a while he would look at me and smile and give me a big wave. After he hit the ball he looked at me and smiled before he ran to first base. I love the excitement of a new baseball player! I'm always excited for baseball season to start. It's a lot of running around and juggling schedules but it's so much fun to watch the boys play!

Scout cake auction

For Pack meeting tonight, we had a cake auction. Our scouts have been earning points for the last 3 months that they used to bid on a cake. Every scout was suppose to help make a cake and bring it to the auction. The leaders also brought cakes. The owl cake shown above was the cake I brought. It was actually really easy to make and kind of fun.

This is Jake's cake. In case you can't tell, it's a bowling lane. He was very excited about the gumball bowling balls and tried to bid on his own cake but was outbid in a matter of seconds.

This is Jaxon's twinkie caterpillar cake. He made the whole thing himself with a little help frosting it.

These are the cakes Jaxon and Jake won. Notice that we went home with one of the cakes that we brought. When Jake couldn't get his cake he went for Jaxon's and got it. It was a really fun night and the boys had a great time!

First lost tooth

Kyson lost his first tooth this week. It had been loose for a while and I kept telling him to wiggle it. He said he didn't know how and since I can't stand the feel of a loose tooth, I didn't really help him. On Sunday night he told me it was really loose so I felt it and it sure was. I told him to let Daddy pull it out so he went in his Daddy's room and came back a few seconds later with a cute little gap in his bottom row of teeth. He was so excited to put his tooth under his pillow. The next morning he got $2.00 from the tooth fairy. He wants to save up $30.00 to buy some bakugan stuff so he said he wants to loose all his teeth so he can get enough money.

Jake's dinner at the roof

Last night we took Jake out to dinner at the Roof in celebration of his Baptism. We had a great time together. I always love the oppurtunity to spend one on one time with one of our kids. They act so different without all their siblings around. Jake was very well behaved and acted so grown up!

Dale and I kept trying to get Jake to try new foods. He wasn't very open to trying anything that he didn't recognize, especially the mushrooms that Dale was trying to feed him!

He liked dessert, of coarse. His favortie things were the chocolate covered strawberries!

Me and my sweet Jake looking at the beautiful view!

Daddy and Jake being silly. Jake thought the Joseph Smith Memorial Building was pretty cool. We had a great time together and I hope that Jake will always remember eating at "The Roof"!