Birthday Time!

And so marks the beginning of another whirlwind birthday season. This time at least I'm not crazy pregnant. 

1st Birthday up is. . .  Jaden!!

We started the morning with presents. This is one happy kid. Here in his hand he has 5 video games. That's right 5. Just what he asked for. In case you can't see they are

for the xbox:

Need for Speed Most Wanted

Hydro Thunder

For the Computer:

Burnout Paradise

Sonic All Star Transformed

Pressure

By the way these are all racing type games. This is a kid that knows what he likes and apparently so do we. :)

 Bella is sad because I wouldn't let her in Jaden's picture. Eeesh.

 Okay Bella your turn!

 While Jaden was at school I got busy on birthday cake making.

 Crush 'em monster truck!

 This is Mr. Happy Birthday Man. He was sitting on Jaden's desk when he got to school. He felt pretty special. And even more amazing, he got it home safely walking home from school.

After school Grandma Potter came and took Jaden shopping for his present and out for ice cream at Rupe's where the Rupe's girls all sang to him. :) Here's the neat hot wheels track Jaden picked out. 

 The Grandparents and Cory came over and more presents were in store.

20 cars and drawers to keep them in. Someone else knows what this boy likes.

 Birthday cake time!

 Someone else is happy for Jaden's birthday

Happy Birthday Jaden! Here's a few things about the new 6 year old Jaden.

Favorites

Color: Orange

Food: Pizza

Thing to do at School: Have Lunch & PE

Best Friends: Pace, Cooper, Tristen, & Michael

Toy: Hot Wheel Track

Video Game: Sonic All Stars Transformed & Pressure

And He Said he loves playing with his friends.

Roast Beast Feast

Roast Beast Feast is the neighborhood block party that is hosted by Groveland 1st and 2nd ward. This year we had it out at the ball park. 

Weee swings!

 So we just hangin' around here Mom?

 Brother Johnson brought his awesome tractor train.

 the kids loved it!

 Yuki Matsuura is a super talented characture artist. Who knew? I sure didn't but was super impressed. 

 Here's her sketches of my 2 girls (Jaden was having too much fun out with his friends. :) ) They remind me of the gorgeous vintage art that is now popular again. LOVE IT.

It was a REALLY windy day and during dinner the kids got really cold so we left right after. Good thing we had plenty of fun before dinner. :)

Just a little bit of Applesauce

Here's how the applesauce process works:

first get your slaves, I mean helpers to the applesauce making place. Here's my two excited munchkins.

First you need apples. Washed and brought in. FYI all these apples came from our one Macintosh tree. WOW!

Then we cut!

and cut

and cut

and cut

Do you get that there is a lot of cutting involved?

Don't worry, that didn't happen cutting. Jaden got a little cement road rash from playing trucks. Brief pause on my part for some first aid and back to work.

Then there's the cooking of the apples. That's right we have 4 pots going at once cause we're applesauce making machines!

 Then the kiddos favorite part. Straining.

 Bella stood there helping for an hour! She thought it was funny how the apple "poo" comes out the other end.

We all needed a good supervisor. 

  That sometimes needed a break herself. Thanks Katie. :)

Okay so at this point all our stations got full and there was no one left to take pictures, but we then mix the applesauce with a beautiful amount of cinnamon and sugar then put them in the bottles. (This was my job from here on out)

At some point we all had to take a turn as official applesauce tasters of course.

Then into the pressure cooker. We had 4 of them I think. 2 on and 2 off to cool. Ryan did a lot of watching pressure and timers. It's an easy job but an important one. We really don't want to blow up the garage. :)

And then here they are! Beautiful!! When all was said and done we bottled 150 quarts.  

Thanks everyone! We now have applesauce for another year of lunches and in case of emergency we will survive solely on applesauce! Mmm.

Mid September mahem

Bella got out her toy camera and said "You take a picture of me and I take a picture of you." So we did."

 School work from both kiddos. Bella was pretty proud of her rainbow fish.

Olivia found a great hiding place for when I am making dinner.

 She also loves to climb up on Bella's bed and get her hands on whatever Bella has left there.

 Hee Hee Bella's water

 Really she climbs on everything!

 Happy Birthday Grandma Great!