For Aiden's first "friend" party we decided to do a camping theme!  Aiden loves camping and talks about it all the time.  Strange because we are not huge campers!  We have promised both boys a camping trip in the near future. I am hopeful the fire ban will be lifted sometime this summer so we can have a campfire!

We sent out cute invitations which I will have to figure out how to paste into blogger.

I ordered cake pops from "The Sweet Crate".  My friend Emma makes some super yummy treats!  Here is our table decor:





I made the cake, complete with a graham cracker tent, pretzel campfire and a river with a water fall! 

The day was a bit rainy, but what is camping without a little rain?  My parents have an awesome backyard with a pond, stream and lots of trees!  The perfect spot for a little camping.  We set up a tent and let the kids eat Hot Dogs and Watermelon inside the tent.  They loved it!  We played a few games, including a version of Hot/Cold with Aiden's Teddy Bear (We called it "the bear hunt").  The kids LOVED this game!  We also went on a Scavenger Hunt!  The kids enjoyed running around and playing on the swing set outside.  In addition to cake and cake pops the kids also got to roast marshmallows in my Dad's firepit!  The party ended just in time for a down pour that finally came.  The kids even loved running in the rain!

What a fun day!  Enjoy some more pictures:

Okay really there is no way I can catch up, but I decided I need to start blogging again.  I can't go back and catch up on everything, but you'll get to see some exciting highlights from just the past few months!  Thanks for reading...

I have to preface this post with one thing...I have NEVER won anything in my life! In early January I was trying to find some kind of getaway for our family and I found some contests on Mile High Mama's website and I thought what the heck..I'll try for them all! As it so happened the one that was my favorite ended up being the one that I won! Oh my goodness was I thrilled! So we won 2 nights at the Crested Butte Mountain Grand Lodge which is a short walk from the ski lifts. We also won 4 lift tickets for 2 days. Wow! I was so excited about this trip! All we had to pay for was gas, food, ski rental and ski school for the boys. Which still added up to a lot but we both got our year end bonuses this month so it was our "bonus trip"! We chose Presidents Day weekend since Randy and the kids had the day off. Sadly I had to work a little bit while we were up there (system deployments!) but it actually went smoothly and I didn't waste too much time working.

I was worried about the drive down 285 with a snowstorm moving in. We hit monarch pass and a blizzard. Visibility was bad, my wipers were frozen and we creeped along at 10 mph. Randy is a great driver and even though he was concerned I wasn't worried about his driving in any way. He took his time and didn't try to push it.
Aiden had fallen asleep on the way. I captured this picture just before we hit the really bad part of the storm. Later he was rudely awoken when Randy had to roll down the window to grab the wipers in hopes that he could break some of the ice off. A huge gust of wind blew snow right in Aidens face. Poor guy.

Every year we hope to have a quiet relaxing enjoyable time together. This year was certainly relaxing. I minimized a little and tried not to do to much after our trip to Mexico. I'm glad I did this! I was also able to take 2.5 weeks of vacation time so I could spend all of Riley's Winter Break with the kids.

We went to my parents house for Christmas Eve and enjoyed dinner with my family (minus Matt's family) and the missionaries. It was a nice evening!

Christmas morning was so fun this year! We felt like it was a really relaxing quiet time for our family to be together. On Christmas Eve Riley was asked by our favorite Chiropractor what his favorite part of Christmas was. I was surprised, but his answer was "Breakfast!" So, apparently he likes that I actually make a big breakfast once a year? Last years breakfast was a disaster after hearing that Santa got Riley's order wrong I ended destroying omlettes. So this year...we went with pancakes. How can you mess those up?

Aiden wanted a DS for Christmas so he could be like his brother. It comes in handy at times when we need to boys to sit patiently, but for Aiden...he is still way more interested in running around like a crazy man anyway.

Riley got him Hungry Hippo from Riley and this was the BIG hit for the day. We had fun playing it together.
Of Course Aiden is always the GREEN hippo in case you wondered.


Here is the DS. Santa found a used one for a great price! (phew!)

While we were in Mexico, the boys went to the Primary activity - Breakfast with Santa. Here is Aiden telling Santa his wish list. Here is Santa trying to figure out how old Aiden is, since he tells people different numbers all the time. :D

As is tradition in our family we went bowling on Thanksgiving. It is always the highlight of our day! Aiden had so much fun that everytime we drive by the bowling alley he asks if we can go bowling today! Maybe we can take them bowling this weekend. (I feel like we have been cooped up recovering from Christmas and then having Aiden get sick yesterday).

Here are some pictures of our fabulous "Turkey Bowl"!