springdellgirl

Let The Good Times Roll...

Where to begin...I am 35!! Wow...I remember telling people "my mom is 35"...CRAZY! I had an awesome birthday...pretty much a week of celebrating...and have loved every minute of it. THANKS SO MUCH to all of you wonderful people who have called, come to town, sent cards, emailed, posted on my blog, showered me with gifts...I am extremely blessed to have all of you in my life. I was spoiled rotten by my husband and kids and felt very much like "the birthday girl"! So to all of you "babies" out there...35 is great!!

I have so much to blog about...I might have to work backwards...

Yesterday was my big Birthday Party at the Lake. We spent most of the weekend there. There ended up being even more family around than anticipated. My sister, Jordin, and her boyfriend, Aaron, flew in from Kansas City...that was planned. Jayme and Kaiden came to town too...planned. Stacey and Dane also came up for the weekend. All of my mom's brothers and her sister were in town...not planned (Due to the situation with my Grandma...more about that later). So the lake was bustling with activity. Unfortunately the weather was lame...what's with sunny Fridays, rainy Saturdays and Sundays...with the sunny coming out at 8:30 pm as we are leaving the lake...and then sunny Mondays!! This is becoming a regular thing!! ARGH! But I still had a great time!





D0 admire my AWESOME birthday cake...made by Tyler! Every year I request the same cake (Hot Milk Cake...It's an old family recipe for a vanilla cake...with HOMEMADE vanilla buttercream frosting and strawberries. After YEARS and YEARS of making this cake for me (A birthday girl can't make her own birthday cake can she?) he has perfected it!






Every year I request the same birthday dinner too. Finger steaks dipped in ranch dressing, mashed potatoes, salad, and Kelley's amazing egg rolls. My mom and sisters did a great job!

****Anyone else out there have a favorite dinner from childhood that you request your mom or family member to make for your birthday?****

I only eat finger steaks once a year (way too fattening)but they are SOOO GOOD! It is one of my grandma's recipes and one year I asked her where she got such an amazing recipe. She just laughed and said that with raising five kids steaks were expensive so she would cut cut the steaks into strips so they would go farther. I love frugality!! BUT...Then you take those delicious strips, coat them in flour and salt and pepper, and then fry them in BUTTER!! HEAVENLY!!

After my party it was PICTURE TIME!! The dreaded event of our family! Just kidding we LOVE it! Right Kirk? When we were kids my mom would always make us take our pictures after we had been swimming in the lake for hours and were all "lakey"...this was a cause for fights as teenagers...we had to be CUTE! Luckily due to the weather we weren't all lakey...maybe a little fishy...there was a lot of fishing going on.






I love this picture...the last time we took a picture of just the five of us kids my mom was out of town...so we had to get the "matriarch" in the picture this time...she doesn't like this picture because she is laughing but I love it!

Hum...four cute sisters...and one weird posing crazy brother.....!!

We spent all day Saturday out at the lake too and it was fun to visit with all the uncles and aunt. My grandma decided to go to an assisted-living facility...she still wasn't eating and then due to an infection that affected her optic nerve she lost her sight...it should just be temporary...as should her stay at the assissted-living facility. I hope she will be able to get back to her old self again. The place she is in is beautiful, and has a wonderful staff, it is actually LDS run. But it's hard to see her there rather than out at the lake.

Saturday night after we left the lake Stacey and Dane came and spent the night at our house (John had to work), Kelley, Jordi and Aaron came over and we had a big "Game Night" into the wee hours of the morning! Again...Tyler and I were UNDEFEATED at Cranium!! Can any of you sore losers EVER beat us?? ;) I took some hilarious pictures from that night but I will refrain from posting them because my sisters will kill me...but the one of Kelley doing "Sensosketch" is PRICELESS! :)

Friday night we all met up in Coeur D'Alene and spent time with my grandma at her assisted-living facility. Again it was picture time.


Reilly, Kameron, Kaiden, Ailey, Aunt Jordi and Aunt Kelley...too bad Dane wasn't there too!

Jayme and Me

Aaron and Jordin

Then all of us...minus Stacey and Dane...who hadn't come up yet went out for a WILD dinner at Paul Bunyans for a greasy junk food bonanza.

Thursday Night was busy as well...Jordin and Aaron came to town...and it was Reilly's big ballet recital. We met up with my mom, Jordin and Aaron for a quick dinner at the Davenport before Reilly's recital began. She did an AMAZING job!! The recital was fantastic!!

Throw in about a hundred more things that we did...shopping, T-ball, school stuff, church stuff, LOTS hanging out and laughing, and even a couple of work-outs...it was quite a whirlwind!