Lars is 39!

As crazy as it is that Ashton just turned 9, it's more crazy (to Lars anyway) that he just turned 39! Ashton was born right before his 30th birthday.

Also hard to believe that it's been just about 15 years since our first date!

Fun picture I found from not long after we first met :)

Anyway he had a fun weekend of celebrating.

I made him cinnamon bread french toast that morning before work, then he worked half a day. The boys and I made him cards and decorated the garage door :)

Then when he came home about 12:30, he and I went and got jamba juices and ran a couple errands together...which was nice, that never happens these days.

Then the boys got out of school and his parents showed up a little while later.

I had to go get a huge load of groceries while they all watched a movie. Then we all went out to eat at his requested place...Elements. It is so good!

He and I had picked up this cake while we were out running our errands...

Kind of funny it's a heart, but it was the flavor he chose and that was the only shape they had it in. (and I got a break from making a cake!)

So after dinner we sang to him, then had cake and watched Shark Tank before bed.

 Saturday we got up and he and I actually got to go skiing alone together for the first time in about 8 years!

We went with our friends Matt and Lori and had a great day. It was so much fun!

 His parents stayed home with the boys and took them to the fun park.

Then we just made soup that night and ended up going to the 9:00 pm Aggie basketball game with our neighbors BJ and Emily. It was a really good game! Yes I really just wrote that...I even paid attention to most of it! It got really exciting at the end and went into overtime, but then the Aggies lost.

Anyway I would say Lars had a really fun weekend...getting to do (and eat) lots of things that he loves!
Happy Birthday hun...one more year till the big 40!

Skiing...

At the end of last ski season we purchased season passes for this season...kind of an investment in family time we figure :).

The few times the boys had been, they loved it so we've been excited to get started this year. Lars took the boys the day we got back from Lava and we've all been a couple more times since then.
One not so fun time because it was a blizzard ALL day long...

At least we had fun hanging out in the lodge...

 Then this last Sunday we had totally opposite weather and it was beautiful, sunny and at least 40 degrees all day! Wow what a difference that makes!

We had such a fun day...

These guys are doing great...they could definitely use some lessons, but they fly down the mountain!

 Hopefully we get lots more sunny days like that day!

Ashton is 9!

How I have a 9 year old, I just don't know. It is crazy to me how fast these years have gone by and yes it makes me sad! But it's also fun to see who he is becoming.

His birthday fell on a Monday this year, so to his dismay he had to go to school. But no chores! And he was excited to get to sit in a beach chair and do his work on a clipboard all day at school. Just one of the many fun things his teacher does.

Anyway he had a really hard time falling asleep the night before because he couldn't stand not knowing what we were getting him for his birthday. He always tells us that he hates surprises and it literally drives him crazy not knowing something. Finally when he was still awake at 10, I went in and laid in his bed with him and talked to him for a long time...probably about 45 minutes. I told him I would lay with him till he fell asleep. That and what I will write about next were my favorite parts of his whole birthday week. He is so busy during the day and never hardly slows down, so moments like that these days are so precious to me. The other one was the night before when I was in talking to him before bed. I told him that since he was turning 9, it kept making me think of a book I always read to him when he was little...called Love you Forever.

 I reminded him that he used to love rocking in the rocking chair with me every single night. So he asked me if we could go rock and read that book. It made my week :) He looked and felt like a giant on my lap, haha but I treasured every minute. I had Gunnar go get the camera and snap some pictures.

Flashback to when we used to rock all the time...

Anyway in the book, there is a part that talks about the boy being 9 years old and some of the things it says totally remind me of Ashton at this age.

Anyway, back to his birthday...

Oh wait, before I get to that I also have to mention that Gunnar didn't hardly sleep at all that night! He woke up at 2 am because he was also way too excited about what he thought Ashton was getting for his birthday and after that point he pretty much called me into his room at least 10 more times and was mostly awake till 6 am! It was kind of a miserable night :(

Anyway...

So that day Ashton woke up to a bunch of balloons on his floor and a sign on his door (at 6:30 am right after Gunnar had finally fallen back asleep) then, we let him open his gift which was the Skylanders SwapForce game for the Wii.

 Lars had gotten him a 22 gun also and had already given it to him while we were in Price. Then I made him cinnamon rolls for breakfast and got him off to school.

Then Gunnar and I went and got taco time crisp bean burritos and took them and ate lunch with him. I could tell he was loving having us there with him. It was fun!

Later in the afternoon I took donuts (super healthy eating for us that day!) in for his class and he got to get up and read his paper he'd filled out all about himself and show some pictures I'd brought in for him. For having to go to school, I think he had a pretty good day!

Not long after we got home, Grandma arrived.

Right after we noticed it was 4:17...the exact time of day Ashton was born on January 6, 2005...so of course we had to snap a picture!

Anyway Grandma brought him a fun Lone Ranger Lego set and went to dinner with us at Pizza Pie café.

 I tried to talk him into some other things besides a party to celebrate his birthday, but he is always in favor of a party! And actually I know that he probably won't be for too much longer and I love to plan parties, so I didn't mind too much.

His request was a Minecraft theme, so that's what we did that next Friday...

Next post!

Ice Fishing...

After our busy party day on Friday, we didn't slow down at all the rest of the weekend. We got up and went ice-fishing on Saturday with a big group of friends.

It was such a beautiful day and lots of fun!

 Lots of boys for Ashton and Gunnar to play with...they built forts and had snowball fights most of the day instead of fishing.

Our neighbor's cute little girl was the one who fished ALL day long.

She loves it and it was so cute to watch her...she was so patient and never took her eyes off of the poles all day! As all the boys are off playing...haha :)

 I caught this tiny one and tried to put it back, but it never would swim away...so I think all the kids took turns playing with it throughout the day...

 Gunnar reeled this one in... 

 He actually did sit and fish for awhile... 

 Fun to get out!

Minecraft Party...

 Ashton's party was fun...crazy with all these boys & I have to say I was a little relieved when it was over, but I know he had a great time having all of them here!

Pictures from the day...I had a lot of fun coming up with the details :)

Especially making his invitation...I love photoshop!

And these fun creeper magnets out of melty beads...Gunnar put most of these together and I ironed them and put the magnets on :)

 These bookmarks were fun too...I love that you can find pretty much any font you want these days, so I found this Minecraft one and made one for each of the boys with their name on it...

 Found this idea for "Pin the tail on the Minecraft Pig" online...

The snack station with fun Minecraft food labels...found online. I actually wasn't going to do snacks, but I'm glad I did...they were a big hit with hungry boys!

Yummy lime sherbet punch... 

Creeper and dirt square cupcakes.

 I ended up ordering this pan...

 ...and it was fun to make square cupcakes since everything in Minecraft is square shaped and pixelated.

Present time...

Game time...

 Singing to the birthday boy...

 Make a wish!

 Lars wearing the Steve mask I'd made for the game...

I think what I used most in preparation for this party was paper!

 It was loud and chaotic, but fun!