Emma turns 12!

Emma turned 12 years old on Saturday, Nov. 26th.  She opened gifts from Jared & I that morning (minus the new cell she got a week before!).  She's getting to that fun age where she wants clothes and make up.  She had to wait until Ashton & I were home from soccer.  Then we took the kids to see 'Arthur Christmas' and to lunch to celebrate (our new favorite place NOW located in West Jordan - Brick Oven pizza!).

Emma has not had a "friend" birthday party since 2005!  '06 - '08 we were in Disneyland on her birthday, plus 2010, and in 2009 I was 8 months pregnant & didn't have the energy for it.  Needless to say, she was over due for one and we promised she'd get one this year.  12 is a big birthday to me, since they leave primary and head to YW/YM.  Kelsey & Emma get to be together in Beehives until June!  I'm excited for them to be able to go to activities together.  

She has quite a big group of friends, add to that cousins and siblings and you have a very large group!  We had 28 kids total, which required 6 cars to transport them all from my house, to the trampoline place, then back to my house.  In Draper there is a place called Airborne Arena - a huge warehouse full of trampolines all hooked together.  They have a foam pit and an area to play dodgeball.  They got to jump for an hour and they loved it!

Serious game of dodgeball was going on - always boys vs. girls

Big thanks to Whetmans, Bergmans, Brandon & Carrie for helping Jared & I get kids to and from!  Denise stayed home with Sophie, which helped a lot!

 After jumping around for an hour, we came back for pizza, cake & ice cream.  I totally underestimated how much 6th graders can eat.  I ordered two huge 23 inch pizzas from The Pie & they disappeared.

Happy 12th Emma Lulu! We sure love you and are so grateful you are in our family!

Thanksgiving 2011

This year for Thanksgiving we hosted Jared's family.  ALL of his siblings were able to come, plus we had Jared's two aunts (Brent's only siblings) and their kids too, plus Jared's Aunt's mother in law.  Whew.  I think we had about 45 people total.  We wanted to make sure that everyone had a seat at a table - so we had to clear out our family room furniture to make room for tables and chairs.

All the couches moved into the front room

I made place cards.  I took this picture when I was done - or so I thought!  I forgot a few of the littlest kids.

Chairs courtesy of the Midvalley Stake ;]

Jared made all the pies from scratch.  Here are most of them, plus two pumpkin cheesecakes.

It turned out great!  Denise, Brent, Brandon and Carrie helped us clean up and put the house back in order. Jared loved every minute of it.  That night when we finally went to bed I said to him, "Aren't you thinking to yourself, 'I am SO glad that's over?"  and he said, "No, I loved it."  Something is seriously wrong with that man of mine.  ;)     I am lucky to have him.