A Very Merry Unbirthday, to Brayden!!!

I kind of have Disney on the brain because we are leaving for Disneyland very soon, the day after Brayden's birthday!!! Since we knew we would be busy getting ready for our trip then, we decided to celebrate Brayden's birthday early. Actually, the celebrating has been going on off and on all month - she has been one lucky little birthday girl! :) We started out a month before her birthday going to the Selena Gomez concert (which I already posted pics of), and last week Grandma took her out to dinner to The Cheesecake Factory and a shopping spree! Here's a picture of her with everything she got! As you can tell, her store of choice was Justice...and yes, she is wearing a Snuggie, well, Justice's blinged out version called a Cozy!

Then today, we had a family birthday party! Brayden's Nana, Pop, Grandma, and Grandpa came over for cake and to watch her open presents! Before they all came over, we had our own little pizza party - here are the kids patiently waiting for Mike to come home with their pizza and getting excited for the party with a little pre-party photo shoot!

She's 8! Well, not quite, but we're pretending!

After opening cute cards with money from the grandparents, it was present time! This is a watch she has been begging me for, it's called a J3LL watch and you can change out the face/band to have different colors! She loves it!

She got a little walking Fur Real puppy, the closest thing we'll get to a real one in this house!

A Barbie car from Ashton! Ashton made sure to tell everyone that the Santa failed to get Brayden the car for Christmas, so that's why we had to get it for her! (That dang Santa had given her a giant Barbie house instead!!)

Her own camera! She has wanted one forever, and we thought it would be fun for her to take pictures on our trip!

The cake...she was very specific about how she wanted it!

The 8 candles kind of smoked up our house a little bit! She is getting too old!!!

Brayden still has an appointment to get pampered with her first pedicure next week (I've never even had one!), and then her choice of restaurant on her real birthday, and I think the celebrating will finally be over! It has been so fun celebrating with her! I can't believe I will have an 8 year old. I am so proud of her and feel so blessed to have her as part of our family!

My Little School Boy

I saw this school work Ashton brought home yesterday and thought it was funny...

First, he wrote his name the way they have been practicing letters, doing uppercase and lowercase, so he decided to mix his name up with both for fun! Then on the bottom of his paper, one thing he's been doing lately, every time he writes he puts lines between each word, or in this case, each pair of letters he had to do, because he thinks a space just isn't good enough. He was worried his teacher wouldn't know they were supposed to be separate without the lines! He's all about lines over, under, and in between to separate words or letters. It's kind of a funny little habit he's picked up which I'm trying to break him of, explaining I promise a space is all he needs, he doesn't have to worry! What's funny is before Ashton started kindergarten, I worried about him being good and listening, sitting still, all that stuff since he's always been so full of energy...but, it turns out I had no reason to worry! He is actually almost OCD about doing things EXACTLY as the teacher says. It makes me laugh, but I am so proud of him. He absolutely loves school, and when he gets home he just wants to keep learning and loves to read to Mike and I for fun! One thing that has helped him really get into reading are these:

I had never heard of these until my sister told me about them recently - I wish I knew about them when Brayden started reading, so that's why I have to mention them here for anyone else clueless like me! :) Anyway, they are called Bob Books and I got them at Costco. There are several different sets, this is Collection 1 which has 18 books in it, and they start out super easy and get harder as you go. Ashton loves these and has been reading them every day and is now begging for the next set of harder books. I definitely recommend them to anyone with kids learning how to read!

~Brayden's Eight Year Pics~

Last weekend I did Brayden's 8 year/baptism pictures. It's a little early, but it's one more thing to check off my crazy list for October early! Anyway, a wind storm hit about 10 minutes after we got to the park, so we had to shoot in between giant wind gusts! Somehow we were still able to get some good shots.....these are some of my favorites!

They Can't Wait!

Every day the kids want me to drive by the Spirit Halloween store by us to see if it's open yet. Every day I hear them whine when we see it's not open. Yesterday, we found another store to hold them over for a bit (Halloween City), and even though it's not as cool as the Spirit store, the kids were in heaven.....uh, maybe "heaven" isn't the word for it.....

this would be my creepy son.....

He seriously picked the freakiest masks to try on!

Even though it's still early, I got to thinking I'd better get going on our costumes. We figured out what we're going to be yesterday, and I got everything ordered online last night! October is going to be extra crazy busy for us this year, so getting all set for Halloween already was kind of necessary! I hate saying goodbye to summer, but I'm so glad the kids' excitement for Halloween has gotten me excited too! I actually feel ready to bring on the FALL!!

Early Birthday Present!!!

Yesterday was exactly one month before Brayden's birthday, and we celebrated a little early! This year we are going on vacation the day after Brayden's birthday, so we won't have time to do a party, so we gave her something else instead...

I tried to hold out on the surprise as long as I could, then finally on Monday night, I decided I couldn't wait any longer! I put her surprise in a gift bag, and brought it out to her. Not expecting a present, Brayden seemed shocked and a little nervous! Even after she opened it, it took her a little bit to realize what it was...

Selena Gomez tickets!!! Brayden had told me that if she could see anyone in concert, it would be her! She was so excited!

Here we are all ready to go to the concert last night!

Our seats weren't as good as I thought I got, but they were almost sold out when I got them, so I guess I need to get on it sooner next time! :) They weren't bad either though!

The opening act was All Star Weekend - they are one of those bands where I like their music on the radio, but never knew who they were. They were really good!

Then after a little intermission, out came Selena Gomez! I wasn't sure how she'd perform at a concert, but I have to say I was impressed! She put on a great show!

Brayden loved it so much, she told me she just might want to go to a concert every year instead of having a party! I'd be okay with that....less work for me! We might have to make it a tradition!

This is The Place!

Ever since Brayden had a field trip last spring to This is The Place Heritage Park, she has been begging us to go! We finally decided to spend our Labor Day there and had a great time! When we first got there, we toured one of the homes...here Ashton is posing next to what used to be their toilets! Of course he loved learning about that!

Ashton wanted to pose like a serious farmer ready to work!

The petting farm! When I told Ashton I wanted to take his picture by the cow he said, "Okay, but I'm just going to stand by it, I'm not going to sniff it though, because it stinks!"

Little pregnant piggy!

They got to ride horses! I think Ashton's was sleepwalking, it's eyes were closed the whole time!

On the train!

Mary Fielding Smith's home...

You could see the whole Salt Lake valley!

This is the Place Monument

There were a bunch of cute little houses for kids to play in...

Brigham young's house...Brayden loves that it is PINK!

We had lunch at what used to be a hotel!

We finished our little outing with a stop at the old ZCMI store for some old fashioned candy!