Natalie's 7th Birthday!

our natalie is 7 years old!!! she has had an AWESOME birthday celebration!!

she got to go shopping alone with me. 

she decorated with my help =o]

she and i made a book on shutterfly of the past year, and ordered the pictures for her photo album and made a binder of the past year of her school work. here she is proudly reading her book to her siblings when it came in the mail.

she went on a special date with dad!

she did a birthday interview. she got to talk to cousins and grandparents on the phone. she also received a birthday blessing. 

and of course she got tons of cool presents that she is super excited about! but the best part about her birthday was getting to go to madera for a weekend of partying!! 

 for her birthday natalie wanted to celebrate with her best friend maren, and watch harry potter with her aunt melissa. we got to madera just in time to go swimming at our friends the hyers house. kent went and picked up pizza and ice cream and then we headed back to grammy's for the BYU football game! during the game we ate dinner and started decorating the cupcakes and cake. the kids did the cupcakes

and melissa and i did the main cake. i feel really bad because it turned out to be super stressful, but i definitely couldn't have done it without her. so thanks for saving me again melissa!!! =o]

natalie LOVED the finished product and everyone complimented it, so all's well that ends well, right? =o]

did i mention that the theme of her birthday this year was "magic" because of all the books and movies she loves involving magic of some kind or another. it was such fun to do a combination because that is just so natalie- loving so many things she can't decide! she is ambivalent. 

it took her several tries to blow them out- just like her dad! lol

raise your ballons...???

after singing and while eating cupcakes and ice cream grandpa jamie showed us his "black magic" magic trick. i remember it from when i was little =o] then we watched one scene from harry potter so jenna would go to bed. 

after that we tried the bertie botts every flavor beans and had a grand ol time! lol

then maren did her penny magic trick

melissa and my mom did their disappearing legs magic trick (which they had both independently planned to do lol)

then natalie did a disappearing friend magic trick which maren so kindly helped her with. ah the seven year old sillies are already setting in! then we took maren home and it was finally time to go to bed.

the next day we went out to a fancy dinner at the old spaghetti factory in fresno, and all the hansens came along! even grandpa jamie took the time during harvest to be there with us. it was a special occasion!

we got to eat in the trolley! natalie's gotten lucky three years running now!! 

i walked around A LOT with this guy...

we opened a present while there- a harry potter snow globe from grandma and grandpa mackay =o]

trying to take a picture outside the trolley lol

i had been looking forward to their ravioli and was not disappointed- the food was delicious! they brought a candle out in her spumoni and we all sang to her. she was thrilled! 

as we were leaving the restaurant i told natalie i hoped she felt celebrated, and she said "yep! and loved too!" =o] 

once we got home grandma and grandpa hansen arrived and i was busy the rest of the night working on their books with them. but natalie and the rest of the family got to eat cake and ice cream and watch the 6th harry potter! when she discovered several months ago that it was PG, we decided to save it for her birthday. we skipped two parts she remembered from the book were scary and then thoroughly enjoyed the rest!!  

the next morning we made (way too many) waffles for breakfast and then opened presents! her favorite was probably a map of the world marked with the the places jack and annie from the magic tree house series have visited on their adventures that she got from grammy and grandpa jamie. 

their ward meets at 1pm so we had time to pack and make dinner before church. during the 3rd hour kent graciously drove back to my parents house to get the dinner and supplies so we could eat at the church building and then leave from there. it was fun and my parents took these pictures with natalie out under the trees while playing on the lawn afterwards. the weather really was beautiful considering the time of year and location! 

caleb photo bombing. that kid! lol

i'm pretty sure natalie read new books she got as presents the whole way home!

labor day was filled with just that- LABOR! but some fun mixed in too to finish celebrating the birthday girl! 

she played with her new toys and read her new books to her heart's content. all in all i'd say it was a great birthday celebration if there ever was one!

happy 7th birthday natalie! we love you!!

random stuff from the month of august

our last month of summer was just as fun filled as the previous two =o]

here are our last four musical monday experiences (all jumbled up for some reason??)

this is Sound of Music= Music makes your life better!

this is Oklahoma= A positive attitude makes your life better!

Godspell= There are lots of people who are not members of our church who still believe in Jesus and love His teachings; we appreciate their camaraderie! 

and Tarzan= Love learning; it makes your life better!

we have loved doing musical mondays this summer and i look forward to doing more in the future =o]

this is our pet lizard stanley. he lives in our garage and poops on our stuff and startles us by popping up random places, but he eats crickets so we like him. 

natalie and caleb got a free month of weekly karate lessons through the summer reading program at the library. they had a GREAT experience =o]

here are the t-shirts they got =o] 

and here they are after the last night of class when they earned their white belts by breaking their first boards. they were both so proud and want to continue on with the program. who wouldn't, right??

have i mentioned how much i love FHE? well we do. i couldn't resist taking a picture of this awesome lesson on reverence kent gave. our whole ward knows how much we need it lol

this is caleb reaction to kent's examples of what is NOT reverent.

it was classic!

this month we started our book club for the kids. 

and our service club. i am so excited about these two clubs! the kids love it too, don't worry lol

i also hosted my book club at my house and had a great time! i learned a lot from this book. ANYONE can make a difference and become a powerful force for good if they just make the choice! 

my family is doing this health challenge thing, each of us are going to take turns setting a goal and working on it for a month with everyone and i made the first suggestion. i challenged us to get rid of any food that has sugar as the first or second ingredient. eating dessert is fine in my book, but food should be real food! even if no one else benefited from this label checking challenge we sure did! no more pop-tarts for sunday breakfast thank heaven!! we call them "red zone" foods and we are fully committed to quitting them let me tell you! =o]

other than that, there has just been a ton of good times playing together. i'm sure we will all miss the laid back free time with no agenda or obligations =o]

Natalie is ready for school to start again!

Natalie has appreciated our weekly visits to the library more than the others and the librarians know her by name or at the very least recognize her lol

caleb is so great. he is growing up so much!! he plays legos every day and is the only one of the kids motivated enough to do 5 chores to get extra screen time =o]

jenna's favorite phrase this month has been "mom, can you teach me how to do this?" =o] another funny thing she said a couple days ago was, after i apologized about not sweeping the floor the night before and ants attacked she said "thank you, but it's not really ok" with this aloof look on her face. she is hilarious!

and then there is our adorable little seth. the kids have started calling him "buddy" but i am protesting. he loves to stick out his tongue ha ha 

he also LOVES books! and he is much more gentle with them than his older sister. he loves the kind with parts to feel or flaps to lift up. we read every time he goes down for a nap or bed and he kicks his little feet and squeals and even kisses the books =o] 

and there you have it! thanks for the memories summer of 2014! now on to the next chapter!!