Our Birthday Girl

Dacie Ann's

BIG DAY FINALLY dawned Monday January 25th

...she is now officially 3

ONE of her most favorite things to tell people about her birthday is:

"that she gets to share it with Beth's Baby"

(Beth would be her aunt, and the baby is her new boy cousin Azure!)

Baby Azure was due a little over a month before our Binka

BUT because of placenta previa complications he came at 37 weeks on Dacie's Birthday

Cousin PARTAY!

It was an ODD birthday year..so it was a family party year (no friend party)

our theme was ANYTHING:

Barbie

Princess

Pink
I got a good idea from my ol' mission comp (sister Harvey) for the cake, but ran out of time and icing

so the end result was: a "ghetto Barbie cake with a little bit of v-day southwestern flare" ha ha ha

Dacie also got:

GAME TIME with the brothers
EXTRA MOMMY TIME (with a little extra patience in my mind)

THE DECORATIONS

THE PARTY

THE PRESENTS

*The morning after, the presents even look GRANDER (thanks Gma/Gpa Hutch)

and THE CAKE AND ICE CREAM

(The Ghetto cake that is...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!

cha cha cha

SHE is ThREE and is FrEE!

OUR PRINCESS turned 3!

~

And a MUST DO on the list for her birthday agenda was to move everything out of the way, turn on the music AND watch HER dance
...so I pulled out the trusty camera and had a BLAST watching my little lady dance up a storm

Oh! and did she pull out the works...she even recruited a willing prince to "marry her" during the performance.

AND I even wonder why I am NOT thinner?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OUR SWEET DACIE ANN!!!!

May you always dance as if no one is watching....

Our MARATHON DATE!

So this past Saturday Dan and I used our time "wisely" to go on a marathon date (as those will come farther in between when this binka arrives)

~

The morning started out with a primary activity day and basketball game

Then Grandma Sorensen arrived from PHX to watch the kiddos until late evening when we hired a babysitter so she could get back home at a decent hour.

Dan and I took off at about 12:30pm and drove straight to the temple

It was SOOO BUSY--we had to wait 45 minutes to get into a session

Despite the time line we were crunching-we still absolutely enjoyed our time there

Time holds still and all is well while you are in the temple...

We enjoyed the quiet pondering time before we even started!

Getting out of the temple later then anticipated--we stopped by my sisters house (amberlyn) who has moved abt. 5 minutes from the temple and went and picked up some "goods" from the my folk back home in California!

BUT we had to hurry (no time to eat out)...so we would NOT miss
THE SUNS GAME
Dan's Dad had some tickets he hooked us up with that evening

(I love Steve Nash's pose in this one)
I am not gonna lie...Basketball is my FAVORITE sport to watch

Maybe because I am more invested in it

But tonight was NO EXCEPTION and we were on the 12th row to boot!
Basketball games have a little "nicer" crowd too, since they typically cater to the

"higher income".

I had FUN making up nicknames for some of the players

So I had to play around with my camera's new settings and get pictures of them

The 2 above are:

MONKEY MAN (Lopez)

and VAMPIRE (he has some Danish name...or something like it, I forgot)

Oooh this guy was THE GORILLA (why these players have such excessive facial and HEAD hair is a mystery to me, isn't less more when you are getting so sweaty?)

and this "small" guy above (he only looked small compared to the 7 footers) is JUNO

I kept this picture in because I was trying to get Gorilla and I got Steve Nash in a funny pose on the sideline while he was trying to keep warm- ha ha

VAMPIRE vs. GORILLA

and to make the date even better...Dan caught one of those super cool t-shirts they throw into the crowds!!

Not Gonna Lie...I am a SUNS fan

~

We finally arrived back home 2 hours later at midnight (I had 6 hours of church to go to the next day for ward conferences)...we slept GOOD that night!

Fruits of Art Class

Our school district got a small grant to hold a free after school art class for 1st and 2nd grade for one week

OF COURSE...we capitalized on it for Sterling

FREE..hello!

Their main emphasis was drawing portraits and human bodies all week. They went through all the anatomy..particularly faces.

Each day they had small assignments to complete BUT their final project was to pick two people

and draw them in a portrait together.

My kids have always been huge fans of the only cousins close to their ages.

SO the portrait was no exception for Sterling and he chose his 2 cousins Boston and Kayden (who are brothers, and just moved into their own room together)

Now I am not making any claims towards my children's art talents...I would be clueless in that knowledge. BUT when Sterling brought home his final project at the end of the week, all matted I couldn't help but be touched by his thought he put towards his cousins. They were expecting a new brother, so we thought it might be fun for them to have a gift to go into their newly decorated and moved into bedroom as they have been making room for their other brothers. Now granted, we take a risk by doing this... as my brother is an artist and definitely has a critique'ing eye. BUT Sterling so LOVED the class and was so EXCITED to give it to them..I could not pass up the opportunity.

So we framed the picture and sent it to Utah..but not before we got a few pictures.

Happy Portrait drawing to you!

We LOVE you cool boy cousins Kayden & Boston (of course McCoy and Azure too)

PoKeNo or BUST!!

NO FLOODS, OR SNOW, OR SLEET could have kept us from our Pokeno this month!!

Maybe...that is the real reason I was NOT overly concerned with the flood-

I was too busy getting the house cleaned, and meal prepared for Pokeno

(being held at our house Thursday evening)

I decided to take my turn as a host before the baby arrived, AND I got to do it with one of my favorite people...Natalie Ipson

She is just AS (or more) festive as me (You KNOW that is allot)--in fact, she WON the best V-Day dressed prize hands down!!!!.... and she did not even wear her entire get-up!

Because of the weather, scheduling conflicts, and smaller groups being formed-we had 6 girls show up!

BUT I loved it! ...

I could make a little bit "nicer" all-pink dinner:

Ham

Red Baked Potatoes

Pink Fruit Salad

Red Grapes

and OF COURSE..we had hot chocolate

AND Natalie provided the "yummies"-- dessert (frozen yogurt, heart shaped strawberries, and shortbread cookies) and game treats (that she left behind...to my children's utter delight)
Because it was a smaller group we were able to change the game around a little bit too!
We played pokeno (bingo) with an empty sheet and filled it in with "get to know you" questions
that Natalie made up...she made up the best questions ever!
We had to fill in our answers on the blank spots and went around and answered to get our BINGO
We found out things like:
Would you kiss screech or urkel?
Things we love about our hubbies/significant others
Courtship stories
Worst and Best Dates
It was too much fun--and we only made it through one round that evening because of the game.
OF COURSE..this all took place while the worst of the storm was happening
But despite the lights wavering a few times and the constant pelting of rain on the sky-lights
Inside we were warm, cozy, and all I could hear was laughter, talking, and smiles
It was a GOOD NIGHT!
As the candles burned down--the evening ended successfully
~
WE {heart} PoKenO around these parts for sure!