Our Life On The Hill

11

My firstborn is 11!  I just can't believe he was born 11 years ago. It's so weird that he's closer to 21 than he is to me giving birth to him.  I remember thinking how far away the double digits were when he was a baby, yet here we are already.  It went way faster than I ever could have imagined and way faster than I wanted it to go.  Why is that?  

He's such a good kid.  He's smart, sensitive, compassionate, creative, and I'm so glad I'm his mom.  

To celebrate on his 11th birthday, July 23rd, he picked what we would do.  We picked up my dad, he's still off of work from his cervical discectomy and fusion surgery, and we went to see Despicable Me.  It was really cute.  Later than night, we went to Monical's Pizza for dinner. 

Of course, Hadleigh and Sawyer had to get in on the action.

  

Hadleigh's newest Lil Webkinz, Taylor, had to have her picture taken as well. 

Ashton with my parents

Jerry with the other two kiddos

Sawyer with his new Ben 10 toy, Rath.

     

 The birthday boy and I

Hadleigh wanted in on it too

 

After dinner, we ran to Kroger to get some last minute things for Ashton's party.  When we came out of the store, we saw a beautiful double rainbow. 

On Saturday we had his soccer themed birthday party. 

I ordered his cake this year because I didn't have time to make one.

I did make cupcakes for him though.  He loves my frosting. 

    

cake time

Ashton's favorite part...presents!

        

On Monday, he had 2 friends over to celebrate.  We picked them up and went to see The Karate Kid movie.  My dad, Sawyer and I also went.  Hadleigh was at horse camp.  The movie was really cute.  We had pizza for dinner and they stayed the night.  

 I bought them each a Mexican pop for a treat.  

 

 

These two had to be part of the fun

     

  One last photo before I headed to bed

 

Sawyer's robot birthday party

We had Sawyer's birthday party on Friday night.  It was a robot themed party.  I had so much fun getting ready for it and he loved his cake and cupcakes. 

Hadleigh made the signs for me

His cake was really easy and the directions were on the Betty Crocker site.    

His adorable cupcakes.  I ordered the fondant toppers off of etsy.  

Opening his presents

Hadleigh made this robot for him

He was so happy to get a DS for his birthday

Don't mind my hideous window treatments.  When we moved here and began gutting part of the house, I had to find something to put on all 33 windows.  I liked these back in the 90s.  lol  I'm hoping to replace these very soon! I have 6 windows in the family room and 3 in the living room.  I can't wait to get rid of them!  It will be a happy day for me!  

Getting Megatron

He got a few more sets to his Lego Power Miners collection

My cousin Karen gave Sawyer a Target gift card that was also a thumb wrestling ring.  They loved trying it out. 

cake time

Hadleigh giving Sawyer's best bud a piggy back ride.  

giving her cousin a ride

Sawyer had his friend Wesley stay the night and Ashton had Wesley's brother Ethan stay also. 

getting ready for bed

The next morning, they were all playing outside.  Ashton came running in to tell me that they saw owls in the silo.  I told him to take my camera and get a picture.   I didn't believe that we had owls living in the silo, I knew we had pigeons though.  He said their faces were fat.  I got a little excited, and he came in with this photo....

It does kind of look like owls, but it was just pigeons facing the other way.                      

             

~~6~~

Last Wednesday, March 3rd, my little boy turned six!  I can't believe he's 6!  He was so excited for his birthday!  

That night we took him out to eat.  We told him to pick any restaurant he wanted for dinner.  He picked the little family restaurant in town.  This is the 3rd year he picked it and it's his favorite place to eat.  

He wore his birthday crown that his teacher gave him to wear during school. 

My sleepy boy

My silly boy

          

Happy Birthday to my fun, wild, and sweet boy!

A weekend full of birthdays

February 20th was a very busy day.  We had three birthday parties to attend.  The first was in Springfield, IL, which is 3 hours away.  It was for my cousin's little girl's first birthday.  Macey was so adorable and I'm so glad that we were able to attend and to finally see their beautiful home. 

Before we stopped at their house, we drove through Springfield to show the kids the capitol building.  

This is the old capitol building

The current capitol building

A little peek at the old buildings downtown

   

Adorable Macey enjoying her cake. 

Kisses from grandma (my Aunt Shirley)

Love these messy little hands

On the long trek back towards home for party number 2

      

 

 

one down for the count

another one about to fall asleep

    
 

passing the wind farm

Party #2

Claire's 3rd birthday 

Here she is opening our gift

 

Claire with little sister Emerson watching

It's a Fancy Nancy doll!

  

The last party of the night.  This was for my sweet little cousin and goddaughter, Brooke.  It was a surprise party for her 21st birthday.  It was at a local bar and Jerry and I went for a couple of hours while the kids stayed at Claire's party. 

Brooke was so surprised!

 

 
 Her beautiful purse cake and high heel cookies

 

I loved looking at these photos of Brooke.  If you look at the middle and lowest hanging cookie sheet, you will see a photo of a bride with a little girl.  That's me with Brooke as my flower girl.  It was 14 1/2 years ago!

 

~~ 8 ~~

My sweet Hadleigh turned 8 on Friday.  I can't believe it's been 8 years since the night I gave birth to her.  She's such a fun girl and I'm so lucky to be her mom.  

She cracks us up all the time with her silliness.  She's so sweet and caring and loves animals.  I wonder where she gets that from?   lol  

For her birthday this year, she wanted to have a Taylor Swift birthday party.  I found invitations and a skirt and shirt on etsy.com for her.  I also found cupcake toppers, candy bar wrappers, popcorn wrappers, water bottle wrappers, and an edible image for her cake on ebay.  She was SO excited, especially about wearing her Taylor Swift outfit to school on her birthday.  

She had a great time at school.  She took one of her Taylor Swift cds to school for show n tell and she and a few kids from her class sang and danced.  I wish I could have seen it.  

We had her family party that night.  Unfortunately, my dad was in the hospital and couldn't make it, but I sent my mom home with cupcakes and he came home the next day.  I think she had a great party.  We had Taylor Swift songs playing in the background and I think we pulled off a great Taylor Swift themed party.  

I totally forgot to leave the icing in a bag so I could pipe around the edible image.  I didn't put it on the cake until about 10 minutes before the party started.  Oh well, it's still cute.  

The water bottles

The goodie bags (candy bar and popcorn)

Opening presents

She needed new breeches, boots, half chaps, helmet, etc. My parents and I went in on the riding gear.  She also got clothes, shoes, Webkinz, gift cards, jewelry, gel pen stationary set, wallet, and a DS game.

Ashton gave a show with his band instrument.  He plays percussion, which includes the xylophone.

cake time

On Sunday, we had her kids party.  She had it at the riding stable again this year.  She was able to invite 14 kids.  Karen, who owns the stable and teaches the lessons, also rescues cats and dogs.  There are 3 1/2 week old puppies there right now and the kids couldn't get enough of them.  I think they were a bigger hit than the horses.  

It was beautiful outside, which was so nice, so they were able to run around and the puppies were enjoying the sunshine.  Here is the group with the puppies.

Hadleigh loves animals and about 6-8 months ago, she saw a Humane Society of the United States ad on tv.  She bawled all night after seeing it.  It was one of those long commercials and it shows a cow in a slaughter house being pushed by a forklift and a horse in the loading dock at a slaughter house and cats and dogs that are sick and/or neglected.  They were asking for $30 a month and she wanted to do it.  We couldn't do that so I told of other ways she could help out at her age.  So when we were talking about her party, this came up.  She decided that instead of presents for her, she wanted to get donations for the animals that Karen rescues.  Karen gave me a list of items that were needed and I included that in her invitations.  I can't believe how much everyone brought!  It was so nice of the kids to participate.  

We had 10 kids attend the party and they brought all of this stuff for the animals.

Hadleigh also received a few things just for her.  

my silly girl

After eating and doing presents, we headed out to ride.  Hadleigh was able to go first.  She rode Skeeter and wore her new boots, helmet, and her first pair of half chaps. 

Some of Hadleigh's friends getting their turn to ride.

Hadleigh hurdling the jumps and being silly

She had a great time at both of her parties.  I know it will be all too soon and I'll be blogging about her 9th birthday.  The years just come and go so fast.  

Party time

On Saturday, July 25th, we had Ashton's birthday party.  This year we combined his kids party with the family party.  We had 8 boys overnight.

Ashton had a Ben 10 Alien Force theme. 

present time

time for the yummy cake

The big boys and Hadleigh watching a movie.

The little boys hanging out in the toyroom.  They ended up sleeping with the big boys.

Sawyer's birthday celebration at school

He finally was able to celebrate at school.  He was sick and had to miss his special day around his birthday.  He brought his new Transformers to share with the class and I made cupcakes.  He had a Spiderman theme and wore his faux hawk that day. 

 

 

Wearing the weather glasses as he checks the weather so he can do the weather chart.  

 

 

Showing Jet Fire and Jet Storm

Sawyer's Birthday Party

Finally, we were able to have Sawyer's party.  It was on Saturday.  He was so happy that it was finally time, because he had been waiting for so long.  I made his Transformers cake and had to draw the Autobots symbol.  It took me longer than I thought it would. 

 

Here are a few pictures of my sweetie enjoying his party.

 

 

 

We had fried chicken, rolls, my mom's calico beans, and I made a yummy asparagus lasagna from Giada DeLaurentis's cookbook.  It was really good.  I also made pita chips and white bean dip from her cookbook.  I will definitely be making both dishes again. 

Sawyer's birthday dinner

We always let the kids pick what and where they want to eat dinner on their birthday.  Sawyer has now picked USA, our little town restaurant, for two years in a row.  He loves his Mickey Mouse pancakes.  :)  We had a nice dinner with Papa, Grandma, Uncle G.T., Jackie, and Uncle Johnny. 

 

my baby is 5 today

I just can't believe that my sweet little boy, my sugar pie, is 5 years old today.  It's such a huge milestone, especially when it's your last child.  He's an amazing little boy, that is full of life, wonder, questions, and spirit.  I know he's going to be an incredible man.  He's so excited to be 5.  Being 5 means he's grown up in his eyes.  He gets to start school, t-ball, and soccer just to name a few things.  He has been waiting for this day for a few months, and it's finally here.  He woke up excited and he's now playing with his Dinosaur Arctic Expedition toy, and waiting for his best friend to come over to play with him.   We are taking him to dinner tonight to his favorite restaurant, the town restaurant.  He's so funny.  He could have picked any place he wanted:  McDonald's, Monical's, Pizza Hut, Steak N Shake, etc., but he picked the little family restaurant in our small town.  He loves that place, and he loves their Mickey Mouse pancakes. 

Here is my little man as he was sleeping this morning.