Our backyard...

Our little trees-minus one Juniper, which we had to go back into town for...
Doesn't that look great? And it's not even completely finished!
This is the Ruby Red Grapefruit tree: We'll call her Ruby!
This is the Blue Juniper tree, and since there are 4 of them, each of the girls get their own named after them.
This is our Orange tree-and I can't remember what kind of orange tree it is, so she doesn't have a name yet.

-OUR BACKYARD-

We've lived in our house for almost 4 years now. And since about a month or two after we moved in, our backyard has been almost complete minus the far back section which has been just dirt (and weeds mostly). The rest is wall to wall grass-which is perfect for the kids to run on. Next to the house we have a little tool shed that holds the lawn mower and various yard tools. On the other side is a cement patio for the girls to ride their little scooters on. It's been wonderful, but now it's going to be AWESOME!

Well, Nathan decided today that we'd head in to Lowe's and find some trees for the yard. It was so fun looking through the different trees they had in their garden center there. We ended up with 4 Blue Juniper trees and 2 citrus trees: 1 ruby red grapefruit tree and 1 orange tree. We were so excited. Richard and Jena met us at Lowe's with their little truck so they could take the trees out to our house for us. They helped us dig holes, pulls weeds, rake rocks (oh the wonderful memories of raking rocks), leveling the ground for the trees.

The only left to do now is hook up the drip system to the trees, lay down that liner stuff, and put the wood chips on top of that, and VOILA: backyard complete (after almost 4 years). I am so excited! All that digging and raking made me want to grow a little garden (or at least plant some flowers for the girls)...one step at a time, right?

Surprise: Nathan's turning 30!

Left: Collin Martin, Below: Josh and John, Miles and Emrie, the amazing invitation...



Nate and Jason playing a game of pool.
One section of our massive buffet of foods.
The birthday boy making a wish.
The other section of our food buffet.
-THE CAKE-

For the past two weeks, I have secretly been planning a surprise birthday party for Nathan. He'll be turning 30 on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. I know he's not big on parties, but I figured this would be the birthday of all birthdays that actually REQUIRED a party to go along with it. Stephanie designed the invitations, which were completely amazing (and everyone loved them). Everyone kept saying how clever they thought I was for the invites, but really, I couldn't take any credit--so to give credit where credit is due: THANKS, STEPH!

So I had the invitations all sent out last week just in case. I then made preparations as to where the party would be. Josh and Kara said we could have the party at their house since they have a pool table and ping pong, and most recently a dart board. We figured this would keep the boys busy while us wives talked about crafts or something they would think was completely lame. Our plans were moving along swimmingly until it came to the making of the cake. Nathan had sent me a picture of a UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) cake that he really wanted to have for his birthday about a month ago. So I knew that with a bit of help from my multi-talented friend, Bridgette Balmes, I could make it for him.

At any UFC fight, the competitors fight in an octagon shaped cage. The fights themselves get pretty intense-hence the need for the fight to be contained inside a cage. But in order for me to make the cake appear octagonal, we had to fudge it a bit. The bottom layer of the cake was a big square (chocolate flavored), the top layer was circular (vanilla flavored)...the cage and letters were made from melted chocolate chips. IT WAS SO FUN TO MAKE! Once again, I've got to give most of the credit to Bridgette who is a master at making frosting look flawless. Not only was the cake completely awesome-we added our own little side joke to it. Look for the "Snow White" Polly pocket doll on it-she's the UFC Ring Girl that the boys at the party were assuming was the actual UFC Ring Girl, Edith. So funny!

On Thursday night, the night before the party, Nathan took Ashlynn on a Daddy-Daughter date to Red Robin and then to the Phoenix Suns game. She almost spilled the beans about the surprise party when she made mention of the "Snow White" cake that Mommy made for him. Thank goodness she didn't know any more of the details because then we would have been in trouble. Josh has been helping me keep this a secret from Nate for the past two weeks-I totally think that Josh could sell ice to Eskimos if he really wanted to because even after hearing about some glorious "Snow White" cake that mommy had made for him (which she even told him that he wasn't supposed to know about it)...Nate was completely clueless about the party.

Friday night, all the guests had arrived and were waiting on Nate and Josh to show up...and at 6:45 PM, the birthday boy showed up-totally speechless. WE GOT HIM GOOD! He was so surprised-it was great. Everyone had brought an appetizer and Kara and I had made a bunch of food on our own (just in case)...so her entire island and table were packed with almost every kind of food known to man. We had orange chicken, tortilla roll-ups, chips and dip, veggie tray, strawberries, shrimp platter, sushi, pizza rolls, bagel bites, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, dinner rolls, crackers and cheese, mini cupcakes, brownies, candy, soda...you name it, we probably had it. The party was a huge hit.

All of Nathan's good buddies were there: Karl and Chantae Cooper, Kolby and Lynette Chase, Jason (friend from the gym), John Graff, Emrie and Luke Stoten, Richard and Jena Jones, and Josh and Kara Martin. Now this was just the adults-most everyone had at least one kid. I think there were about 11 kids (including our girls)-funny enough there were only 3 little boys there; the rest were girls. The big boys played pool and darts...while us girls hung out and talked. It was so fun...the kids had a blast too. Overall-it was a surprisingly wonderful night. Happy Birthday, Nathan!

New baby sling...

I made this baby sling for my friend Kara's new baby, Morgyn. It's been a while since I've been able to sit down and work on a project on my sewing machine. This only took me about 15 minutes to make-which was a total miracle. I usually have to redo stuff, but I guess I got lucky this time. It's difficult to see the pattern but it's just a black and white check. How fun!