Never Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

Robyn turned...

....yesterday. It was a great day, if not the busiest day of the year so far. Things kept coming up, and I would see they were on the 27th of April, and I would *sigh* mark them in the calendar. I believe there was a whole 45 minutes of down time that day, and I spent it making cornbread.

We managed to
- Attend a ward breakfast and service project
- Have a horseback riding birthday party
- Go to Ivory's Gymnastic competition
- Cart our way up to SLC for Supercross

One right after the other. But amazingly, we did it all. But this post is mainly about the party and the birthday girl. We actually opened family gifts first thing in the morning. Robyn didn't want to waste any time.

She was happy with everything she got.

Have I mentioned her obsession with Littlest Pet Shops? I actually got her 27 of them and let her have a new one every other day for a month. (I will miss seeing her little face first thing as I opened my eyes, with her saying, "Pet shop??") She got a few more on her actual birthday, and she wasn't disappointed.

Here are some of her new ones.

And you may remember that shelf I made her last year. Well, she still uses it all the time, and now she has so many pet shops, they hardly fit on there. Spoiled, I tell you. (And yes, she knows ALL their names.)

Oh, I need to put this in here. Ivory made Robyn a birthday card. It was huge, but you could tell that Ivory had taken a lot of time on it. I like when the girls take extra time to make a thoughtful gift.

Robyn's big present has been on her wish list for quite a while. I got her some skates. Oh, and not just skates...rollerblades.

She wanted to try them on right away. And watching her today, it won't be too long before I can rest easy at home, not worrying about her breaking her neck at any moment.

Now fast forward through a service project, which was very good, by the way. I took 1, 4, and 5 and we weeded our hearts out at a neighbor's, and Tyler took 2, and 3 and they helped stain a fence. Robyn and Ivory came home covered in stain. And since it was red, it looked like they were bleeding. I made Robyn at least wash her face before we left for her party.

We did a horseback riding party, and it was FAN. TAS. TIC. I found a place online, (Lucky Star Horse Stables) and thought, why not? And it was perfect. The lady has a horse corral (spelled right mom) in her backyard, but also a playground. So, she takes the kids two at a time to ride and the other kids play. Plus, she decorates super cute.

And she provides party bags and plates, etc. I'm trying to think of something negative about it, but I really can't. Well, the only sad thing I can think of, is that she raised her prices after I booked. So, now if I want to go back again, it would cost more. But in my mind, it is still almost worth it to not have all the craziness at my house. In addition, I feel like I spend just as much with a home party regardless.

Everyone had a good amount of time on a horse. The owner would start off leading them, but when they felt comfortable, she would let them walk the horse on their own. Look at all these cute riders.

We let all the birthday guests ride first, so my kiddos had to wait a bit. I think they were pretty patient.

But finally it was time for the littles.

Yep, even my Pearl took a spin. This is significant progress because last year, if you got her too close to a horse, she would cry. So, I was super impressed with her. June gets props for being the very last kid to go. But since she was older, they let her walk on her own more.

Tyler had the camera there at the end to document the riders, so I didn't get any pictures of Robyn blowing out the candles. Oh, wait...there weren't any candles. I forgot them. But, here is the cake. (For the record, the only horse cake design Walmart had was My Little Pony. I decided to skip it.)

And Tyler did stop by for a brief shot of the feeding frenzy. I let Robyn cut the cake, so the slices were generous, and the entire thing was gone before we left.

Which is good really, because I don't really eat leftover cake.

So, super fun!! I did get Robyn balloons as well, but I was cheap and didn't put high float in them, so they are crawling around the floor already. Oops.

But, Robyn can't complain, because we took her to ride horses. Actually, she did quite the opposite. She made a point to tell me how great her birthday was, and how she liked all her presents and riding the horses and it was all great. And that was the best part of her birthday in my opinion. Nothing like a little gratitude. It sure goes a long way.

Happy Birthday, my sweet Robyn.

Family Crack Off 2013

Whew. Let's waste no time today jumping into the 2013 Crack Off. We have such a great time as a family, but it is always better when my parents and nephew can come.

I did document eggs, but we don't have too many pictures of the actual cracking, because we took videos this year. But, if you've seen one Crack Off, you've seen them all. But these eggs, you haven't seen:

It was quite the competition. And then something unexpected happened. Two eggs cracked at once. I was up against my Mom, and her egg was smashed in on one side. I was the clear winner. But as I looked closely at my Deviled Egg, I could see some light cracking. Could it be?

I was already in the loser's bracket, so I didn't have another egg to choose. So Tim and I went egg to egg, and I assumed that since my egg was weaker (with an already slight crack) that it would easily fold under pressure. But this happened.

The Universe is not right. Two eggs?? I admit that this has planted a seed of doubt in me concerning the Crack Off. Will this happen again? How do you plan for this? Let's hope it is a rare fluke. Or maybe I have learned that you just don't mess with a deviled egg...

One egg did NOT crack however. Did you guess?

Yep, that silly Anger Bird was undefeated. It must have come from a strong batch. I'm not too surprised it beat all the other eggs. I felt the dozen or so I cooked were very weak. I had 7 crack while they were cooking and that is odd. Usually I might have one crack during boiling.

So, you see it was a strange Crack Off overall, but definitely a fun one. I loved everyone's eggs. Did you have a favorite? I love to see who you would have voted for, for best decorated egg.

A Hunting We Will Go

Yes, Easter is far behind us now. But, I was kind enough to warn you that our Easter festivities weren't quite finished. So you can't be too annoyed, right? Plus, Easter is rapidly becoming one of my favorite holidays. Regardless of the fact that the festive side of Easter doesn't seem to have anything to do with the sanctity of the Resurrection. But then again, Halloween is hardly about....what is Halloween about?? Something about All Hallow's Eve? Okay, whatever. Thanks America for completely obliterating any true meaning in the holidays and replacing them with candy.

So, we did some egg hunts. One was back right before Easter. We love our city hunt. We never miss. This will be my last year in the small child area. Actually, I don't even know what it looks like on the other side, since I have always been in charge of the littles. (Odd to be headed out of that phase.) Pearl was ready to go. She knew the drill.

Everyone came back with a haul. Ivory did well.

Some children picked out certain items to hoard. Here is Robyn with a whole bunch of little animals.

And June found her own treasure to collect. (Weird, now that I think about it, I have no idea where all those pinwheels went. I haven't seen them since that morning.....I must remember to search June's room for secret stash locations.)

Daisy collected pixie sticks again.

Silly cute girl.

And I admit one of my favorite parts of the egg hunt is seeing old friends. You know you are going to run into them at least once a year.

We didn't eat too many donuts this year. I let the girls have candy instead. (Really, what is the difference?) And then they played a bit. It was a gorgeous year compared to many in the past. And in March to boot!

Yay Easter.

Okay, fast forward to this last weekend. My family is visiting and I had a specific request from Tim to postpone our egg hunt until his arrival. (Yes, he is 16, but since we hide money in the eggs, he is still enticed. In fact, if any of you have egg hunts with money involved, I would be happy to attend. No one really gets too old for money.)

We still let the kids exit and search in reverse age order. Pearl was the first to take off.

I was impressed with our patient waiters. Although in the future I will only space them 30 seconds apart. Pearl can sure pick up a lot of eggs in a minutes time.

Daisy was next.

Ivory was off like a shot when her turn came.

And she had made her own bag using school stuff. I thought it turned out cute.

Robyn was next out the door. It gets harder to catch pictures of them when they are so speedy.

I had clearer pictures of June, but I love this one because of the egg in the background.

And then....Tim. He is super patient since he goes out last. And we were short a few eggs out there since Pearl was quite the scavenger. Plus, only the hard eggs are left.

The real quest was for the camo eggs. Everyone got 4 and then the rest were up for grabs. Robyn was our big winner again finding the 5 dollar bill.

June had her own stash by the end and raked in the most, cash wise.

Pearl was content with the candy and spent the afternoon munching on her treasures.

I would say the day was a success. But stayed tuned for our Family Crack off. The eggs were incredible and we still need to see if Robyn's Anger Bird could come back to win it all....