The BIG 10

We reached an important milestone today--our oldest child is now in the double digits! Emma is 10. It seems a little strange, but it's so fun to see her growing into a beautiful and sweet young lady. She has become my right hand girl and I have to say that I don't know what I would do without her around. Her birthday happened to fall on the first day of school this year which she wasn't too excited about. One good thing, she got to bring treats on her birthday for the very first time. Homemade oreos...mmmm. I love this girl sooo much!
Another big step--Emma got her ears pierced! She was sooo excited. She picked green peridot butterflies, her birthstone.

Back to School

It was back to school today and we kind of had mixed feelings about it. Here in Arizona summer seemed to fly by partly due to the fact that we went back to school August 10. Yep, that's no typo people...the 10th. Which happens to also be Emma's birthday. That's why I said WE had mixed feeling about it. I love having all the kids home, doing things we don't have time for during the school year and being able to have a more relaxed routine. However, I am excited to get back into the swing of things and also for my children to start a new year of school with new opportunities to grow. It's going to be a great year!

Pre-school1st Grade3rd Grade5th Grade--is that possible?! (I must be getting old...)

Emma's Spa Party

Hi! This is Emma. This year for my birthday, I had the most awesome spa party ever! We had it at the Blissful Barfus Day Spa (our house) and I invited some of my closest friends over to be pampered and to celebrate my 10th birthday with me.

First, some of my mom's young women helped give us all pedicures. They did glitter toes in blue, pink and purple. They were really pretty and sparkly!

Then we decorated flip flops

Then we did strawberry lemonade facials.While we waited for our masks to set, we were served Pina Coladas, cheese, ham and crackers from the Aloha Cafe (our kitchen).
Then we opened presents. I got a card, a hair flower, a necklace and bracelet, a picture frame and hook, and a bag of nail stuff. Then we had ice cream sandwichesHere's all the people who came to my party:
(from left to right) Kaitlyn, Kamryn, Krista, Jayden, Breann, Courtney,
Eliza, Rebecca, me and Kirsty
It was a great party!

Monsoon

We had our first real monsoon of the year today! It has been especially dry this year in Arizona while Utah has been getting buckets of rain. It was so nice to have it just dump on us! The kids especially enjoyed playing out in the rain with all the neighbor kids.