Ben Is 28!

Someone had a birthday! Ben turned 28 on Friday. He took the day off, and we had a lot of fun celebrating with him. Baylee is really into birthdays, so it was really fun for her to have her daddy home all day. So, here's how the celebrating went (oh, and just so you know, yes Baylee's eye and chin are a little banged up. We went to the drive-in movies and she had her first fight, with the ground, and lost, falling out of the Jeep.):

For breakfast, Ben wanted to go to Joe's Farm Grill. They give you $10 towards your meal on your birthday, which also covered a little of my food too. We always love Joe's Farm Grill- they grow their own produce which they use in their food. I don't think all of it, but the food is all pretty fresh tasting. Plus, it's right down the street from us, and it was so nice outside that morning. It was a great start to our day.

After Joe's Farm Grill, we hit up Krispy Kreme for a free dozen glazed doughnuts for the birthday boy. Ok, don't worry, we didn't eat any of them until Saturday. Too much food going on for us to even want doughnuts that day. The kids loved wearing the hats for pictures with the doughnuts though.

With our bellies still full from breakfast (really, we didn't eat those doughnuts), Baylee (who likes to be called Batman a lot lately) talked Ben into playing Batman Legos on the Wii. He played, she pretended to play, and had us check out what a superstar she was at killing all the bad guys with Ben (aka Robin). Check out her vicious fighting face, and as usual, hand on the hip (which I know is a little hard to see).

We did eventually do presents. This might have even been before the Batman game? Actually, I think it was, so just pretend I mentioned it before the Wii.

Lunch was at Joe's BBQ. They are owned by the same people as Joe's Farm Grill, and so Ben once again got $10 towards his meal. We were smart and all shared (Payton actually slept through lunch), so we didn't end up having to pay anything!

We ran a few errands, Ben got a few phone calls, and then we were ready to party that night!

Dinner was at Liberty Market, also owned by the same people as the two Joe's restaurants, and we once again got $10 toward our meal. We love this place-it is so good! We were glad to have our friends, The Vans (minus Conner), along with my aunt, uncle, cousin and brother all come along. Baylee and my cousin Ryan disappeared for the picture, but here's the rest of the group.

After dinner, our friends Mike, Heather and Trey had to take off, but Melissa, Doug, Ryan and his friend, and my brother Scott all came bowling with us. Baylee was so excited for bowling! And she actuallly beat Ryan and his friend's bowling scores. Ok, she had bumpers, but that was still pretty good! We had a fun night with everyone.

So, I was a bad wife, and we actually didn't end up singing to Ben or having cake until last night (Monday). Plans got a little messed up. So, last night we went to dinner with my parents and brother, and then went back to their house for cupcakes:

While I was doing this, Ben and the kids were doing this:

And we finally all sang and had cupcakes:

(Cupcake for this month was Irish Cream with Chocolate Irish Cream, Cream Cheese Frosting- not too bad).

Happy Birthday Ben!!!!! I hope you had a great birthday. Thanks for letting us spend it with you. We all love you so much! I'm so lucky to have you as my husband, and you are such a great dad to Baylee and Payton. Thank you for all you do! Sorry the singing and cake were so late.

We also want to wish Ben's brother Mike a Happy Birthday as well!

Warming Up Already?

Well, it's definitely starting to warm up here. I'm not ready for it to be in the 100's yet, but it looks like its pretty close. These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago, but here's what we will probably be doing a lot of this summer:

This is at a mall just down the street. As you can tell, both kids (and friends) had a lot of fun. We will probably be visiting there a lot. We have a pool (which actually has no water in it right now), but it's always nice to go somewhere else too. When it's hot here, unless you are in water, you don't really want to be outside. I'm still looking for more options for surviving the summer with my sanity still intact. Any ideas?

Gila Valley Temple

Our church (LDS) built a new temple out in central Arizona, and some friends from church invited us to go with them to the open house. In our church, you can only go inside the temple if you have a signed recommend from your church leaders, but before they dedicate the temple they allow anyone who wishes to see the inside of it to go through. You don't have to be a member of our church to go during this open house period, but you did need a reservation. So we went on a Monday morning, and drove about 2-2 1/2 hours to get there. It was fun to take Baylee and Payton inside. They don't allow inside pictures to be taken, but we did get a few shots outside before we caught a bite to eat before heading back home. So here's a couple from our little trip to the Gila Valley River temple:

It was a beautiful temple. Smaller than what I expected, but still fun to go see. Thank you so much to the Metcalfs for inviting us! We had a great time with them and Baylee loved playing with their cute little twin boys.