Hailey, the Big 1 - 5 !

Hailey was really excited to turn 15. She wanted to celebrate her birthday with her High School colors for her theme. So, her colors were Purple, Yellow and Black. She had asked everyone to come dressed in at least one of her school colors. It was a cute idea.
I think I had tried to get a closer up picture of the cake but it didn't come out.

Hailey decided just to have some girls her age over - some from school, Church and family.

Here she is at the presents part, her favorite!

Emma, Kelsey, Alayna and Rebecca.

Dana and Tyler. Hayden "got out of Dodge" the night before and went to hang out with Jonathan at his house. He didn't think he could handle the "girl party". Tyler on the other hand really enjoys these. All the girls always think he is cute and they spoil him.

Kurt even came and hung out for a bit.

Kurt checking out a gift Hailey had gotten. This thing is called an Ipod Shuffle (or something like that). I had never heard of it and I actually thought it was a fancy paper clip or something. This thing that is a little bigger and thicker than a postage stamp and can hold up to 1000 songs! I know! I'm still shaking my head.

Tyler checking out the pretty smells.

After presents we played some really fun games. Whatiff, Scattergories and of course Twister (this was after cake).

On to the food. Hailey wanted a cake, Ice Cream, Punch and this very tasty dessert called Crescent Roll Ring. Mmmmmm.

I am mad at the camera for this one. I took a picture of her blowing out the candles and it took too long to click and this is what I got. . .

The girls had fun with Twister too!

This is Dana and Alayna - say that three times fast!

Emma and Kelsey. Ooops! Emma fell.

Hailey and Dana.

One of Hailey's gifts was an awesome picture frame so we made sure to get shots of her with everyone so we could get them printed and put into the frame.

Here is Hailey with Rebecca, her "Big Sister"! We love Rebecca to pieces. She loves to clothes shop and go to the Mall so her and Hailey really get along!

To me the word Mall is synonymous to the word Ugh!

Dana and Hailey.

Cousins Kelsey and Emma.

Hailey and Alayna.

Oh, and here is Tyler lovin' up the attention he is getting from Dana. Dana has a brother the same age as Tyler but has actually mentioned she would like to take Tyler home.

Here are two pictures of the fantastic Crescent Roll Ring. MMMMMM mmmmm MMMMM!
Before we fold over the edges.

After it is folded and baked!

Well, this was another successful birthday! Problem is, Hailey's next birthday is her 16th and she has some crazy notion in her head that it is supposed to be some big event. . . . I guess that at least gives me a year to prepare for it!!!

12, Already?

I think they say that when kids hit the age of about 10 they are now called "tweens" instead of kids. So I had told Hayden since he is turning 12, he is officially a "Senior Tween"! I think he liked that. This is our last year of somewhat normal behavior before he hits the actual teenage time frame where I grip onto something tight and hang on for the ride!

Hayden loves football (still) so for (I think) the third year in a row we have done a football theme. I found these cute little gold foil footballs this year. Made it quite easy to decorate.

Hayden had a small party this year. He just wanted his boy cousins over and Grandma made the trip down to also help him celebrate. I think he had a great time!

Grandma and Brodie

Oh, Chris, Emma and Kelsey hung around for just a little bit after they dropped Jonathan off. We girls love to chat! - Except Kelsey here - she found something interesting on her fingernail I think!

Hayden says he has to wear his Brett Favre football Jersey for these birthdays and if you look back you will see that he has! After seeing it on him though, I told him this would probably be the last birthday to get away with wearing it!

Brodie, Ryan and Dylan - waiting for this party to get started.

We actually bought the game "Twister". I remember playing this when I was a kid and loved it. Nothing better than to get a bunch of teen boys to sweat . . . what was I thinking?

Football stuff . . .

Hayden's other favorite passion . . . Legos, especially Star Wars Legos!

Was pretty excited about this remote control car too!

Let the games begin!

Dylan is very excited!

They also decided to play a "quick" game of Life.

Here he goes - blowing out the candles. This year sure has gone fast!

Even Bryan hung out a bit to chat with Kurt out in the garage.

All in all it was a pretty fun day. Hayden is happy to be 12. He is such a nice, smart wonderful kid! Trying to think of where he gets that?????!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER!

TYLER IS OFFICIALLY 7 YEARS OLD!

Tyler FINALLY turned 7 on the 24th of July! He has been waiting for this day for a whole year! He absolutely just loves getting older and was thrilled to get to have a birthday party. He wanted family for this one and not a whole bunch of kids his age (I was okay with that - didn't have to come up with games and things).

It turned out to be a relatively small party. Here is Hailey, Emma, and Aunt Pat. Uncle Mark couldn't make it, he was very ill, Kurt had to work and Bryan had taken all the boys out of town to visit their grandparents and that left Debra home but she wasn't feeling very well either.

Here are a few of the other guests. Kelsey, Kimmy and Chris!

Poor Dad was the only adult guy there but I think he didn't mind. We had cake, ice cream and coffee. That makes up for it all!

First to the gifts! Tyler hit pay dirt! He got a cool shirt, a buckaroo game which is fun and some skittles in this picture!

From here on out - it's Lego Country!

Hard to see in this picture but Hayden paid for this set himself! And Tyler even got a limited edition gold Lego Character Key chain!

Since I had a feeling this was going to be a LegoFest, I decided that I was going to make that the theme . . . I tried my hand at making a "Lego Brick" cake. It is strange looking but I think it turned out okay! Was very interesting to get icing onto! Very sad because when I called Tyler into the kitchen to show him he had no idea what it was (I held back the tears) but Hayden guessed. Thanks Buddy! Tyler got excited after he figured it out!

Hayden and Jonathan added some of the finishing touches. They lined up Lego Characters all around the base of the cake. We added candles but the problem was that there were only 6 knobs and Tyler was going to be 7 - Oh, what to do????

Anakin Skywalker came to the rescue and flew in on his spaceship carrying the final candle on the end of a skewer! (Hayden was VERY concerned that this ship was going to break free and fall into the cake - I mean VERY concerned)!

So, here goes Ty blowing out the six candles . . .

And for the seventh one to officially make him 7! He had a lot of fun with this. Looks like Grandpa wants to give him a little help in the background!

The party turned out great! All the kids helped Tyler put together the Lego sets and played the bucking donkey game, ate lots of cake and ice cream and candy. Later on it was fun to sit out front with Dad, Chris, Kelsey, Hailey, Emma and me and chat about a lot of different things! We even got to see a huge falling star! Emma and Hailey had never seen one. Everyone ended up leaving after 10:30 p.m. I think for Tyler it was a birthday to remember!

I think after today I am going to take some time and look into buying some Lego Stocks. I think we own half the company by now!