Oakley Pioneer Days

Well, sort of. I missed a lot of photo ops because I was having too much fun and forgot to take pictures. We got to leave on Wednesday because Steve took some time off. We got to Oakley late after about 4 potty breaks, feeding Ethan twice and grabbing some dinner... all for only a 3 hour long drive! But we were all happy to be going!

Thursday (the 24th) we played outside and enjoyed actually HAVING a yard to play in. After naptime we went up to the Oakley Swimming Pool and enjoyed swimming without worrying about germs!! Grandma Hardy(my mom) taught Jakob and Andy how to do the front crawl and Jakob learned to take breaths so he did awesome! Ashley wanted nothing to do with anyone but enjoyed playing by herself and diving for the toys we brought with us. Gavin went up and down the steps and said "no no no" when we tried to get him to do anything else! Ethan was a good boy and slept the whole time.

Friday morning was very exciting. We got up, got ready and everyone(all 5 of us kids and spouses plus 20 grandkids and of course my parents) piled into cars and headed off to Twin Falls Idaho. We had the opportunity to go through the Twin Falls Temple during its Open House. It was a wonderful experience going through with the whole family and getting to see each room! The kids did very well and enjoyed going through. Afterwards we went to the Stake Center and had a cookie and then went and got family pictures - all 34 of us!!! If you count, there are 32 but we have a little angel watching over us and one little one coming in October(My sister-in-law is expecting - not me!). Here is the picture of our family.


After the temple, we all went to Chili's and ate some good food! It took about 6 tables and 2 booths to fit us all in but it was a lot of fun and the waitress and waiters were great! We all went our separate ways and headed back to Oakley. Steve and I took our kids swimming again where they had a ball and learned some more swimming strokes. We played until Ethan decided it was time to leave!!

That night was Jonathan Nelson's (my nephew) 5th birthday party. He had a Batman party and all the kids dressed up in their superhero clothes. We had a pinata (which Kristen turned from Buzz Lightyear to a Batman - I'm highly impressed!!!!), pizza, cake and lots of presents. And some fireworks called "Party Hardy" that a friend of the family brought to us because they thought it was funny(as we're the Hardys...). It was a very fun night and we were all tired and ready for bed so we could start all over with a busy day the next day! Jonathan is the in the red shirt and cape. :)

Happy Birthday to my family!

Now that all the birthdays are done in my little family, I can breathe a little easier. I love having so many birthdays and we had fun parties for each one of them. But now its time for a break! So while I wait for next year's birthdays to get here (all too soon), here is a short summary of each birthday.


I'll start with Ashley's(and mine) as we were first in the lineup.
Ashley turned 3 and I turned 30 on April 29th.
While I was a little depressed about the whole thing I decided it was easy enough to put a 3 on Ashley's pony cake and a big Zero on my German Chocolate cake...We had family over for some good food (fish tacos made by Steve), cake and lots of fun! Ashley decided she absolutely LOVES ponies so that's what she got lots of. And me? I got 10th row tickets to Matchbox Twenty and a nice t-shirt to go with it. :)



Next came Jakob's on May 19th. He turned 7 and actually got to celebrate his birthday on three different days! On Friday the 16th we had a family party(my mom was in town) and had cake and pizza. He got a basketball standard to put up in our backyard - that he gets to share with everyone! I even bought myself a basketball to go along with it. :) It took a while for Steve set up but it was worth it because I'm very happy to finally have one!

On Monday(his actual birthday) we took ice cream sandwiches to school for him. The kids loved it! He had had a doctor's appointment morning so he was late for school and enjoyed the last couple of hours learning how to make origami!



The third party was on the last day of school. He'd wanted a friend birthday party and because I had Ethan only 3 days later, he had to wait a little longer. But finally the day arrived and he had cupcakes, corn dogs and video games. What more could any 7 year old boy want?!



Ethan was born on May 22nd, two weeks early and right in the middle of Jakob and Steve's birthdays! I was very happy to have him and it was sweet that as he was born, our doctor told him Happy Birthday! The whole experience was a great one and we're all very grateful for our little boy!



The kids love their little brother... sometimes a little too much. Their daddy took them to the museum and Thanksgiving Point gardens while Jakob was in school and I enjoyed my stay in the hospital I was happy to go home!





Steve turned 33 this year on May 25th. He insists age doesn't bother him. I guess it'll bother me enough for both of us... I wasn't up to making a nice dinner for him (having been home from the hospital for 3 days...) but he enjoyed making dinner for himself. I did make him a cake though. He wanted power tools so we got him two kinds of drills(one cordless, one with a cord) and the Indiana Jones trilogy. He was very excited! And he wants to me add that he did NOT use his new tools to drill holes in his Indiana Jones Trilogy. :)



Next comes Gavin turning 2 on July 5th. What a crazy weekend that was! That day I pretended like I felt great (mastitis is FUN) and went about making preparations for Gavin's birthday. We went to my sister Charlotte's house for a big party. It was all my family (except my brother who was watching over the farm in Idaho) and Steve's sister's family. We had hamburgers, took a CPR test(long story) and then did the cake, ice
cream and presents. Gavin loved it! Afterwards we did fireworks and went home. It was quite the birthday for little Gavin!!!


And last but not least is Andy. He turned 5 on July 18th. And believe me, he's been waiting for this day for 2 years!!! Ever since Jakob turned 5 and was old enough for kindergarten. Finally it came and we had a huge celebration for him! The Ellises let us use their yard and we had pools and slip n slides and water balloons(which I couldn't fill up fast enough!). He had a great time and was excited with all the transformers and everything else he got! I can't believe my children are gettin gso big so fast!!! I also can't believe I didn't get pictures from the party... But here are pictures of him with his cake.

So it starts...

I'm totally new to this so excuse the simplicity of it. :) I just saw how much fun everyone has with theirs and decided to copycat them... I also decided this is a great way to share fun things about my family. As everyone knows, kids say the most hilarious things or pictures are just too precious to pass up and since I'm HORRIBLE at journal writing, I can share things on here and then hopefully put them down in my journal too. :)