Megan's 11th Birthday Celebration!

We were pretty busy all day on Megan's birthday. The kids had swimming lessons in the morning, and then we were invited over to swim some more at a friends house.

By the time we arrived home and all showered, Eric was home and Megan was able to open her presents!

This pic of Sade cracks me up:

This year she didn't help Megan open her presents, but was in charge of deciding what order she would open them.

Megan received an ipod, money, clothes, shoes, nail polish, a wallet, suspenders, hats, jewelry, and sewing materials. She also received many phone calls and texts from people wishing her a Happy Birthday! I know she loved getting each and every one.

Megan chose Cici's Pizza for dinner (gag me with a spoon). But it was her birthday, so I being the wonderful, generous mother that I am, did not voice my distaste.

It was actually pretty good. They had a few new pizza choices I have never tried before. And I have to admit the cinnamon rolls are excellent.

After dinner, Megan chose to go bowling:

I will have you know that this throw ended up being a strike. One of three I threw during the game!

Sade waiting for her ball to come out:

It surprised her quite a bit:

After bowling we stopped by the arcade:

Then it was back home to blow out candles. Megan didn't want a traditional cake this year, and instead chose the chocolate lava cakes from Fresh & Easy. If you have not had them, you should go buy them now! They are in the freezer section.  And make sure you have fresh strawberries or raspberries to go with them. However, because we were all so stuffed from Cici's, we decided to save the cakes and just have some ice cream.

Happy 11th Birthday Megan!!!!!!!!!!!

At 11

11! I totally remember being 11, and now I have an 11 year old! Surreal.....

At 11.....

She's so smart, and has such an amazing memory. The other day we saw a license plate from Massachusetts, and Megan remarked, "Do you know that the State bird of Massachusetts is the Chickadee, and the state animal is the Morgan Horse?" Say what? Who knows that?

She has an amazing ability to remember song lyrics.

She is terrible at remembering peoples names. She gets that from her Dad.

She has a definite and original sense of style. Scarves, hats, and suspenders are her current accessories of choice.

She has bazaar sleep habits. Last night she woke for the day at 2 am!

She loves to bike ride.

She has just as many boys that are her friends, as she does girls, and relates to both well.

She loves T.V.

She is very orally fixated, and puts EVERYTHING in her mouth.

She has mastered the ability to clean her room quickly.

She has developed some willingness to try different kinds of food.

She can be argumentative.

She is great a math. It is often her highest grade.

She doesn't love to read. It saddens me!

She is not a snacker, but can eat quite a lot at meal times. Especially if it is something she enjoys, like pizza.

Her current favorite color is aquamarine. Her favorite food is pineapple. And her favorite singer is Taylor Swift.

She is still the smallest kid in class.

She is not afraid to voice her opinion.

She is funny, and has a sense of humor that is heavy on sarcasm.

She's 11! And I hope she has a wonderful birthday!!!

4th Of July - 2011

Oh 4th of July. I don't really love you. Manily because of my dislike of crowds. But also because July is such a busy month for me that the 4th of July just seems like one too many checkmarks of things I have to do. But this year, I did love you a little bit, because you brought family into town to celebrate it with us.

We had Eric's brother Dustin's family here with us for the weekend.

Luckily their kids like to dance just as much as my kids, so we had nightly dance offs.

Ate tons of food. Seriously. When you have 7 kids in the house, there is at least one of them that is always hungry. We busted out the smores maker one night.

Of course there was plenty of time spent playing. Really, pretty much all the time was spent playing.

I spent a significant amount of my time watching these two playing Just Dance on the Wii. Oh my! It was beyond cute.

Did anyone get the facebook message about Flip-n-Out being free on the 4th of July? Because I did. Woot-Woot! I signed all 11 of us up, and we had a blast! I was a bit worried (due to my fear of large crowds), but was more than ecstatic when we arrived and were practically the only ones there. Woot-Woot-Again!

We barbecued:

And then finished off the evening with fireworks:

 We lit off ground based fireworks:

And all of us admired our neighbors air-borne kind:

Well, all of us, except Jackson, who overheard that air-borne fireworks were illegal, which greatly concerned him and his cautious nature.

Next year I must devise a way to get family to come into town again. And also devise a way to get my kids to get more sleep when family is in town. Oh my goodness, Sadie was ornery!