Jessica's Shower

Last night (Heidi's birthday), the girls and I went to Jessica Holm's Bridal Shower at the church. Jessica has been: my favorite Beehive (8 years ago), a favorite babysitter, and James' swimming teacher (and crush). Her mom is our Aunt Debbie (Heidi's grown up BFF) and we're all really excited about her upcoming marriage to Zachary (on 4/22 in SLC).SO CUTE.

Heidi playing with Baby Porter at the party All-ages wedding rager-- Grandmas, moms, daughters, babies--we all had fun!

A shot from across the room from where we were sitting

Addie

Aunt Debbie & Heidi

Jessica gave us a sneak peek of her dress last night since most of us can't go to SLC for the wedding. My girls just LOVED it!

CONGRATULATIONS, JESSICA!

We love you!

(and thanks for the lovely party, Terry , Sheila, & other helpers)

It's Heaven to be Seven!

Happy, happy birthday, Heidi-Dear!Addie & Heidi in Sept. 2004

Heidi was the cutest, sweetest baby ever! I can't believe she's SEVEN! We celebrated with a family party last night because tonight we are going to Jessica Holm's bridal shower. So we had a pizza party here last night before I had to dash off to PTO... Addie took this picture of us all sitting down to dinner: me, Grandma Rosalie, James, Heidi, and Daddy (Uncle Mike came a little later and Grandpa was at High Council meeting in Bozo).

Silly sisters! The banner abover Heidi's head is one she made with Grandma on her Grandma Date on Wednesday. They also made a BOB cake (from Monsters vs. Aliens...Heidi loves that movie!).

Heidi's first gift was some mad birthday cash from Grandma...

nice!

After dinner, we broke out the BOB cake

Grandma is so creative! Heidi kept asking for this cake for like 2 years and I had no idea how to make it happen (jello mold?), but Grandma did! See the resemblance?

The "other" thing Heidi wanted really bad , besides a new Zambi, was this Lala Loopsey doll. We indulged. She was thrilled.

Look at BOB's guts! YUM!

Heidi also got a new Easter dress from us...

...and some sparkle-toe Easter shoes.

Uncle Mike came and brought her some fancy dress-up shoes, too!

***

About this time, I had to head out to my meeting, but after Grandma and I left, Rich and Mike hung out with the kids for a while. Addie and Heidi decided they wanted to let some party balloons go with notes for Papa Bill on them (just like 2 wks ago for Papa's birthday)

Heidi with her balloons.

When I got home from my meeting, this little note was sitting on my computer desk. It's what Addie wrote for her balloon.

***

This morning, Rich got up early and cooked a pound of bacon and some waffles for Heidi's bday breakfast.

Here are all my sweethearts leaving for school/work this morning...so CUTE!

Heidi took 2 dozen cupcakes and Lala Loopsey for her special snack/ show-and-tell day at first grade.

It's sure to be an awesome day for our Lynners!

Almost-34 Week Belly Shot

James took this pic of me (look at my puffy nose...prego face!)... ...and I took this one of him today. "Hi, Nana Lyn!"

Weekend Doin's

Addie really wanted to make fried chicken on Friday night, so we decided to make Asian Chicken Salad. She was in charge of the tempura chicken...Battering the chicken for the fryer Chopping cabbage, carrots, celery, water chestnuts, snowpeas, and toasting almonds & sesame seeds for the salad Addie frying like a pro! (it was DELICIOUS!) When we stopped at Papa Jim's & Grandma Becky's house last Sunday, they gave Heidi her bday gift early. Unbeknownst to them, she had been asking for a new Zambi faithfully for a year (since she lost the one Nana gave her at the park last spring)...they gave her a new Zambi and Saturday, she dressed Zambi up for Easter--see the pretty hair bows on her ears?

Heidi also used her allowance to buy this Fur-Real Pet in Utah. It's a cuddly little dog that dresses up as the Easter Bunny. She made it an Easter Basket-cage in her room.

Saturday night we went to Donkey Basketball (a Kiwanis fundraiser, sponsored in part by The Melin Agency) and the kids LOVED it. I didn't get a pic of the donkeys, but here is the eventual champion team, part of the Park High Boys Basketball Team. Andrew Holm is in the sombrero and our kids were rooting for him loudly.

***

We also did some painting at the ranch and Rich took the kids to see "HOP" this weekend, too, while I worked on my Easter lesson for Young Women. It was a wonderful weekend and I feel super thnakful for my darling family (especially after listening to Elder Scott's conference talk this morning--I have the best husband in the world!).

So Ya Come From the Land Down Undah...

Here are the last few pix we took when we were saying good bye to our Posties. They were on the plane to Australia a few hours later and we already miss them!"He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich"

Willy with one of his plethora of Aussie delights. Happy Cousins! Melanie, Liam Heidi, Maeby, James & Spencer (Addie had slept over at Ally's) Not even "silly face time" could make Spencer smile...

NOT smiling

(Spencer is just Ralphie from Christmas Story to me- so cute)

Audrey, Will, and me saying good bye. Good thing my eyes are closed...

James and Maeby gave a million hugs...

they are cutie cousin pals!

Heidi got in on the good bye hugs, too.

Yet another 'tarded face from me...giving Will a hug. You can see my prego belly pretty well there.

***

All in all, a lovely whirlwind trip. So glad to spend time with our Posties and finally hang out with my mom feeling decent. We are sad we never made it down to Mayberry's love nest or to Rich's family or to see our Provo friends. After teh baby comes, we'll be back. We had a nice trip home Sunday, stopping for lunch with Papa Jim and Gramma Becky in Pocatello between conference sessions, and arriving home around 8:30pm. SO GLAD to be home!

Dinner with Posties on Thursday

We slept over Wednesday night with the Posties at their new Herriman house. The kids were together all day long, but I failed to take pictures of all the frolicking. I finally whipped out the camera when we all went out to dinner because I was too full of smashburger lunch to eat Rock Creek Pizza. Melanie and Addie Spencer excited about frosting

Addie and Mello-Yello

I tried really hard to get Maeby and James to look at the camera at the same time...

It never really worked.

But they are cutie cousin pals!

Liam and Heidi

James was so excited to color dinosaur placemats!

Melanie and Addie being adorable tweens.

Will & Rich on their Man-Date, fostering their Bromance.

***

We are grateful we got to see the Posts, even for just a couple fo really busy days because we miss them so much while they are in Australia. We hope they come home for good this year!

BFFs

Item Number One on my Utah To-Do List this trip was to have lunch with Kacy (you may remember my linking to her series "Tips for Not-Very-Good-Housekeepers," or her current thing about moms, here).

It's not often you make really great e-friends, and it's even more rare to meet them in person and not be one bit disappointed, but that's what happened yesterday (and Kacy was even more fun in person and totally NOT disappointing because she's what I call FER REAL, on her blog and in real life). I felt like a super nerd because I just wanted to hang out with her all day (we just kept talking and talking into the parking lot, out to the car...we really should have been roommates back when we had TIME for endless girly chat), but our two-hour lunch date (which really annoyed people at Smashburger) had to suffice.

Thanks for a super fun time, Kacy, and for taking me to eat my first "real food" in three months (I began taking a little bit of long-lasting insulin on Tuesday and it has given me some wiggle-room in my diet, which I am obviously enjoying). It was my only meal for the day because I was full until 9pm, but it was deeeeelicious. I highly recommend the smashburger. AND reading Kacy's blog.