SURPRISE!

What a party! What a weekend!

We woke up Thursday morning to a "Heart Attack" on our lawn. The activity day girls in our ward had written birthday messages to Kiley on little hearts and stuck them in our lawn with plastic forks. It was very cute.

Then she was off to the Red Cross babysitting course, which just happened to be on her birtdhay, giving us time to make some last minute prepartations for her party while she was gone.

Jason got off work early to take her to ice cream and to pick out a movie while her friends were secretly showing up at our house and helping me hang streamers and put out the food.

When she got home it was a big...

SURPRISE!

The next surprise came when a HUGE package was delivered by UPS that evening. Kiley was pretty curious and excited to rip it open...


She was thrilled to see that her aunts/uncles/cousins and grandpa and grandma Wallace had got her a HUGE Giraffe for her room.

I believe she named him "Mancala?" and he matches her room beautifully. The perfect addition, so thank you, Wallaces!

The girls watched movies and played American Idol on the Wii, and most of them were still awake when Jason and I woke up at 6:00 am. Needless to say, it took Kiley the entire weekend to get back on track with her sleep. I guess it was their one last chance before school starts on Tuesday. Well it is time for me to join my fam for a movie tonight. They are waiting impatiently. I will write more later, but it was a fun and eventful weekend. Thank you for all your kind phone calls to her and gifts. She had a special birthday and loves you guys.

The Decoy "Family Party"

Hi, everyone. Tomorrow is Ky's 12th birthday and we are throwing her a little surprise slumber party tomorrow with some of her close friends. In an effort not to ruin the surprise, we planned a little decoy family party for tonight and had some cake and gift opening, telling her that mom and dad had other things going on for tomorrow, so we needed to celebrate a day early.

Jason's family has a tradition of getting a cedar chest for the grandchildren when they turn 12. This is a very generous gift from Grandma and Grandpa Allen and Kiley has been anxiously awaiting her 12th birthday. She got to pick it out, but she was not able to open it until tonight. She loves it and it looks great in her new room.

Jason and I gave her the gift from us tonight also, which was the giraffe bedding you see in the pictures. She seemed very happy to get rid of the pink bed spread that did not really go with her Africa theme.

Her room really looks great now. I've been hesitant to send pictures of her room till we got some better bedding in there.

Summer is flying by...

Well, we had a great time in Idaho for a visit and for James's baptism in July. We spent some time in Island Park for the Wallace Family Reunion. The excitement really picked up when a grizzly bear and her two cubs visited our camp at night and tried to get into everything. We were staying in our tent and that was SCARY!

This is a funny picture of Russ, riding my mom's pink and very girly bike.

We visited Mesa Falls while we were there. Very beautiful. The cousins had a fun time playing together and spending time with eachother. We loved holding Sandy's new baby, too. She is so sweet. We also floated the river and nearly froze to death.

I love this picture of Kristie getting a drink at the falls. She is hilarious. For those of you who don't know Kristie. She married my brother. We really like her. She's a keeper.

Then we went back to Rupert and got to spend some time with Jas's family. Everyone came down from Utah for the weekend (and the baptism). Quite a group!

It was really fun to see everyone, and of course we wish we could visit more often, but it was really neat to have everyone there for the baptism.

Then we went to Twin Falls for the Temple open house and that was awesome. Very Pretty! We had a picnic lunch at Shoshone Falls afterward, and then headed to Boise for a few days. While there, we had a Settlers of Catan playoff game at Tracy's house. AND I WON!!!!

Then we headed back to Blackfoot for a couple days of down time with my parents. We went to Bear World with them too and that was really cool.

Now it is back to reality here in Wisconsin and it is hard to step back into my calling and my normal responsibilities. We did have a great time at the Company Picnic last weekend. Tomorrow we are going to take the kids to Six Flags. We got Ky's room all done and she is moved in (kind of). Jason surprised me for my birthday and had the computer all set up in the basement and the den is now done! Here is a picture of Ky's bedroom before she moved in.

She wants a giraffe room (her favorite animal) That is why we did yellow and brown. It looks way cuter in real life. This is a bad picture.