Lilly's Teeny Tiny Hello Kitty Birthday Party

Since we were moving before it is Lilly's actual birthday, I wanted to give her a birthday party before we left with all of her friends in Pocatello. She really wanted a Hello Kitty party and my friend suggested one other thing... making it a teeny tiny party. It was so much fun to prepare! We made teeny tiny party invites (which I'll take a picture of later), and they were complete with magnifying glasses and all. Some of her friends couldn't make it, so she had a smaller party. It was nice and she loved it! We had a lunch of mini grilled cheese sandwiches with baby carrots and mini crackers. I was also able to find mini ice cream cones to go along with the whole theme. The only frustrating thing was that it was so windy on the day of her party (thank you Pocatello! - I do not miss your windy days!) So things were repeatedly blowing away. I was able to get pictures before the streamers and balloons gave in to the wind! Oh, and confetti on a windy day... not a good idea! Thanks everyone for coming. Lilly misses you all!

The birthday girl. She wanted to wear a Hello Kitty outfit for the party.

The craft.

My teeny tiny party hats and markers.

The table

The mini waters. I just thought they turned out so cute!

decorating their bags

Playing "Don't Eat Kitty"

Molly loves pinatas

Mini cupcakes. We couldn't get a candle to lite because of the wind so she just pretended to blow them out!

Mini ice cream cones.

Molly had a great time!

California

I spent a whole week with my Mom visiting my grandparents in California and these are the only pictures I took! How pitiful is that!?! I just thought this was really cute to see Molly sitting on top of the air mattresses reading books.

Happy 4th of July!

This 4th of July we had kind of a quiet day. We spent the weekend up in Preston with some of Aaron's family and attended the fun community events. We had a great time and it is always nice to spend time with family. We decided to come home a little early because I was leaving for California the next day. We waited for what seemed like forever for it to get dark because the girls were really excited for fireworks. Finally we got outside and lit the sparklers. The girls and I love sparklers! Then we watched the firework show from the park right by our house. The kids loved seeing all the lights and Molly was particularly impressed. She just danced around and was so happy the entire show. I hope everyone had a great 4th!

Shriners Circus

In June the Shriners Circus came to town. Lilly has been dying to see the circus. So we decided it was time we take her to the circus. It helped that the kids were free! It was actually a really great show. There were tigers and bears and elephants and all kinds of cool stunts. The kids were really tired by the end, but of course they wanted to do one thing and they chose to get their faces painted. Lilly wanted a butterfly so Molly of course followed suit. They had a great time and it was a great show!

T-Ball

Lilly started T-ball this week. She was so excited to get the chance to do it this year. She has been asking for quite sometime to do some kind of sport. I was so impressed to see her out there during practice. She did really well. She listened to instructions so well. She threw and hit the ball without any problems and she was even able to hit the ball off the T on her first try. It makes me so happy to see her trying so hard and making new friends.

Yellowstone

We just got the opportunity to go to Yellowstone National Park. I have never been before, so it has been Aaron's mission to get us there before we happen to move, or something. Anyway, we chose a pretty rainy day on our first day in the park. It was cold, and we didn't see a ton of animals. Which is funny because Aaron had spent days talking up "the animal park" to the girls. We drove the entire main loop of the park. It was pretty fun. I was really impressed with the amount of geological activity that takes place there. The girls did a really great job to. We stayed at a lodge in the park and then spent the next day finishing the park. We had a great picnic and a great time.

Old Faithful

This guy was just walking down the middle of the road. Not very pretty while he's loosing his winter coat

The lower falls...I forgot which ones

The upper falls.

The Miracle of the ring

*WARNING* this is a long story....sorry!

We had quite the experience the other day. At 2:30am I was in the bathroom and I accidentally flushed my wedding ring down the toilet. It just slipped right out of my fingers and went straight in the bowl. It didn't even hit anything on the way, it went right down the middle. I was horrified as I just stood there and watched what happened. I gave a little cry and went to find Aaron and tell him what happened. He was pretty cool and collected, while I was crying my eyes out. I was especially upset because I knew we didn't have insurance on it. But believe me, I'm going to get it now!

We tried, without any success, to retrieve the ring ourselves. We decided we needed to call in a plumber. So we sat down and went through the phonebook. We called several because we wanted to see who we could get to come the quickest. Then we knelt down and said a prayer. We just felt like we should really do that. It's just that we have been going through so much lately, and this became the icing on the cake.

At 6:30 am a plumber called us back and was to our house by 8:00. We all kind of assumed that it was a lost cause to even try but we knew that we had to give it a shot or I would always wonder just a little bit. After he arrived other plumbers called and almost all of them said that it was a lost cause. We were very blessed to get the plumber we did. He had previously retrieved a ring for another women. Her ring was also supposed to be a "lost cause", but because of that experience Chaud plumbing wanted to come and give it a try.

He looked through the pipes and even cut into a few. When he removed the toilet he found that it had never been properly installed however many years ago and it was missing a flange piece. I think he felt really bad for us, so he offered to put in the piece we needed for free. He really was a good guy. We found out that he is the owner of the company and that he is a bishop. He really did try to help us out. He even called a local jeweler that he knows well and got them to give us a discount if we wanted to go look at rings.

So anyway, While he was repairing the piece he had to do something with the toilet to make sure it could all go together the way it needed to. He tipped the toilet at just the right angle and out tumbled a rock and my wedding ring right behind it! It was truly a miracle! Someone, years ago had flushed this rock down the toilet and no one ever knew about it. It was just the right size to get stuck, but to let everything pass on by at the same time. We knew our toilet ran a little slow, but we had no idea something like that was stuck in there. And to top it off, my ring was one of the things to get stuck with it.

We were thrilled and elated and we knew from that moment that Heavenly Father really does hear and answer our prayers. And even though it isn't always in our time frame, they do get answered. We kind of needed that lesson that day and it is definitely one that we won't be forgetting anytime soon. After Chaud left I think he was just as affected as we were because 5 minutes later his wife called because she too wanted to share in the blessing of it all. It was truly a miracle that day.