Oliver's Birthday Party

Well, Oliver is officially a four year old. Crazy, right?

This year, it snuck up on me with all the other many things going on at this point, but we were able to pull it off and give him a fun little party...even if it was a week after.

Since Oliver is so obsessed with anything Superhero (which I secretly love), we threw him an Avengers party.

Now I'm not much of a Baker these days, so it was cake from a box and frosting from a can for O. Luckily I found these awesome Avengers cupcake liners and toppers at William Sonoma.

We threw in some Hulk Punch too.

We played a few superhero games like Throw-Thors-Hammer-in-the-loop-thing.

And a good old fashioned tug-a-war which was so funny to watch.

 Pin-the-shield-on-Captain-America

 My favorite was the pinata. The night before (because I procrastinate like that), My mom, sisters and I got together after our family dinner and transformed This Elvis Pinata...

Into this Loki pinata. Thanks to the great skills and minds of the women in my family, we were able to transform him in no time. Oliver loved it so much that he even kissed him on the lips when it was completed.

Now it wouldn't be an Avengers party without some violence, right? So the kids put on the Hulk hands and Hulk face to take their shot at beating Loki up. Again, so funny to watch them.

Presents were next and Oliver's cousins (Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles), were so generous. Just about everything he got was Superhero related and he LOVED it. Thank you all! Isn't it funny how much the other kids love this part? In the bottom right picture, all the cousins crowded in to see what he got. They would get closer and closer until you couldn't see Oliver anymore.

Next up: the singing of "Happy Birthday"...Baker style.

He was a little worried about this part because He did not want everyone to chant "take a bite!" afterwards or get cake smashed in his face.

So he blew out his candles and bolted out of there.

We had cake and ice cream and hung out around the fire.

And there you have it. Oliver's party was a success and our house is just about busting out the bricks with Superhero paraphernalia.

The Actual Birthday

Oliver turned 4 years old on September 12, 2012 and I never documented it.  As I was going through my small(er) camera, I found all the pictures from his actual day. I'll have to post this in the correct order (of date) on my blog, but just for the record, I forgot, so here's the post.

I decided to take the whole day off sot hat I could spend it with him. I took him to our favorite breakfast place in the morning. His request was chocolate waffles with whipped cream. Don't know where this came from, but they whipped it up for him even though it wasn't on the menu and they topped it with real whipped cream. I took a bite and it was fantastic. I may have to order this in the future.

After Breakfast we headed home and started to get ready for Oliver's first day of Preschool. How fun is it to go to the first day of school on your birthday?

We gathered all of Oliver's favorite things and bought treats so we could share this with his class.

We brought his Avenger's guys

Bird

Baby pictures

Family pictures

Strawberry/Apple Life Savors

and doughnuts.

The kids loved it.

When we got home we were surprised to find gifts that had been left for Oliver at our door and sweet birthday cards in the mail. Thank you to those that thought of Oliver on his special day.

Later that night he got to open his presents from Mom and Dad. He was so excited about this part. And I love that Luke always wraps our presents in blue prints. Really, I do.

He loved his new toys

We think Luke did too...

 

Olympics

I love that every 4 years I get to watch hours and hours of Olympic footage. Not just the games, but also the small segments that are ran all day long on the culture of the host of the games.  Love it! The last time we watched the summer Olympics was when Luke and I just bought our home. We didn't have any kids yet or even a dog. We watched Micheal Phelps win medal after medal, Kerry Walsh and Misty Mae-Treanor win the Gold in a palm sweating battle. We loved watching Sean Johnston and the rest of the US Gymnastics and just feeling such emotion as we watched footage of Olympians feeling complete glory and even complete defeat. The Olympics re-unite the world for some (hopefully) good clean fun and competition all for the love and passion of "the game". Even the commercials like Visa, GE, Nike and P&G (no T-Vo here) tend to make me a bit teary eyed on occasion. LOVE it! Like I said though, we don't have anything to record anything. Not even a VHS player to do it the old school way so, I stayed up night after night watching the games. Who knew watching Water Polo, BMX racing and kayaking could be so cool. Not me. I loved that it was in London. It looks like such a cool place that I hope to visit someday. Luke and I would laugh at some of the stories about the customs there and how quirky the British are. On the flip side, I also enjoy their learning about their very traditional customs.

Of course my favorite is always watching Misty Mae Treanor and Kerry Walsh Jennings play beach Volleyball. They are just the ultimate duo. I also loved watching the Women's indoor Volleyball along with Swimming, Diving, Running, Gymnastics both Men and Women's and all the many other events. It was all just so amazing. It would be a dream to be able to go down to Rio for the next summer games with Luke, but I guess I have a pretty good seat here on my own couch. 2016 summer games, you can't get here soon enough.

Summer Outdoor Retailer Expo

We love going to this but it's not very easy to get into unless you have some sort of connection. We had in years past, but sadly haven't found a way to get in for the last 2 years. This year when he heard that a vendor needed some extra hands to help for a day, we jumped all over that especially because we would be working with Prana, a company we really like.

And for our lunch break, we hit up the fabulous Chick-Fil-A.

It was work, but well worth it.



24 Hour Camping

Actually, It was less than that but it was pretty fun.

Karina called me earlier this week and asked me if we were up for some last minute camping. Luckily we didn't have much going on so we met up with them to camp.

Since it was so last minute, we had to test our luck and see if we would get a spot Friday at around 6:30 PM. The only camp that you can call to make reservations for was full so we really didn't think we'd have much of a chance at actually getting a spot. The first camp we drove through was completely full, but luckily we found a spot at the next camp.

The weather was so perfect that night and surprisingly we were able to have a fire so that the kids could make s'mores and so the adult could stay up chatting and what is camping without a fire?

After a restless sleep we got up to get the day going.

I got a quick run in (it still terrifies me to run in the mountains)

When we got back from camp I found out that there was a Moose running around our camp. See, I have reason to have that fear.

And then we all cooled off in the river.

Luke used Oliver's life jacket and a noodle to go down the river...it worked well enough but the people with the real river tubes sure gave him some looks.

 
I love that even if we go camping for less than 24 hours, we are still able to hang out every now and then.
And tell me that these 3 are not so dang cute together....



Snow Shack

There is a cute little snow shack less than half a mile away from our house that we have loved to visit this summer. We've been walking there a lot at nights which is so nice to enjoy together complete with all the usual stops.

We have to stop at the water mill and tiny stream every single time

And walk along the trail to make sure we don't fall into the hot lava (grass)

And there is usually a large stick that is found either on the way there or back

And finally when we get there, we get to pick from one of coolest menus we have ever seen.

Of course Luke and Oliver had to get the hulk

and it was Thor hands down for me....although I have to admit that the Hulk tasted better.

And the very best parts about this place it that a {good sized super syrupy} snowcone only cost $1.00 AND you get a punch card.

   I just love summer nights with my family and refreshing treat. 

The Actual 24th

I have just loved that the 24th of July holiday has been spread out for about 4 days this year. We ran out of things to do on the actual day so it was a pretty random Saturday-feeling day.

I have been training for some up coming races so running was on my list of things to get done this morning. I even had a friend join me. We later decided that we would consider it our 24th race.

After my whole family was awake, we stayed in our jammies to watch the parade on TV. Luke said it was the best way to do it. I on the other hand grew up with going to the Days of 47 parade and I would have loved to run the race down the parade route and then stayed to watch it in real life with Oliver. Some day...or maybe not.

After a late lunch/early dinner we headed over to Liberty Park. I haven't been there is years and years and we saw on TV that they were doing some crafts, a PowWow and fireworks. Since we didn't have anything else to do we thought, why not?

I didn't love it. I remember as a kid going there with my cousins and we loved it, but this time not so much. Dare I say that it was a little scary being that I grew up in somewhat of a ghetto neighborhood myself? Maybe it's because I've been living in this Bountiful bubble for almost 8 years now that I forgot that I was once a part of that hoodness...anyway, I felt uncomfortable and I know that is almost rude to say but whatev. It was a bit trashy. There, said it.

We still enjoyed walking around though.

That night we got some ice cream and headed back to light the last of the smoke bombs with the Feils. While we were sitting there chatting, huge fireworks were going off in all directions around us. It was a pretty great and unexpected show.

You know it's a long day when your son asks you if he can go to bed. Until next year.