The Birthday of all Birthdays!

Guest post by Mommy:

OH MY WORD! I am still coming off the wonderful high that was my birthday weekend. I don't know if it was the 30 day build up to my birthday or just how AMAZING every day was, but this birthday will be hard to top. It was incredible. It truly felt like the party started Wednesday night with my family and didn't let up until Sunday night.

Wednesday was my dad's birthday and per tradition we celebrated our birthdays together. Dinner at Ahi's with everyone. (We were quite the zoo with 4 kids under 2 between us all.) We went back to my parents' house for cake and presents.

I got the present of a lifetime from everybody...a parachute with a note that my dad and I had an appt to go skydiving on Saturday at 9 am! Provided that I would do it. I was so excited! Pete had kind of prepped me and we talked off and on about maybe letting it be one of my crazy things, but I didn't know for sure that I would be jumping. Wahoo! Surprisingly, I slept well every night and was super calm. I was just pumped to go do it. No fear. It almost felt surreal. But I still had to wait until SATURDAY.

Thursday the party really got hopping when my amazing sister in law and her family showed up. I love the Preslars. We are all going to live in one giant house someday. We just have to somehow figure out how to have St. George and Salt Lake City exist in the same space. I'm not sure my birthday celebration would have been complete without the fabulous chaos that adding five bodies to our house brings. They pulled in about 2 pm and we were at the Washington City Rec Center swimming by 3 pm. I had free passes for our families and it was so gorgeous we just had to use them. We also picked up In N Out on the way home for dinner. I once again had some fabulous free cheeseburger coupons from the library.

First time down a water slide...I think...

I think we took the dogs on a walk every single night they were here. We went to our school playground and then the park in the other direction twice. It was great. Our kids were always ready for bed!

Friday, my actual birthday, started out nice and early for me. 4:40 am to be exact. I taught my Group Power at 5:30 am which I actually found rather appropriate. I loved starting out my birthday that way, but before I could even get to the gym I was surprised by having my house heart attacked and chalk attacked and large cooler full of water balloons.

I have incredible friends and family in my life. How can you not feel LOVED?!

After I got home, I quickly woke the house up and we headed to Zion. I wanted to spend my day hiking Angel's Landing and actually make it all the way to the end which I haven't done in 10 years thanks to kids and living out of Utah.

Iva blew out her diaper shortly after this shot. And I mean blew out. It was on the blanket and everything. We didn't have back up clothes with us. They were back at the car. We made due with a dirty blanket and daddy's jacket! The hike started out windy and chilly. We were probably on the trail by 9 am.

There was some silliness and I may have dragged everybody up that steep climb into refrigerator canyon and then pushed them up Walter's Wiggles, but they all made it to Scout's Lookout. I was pretty stoked to be headed out to the end and recruited Siena to join me. I was a little bit nervous. Rachel and Chase came with us. I actually wished that my dad was with me to help Siena on some of the tough spots because my own heart was racing, but WE DID IT. And Siena was great! She got compliments on how tough she was by just about everyone we encountered. Chase was amazing as well, but I truly give props to Rachel for hanging in there with me.

We look pretty good for the end of the hike. Iva was amazing. She seemed to love the backpacker and would fall asleep if you maintained movement for longer than 2 minutes. She might have come away with a farmer's tan. Not sunburnt, but a farmer's tan!

I shared with the Preslar's the long standing Zion treat of eating at Oscar's. I actually got Chase out to the end by promising him the infamous Murder Burger!

We were starving and earned every bite. We went through a lot of chips and salsa. (I once again had a Dixie Direct card that saved us 28 bucks...it was awesome!)

We got back to St. George and I had a water fight waiting to happen. I called me friends and we quickly went through all the water balloons! It was a perfect celebration!

I had one last surprise from Pete and Rachel and it was PERFECT. They found me a pawn shop Kitchen Aid! I couldn't believe it. I LOVE that it was previously used and it matches my white kitchen. I had been scouring the Craig's List ads and Pete managed to find one! I almost cried.

Of course after hiking and having a water fight, a girl's gotta get her toes all prettied up. Rachel and I got fantastic pedicures.

And as if it couldn't get more perfect....the next day was Saturday and time for the BIG JUMP! My dad picked me up and we headed out first. This was his third jump. We got a little bit of instruction and then I got to go first. I was not nervous. My heart wasn't racing. I was almost creepy calm through the whole thing. Even as I got suited up and climbed in the airplane. No adrenaline. It almost felt routine.

Then we got up to 14,000 feet sea level and we had to open the door and my heart started racing. It was loud and windy and it was hard to put your foot out on the little platform just because of the forces working against you! But I did it and we even did two front flips. It was indescribable. Scary, thrilling, exciting, heart pumping, there just isn't a great way top it to words. I LOVED it. I loved my bright pink parachute too!

My husband is AMAZING. I thought he really knew me last year when he sent me off to Disneyland on a surprise trip, but NO. This is the year he nailed it. Everything I could have wanted this birthday to be, it was. Thirty feels great so far and I can't wait to see what happens between now and FORTY!

#SheriTurns30

Guest post by Mommy:

And so it happens. I have officially moved on from my twenties. I've had a lot of fun working up to this  birthday. I started a fun 30 day countdown that was moderately successful. I tried to do one extra kind thing and one extra crazy thing a day. I wasn't perfect and sometimes it was cheating on my "diet" that counted as my crazy thing, but I really did have fun. I tried to do some naughty things that can't quite be posted and some just downright silly things. It's been grand. Mostly it allowed me to focus on being nice and still being fun.

I proved that I could still do a somersault, cartwheel, and headstand. I can still also do a front flip on the trampoline. I'm quite proud considering my baby is only 5 months old! I also pranked several of my neighbors, creating an orange tree and saran wrapping their trucks, and such. Young at heart right?

It's really been so much fun. I think maybe talking about turning 30 for a whole month has made today just perfect. No sadness. I'm ready to move on to thirty.  I think the key for that though is that I am really happy with my life. I'm exactly where I thought I'd be. I may not have made it to doctor or physician assistant, but I love being a fitness instructor and think I might even look into doing the whole personal trainer thing. I love being married and I more importantly love being married to Peter. I have now had the privilege of owning annual passes to Disneyland twice..I mean what more does a girl need? I plan on spending today in Zion with family, hiking Angel's Landing and I am hoping for a fantastic day.

Holy Crow, she's five months old!

Guest post by Mommy:

Seriously? Where is the time going? My tiny baby is going away! Of course, if you looked at just her thighs, she hasn't been tiny for a long time.

I have no idea how big Iva is. Haven't weighed her since her four month. She's a chunky baby though. I can't really put on any type of baby jeans on her. They have to be stretchy leggings or they ain't going up!

She has rolled over back to front and front to back. She doesn't do it very often and prefers to just kind of roll side to side. She's gotten really into grabbing her toes and doing the yoga pose "Happy Baby". I love it. Of course, at the moment she is SCREAMING at me because I'm not talking right to her.

She loves attention. You don't always have to hold her, but darn it you better look her in the face and play and talk with her. She coos and gurgles, no real sounds yet and she's starting to laugh at things you do not just tickling. She loves for you to "boo" in her face.

It feels like she's still eating all the time. We even tried a little rice cereal. I think I made the mistake of having it be too cold. She's pretty temp sensitive and we've been fighting her taking an occasional bottle. I finally clued in that it needs to be the perfect temp, almost too hot for her to like it. She acts crazy interested in any food you are putting in your mouth. She will always pull a face and tongue it right back out if you try and give her a taste. She sucked on a french fry for awhile and even held it in her own hand! (I know, probably shouldn't have let THAT be her first food!)

She fits into 3-6 m clothes and drools constantly. Seriously, her shirt is always soaked and if you hold her your shoulder will be a swimming pool. She's kind of given up on binkis. It's weird. One day she just stopped taking them. Every now and then if she's really tired you might spoof her into taking it, but I hardly carry or worry about them for the last week or so.

Oh and how can I forget? She's sitting up. She's does super well when she is on your lap but she can even hold it together on the ground. She's of course still pretty tippy at any sort of stimuli or excitement, but I'd call her 80% there. The other thing I notice about her is that she loves looking at her mobile or the toys above her playmat. She grabs for them and babbles to them. I might have just forgotten, but I feel like my other girls didn't love those as much.

We of course love her. Sometimes I think to myself "well if I didn't have Iva..." but it's a fleeting thought of freedom when she's been incredibly cranky. As it is when you add any body to your family, you start to wonder how in the world you did it without them!

Camping with Grandpa!!

For what must be the third or fourth year, we went camping with Grandpa! Uncle Nick and his kids, Sophia, Savannah, and Isaac got to come again since it was there spring break.  As it always is with spring, the weather was iffy, but we had a great time! In fact, we went with just Grandpa. No Daddy and no mommy!

Siena and the Science Fair

Good grief, kindergarten has made me busy! I love to do school projects, but I'm thinking we might need to do a special post about Cara next. I've had so many to myself!

I talked my mom into helping me do the science fair. She found a simple project thanks to a friend and we went with it. It was called "Gummy Bear Science". We ate a lot of gummy bears because they were around! I took second place out of four kindergartners. Not bad! I had to answer questions from judges and everything.

Soccer for Siena

Mom signed me up for the city soccer league this year! I get to be with other kindergartners from my school and so far I love it. I have my own shin guards and an awesome shirt. I have never played before and we were kinda bummed that Aunt Becca JUST moved to Las Vegas so she couldn't be my coach! But I'm still having lots of fun.

My first soccer game I was a little timid and would do this funny cha cha anytime I thought about kicking the ball. I think we lost but I was hooked on soccer!

We have had several games since then and I have gotten lots better.  I'm pretty aggressive and I even have several goals!

My face after my first goal!

Here is my cheering section! (Sometimes the whole gang including Grandpa and Uncle Eric come!)