Lauren's Birthday Party

We had a simple party at home this year, and it was great!  

A little craft to keep the kids busy when they first arrived:

After they played for a bit we did cake.  The chocolate-chocolate cake from CostCo... heaven!

And plenty of presents! Here was her happy-face just for Daddy because Grandma Nel bought her an arrow sling for her archery.

Then, a water balloon fight!

Please take note of Paige's expression in the picture below.

Justin had dumped the bucket of water on the crowd of kids, but Paige and Jaelyn got the brunt of it.  Paige was big-time-massive-meltdown upset because her new dress was wet.

Apparently no one explained the concept of a water-balloon fight thoroughly enough.

Oops.

Here's Lauren air-drying herself.

And Jaelyn drying herself off on the warm playhouse window.  ;)

For the record, this is what Lauren thinks I want when I say I'd like a picture of her on her big day.

And this is what I really want!  Love that goofy girl!

Lake Havasu - Part II

I didn't take any pictures the second day we were there, but the third day - once Justin was done with his class for the morning, we went and checked out the London Bridge area.  We wanted to let the girls run around and burn off some energy before we sat them in the car for three hours!

The bridge was interesting, the founder of Lake Havasu bought the exterior of the old London Bridge, shipped it here and rebuilt it.  Crazy! 

Justin was in charge of chasing Jaelyn around while I was taking pictures.  This was no easy task around the water - she is a runner!

And this is her beautiful smile every time she notices the camera pointed at her.  She must know how much Mommy loves cheese faces!  Awesome.

The big girls climbed up this huge grassy hill area, and were so proud of themselves!  Then Paige rolled down, twice.  Lauren joined her for the lower half of the hill the second time around.  An adventurous spirit, she is not.  =) 

A sister picture again!

My real motivation for lining them up right here was to get a picture of all their little skinned up knees in a row.  You can't really see Jaelyn's... but they were there.  It just makes me chuckle because I can remember constantly having scrapes and bruises on my knees.  Sad that my klutziness got passed to the next generation! 

And look, I was actually there!  LOL!  Next time I need to have Justin take a picture of me with the girls at the beginning, when they are not tired of having their picture taken yet!  

It was a great trip and I am so glad we all decided to go!  I love exploring new places!

Havasu - Part One

I just realized it has been almost three weeks since I posted, and when I went to get birthday pictures of Lauren ready, I also realized I never got pictures of our trip to Lake Havasu posted!  So, we have to those first!  

We had never been there before, and were thrilled to find there was a little beach at our hotel!  So we ran to the dollar store and got some buckets and shovels for endless fun!  

The ducks and bunnies were rampant at the hotel, and would get really close to us hoping for some food!

Which thrilled all my children to no end!

The girls thought this was the best place ever!  Playing at a "beach" two or three times a day = Beeler girl heaven!!!

One more Havasu post on its way!