May Birthdays

So after I had posted about Laina ON her birthday, I realized that I hadn't even done any of the May birthdays which includes Bodie...poor 3rd child. :)

Here is our celebration with Grandma and Grandpa Brown in April
(which is why I missed it the first time I made this post...
that's why I need to post right away after the event!)

Their "Jeep"

A vehicle of some kind :)

Grandma's always so sweet to color with Little Laina.

AWWWWW!! I love my sweet family.

 Present time!

 And the awesome cake!

This is ON his birthday.

The card Laina made for him.

We went out to Pizza Ranch.

And this was the birthday party also for my Mom and Marky at Melissa's house.

The men (besides the birthday man) grilling.

Awwww Little Liddy!

Mike and Fish were watching some friends' kids for them. This is Riley with Laina.

Mark being....well....Mark.

Tanner Bananer

Jack-Jack-Attack!

  The four-wheeler that Mike and Fish got their boys. Joe fits on it GREAT! haha

Present time!!!

Marky's new sweatshirt from Joe and Liz.

We gave mom a picture (she had requested) of the grandkids in their sailor clothes at the Marina in Lake City. A TRUE present from the heart. Try getting seven kids under 8 years old to hold still and smile all at the same time! hehe

 Laina had broken a little bowl of my mom's and had felt so badly about it, so she wanted to buy one for her for her birthday.

I put this one in there because it has Sawyer in it. I realized that I didn't have any of him!!! Poor Kid!

 With their birthday cakes...

Not the greatest pictures so I'll show you what the cakes looked like

 Mark doesn't like frosting on brownies so I put just a little. It's supposed to be golf and fishing...kinda hard to tell. But it's a nice picture of Marky!!

 My mom's cake - Laina drew the picture that I put on it. I asked her what Grandma likes and she said, "US!" So she drew a picture of all my family. And she knew who each one was as she was drawing them. I wrote the names but it's a little hard to see.

What had happened was that we ended up having to postpone the party and I had already made all the cakes so I had to freeze them so that that'd be good a week later and not tasting a week old. :) A couple of them didn't travel well...They still tasted yummy though.

Anyway there's May birthdays. :)

Little Laina

On her 5th Birthday!

She's slightly excited. 

not sure what she's doing with her arms hehe

We're about to go shopping with her birthday money from her Grandma Ruth so she can hardly handle the excitement.

Then tonight we're going to out to eat and then swimming at Grandpa and Grandma Brown's hotel (she doesn't know this yet).

And tomorrow is her birthday party with her Grandparents Roemer and Grandparents Brown and my siblings and her cousins!

She has been counting down the days.

 My little girl is 5!

Como Park Zoo and Conservatory

In June, Mark and I got up one morning and I said, "Hey, we should go to Como Park!"

Mark said, "Hey, that sounds good! There shouldn't be too many people there, it's a weekday!"

Well, there were A LOT of people there. There was a "Back to the 50s" car show down the street at the state fair grounds, so everyone and their dog decided to go to Como and the car show! :) But it's okay. We still had a REALLY nice time.

First was the Gardens

The best one that we took. hehe Kids...

 Then on to everything else.

We were looking at a stingray and I think a turtle and fish.

 I love sea lions! They were Laina's favorite. 

Can you guess Sutton's favorite animal?

(The answer is at the bottom.)

Puffin

The Tiger is the largest cat in the world. They are just so pretty.

Us looking at the tiger. hehe

Flamingos

We have such an awesome, creative God to make so many different and beautiful animals and plants.

There were a lot more animals that we saw but we didn't take pictures of everything.
We saw ants hauling parts of leaves, a hedgehog, snakes, spiders, a sloth (I named him Sammy just cuz), and lots and lots of other mammals, birds, and reptiles. And chipmunks, but they were just running across our path. :)

 Afterward, 

we went just outside and across the street from the Gardens and had a picnic.

 And Sutton's favorite animal

  A BOBCAT!! hahaha

I asked Bodie what his favorite animal was. He said "Elephant."

There weren't any elephants there......