Megan's 6th Birthday

Happy, Happy Birthday to my kind, active, loving, snuggly 6 year old Megan! Of course the day started off with breakfast in bed...with the famous choice of donuts.

Megan had a friend birthday party this year and invited these cute friends to the Stuffington Bear Factory.

We were given a tour of the factory and learned how they make their bears. Then we got to be in the party room and color and have lunch.

After lunch and some cupcakes, Megan got to put her hand print on the wall.

All of the kids got to pick a bear and give it a ribbon as part of the tour. Because Megan was the birthday girl, she got to pick clothes for her bear.

Later in day, we invited our family over for a BBQ and birthday party.

Somehow we missed getting a picture of Megan blowing out her candles, but here is the birthday cake she chose this year. It is marbled vanilla and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. She wanted to write her own name in frosting and she did a great job!

And Megan's day would not be complete if she didn't do some tumbling in the family room. We love you Miss Tumbling Active Megan!

Adam is 3!

We are so excited our little man is 3! He's so fun to have in our family. Of course we started out the day with our traditional breakfast in bed. He chose Dunkin Donut munchkins.

Then we had a family birthday party for him that evening. His favorite thing right now is Thomas and trains. So we put cupcakes on a train set for his birthday cake. 

 Looks like he had a good birthday this year!

Katelyn is a Rock Star!

I admit I'm one of those mean moms that doesn't let their kids have a friend birthday party every year. We always celebrate with the family, but I stress out too much about the big themed birthday parties with the friends and just don't want to do it big every year. On their "off years" they can invite a few friends over on a Friday and stay up late watching a movie and eating movie junk, but nothing big. Lucky for Katelyn she turned 8 and we get to celebrate! She chose a Rock Star theme and we had a blast! The girls made rockin' chokers and bracelets, made rock-star ponytail holders, did their own makeup and then had a photo shoot. Oh, and did I mention, Katelyn got to invite 16 of her close personal friends? What was I thinking?!

After the glam-out session, they played RockBand on the Wii while I cleaned up the enormous activity mess and got ready for treats.

Then they enjoyed frosting their own rockstar sugar cookies.

We had a Rockin' great time!

Happy 8th Birthday to Katelyn!

My sweet, wonderful Katelyn is 8! I can't believe it. She was so excited to get to her birthday. She called it her "golden birthday" because her birthday is the same date as her age. Plus she got lucky that our ward's scheduled day for baptisms was the 8th. So we had quite the long, happy, exciting day!

It started off with our birthday tradition of breakfast in bed...often times with donuts.

Good morning!

We are so grateful for so much family support on this special day for Katelyn. She is so excited to get baptized and be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She has been looking forward to this day for a long time. As a parent, it is an amazing experience watching your child dressed in white and committing to try to make correct choices and be like Christ.

I love my family!

This is the entire group of family who were able to attend the baptism.

The service was wonderful, simple, and perfect. We are grateful to Aunt Kristin who played the piano, Aunt Amy who gave a great talk on baptism (including the messy peanut butter analogy we will never forget) and Grandma Chesnik for saying the closing prayer. And I feel so blessed to have a worthy husband who honors his Priesthood and was able to baptize and confirm Katelyn.

It was such a great day, but it didn't end there! Of course we still had to party! Katelyn chose a luau style party and it was amazing. Amy made her famous Kalua Pork that was the hit of the party. And a HUGE thank you to all who helped with the food and decorating! I was able to enjoy the day instead of stress over all of the things that needed to get done!

Here's what the decorated kitchen looked like. Luau anyone?!

Thanks to Amy and Cheryl for their cute decorations and the right eye to put it all together!

Birthday girl about to open presents!

Present time!

Putting a candle in a sugar cookie to sing Happy Birthday is a lot harder than it looks.  I think we cracked the cookie but it stayed up for the song!

For dessert we had white sugar cookies with white frosting to celebrate the day. My dad, who started out as a baker in his profession, piped "Happy Birthday Katelyn" on her special cookie in orange because that was her favorite color of the day. We also enjoyed chocolate macadamia nuts, our favorite Hawaiian treat. Happy Birthday Katelyn! We love you!

Chris' 32nd Birthday

Let the celebrating continue! We have now come to Chris' birthday! With crazy family things happening in our lives, Chris' birthday was REALLY low key. I didn't even make a birthday cake. I just piled Oreos up and pretended I made a cake. See, really low key. Also, so low key, we didn't even celebrate on his birthday. August 3rd was a Wednesday, which means Chris had YM's mutual night to go to, so we waited until the 5th.

Presents! It looks like a "work polo shirt" year along with a couple DVDs from the siblings.

My mom and dad came into town to help me, and so we enjoyed homemade ice cream with the underwhelming Oreo "cake". Everything is better with homemade ice cream.

"Traditional" blowing out the candles picture. Obviously it's a little over exaggerated in this picture. :)

Happy Birthday, Chris!

Big 80th Birthday Bash!

My amazing Grandma Basta turned 80 this year! She is one of my favorite people in the whole world and she doesn't look or act her age at all! She is still a ball of energy and action. She loves it that way. She always says that she's not going to slow down because then her body will slow down and she doesn't have time for that. I was able to take my kids and go visit UT for her birthday celebration! (So sad, Chris had to work.)

It was a huge blessing that I had the opportunity to drive most of the way with my family. The kids and I went to Vegas and then my mom and brother drove with me in my van. Actually, Josh drove most of the way. So nice to have a chauffeur!

On her birthday, it was my family's job to keep her busy so she wouldn't know about her huge surprise party. Big thanks to my Aunt Diana and company who helped set up the church cultural hall while we played to keep Grandma busy! So, there were a few errands to run and then we decided to take Grandma to Olive Garden for her birthday lunch. Yum!

Cousins waiting for some spaghetti and warm bread sticks.

After lunch and a couple more pretend errands (to get the timing right), we went to the church. She thought we were just meeting up with my Aunt Diana who was supposedly setting up for a Young Women's event. She was so surprised! So many wonderful people attended from her life including most of the family that could make it and many friends. There was fun, friends, food, treats, visiting, kids playing...it couldn't have been better. Once she got settled, we showed her a photo video Chris and I put together of her childhood years on through her great-grandchildren. It was a huge success! We love you Grandma!

Megan, the big 5 year old!

Megan has grown up so much in the last year, yet I still can't believe she is already 5. Megan is such a sweet, beautiful little girl. She loves being with people, doesn't like being by herself, loves cuddles and hugs and kisses, and is loving learning to read and being in preschool. Megan's birthday this year was spent in Vegas with my family. Chris couldn't be there to celebrate, so we used good old Skype to make sure he didn't miss out on Megan's present opening. Too bad Skpe couldn't send him any wonderful Texas sheet cake...mmmmm. Happy birthday to my Megan!

Birthday celebration number 1 with all the Chesnik's. And yes, that's an ice cream machine in the back. What's a Chesnik birthday celebration without homemade ice cream?!

Birthday celebration number 2 (on her birthday) started with traditional breakfast donuts.

Barbie movies are Megan's favorite right now.

Megan has been asking for the game Pop the Pig for a long time. Hope she likes it once she has it!

"Look at me, don't I make a good Rapunzel?"

Rapunzel doll and Megan will become best friends.

Adam turns 2!

My little boy turned 2! I can't believe he is that old. He is such a fun person to have in our house. He loves balls, trains, and Mickey Mouse. Because his birthday fell on a Thursday (long dance day for the girls), we celebrated his birthday on Friday. These are pictures on his birthday:

It's my birthday and I can cry if I want to.

That's the happy boy we know and love!

Since Adam loves Mickey Mouse, I went with a Mickey theme for his birthday celebration. Chris's family came over for cookies and ice cream and to open presents. Adam was excited about anything round and ball-like at his party. And the cookies were a hit!

Happy Birthday Adam!

Thanksgiving

This year we went to my parent's in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. As always, the trip was filled with fun, family, and food! My sister was able to come too and so all of us were there. It was quite the full house! We enjoyed yummy food, ate too much...ate more and enjoyed everyone's company.

Katelyn and her cousin Eliana

 All the Chesnik cousins! We are only missing Hailey (Missy's youngest) in this picture

I want food!

My Grandma McFarlane crocheted hats for all of her grandkids (my group) and her great-grandkids (my kids). Everyone wanted to wear them all the time!

I love this picture of Adam with Chris

On Friday evening, we went to see the lights at Ethel M. Chocolate Factory. They have a cactus garden which during Christmas time is displayed with lights. Of course everyone wore their hats! All the kids had a great time.

Saturday was my birthday. Normally I'm not a morning person, but I decided that for my birthday I wanted to go to the temple in the morning with my mom. It was so relaxing and a perfect way to start my day. And it was early to fit everything else in that day! When we got back, we got everyone ready for Chesnik family pictures. They turned out great for the amount of kids we have. We had the huge group posed and ready, and then Katelyn turns to me and said she didn't feel good. She looked absolutely green. I said sorry and excused the 2 of us and got her some water. I think she was just getting really hot. She felt a little better and took some pictures, although you can still tell she was a little green. At one of the breaks when we were sitting down and smaller groups were doing pictures, Katelyn threw up all over the carpet. So sad that she felt so crummy during picture time. In all we managed and got the pictures done.

Here's everyone! All the kids are getting so grown up.

This is a three generation picture with all the girls.

After picture time, we went to a movie to continue celebrating my birthday. Chris and I took our kids plus my sister's girls to Tangled. I love that show! The kids (5 in all!) were great and we had a good time.

Then of course a birthday could not be complete at my house without homemade ice cream. Mmmmm. Thanks to my family for a great Thanksgiving weekend and birthday party!

Katelyn turns 7!

Wow, Katelyn. 7. Really?! Here's my Katelyn at 7. Beautiful, tall, kind, friends with everyone, possibly a wee bit emotional (can't wait until 13!), a wonderful helper at home, smart, and loving. I decided that I didn't want to do "friend birthday parties" every year, so my plan is 5, 8, and 12. Random? Maybe a little bit. :) Nonetheless, even without a big friend birthday party celebration, we still had a lot of fun this year. Katelyn requested that I come have lunch with her at school and bring Sonic. It was so much fun to see her at school with her friends, and she was absolutely beaming that it was her special day to eat lunch with me and Megan and Adam. We invited Chris' family to come over for a family party the night of her birthday. Katelyn chose the family favorite Texas sheet cake for her birthday cake, so after opening presents, we enjoyed wonderful cake and ice cream.

Then Saturday I let her invite 2 friends over for a "late night" movie night and girl fun in lieu of a big party. Katelyn loved it and I love that it was no stress and way low key. I love the late night party. It's the fun of a sleepover in pjs but none of the staying over at someone's house (which isn't allowed in our home.) Katelyn and I went to Wal-mart and bought pretty much every movie candy she liked. Then when the friends arrived, we played for a little bit, then we did pedicures (OK, I did the pedicures...not too bad) then we watched Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, ate more candy than we all should have and then ate popcorn. I'm not sure how much movie was watched, but I know all of the girls had a great time!