What do you like to do on your birthday?

Try to hide your tools and yourself in the freezer?



Mop the carpet?

Eat the icing off of your cake as your mom is decorating it? Yep....me too.

The Ladybug Party

Sarah's teacher this year, Mrs.Mckeivier, calls her class ladybugs. Her classroom is covered with ladybug stuff everywhere, and they even have a class pet, who is a ladybug that the class named Bella. So guess what she wanted for her birthday party theme this year? Yep....ladybugs! So we made some ladybug invitations and delivered them to her friends.



And today all of her ladybug friends came over to help her celebrate turning seven. First we made ladybug mailboxes. They turned out so cute!



Then we had a ladybug hunt.



Then Sarah opened up the presents from her ladybug friends.

Then we went inside for some ladybug food.



And since she was turning seven, she insisted on having 7up for her party.



Sarah loved her ladybug cake.



Make a wish little ladybug.

John David loved the cake too. Every time he walked by it he would stop and point and say, "Cake! Cake!" So he was thrilled when it was finally time to eat it.

Happy Birthday to our sweet little ladybug! We love you so much!

Seven Things About Sarah

Today is our sweet little Sarah's 7th birthday.



We just love this sweet girl to pieces!



She brings so much love and laughter to our family.



However, we were not laughing this morning. She ran a fever all night, so we took her to the doctor this morning. She was so worried that we would have to cancel her birthday party today. Luckily, it was just an ear infection. Well, not just and ear infection because she has had an ear infection for the last six weeks. And she may end up getting tubes if it doesn't get cleared up this time. Anyway, since it wasn't anything contagious, we told her she could still have her party if she felt good enough to. She said she felt fine, of course. So on with the party.



But first, here are seven things about our sensational seven year old.

1. She is still a girlie girl. She loves to wear high heels (her Sunday shoes), (her pretend) make-up, fingernail polish, and going shopping at the mall (which we rarely do).
2. She also LOVES animals. She loves her dog Bailey that Santa brought her for Christmas, and anyone else's dog too that she gets to meet.
3. Her favorite TV show is "Billy the Exterminator." She loves to watch and see what animals he rescues and I think she may also have a slight crush on Billy himself. He is coming to Lake Charles in March and she is having a fit to go see him.
4. She still loves art, and asked Santa for art supplies for Christmas. She now has her own sketch book and a cute little case of art supplies and loves to draw, color, and paint.
5. She loves gymnastics and is always doing hand stands, cartwheels, and back bends in the house, or wherever we go. We hope to be able to get her in gymnastics soon.
6. She does good in school, and gets upset if she makes a bad grade--which she thinks is anything other than an "A".
7. She has a very sensitive and compassionate spirit. She says the sweetest prayers for our family members and friends who are in need of any kind of comfort or special blessing. When there is no one that she knows of that has a need, she asks Heavenly Father to "bless everyone in the whole world."

We are so blessed to have this sweet little lady in our family! We love you Sarah Grace!

Sarah's Birthday Week

I am all about birthdays and celebrating and making the birthday boy or girl feel special. So we usually celebrate all week. Nothing big. I just try to make the birthday boy or girl's favorite foods or treats, and we play games or do activities that they choose. Well this year Aaron decided that Sarah should get a present everyday of her birthday week. I'm afraid he may have started something that he shouldn't have. So Monday through Thursday he gave Sarah a little present each day, and by today he couldn't stand it any longer. He had been building up each day about the present that he had bought for her, and she couldn't stand it any longer either. So this morning he gave her the BIG present.



She was pretty excited.



Now she is ready to go shoot it. So Aaron told her that as soon as it warms up, we'll all go shoot her and Katie's guns.





Tonight we had the Sanders and Maw Maw and Paw Paw over for cupcakes and ice cream.



And of course my little chocolate lover wanted chocolate cupcakes with homemade chocolate icing and chocolate ice cream. Gotta love her.



Hope you've enjoyed your birthday week Sarah!

Happy ♥ Month

I love February for several reasons. First of all, because it means that January is over, which to me always seems like the longest month of the year. Second of all, because two of my babies were born in February. And I love February because of Valentine's Day. I am not one who believe that Valentines is only for boyfriends and girlfriends, and husbands and wives, etc. To me it means celebrating everyone I love. For the past few weeks I have been searching all of my favorite craft blogs in search of a Valentine's Day advent that I could copy, and I never found one. So I came up with this one.



I love how it turned out. And I found these cute little service ideas to stuff inside the pockets that we can all do as a family to show our love for each other. And there may be some Valentine treats involved as well.



Looking forward to the love month with all of my loves.

Down on the Farm

Today we drove to Deridder to visit the Petersons. We visited for a little while when we first got there, but then we went outside and helped them take care of a few things.



John David was very interested in the chain saw, as long as it wasn't running. He didn't like the loud noise it made when Aaron was using it.



He did help to clean up the limbs though.



And then he wanted to check out the tractors.

So Aaron took him for a ride.

And he wanted to drive.



This was the tractor that Aaron used when he used to work on the Peterson's dairy farm when he was in high school.



I'm not sure which one of these guys was having more fun.

Then Katie wanted a ride too.

And of course, Sarah did too.





The boys also took a ride on the four wheeler.

They sure are handsome in their camouflage shirts.



Katie was posing for all kinds of pictures for me, so I took advantage because she isn't always in a picture taking mood. What a cutie!



Then we went out to see the cows and horses. These cows aren't actually the Petersons. They were found on the road in front of their property a few weeks back and someone assumed they were theirs and rounded them up and put them inside their fence. The one that Sarah and Aaron are petting is the only one that does belong to the Petersons. His name is Sam.



The Petersons do have a lot of dogs though. And I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of Sarah with them, because she followed them around all day. If she got to missing, we would just look for the dogs and there she was too. The dogs really liked John David, I think because he was so small.

But he did not feel the same way about them and would run away from them.



I love it when he runs! It's so cute!

We were outside almost all day, and he loved every second of it. We all did actually. Aaron didn't have phone reception up there. It was a very relaxing day. Maybe we should go more often.

I know this little guy wouldn't mind!