Happy Birthday Chloe

Sunday April 26th was my niece Chloe's 3rd birthday so I headed to Logan for a fun birthday party at her house.  We are definitely upon birthday season in the Nielsen family.  It seems like there is almost a birthday each week starting with my birthday until the end of May.  So prepare yourself for future posts. Chloe is absolutely adorable.  Although she is only 3 she is the little bully in the family and loves to pick on her older cousins, especially Taya.  It seems like when one of the other girls is crying it's because Chloe did something.  She is quick to say I'm sorry and then moves on like it was no big deal.  It seems like if anything is broken Chloe also gets the blame, we joke that she doesn't know the meaning of soft. Poor little Chloe.  At least she knows how to hold her own.  Chloe is a stubborn little 3 year old but we all love her nonetheless. I sometimes can't figure out how she belongs to Mandy who is my sweetest and nicest sister.     

 

I couldn't resist taking this picture of Ella sleeping on our car ride up to Logan.  Notice that Ella and Griffin both already have headphones on listening to their ipods.  It's just like all of my high school students. What will they be like as teenagers I wonder?  

Cute sisters in matching butterfly dresses.

I love watching my grandparents interact with all of their great-grandchildren.  They have more great-grandchildren than grandchildren now and I am always so impressed with how well they know each one of them,  even the ones they rarely get to see. They both have great memories.  They truly are such amazing grandparents and are very supportive of all of us.  It's tough watching them age, but they are still very active for their age and in pretty great health.  This is a cute picture of my grandpa holding Tyce.  Kara thinks that Tyce has my grandpa's large lower lip.  

Mandy made Chloe a cute butterfly cake.

Girls Weekend in Park City

I love being able to celebrate my birthday during the entire month of April.  Last weekend I went to Park City with the greatest group of girls.  Three of us have birthdays in April so our awesome friend Kimi planned a fun weekend in Park City.

The night began at the Hapa Grill where we enjoyed Sushi and Utah's Best Hamburgers (it's been voted on), if you ask me that's a random combination but it was delicious.  As you might imagine a night out with 8 awesome single girls could get a little crazy.   

We bet Haylie $25 to eat a heaping spoonful of ketchup (she hates ketchup by the way and just the smell of it makes her ill).  She handled it like a champ!

We had a pretty cute waiter so we decided to leave him an extra tip by giving him all of our numbers.  Lucky guy, how many guys out there can get 8 numbers in a night without even asking for them!  That started a chain of events that was hilarious.  Needless to say I felt like I was 14 again.  

 

Next stop was to our favorite Cold Stone in Park City.  We came to this Cold Stone hoping to find our buddies again who sang aggressive heavy metal to us last time we were in Park City for Sundance.  Just our luck they were working.  They not only gave us a sampling of some delicious Ice Cream but also another sampling of aggressive heavy metal.  There group name is Devil Dethroned. 'nuff said.  Check them out next time you're in PC, it is entertaining to say the least.  My favorite comment was from another customer in the store who asked if there mother had heard them sing. Or should I say scream.  

We then headed to the condo we had rented for the night for more fun.  You know, the stuff girls typically do at a sleepover, pillow fights, manicures, facials, boy talk, etc. Just Kidding we did none of those things, ok maybe only one of those things. 

Here are the 3 birthday girls: Kelli, Jessie, and myself.

So at about 3 am Kelli realized she forgot her toothbrush which warranted a trip to the gas station in the middle of the night. You know there are bound to be some crazy stories from going to a a gas station at 3 am. Unfortunately, I can't mention them on my blog.  I've been sworn to secrecy.  The snow was coming down pretty hard, gotta love the unpredictable spring weather in Utah.  As we pulled up to the gas station the lady working was sitting out in her car smoking.  I really wish I had taken a picture of her, she was classic.  She looked about 90 even though I am sure she is in her late 50's.  Her face was so wrinkled and sunken in, not to mention she had no teeth.  I guess that's what you get when you smoke a couple packs a day. Alli does a great impression of her.  She gave us some pretty crazy advice. I think we gave her the wrong impression about us, I can't imagine how that happened:)

  

I always love a night out with the ladies!  Thanks Kimbi for arranging it! 

Great memories were made.

  Oh I also need to give another shout out to Kimbi.  On one of my previous posts about my birthday party that Kelli had thrown for me I forgot to mention that Kimi also helped bake all of those wonderful cupcakes.  Unfortunately she chose Brittney Spears over me that night so I forgot to thank her for all her hard work.  I'm so grateful for some really awesome friends.  

"Eggs"iting Easter

It has taken me awhile to finish my Easter post because I had so many fun pictures.  So forgive me for the long post but it was a fun filled day!

Easter is one of my favorite holidays.  I love our families Easter traditions.  I was sad that I missed out on the annual egg coloring on Friday night because I was down in Provo buying a new car.  I headed to my parents early Saturday morning so I didn't miss out on any of the other festivities.  I love helping hide the eggs and even more I love helping my nieces and nephews find them.  I asked all of my nieces and nephews who wanted me to help them because I am so good at it and Ella was the first to raise her hand.  Chloe also wanted to ditch her mom and have me help her, have I mentioned before that I am the coolest Aunt:).  

  

Here's the crew waiting so patiently for the hunt to begin!

I love this picture of Ella pointing out the egg in the tree, we made a great egg hunting team.  Her basket was so full the handle broke.

I asked Chloe why she was laying down and she said she needed to take a little rest.  This egg hunting was hard work for her!

This picture is classic.  Tyce already knows how to torture his big sister.

After the egg hunt at my parents we always head up to Utah State to roll eggs down Old Main and have a picnic on the hill.  

Kara made my egg for me this year, hence the Mo-stink.  It survived a trip or two down the hill.

It's always fun having JoAnn, Jenna, and Kristie with us, too bad more of the family doesn't come up anymore.

  

I love the view of Cache Valley from Old Main.

We also had a little birthday party for Tyce on Old Main.  He turned 1 and it was really fun to watch him devour his cake.  Probably one of the best one year old cake eating frenzies that I've seen. Great job on the cake decorating Kara and Mike.

After we left Old Main we went over to visit Grandma and Grandpa it was fun to spend some time with them.  I really need to go visit them more often.  I miss the good old days of hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's with all of my cousins.  It's hard to do that now that everyone's families are getting so big and we each do our own celebrations.

  

I really wanted to go bowling on my birthday but it didn't work out so we moved it to Saturday.  It was a great way to end our fun day of Easter activities. Jenna pretty much beat all of us (Mike was just a few ahead of her), I think she bowled a 132 or something.  Way to go Jenna!  I had a terrible game.  I guess that's what I get for bragging about my mad bowling skills. My nieces showed me up.  I'd like to say that my broken back may have impaired my bowling form, at least it sounds like a good excuse.  How else can I explain losing to a 4 and 5 year old:) 

Taya and Tyce in their cute Easter get up on Sunday

Me, my mom, and Taya decked out in our pink for Easter Sunday, Kara apparently didn't get the memo.

I walked into the room where Tyce was taking a nap and this is how I found him sleeping in the pack and play.  How can a kid sleep like that? A couple days later I caught him sleeping in the same position. 

Grandma and Grandpa came over to my parents for Easter dinner.  Grandma was helping make deviled eggs but Taya was having a really hard time letting all of her pretty eggs go.  She was pretty emotional about it.  She would not let us roll them down Old Main the day before and if you touched one of her pretty eggs she would freak out.  She gets pretty bossy sometimes. Kara made a compromise with her that they could take a picture of her favorite ones.  She had a lot of favorites! I can't figure out why Kara wouldn't let Taya keep just a couple:)