A prom story.

Once upon a time a boy named Carter decided he would ask a girl to prom. Though he was recently 16, and a novice at the whole dating scene, he did know you couldn't just go up and ask a girl but had to do it with a little flair. After enlisting the help of his mom (who has a serious problem of always thinking in puns) and a talented Grandma (who is always willing and able to turn his mom's cheesiness into something cool), a plan was hatched. Carter and his mom made sure to pick a night where the girl would be away from home, and arranged to go and plaster packages of Extra sticks of gum all over her room. Then, they put the cool poster (see above) on a post just inside the door to her room.

Inside one of the packs of gum was this tiny picture of Carter, aka the 'Gum Bandit'.

A couple of days later, Carter was summoned to the office during school. He was very surprised to be greeted by a police officer who said he needed to talk to Carter about a warrant that had been issued for his arrest. Carter was literally in shock. The only thing he could think he'd maybe done wrong was drive the car without a learner's permit while his parents were in it with him. Yes. He is a rebel. The police man proceeded to hand him a typed document. He was relieved to see that it was actually a very clever answer from his prom date referencing his 'gum bandit' stunt.

The only arrest that took place that day was Carter's near cardiac arrest!

Several weeks later, after much planning, tux shopping, and anticipation, the big night arrived. Carter's cousin Jeff was in the group, and the 2 handsome, young men were willing to pose for some pictures in their tuxes prior to picking up their dates.

The days events included: surprising their dates at 9 am for breakfast, picking the girls up later for a trip to the carnival and out for ice cream, then later taking the glammed up ladies out for a nice dinner and to the dance.

Carter and his date Moriah.

Yes, both of their last names happen to be Christensen, but they are not related.
The whole group.

Just the ladies:
Moriah, Ali, Victoria, Ashlyn, Terin

Just the guys:
Jeff, Jared, Zach, Carter, Callen

How does a group of ten get around? A retired retirement home bus, of course. Decorate it with mini white lights, balloons, streamers, and stars; set up a mini-buffet table complete with gift baskets full of their favorite snacks and drinks; enlist the cool BYU student home for the summer as the chauffeur; and you've got the ultimate in fun prom date transportation!

The boys only regret was decorating the wheel chair lift with balloons. They wish they had used it to lower themselves and their dates at the door of the prom, complete with some dry ice smoke. Hey, there's always next year.

The End.

Spring. Once in awhile.

Once in awhile we have a day that feels kind of like Spring. For the most part is has been windy, rainy, and kind of cold. Luckily Easter was a pretty nice day. We had the Easter hunt at home and then headed to Uncle Gary and Aunt Kim's for a wonderful lunch and fun with the extended family. The kids on Easter morning, arriving home from church and ready to start the hunt.

Chloe thinks the whole Easter egg hunt thing is pretty cool.

Our tradition is to do a scavenger hunt where the Easter Bunny leaves rhyming clues with goodies leading them to the next hidden treasure. This year the bunny seemed frustrated creating clues that will make a 16 year old think and participate, but not leave a 3 year old in the dust.
For the most part they seemed to be having fun.

For the most part---why is it that someone always seems to feel left out? Corbin's facial expression says it all!

Prior to Easter, Chloe begged to make cupcakes that look like grass. She must have seen them somewhere. We had fun dying coconut green and letting Chloe decorate the cupcakes with pastel candies. I think those Easter colors are the cutest. Pastel m&ms are so pretty.

I enlisted the help of the kids to get some flower pots planted. Since planting them, it has been freezing, windy, and rainy with occasional sunny days.

Chase told us he thinks the dirt smells so good. He told his baseball teammates that when they were putting new dirt on the mound and he got labeled "tree hugger". I thought is was automatic that farmers thought dirt smelled good. I guess some things are better left unsaid.

It's Great to be Eight!

Yesterday Caleb celebrated his 8th birthday! He had a malt cake with fresh strawberries and malted cream frosting (kind of our take on a strawberry malt). It was super yummy.

We had a big party planned with the aunts, uncles and cousins, but Chloe had to go to Urgent Care for her respiratory problems, so the big family party got downsized. We still had a good time eating cake and reminiscing the day Caleb was born in Mesa, Arizona.

Doesn't Caleb look handsome?

Now that Caleb is 8 he will be getting baptized soon. He got a new suit, tie and stripling warriors tie tack. He also got his very own quadruple combination scriptures with his name engraved on front as well as a 'nice' CTR ring. He is pretty excited about all of this. Now that he is 8, and his birthday fell on fast Sunday, I was impressed that he made the decision to fast. I had even planned to make a big waffle with strawberries and whipped cream breakfast for him. But, he reminded me that wouldn't work. Good kid.

He loves the rapid fire dart gun he got!

As well as his new cub scout stuff. Being 8 means you get to start cub scouts, too.

He got a new book that teaches him all about the promises he will be making on his baptism day.
I think the kid on the cover kind of looks like a kid version of Obama. Maybe he's been hiding more than just his birth certificate! ; )

Caleb loves anything to do with shooting and hunting. He got a new hunting game and a brick of .22 ammo.
He will be having a double birthday party with his cousin Jett next week. Two guys turning 8 and getting baptized the same day. Cool stuff. The theme of the party will be "hunting". We'll post a full report of how it turns out.

Long time. No Post.

It has been awhile since I've posted anything, but need to catch up on what we've been doing around here. I will start with the most recent and work my way back.
Grandpa Hawkes came to visit and got the 'Royal' Treatment. He had a business trip that had him flying in and out of the Spokane airport. He postponed his return trip by a couple of days, rented a car, and drove over to see us. Knowing he is a true farm boy at heart, we called our good friends that own a huge dairy operation to schedule a tour for grandpa. Boy did we call the right people. The Allred's not only took him on an amazing tour of their dairy, but also all kinds of other great things
Some of the Allreds, Christensens, and Grandpa Hawkes at the dairy.

Above, Grandpa discusses the finer points of dairy operations with Jerry.

Below, he was able to tour the Allred's Apple Packing facility, as well. They even gave him a big box of Washington Apples as a souvenir. Delish!

After Derek and Jerry showed him the intricacies of modern farming, they took all of us to a delicious gourmet restaurant at the Gorge in George, Washington. I had no idea this place existed and it is amazing. We also spent a wonderful evening at their house eating pizza, carnitas, and cake and watching the Jimmer score 52 points. The Allred's sure do know how to host a great party. Thanks to them for their kindness.

Carter went on his first date! Terin asked Carter to Sadie Hawkins. He had a blast! As if I didn't already feel old enough celebrating my last birthday in my thirties, it didn't help having my son go on his first date. As I was helping Carter decorate Terin's car in answering her, it hit me hard that I was doing this for my own son, and it really didn't seem like that long ago I was doing it for my friends and myself as high schoolers. Then to top it off, the theme of the dance was the 80's. Apparently the 80's were long enough ago that kids are now dressing up in what I wore to high school as 'retro costumes'. Too weird.

Chloe loves being artistic and while I was chatting away on the phone, she discovered her brother's markers and proceeded to color herself like "pinky pie" from My Little Pony.

After going to put her in the bath, I discovered she was very thorough in applying the layer of pink and was able to get a nice layer on her tummy!

She had a fun dress-up play date with 3 of her friends, Campbelle, Madison, and Case. All wanted to be princesses, with the exception of Case. He was only willing to be their prince if he could do it in a football costume.

Corbin finished up his season playing AAU basketball. I believe they were undefeated.

I celebrated my birthday. It's my last year in my 30's. Yikes! I got a lovely floral bouquet delivered and a gorgeous charm necklace arrived in the mail (one side says New York and the other has the statue of liberty). Thanks mom and sisters for the awesome surprise!

Larry and the family took me to Spokane for my birthday weekend. I woke up to 30 plus helium balloons floating over me with my kids singing Happy Birthday. While I thought Larry and the kids were down having breakfast while I slept in, they were actually blowing up all the balloons and writing sweet messages on them. We had a great, relaxing weekend together.

I guess they got up a little too early while I got to sleep in. I was on one side of the room watching Food Network and didn't seem to notice that the family was migrating one by one over to the other side of the room to climb in bed together and get away from the TV noise. This is how I found them once I was ready to go get in bed. Funny.

Corbin was in a regional competition with his Hi-Cap classmates in Spokane. They had a really great time competing against other teams from around western Washington.

He also competed in the District Spelling Bee in Soap Lake, Washington.

He had one more competition, and that was in the Pinewood Derby. He and his dad worked hard on designing and building his car and he was quite successful in his races.

Carter got a fat lip. He was talked out of playing on the golf team by his friends on the baseball team. Even though he'd never really played baseball, peer pressure won out and he decided to go be another much needed player on the baseball team roster. His second day of practice a ball bounced and hit him right in the mouth !

The shoes Chase designed for his birthday arrived. Pretty sweet-huh? He's in 8th grade and wears a size 12!

Caleb is conspicuously missing from this post. We have lots of video footage of him shooting guns (something he spends a lot of time doing). Seeing as I am rarely around when he is participating in gun shooting, it is on Larry's phone and I don't have it here to download. I will do that in another post. He has been doing all kinds of great stuff, but I don't have photos of any of it on my phone. Sorry, buddy.

A weekend in NYC

In honor of our mother's birthday, I met up with my sisters and mom in NYC for a fabulous weekend of celebrating! Here we are at the 21 Club enjoying a fantastic birthday dinner for mom.On Thursday, Lisa left Indiana; Laura left Idaho; I left Washington; and mom and Haley left Utah. We all arrived at JFK within a few hours of each other, checked into our hotel, and were led by Lisa into the closest department store for a little freshening up. Let the fun begin.
Here I am getting 'Cargo-ed'. Whatever that means?! My make-up artist seemed to know.
Lisa helped coordinate a gorgeous look with the MAC makeup artist for Haley, while Laura was getting her own expert eye treatment from her artist.
After our makeovers and late night dinner, we slept in a little the next day and then headed over to the Chelsea/Meatpacking District Food tour. Larry and I took the same tour with the same guide in October and loved it so much, I eagerly went on it again. Curt, the tour guide is hilarious! This picture is of our group.
That night we went and saw the new Broadway show: "Spiderman: Turn of the Dark". It was so awesome. The music and lyrics are by Bono and the Edge from the band U2. I loved it--the music, set, singing, dancing, costumes--all fantastic!
The following day it was time for a tour of Brooklyn and it's most famous pizzerias. It was freezing, but we toured in a luxurious mercedes bus outfitted with a movie screen that played movie clips of the places we were seeing on the tour. It was very fun. Our tour guide Paula, a native Brooklyn girl, was wonderful. The pizzas, thin crust at Grimaldi's and thick sicilian crust at L&B, were to die for. My sister Haley, took amazing pictures all along the way. Check them out at http://www.haleyjan.blogspot.com/.
Here we are with Paula and a couple of other ladies from our tour group.
MMMMMMM.
After our Brooklyn tour, we hit the subway to head out for a little shopping. I was impressed with the talented break dancers in the subway, and got so caught up in the beat, I even ended up doing a little dancing myself. What was I thinking?!

I can't remember when I've laughed so hard, slept so little, shopped so much, eaten so well. It was so much fun hanging out with my mom and little sisters. I just hope we don't wait so long to do it again.
Seeing this John Deere hat on canal street reminded me of my country life and that I would soon have to stop posing for pictures with my newly acquired pucker face, and say farewell to my homegirls and the city. Thanks for the memories, girls.
Thanks for one last taste of New York (the most authentic according to Michael Scott) at the airport, Mom & Haley.

Happy Birthday, Mom! I loved the trip and know I will never Fuhgettaboudit. Ever.