You Are My Sunshine-Samantha's 5th Birthday

Samantha turned 5 years old this July!! For her birthday party she wanted to have a "You Are My Sunshine" birthday party-which we just loved. I have sung her that song before bed, forever, and we love to call her Sunshine, since she has such a radiant smile. It was so fun to plan her party along with her, she was all about the details and told me exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted lots of yellow decorations-her favorite color, games-which she picked; pin the sun on the sunshine, pinata, bean bag toss and a water slide, and goodie bags filled with lots of treats.

We started with a friend party, with her favorite girl friends and then later that night we had a family party. For the family party she wanted cheese burgers, homemade root beer, fruit and lots of treats. It was so fun to see her personality come out in the planning and then how much she truly enjoyed her birthday. She really is a girl who loves to know the plan and the details. She is so smart, kind, passionate, feminine, considerate, funny and creative. I feel so lucky to have this little lady in our lives. You truly make our lives so bright by your radiant personality!!!

All the cute girls at her party from church, dance, school or neighborhood- Hanna, Sydney, Olivia, Lexi, Izzy, Kaitlyn, Jasmine, Ara, Abby, Sydney and Samantha

Cupcakes for the friend party

Yellow birthday cake for the family party

I love my little ones!!!

I can't believe how fast my kids are growing!!! Samantha is such a sweet heart. She is all girl, she loves dancing, art, wearing dresses. She is so tender hearted and such a helper. Alex is our sensitive thug. I love him to death, but he may drive us to ours- he is a hand full. He loves super heros, star wars, causing messes and doing anything his sister is doing. I love being their mom, and feel so blessed to have such great, loving kids.

Alex is truly happiest when he is busy! He has a great imagination and will talk your ear off telling you all about the things he is thinking.

Samantha in her Black Cats soccer outfit. We have tried to branch out and encourage her in other things. She loves being with the other girls on her team, skipping down the field, talking about nail color or bows. With each new week she is getting better and learning to be a little more involved in the game. It's really cute to watch.

Samantha the Lion. The cute costume she made for Circus day at school.

Alex aka Captain America. He just loves all the super heros and defending his mom and sister.

Other Highlights From My Trip

We were able to see so many amazing places in Jordan, Israel and Egypt. It truly was an incredible trip. I loved that I was able to go on such an amazing trip with my sister Jaclyn and the other great people on our tour-we meet some wonderful people. One of the high lights was to go on a tour were Dr. S. Michael Wilcox was the educator, I learned so many amazing things about these great places we visited, and I was on such a spiritual high the entire trip. We joked that we felt like we were on a spiritual conference, or EFY for adults.

The beach at the Med sea- full of beautiful sea shells

The Sphinx

The resort we stayed at on the Red Sea in Egypt

The Western Wall in Israel

The Dead Sea in Jordan. We had so much fun floating in the dead sea. It was also fun that we were able to visit the Med, Red and Dead sea on our trip.

I truly have the best husband, who was so great about letting me get away for 17 days!!!! It really was a trip of a life time. It was also a blast to spend so much time with my sister Jaclyn, she is such a great travel companion.

A Beautiful Place

One of the most beautiful places from my trip was in the northern part of Israel, in Galilee. The landscape was breath taking!! The fields were full with lush grass, wildflowers and I've never seen so many rainbows. I loved all the places we were able to visit in this area-capernaum, mount of beatitudes, caesarea philippi, mount tabor, nazareth, sea of galilee, mount carmel, mount hermon, tel dan and arbel.

Mount Tabor

Lilies of the Valley, they were everywhere.

The ruins of Dan

A Trip That Amazing

So my trip to Israel, Jordan and Egypt was just so amazing that it actually inspired me to blog again. I loved every second I was gone and felt so blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing places and people to bless my life. I loved how the scriptures were brought to life and how I was able to experience the incredible culture and people we visited.

Jerusalem was such a wonderfully spiritual experience. I loved seeing the places where Jesus, the apostles and many other people of the scriptures lived.

Egypt was lots of fun! It was great to see the pyramids, sphinx, valley of the kings, temple of Luxor. The people in Egypt were all so welcoming and we always felt very safe.

The ruins of Beit Lehi, this is a place where they think Lehi the prophet lived after his family left Jerusalem. This day was really a highlight. This is not the typical tourist site, and actually the tour group we went with has special permission to visit. The ruins were very amazing to see and it was in the beautiful country side outside of Jerusalem.

Jordan-Petra, an incredible place!!

Bionic Man

Now that Jim is 1 month Post-Op we can finally relax and are all in much better spirits.  Jim ended up having neck surgery, or anterior cervical fusion surgery and is now left with major hardware in his neck.  He was off of work for 3 weeks and now is adjusting to being back at work. We will admit that the recovery has been much harder and longer than we expected.  Jim is really hoping to be fully recovered by mid -August, especially in time to do a little golfing before the weather turns.  I'm just looking forward to the time when he isn't  exhausted after a day at work- come home and just crash/dead to the world type of tired.  Each day is a little better and brings us closer to it fulling fusing!!!

We are also looking forward to the time Alex is actually allowed to be next to dad without major supervision. Last week Alex head butted Jim in the neck and I thought we were in deep trouble, luckily things are OK, but he is now only allowed at arms length. 

Here are a few pictures taken while they did the surgery. 

Pinkalicious

For the last 3 weeks Samantha has had us read this book to her EVERY night and often throughout the day.  It is such a fun book all about Cupcakes and PINK,  two of her favorite things.  It really is such a delightful book that I haven't gotten sick of reading it to her.