Emilee has been begging to repaint her room. She claimed she just could not stand my pale yellow choice for one more day. Sooo we came upon a compromise. She agreed to repaint her room for a personal progress 10 hour project. She also had to clean and reorganize it. She did a great job. She learned how to tape, cut in, and roll on the paint. She did most of the entire project on her own.
She wanted it bright...no pastels... and she definately got it!! It glows!! She loves it.
Kylee got asked to her Jr. Prom. So fun!!! We knew we would have a hard time finding a dress the right length to fit her so we opted to rent one. We found a cool place in Bountiful where she had over 900 dresses to choose from! I was a little worried that we would be there for a couple days with that many choices, but she did great. She found her perfect match in only 1 hour!!! It fit her like it had been made for her. She looked sooo beautiful. Just like Cinderella.
Just a funny little story. Kylee and her friend both agreed to wear their dresses on the Sunday after Prom. As we walked into the chapel that morning for Sacrament meeting, every little girl watched her from the time she walked in until she sat down. A little 3 year old girl was sitting across from us. She kept peeking at Kylee out of the corner of her eye during the whole meeting. A couple little girls came up to her in the hall and aksed if they could touch her dress. It was so cute. Kylee decided that when she "grows up" she wants to be Cinderella in Disneyland!
Her date...Jared McRory. He's a cute boy. She had a good time.
Not a great picture, but this is them at the Promenade. She looked beautiful!
I was at a volleyball tournament in Kaysville with Emilee all day the day before her family birthday party. Kylee volunteered to make her cake. I assumed she would just make a regular cake with frosting and sprinkles. Brinley has the greatest big sister. Kylee asked Brinley what kind of a cake she wanted and then went online to find an idea of how to make a ladybug cake. After 2 trips to wal-mart and several phone calls to me, they had one adorable ladybug cake!
The most favorite present of the day was the box of cookie crisp!!
Brinley got to have her first ever friend birthday party. It had to be postponed until a week after her birthday because on the day it was scheduled to be she woke up sick!! When it was finally here she had a great time with her friends.
Just a little side note. The boy in this picture is Jackson Faerber. He lives down the road and is in her same primary class and they also go to pre-school together. They have become great friends...friends, that's what we keep telling her they are!!! She told us awhile ago that Jackson was her boyfriend. Then one night after we had babysat him for a couple hours she informed me that they had gotten married!! I dug up a little information from her older sister (whom I found was behind all of this) and found out that they had indeed been married...complete with a toilet paper ring and a kiss on the cheek!! Oh my! Jackson's dad is in our bishopric. The following Sunday it was his turn to conduct testimony meeting. He told the story about Brinley and Jackson getting married to illustrate the fact that even though it was a little pre-mature, he was glad his children had a good view of marriage and family! Brinley was sooo embarrased and she got several comments after the meeting was over. If you know Brinley, this story won't be too shocking to you!!!
Happy Birthday Brinley. You are the cutest 5 year old I know!! We love you!
Brinley with her first roses...from her Dad!!
Quincy with her first roses...from her Dad!!
And Kade with a king size candybar. He didn't forget his son, just didn't want to give him roses! He liked the candybar a lot better.
Happy LOVE day!!!
He had a family party too. I guess we forgot to get the camera out for that occasion. He got a backpacking backpack. He is so excited to go backpacking with his dad this summer. He is in the process of saving up for his sleeping bag. I'm so glad he has a dad who gets to take him camping and freeze with him...one job I don't want!!
Happy Birthday Kade...you are a great kid and we love you lots!!!
This is the "Mormon Battalion Historical Center". This was awesome. So well done. There were interactive talking picture frames, panning for gold, an old time family picture and we even found the name of one of our relatives!
"Old Town" San Diego was a big hit for the kids. We could not believe how much they loved it. If there was ever a spare moment, they wanted to head back to Old Town. We ate homemade tortillas on the street, shopped for HOURS to spend the $10.00 they each had and toured several museums. Quincy and Brinley bought guitars with their money!!
Amazing tide pools!!
Brinley and Mom in the sky tram at the San Diego Zoo. She didn't think she should smile for our picture!!
San Diego Zoo
We had pretty good weather...except for Wednesday. It poured almost all day long. We are in line for Scripps Aquaruim. Good thing we found some indoor things to do this day!
Can't see the people in this picture, but they are there! Love the San Diego temple!!
We walked out on a 2000 foot pier in Oceanside that had a diner at the end of it. We got milkshakes when we finally got there.
I thought this was a highlight of the trip. We went on a 4 hour whale watching cruise. It was awesome. We saw 4 groups of whales. Ous ship followed them and we got to see them surface out of the water several times.
We toured "USS Midway" a huge naval ship. We enjoyed lunch on the deck of the ship.
For three of the days this was our transportation around San Diego. This is our double decker bus. We were always the only ones on the bus and Betsy our tour guide was awesome. We would call her on our cell phone, and she would come pick us up.
Homemade tortillas sold on the street in Old Town.
This is such a great picture of this face! She makes it often. It says a million words. It usually means "Look at me, I am pretty cool". She is quite proud of her stash of presents. Between her parents and her grandparents she got quite a few clothes for summer. I was worried that she would be dissapointed to be getting clothes for her birthday, but she was thrilled. She kept making the funniest comments every time she unwrapped another article of clothing. She does love clothes so I guess I am not too surprised.
This was the hit present of the night. She got a vintage cash register! (vintage in more ways than one...I found it at the DI for $3.00. It was a great success. I don't know why we think we need to spend lots of money on toys!! At one point in the night we had all 5 of our kids (yes even Kylee and Emilee) playing "store" with the cash register!
Brinley wanted a princess cake, so this is what we came up with! 
When we got there Quincy was pleasantly surprised to see her very own artwork framed and on the book table. That is the picture she drew of Miss Stewart and her new husband!!
These are the bride hopefulls with their favorite teacher!!
We had planned to stay only a few minutes, but that was not what these girls had in mind. We were there for over an hour! They ate so many refreshments I was surprised there were any left for the rest of the guests!
This was the highlight of the night. After the line ended, the bride and groom danced. The girls decided they should join in, so they held hands and danced around in a circle amongst the bride and groom and their parents. Needless to say, it was cute, but a little embarrassing. I couldn't stand it any longer, and after a few minutes I made them sit back down!
Kade didn't know which of the two he would get, so he was pretty anxious to get the present open and see! He said that he had hoped it would be the soccer goal.
Chris got out the tape measure and showed him how big it will be.
As Quincy was eating breakfast at the bar this morning, she all of a sudden said, "Mom, I just saw two deer go through the back yard!" We sometimes do see deer, so Chris and I ran to the window to take a look. Sure enough, these two deer were hanging out in our neighbors back yard. Chris had to capture a picture. Quincy and Brinley thought it was pretty cool!
This is the first ride we went on the very first day we got there. Brinley was a little nervous about the whole thing. As you can see, she loves her Uncle Bill. 
Brinley and Chris on the flying mushrooms!! She got braver as we went. We took her on splash mountain the first day and she wasn't sure she liked that much. By the end of the trip it was her favorite ride! She got very brave!
This was probably the highlight of this day. Wednesday rained the ENTIRE day, and it was extremely crowded. Bill bought us hot chocolate that tasted absolutely divine! It was definately my least favorite day of our vacation, but we still managed to have a good time. This was the day we saw the Aladdin musical, rode the tower of terror for the first time (I thought I was going to die) and did everything we possibly could inside of buildings!!
On Tuesday we went to Sea World. It was fun. We all stayed together this day!! 
Thursday we went to Universal Studios. They also had some different things for Christmas. Here is who-ville and the Grinch!! The first ride we went on at Universal was the Simpsons ride. We took Brinley and she absolutely hated it. She screamed through the whole thing and for quite awhile after we were done! Hopefully it gave her a bad taste for the Simpsons!! What a dumb show. The ride wasn't a whole lot better. We should have known.
At Universal Studios they have a place where there are a million balls that you vaccum up, shoot out of guns, etc. My kids love this place. They could spend the day there. It is incredibly loud but they love it.
Saturday we headed for the beach. We went to Crystal Cove at Newport Beach. It was absolutely wonderful. The perfect way to end our vacation. Quincy collected many sea shells and then we found out that it is against the law to take them home with you. She settled for lining them up and having her picture taken with them!
When the tide went down, tide pools formed. They were awesome. We all spent hours finding sea creatures. We even saw several star fish. They don't look anything like the ones in the aquariums!!
The older kids and Dad's surfed the waves!! The natives thought we were crazy to be in our swimming suites out in the water. Us Utahns are used to snow this time of year, we can't pass up a beach with the ocean on a 70 degree day!! 
