Carolina's Pajama Birthday Party

August is a very busy birthday month for the Dahl extended family. Yesterday we got to go to Carolina's birthday party.  She'll turn seven this week, and she had a pajama breakfast party.  A good time was had by all.  We ate delicious pancakes with fruit and whipped cream and peanut butter and Nutella (I love Nutella).  I don't know if I was really invited to the party or not, but I showed up in my muumuu (Marianne says it should be spelled with two u's at a time), and they let me eat all the pancakes I could hold.  Here are some photos of the happy event:

Breakfast Basket Upset--based on Fruit Basket Upset.  Ruben and Desi are vying for a chair.  (Please note the muumuu in the background.)

The birthday girl and her cake with Dana Neff and Liliana.

Some of the cards and presents Carolina got.

Cowboys don't wear bedclothes!  Well, maybe some of them do.  Hyrum looked great in his pajamas, roping.

Isaiah roping, not in bedclothes.

Happy Party-goers jumping on the trampoline.  Please note how well the trampoline has recovered since Marcos had his little experience there.

Happy Birthday to all the dear ones (and the not-so-dear-ones) who celebrate August birthdays!  I'm kidding.  Of course, all of you are dear!

Mumu Sundays and Matching T-Shirts

Lately I've taken to wearing a special mumu on Sundays.  (I hope that is the proper spelling of mumu.  If it's not, I know I can count on some of my dear readership to help me out.  Thank you.)  It all started when Somebody spit up on my Sunday housecoat--I don't want to mention any names or embarrass anybody, but that Somebody who spit up on my Sunday housecoat (you know, the one with the mother-of-pearl snaps) looked an awful lot like this (notice the tell-tell signs of spit-up on his attire):

   

Anyway, with my Sunday housecoat no longer an option, I got out my mumu.  My grandma gave it to me shortly after Lili's birth.  I stayed with her in Salt Lake while Lili stayed in the hospital for 13 weeks.  The mumu wasn't new with me, but it still looks great.  Since Lili and I got out hair cut this week (while my sister-in-law, Jennifer, kindly kept the boys), I thought you'd like to see a picture of the two of us in our shortened hair and I thought the mumu deserved a little press:

 "Mahona, you ugly!" comes to mind when I wear the mumu.  Not that I feel ugly in it--quite the contrary.  I think nothing makes me feel as lovely as wearing this roomy article of clothing--unless it's wearing my Sunday housecoat (you know, the one with mother-of-pearl snaps).  I guess I feel more like Mahona at the end of the story when her confidence is high, thanks to Johnny Lingo paying eight cows for her.

Ammon was very impressed with his first exposure to the mumu.  When I came out of my room in it, he said, "Wow, Mom!  Shirt!"  Shirt is his word for any article of clothing.  Since he loves the mumu so much, I think I'll wear it when he's a teenager and brings his football team (he seems the most built for football of my boys) home for pizza.  I hope he'll still say, "Wow, Mom!"

Now, to the matching t-shirts.  I always thought it would be fun to have more than one girl and dress them in matching dresses.  My two sisters and I had a lot of matching dresses--I know because as the youngest I wore those dresses year after year after year.  The dresses grew with me.  Since we couldn't do matching dresses, we decided to do matching striped t-shirts for all five of our little pumpkins:

They really love doing these head shots, as you can tell.  Happy Sunday!  May you rest from your labors in a mumu.

Emily's Visit

This week this lovely lady graced our home--Emily Gardner.  She and I met our freshman year at BYU.  We lived on the same floor that year.  We had several classes together and spent a lot of time studying together in the basement.  We made up songs (some that we still remember!) to help us remember complicated definitions for our honors psychology class, stayed up way too late, and laughed a lot.  We both studied abroad and went on missions and then roomed together at BYU.  Now we can pick up like no time has passed.

Emily brought two of her nieces with her--Michaela and Lexie.  They really hit it off with the cats and with Liliana:

 It was terribly hot, of course, so we went swimming in Boulder Creek to cool off.  The Johnsons came too and we had a great time.

Liliana & Michaela

Lexie, Marcos, & Omar

 We sat outside in the evening, watched the sun set, & got Edgar to take a picture of us.

Here's to friendship, and to Emily, the star of this week's blog post!

Ammon turned two!

Ammon turned two on Wednesday.  We celebrated by not having school. (This week was our first week of school.  Yes, I know it's still summer, but we are taking off later in September when we go to Nauvoo to visit Elder and Sister Dahl.)  We also fought over Ammon's new toys all day.  Ammon wasn't involved in most of the fights--it was everybody else.  We went swimming in Boulder Creek and played Ring around the Rosies and the Farmer in the Dell (Ammon likes those).

This tractor set was from Elder and Sister Dahl:

 Edgar bought the scooter for Ammon and I got him two board books (one in English and uno en espanol).

 I made an impromptu cake.  Edgar was working so I hadn't thought we would really celebrate much on the actual day, but the kids wanted a cake, and I always give my children what they want:

 Our dear friends, Alma and Juan Solis and their daughters were visiting that day.  Alma brought me a chicken she had recently butchered and helped me cook it, along with mole and Spanish rice, for dinner.  They had cake with us.

 The Johnsons gave Ammon a Mr. Potato Head toy.  He loves the glasses:

 We'll end with a happy Omar picture, because he is changing on a daily basis:

Many Happy Returns, Ammy Kabammy (as we here at home call him)!