Happy 6th Birthday Ashley & Our Trip to Utah

Happy 6th birthday Ash!!! We love this little girls so much! Every year Ash asks if she can have her birthday in Utah because Brooklyn and Alyssa always get to (Brooklyn's is the week of Fall Break and the week before Rob's deer hunt, and Alyssa's is around the 4th of July). By the time May 1st rolls around, my kids have maxed out on their allowed absences. This year she lucked out because my brother Dave is deploying to Iraq:( and we all wanted to get together before he left. It worked out perfectly for her! She was such a good sport spending her whole birthday either at school or in the car on our long drive to Utah.I love her excited expression! I hope my kids always act this excited by the gifts we give them!
Ashley blowing out her candles with the help of her cousin Karli
Ashley wanted a Jonas Brothers party, but with my last minute shopping for party supplies, I was only able to find Hannah Montana stuff. So, all of the drooling granddaughters watched the premiere of the new Jonas Brothers Disney show while they played with the Hannah Montana party paraphernalia. Rob and Brooklyn really enjoyed this new Disney show!
Liberty with her Hannah Montana sunglasses (today she was the Little Mermaid...each day she was something different:) She was rarely Libby!)
Our family with my brother Dave

What do you get with 14 grandchildren under one roof? This! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Hunter almost pushing Cooper in the pond:)...or Cooper almost falling out a two-story window...or Jaxon falling off the bed onto a glass picture frame and cutting his arm to pieces...or baby Addison putting her finger in Jessica's hot soup and burning it so bad she had a HUGE blister. I can't believe nobody ended up in the hospital!

Too bad we couldn't keep them all locked up in the Sheriff's office that my dad built for the grand kids...Dad, I think you need to make the bars closer together so they can't slide through:)

Liberty was either schmoozing Cooper or Hunter all week.

Dave and his family (with another baby on the way)

My grandpa just turned 85. He is so amazing! We love him sooooo much! We had a special family home evening in honor of Dave leaving for Iraq. My grandpa shared some experiences about being on the USS Missouri when the peace treaty was signed during World War II. What a great honor it is to serve this great country!

When Dave was in Florida for 5 months doing training, my niece Mckinzie wrote a song in a letter to him. It was entitled "My Marine". My sister-in-law's sister and mom put the song to music and taught it to the girls to sing as a surprise to Dave. There wasn't a dry eye in the room! I will have to post the video of it!

These girls were all so busy playing outside the whole week that we hardly saw them. Why is their skin pink? They thought it would be funny to color themselves with chalk. I don't know if Brooklyn is the only one who didn't have pink skin because she thought they were stupid, or because she was the one that colored everybody else???

Libby moved on to Hunter...he is much more manly than Cooper...I'm glad she is smart enough to see that:)

The boys took a night to take the rhinos up to Hog's Hollow to go shooting. Check out that view!

Two things we learned about Dave this week...He can outrun and out shoot everyone in the Clark family!

What is it about men and guns???

Rob can't wait to buy himself one of these

My little brothers:)

This time I think Hunter is coming onto Libby...He thinks Dave's car is Lightning McQueen:)

When we got home Ashley's kindergarten teacher went to all of her student's homes to read her students a bedtime story. Isn't that sweet?!!! Ashley had so much fun showing Mrs. Mellow her bedroom!

Ragnar Relay, Newport Beach & Disneyland

This weekend I ran my first race...the Ragnar Relay Los Angeles. 12 of us made up our team called the Village People (named that because we all live in the Villages). We started our route in Santa Barbara and ended in Dana Point. There is no prettier place to run than along the Pacific Coast Highway...Why do I live in the desert???I was the unlucky runner that had 2 out of 3 of my legs cut because of permit issues with cities along the route. I was originally supposed to run 12.5 miles and was suddenly cut down to 3.5. So, I doubled up with my friend Rebecca on one leg, and then our van of 6 people ran our own leg at the Santa Monica Pier. I ended up running 12 miles...I am so proud of myself by the way!!!
We had so much fun running together! I was on the best team, and we all enjoyed being entertained by Wayne and Ryan:) After running so many miles and only sleeping for 2 hours in 2 days, we all got a little delirious...especially Wayne:)
I have never seen so many grown men act like school boys as I did at the finish line. Especially my paparazzi husband that took many photos like this one. Do you recognize the girl in the black sweatshirt? Every man on my team did..."Kelly" from Saved By the Bell. They were all trying to one up the other on who got to get close enough to touch her and who got the best picture of her...sorry "Kelly".
We all ran into the finish line together...I'm not entirely sure why I was the last one in. It was either because I had Ashley running in with me (even though even she is ahead of me), or because my legs were too sore to move any faster. Our van got to the finish line before everyone else, so we were all able to get some well needed massages...I guess mine wasn't long enough!

I have no idea what we placed, but we had a blast!!! I'm ready for another one!

We had a rental car for our van, so this was the extent of our car decor...You should have seen some of the crazy vans other teams had!

I brought this ice pack for my legs, but Alyssa ended up needing it more than I did.

When we were sitting in the hot tub at our hotel after the race, Alyssa decided to swim across the hot tub. Apparently she didn't have her eyes open because she hit the other side...Check out her goose egg!

Since my family was nice enough to meet me in California after the race, we were able to spend the next few days at the Hyatt in Newport Beach. When I signed up to do this race, Rob had desperately tried to keep from going out of town so that he could babysit. Knowing that my mom had a hysterectomy 8 days before I had to leave for L.A., Rob found out 2 days before my departure that he was going to have to be in Maine. As we frantically searched for babysitting options, my mom said she would come down to babysit...Thanks Mom! Poor Rob has been in 4 different time zones in the last week. Despite Rob and I being sleep deprived, we still had lots of fun.
After Rob and Brooklyn played tennis, we all played ping-pong in the courtyard of the hotel. Hunter kept trying to steal the girls ping-pong balls:)

Rob and Alyssa

After eating lunch at a yummy Mexican restaurant (El Terasco), we headed to the pier to watch the surfers.

Brooklyn found a crab that had been partially eaten but was still alive. I'm not sure why she will hold a crab...minutes earlier at the Mexican restaurant, I had to pay she and Ashley $10 to eat a piece of shrimp...They both gagged from the moment the shrimp entered their mouth, until the moment it was swallowed.

Rob and the girls playing jump rope with a piece of sea weed

Ashley scaring away a flock of sea gulls

The kids playing in the sand

We also spent a day at Disneyland. This is Hunter with his glasses on for the 3D Bugs Life movie...Which he didn't like very much!

He did however, like the Pixar parade at California Adventures. Anyone who knows Hunter knows his love of cars. He LOVED this parade!

The girls said their favorite part of the parade was seeing how excited Hunter got when he saw Lightening McQueen...so cute!

And finally...Mater:)

We even took the train all the way around Disneyland this time...Hunter enjoyed the train, but he HATED the dinosaurs...He isn't much on being a tough guy!

Easter Fun

On Wednesday night we went to the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple. It was awesome! It is such a great way for the kids to understand why we celebrate Easter. Hunter was nervous of the soldiers at first, but he quickly warmed up to them and wanted a picture with one. We had great seats this year because we got there 3 hours early to put blankets on the seats that we wanted to save...Even though there was a HUGE sign saying "NO RESERVED SEATING". We were only gone long enough to eat dinner at Sullivans, I swear:) On Thursday Ashley had her Easter Egg Hunt for her kindergarten class. She was really fast at collecting her eggs:) Thanks to 5 years of being trained for family egg hunts! This is Ashley and her BFF Hannah.
For Easter weekend this year, we decided to go camping. When we made our campsite reservations 3 weeks ago, we imagined the weather to be perfect like it was when we went camping over spring break...Not so! Lucky for us we have a heater...Not so lucky for the family next to us that was camping in a tent. The temperature dropped into the low 30s during the night...that family miraculously stayed 2 nights but they were packed up and gone early the second morning. I think I would have gone home midnight day 1! The heavy rain that didn't let up all night on the second night must be what finally scared them away! We were able to dye our eggs up there, but we got rained out before we had our egg hunt:( Ashley was sure excited by the color of this egg that she dyed!
Hunter was really nervous at first. He doesn't like to get dirty, so he started by just watching Alyssa and playing with the stickers.
This egg was Rob's pride and joy this year. An Alexander family goal is to dye the most natural colored eggs so they are REALLY hard to find. I think this is the best one I have ever seen! Paas made a camouflage dying kit this year...It is awesome!
Hunter loved the color of his blue egg! WOW!!!
Anyone that knows Brooklyn, knows that she is quite the "Daddy's girl". Rob is perfect in her eyes! She made this egg that said, "I love Daddy!" Unfortunately for me, it was not followed by an "I love Mommy" egg:( ...that is until Alyssa and Ash made one for me:)
Once Hunter started to put eggs into the dye, he couldn't stop. He would even take the eggs that had already been dyed and put them in a different color. I love babies hands after they've dyed eggs!!!

The kids had fun playing horse shoes. Alyssa and Brooklyn tried to throw from the same distance as Rob...Ashley at least threw them, but not from very far away...
Hunter's idea was the best...To heck with throwing, why not just get a "ringer" this way?!!!

Hunter worships the ground Ash walks on! Anything she does, he wants to do!

I bought hat looms for the girls to make beanies. Since I had to teach myself by reading the instructions, I thought it might be too complicated for them to figure out...it wasn't! They spent HOURS knitting these hats. Even Ashley could do a lot of it...all she needs is a little more patience:)

Alyssa was the most dedicated...Unfortunately for her, she used the baby size loom on her first one and that hat only fits her dog's head:(

My poor left-handed daughters! It took a while for Brooklyn to figure this out, until I taught her to go backwards. Then her fingers could finally do what they needed to do. Once the girls hats were done, they didn't take them off until we got home. They want to start a business selling hats:)...Apparently they think $5 would be nice pay for a hat that takes them 2 hours to make:)

Rob and Hunter took a nap while we made hats

The kids had so much fun at our Easter Egg Hunt this year! They have gotten really good at finding the "hard" eggs! Even Hunter found one that was hidden in the grass. Brooklyn found the most of everyone. After we thought we had found all the eggs, we only counted 73 out of 75. There were 2 missing. Since Rob took a picture of all the eggs when he numbered them, (yes, he really did) he was able to tell the kids what colors to look for. The deal was if anyone found a missing egg, they would get $10 per egg. Ashley found both of them. She got $20 for that, and then she also got 2 out of 4 of the grand prize eggs. (Amazing since she found the least amount next to Hunter) Her prizes were 1 day with no jobs and a Daddy-daughter date to McDonalds, which she was really excited for. After she went last night, she admitted to me that it would have been a lot more fun if the other kids would have been there to play with her.

I think this may have been my first Easter dinner that did not have ham as the main dish. Since we got rained out of camping a night early, we still had all of the stuff to make tin foil dinners. Rob made us some really yummy ones in our fire pit in the backyard.

Alyssa grand prize for the Easter egg hunt, was a mommy-daughter date to get pedicures. We had so much fun together and even got matching toes! Brooklyn and Ash were really jealous!!! Actually, I think Hunter and Rob were too:) Hunter was jealous of the nail polish, and Rob was jealous of my nice smooth feet:) Maybe they need to go have a father-son date:)

I finally pulled Ashley's second front tooth out today. The 1st one came out a couple of weeks ago, but this one was not going to come out on its own. The permanent tooth was already growing in behind the baby tooth, so today I told Ashley it was either coming out with me pulling it, or with pliers (like her first tooth). I couldn't get a good grip with the pliers, so I pulled and pulled with my fingers, and it finally came out. Isn't she cute! Now we get to look forward to the perfectly sized permanent front teeth!...yay!