It's Never Too Early For Ornaments!

Every July, Hallmark starts selling their Christmas Ornaments for the year. (But the Dreambook comes out in May, so we can make lists) Me, Mom, Karri, Chris and Grandma Joan are all members of the local Collect 'em All Club and there is a Midnight Premier for the Ornaments. We have been going to the Midnight Premier for at least 10 years and enjoy every minute of it! Last Friday (the 10th) was the anticipated day. Grandma didn't come, but she sent her list with us. But my friend Stefanie came!! She loves the ornaments too, and in past years we have talked about them, and this year I made sure she came! There was food and games (of which we won first place!!!) Then we are able to get our ornaments off the shelf, and waited until midnight to buy them!

Here's Karri with her Frosty Friends Ornament.

(This is a series that she's been collecting forever and it's been going for at least 30+ years, but I'm not sure how many she has.)

Mom & Chris on the hunt!
Inspecting the ornaments is a very important part of the evening.
Ornaments on display

This is the 4th edition to the Noelville series that I collect. They are all gingerbread houses and they light up! I love 'em!!!!

Me, Karri, & Stefanie

Waiting to check-out

Thanks Hallmark! We sure love ya!!!!

*FYI: Saturday I made sure I had all my ornaments cataloged, and I have just over 200. And at least 30+ of them are Star Wars! :)

Adventures at the Park

We went to Nielsen's Grove Park last week and this time we came prepared with bread for the ducks.....

and a net & bucket so Pat could catch a fish from the pond!
Don't worry, we put him back before we left.
Xander was feeding the ducks the biggest pieces of bread, so we ran out pretty fast!

Mara's interests in the ducks didn't last for long, so she ventured to the playground. This was right before she fell on the stairs leading to the big slide, she hit her nose and got a pretty good nose bleed! So from then on she wasn't too happy. Blood even got on her dress and shoes and she was pretty upset about that too. Luckily we were able to turn her dress around and clean out her jellies, and that made her happy.

This duck was awesome! Pat would throw bread and it would catch it! It even took bread from Pat's hand! So cool!

While I was at the playground with Mara, Xander wasn't obeying and fell into the pond and lost a flip flop!

Good thing dad brought a net!

Wet boy!

Mara finally got the courage to go down the slide!

(Which is funny because she loves slides, but after the nosebleed, she was weary)

Momma & her babies

My babies looking at those babies.

There is a really big swing thing there and we tried it out.

Mara usually loves to swing and always wants to be pushed high, but on this one she got too high and started to cry!

Hopefully next time we go there won't be so many mishaps. But it was fun nonetheless.

Fireworks Galore!!!

The 4th of July is always so fun! I love that we make time to be together as a family and with our extended family.

Our Annual picture with our Old Navy Flag shirts!!

Saturday night we had a BBQ with some of my cousins that live close. Then Pat & I & kids met up with his family up at the Provo Temple Grounds to watch the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire!

Then Monday night we had our own little 'Sidewalk of Fire' in front of our house. (We live in a cul-de-sac, so it's easy to do fireworks.) I have 2 aunts that live on our street and they came over with kids & grandkids :)
We did some fun Sparklers!

Here is Riley (my cousin Lindsay's husband) and Larissa (my cousin Joel's wife) helping the kids with more sparklers!

Then the boys lit the big ones!!

My cousin Jimmy decided to jump over the fireworks, but I didn't have the camera ready, so Pat jumped over for me!!

I just love how the picture turned out!

Then Jimmy jumped over again, just so I could get a picture!!

Pat tried eating the moon. After making Riley jump 4+ times, my camera finally worked and we got a cool picture out of it!

After all the fireworks were done, my uncle Jim got enough courage to jump too!

The weekend was a lot of fun and I am grateful to have such a wonderful family and to live so close to them too!

Surprise Party

Today is my mother-in-law's 60th Birthday! And we (the Tolman family) had a surprise party for her on Friday. The afternoon started out with us girls (daughters & daughter in-laws) surprising her at the Well's Fargo Building in Provo! She thought that she and Roger were meeting friends for the afternoon, but we were waiting for her. The biggest surprise was that Ben & Amber came from Boise to be there! She was almost speechless when she saw Amber standing with us!! We took her next door to Acaydia for some pampering!

Waiting to go in They had a room where all of us could get pedicures together! We treated Tammy to a Manicure & Pedicure! She was so surprised by everything that she cried :)
The final product!
My wonderful in-laws! I love them!

We headed back to Lana's house where the whole family was waiting for her (another surprise) and we had dinner from Cafe Rio :)

This is the 3rd year I have made a scrapbook calendar for her! They're fun to make and she loves them.

We even had the house decorated for her

Tammy & her children

Liza made this amazing cake! It had layers of strawberries inside too!

Lana has a trampoline in her yard and this was Mara's first time on one. Mara has always wanted to try, but would chicken out, but she finally got on and loved it.

Jumping with Grandma.

Lana's neighbors do a 'Sidewalk of Fire' every year and it was completely crazy!! They had face painting, food, glow sticks, games, and more! Here are me & Mara waiting for it to start. Tammy & Mara

(I love this picture)

They lined up fireworks in the street and lit them with blow torches! It was crazy!

It was such a fun day and I'm so privileged to be a part of the Tolman family! They are all so loving and always willing to do anything for each other. Even when Pat & I were dating, I felt like I belonged. I truly love my family :)

Happy Birthday Mom!!!