adrian's birthday...

 adrian's birthday was last saturday. she came up to our house & we had a great day lounging in the pool and having fun. we went to marie callendar's that night... so everyone could get a slice of delicious pie! we love marie callendar's pie. lol.... anyway. the next day we met at her house for a big birthday bash... we had delicious kabobs for dinner [high five to dustin for grilling them!] and a cake for dessert that kelsey & i made. she opened tons of fun presents & then afterwards the parentals left and we had a game night with just us kids... plus some friends. what a fantastic birthday weekend!

happy birthday to my favorite big sister! :)

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[apparently we are lame-o's and forgot our camera's... and matches. haha...]

[^ this was our first time try making a checkered cake... it looks really cute and it tasted really yummy, but it was a bit ineffective as a cake... it fell apart in cubes. hahah...]

we didn't get any pictures of shane & sheryl or dad & grandpa, but just know they were there too! :)

these are pictures of the kids who stayed to play games... we played mad gabs for a bit, and then fact or crap, and then catch phrase. holy sha-moley we are a silly group!

       travis, austin, nicole & warren                                                   warren, dustin, adrian & austin

      austin, kelsey, greg, me & brad                                        brad, katie, austin [kind of] & mason

my hero...

i have a new hero today. his name is zac baker. 

so let me tell you a quick story about how this hero of mine became heroic.

once upon a time, my dad & little brother went to rincon rendezvous [a week-long scout camp out]. well, my dad, as everyone is well aware, absolutely hates packrats. like... h.a.t.e.s them. hardcore. every now & then he'll even cuss at them... it's pretty funny actually. so my dad left a few rat traps around the house and his shop and stuff [some are live, some are not]... and he left a lot of rat poison out too. my mom came home from a trip to see a good friend of ours in casa grande and walked in with a ten dollar bill in her hand... she asked me & kels if we wanted ten bucks... kelsey said, "i'm not killing any more animals" [click here if you don't know what i'm talking about... hehe...] and mom said, "don't worry... you don't have to kill anything, it's already dead." at that moment we understood what had happened... a packrat had been caught and needed extracting. i wasn't about to "extract" anything... i told her i'd bury it [trap & all]... she didn't think the dad would go for that idea. and then we thought that maybe we could throw it away [trap & all], but our trash doesn't come till fridays now... so that was a definite no-go. instead we brainstormed about who we could call to get this thing out... our only option was zac. and thank goodness he was home... he came right over and disposed of this nasty dead animal.

bless his heart.

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caution: due to the graphic nature of this pictures, viewer discretion is advised [rachel].

birthday cupcakes...

yesterday was our friend zac's birthday. we had fhe to go to last night [we played mud games], so kelsey & i made him [and everybody else] the best & cutest cupcakes in the whole world! we found this idea online and we showed mom and she said "yeah... my mom did that 40 years ago." and we said, "yeah... too bad our mom never did that for us..." haha... anyway. they are cupcakes baked into ice cream cones... we just thought it was the cutest idea ever. so we made them. and we tried a new icing recipe, too. i wanted it to look like whipped cream on top... and i bought a huge new icing tip and i think we accomplished our goal... too cute right?

happy birthday, zac! :)

basil [again]...

so... i spent a little time in my garden this morning... and i was just thinking back to what it was like when i first started growing all of these plants... these plants that have grown better than i could ever hope for! i harvested some more zucchini, i trimmed out some dead leaves and i cleaned up my basil... it was starting to flower, and i don't think i want it to... so i plucked the flowering part off. it smelled so good... i love the smell of fresh herbs! and it was much too cute with its tiny little white flowers to not take a picture of it... so, of course, i did. now i need to go get ready for church and stuff... happy sunday to you all! :)

random little tidbits...

so this week kelsey & i started a project. we revamped our recipe books. we typed up old [but amazing] recipes as well as brand new recipes. and we got our books all organized [we even organized the mom's book too!]. we feel pretty accomplished. well, we definitely had a few nights that we stayed up too late typing recipes. apparently my dad thought it was funny... walking past my door and seeing us both on our laptops typing away... i suppose we looked pretty silly, but it was absolutely worth every minute!

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we also babysat hayley on thursday. i really like when kelsey is home... basically because we get to tag team the niece. hayley's a really good kid... but it makes it so much easier with two of us. it was also the first time we got to drive with hayley in her front-facing carseat... it was the cutest thing ever! i can't believe she's getting so big! she just chills back there "reading" or playing with her toes or drawing on her magna doodle.... haha...

she is also quite smitten with barney. it's really pretty hilarious. my mom saved this barney stuffed animal from the days when kelsey was in love with him, and now its hayley's turn. hayley stands there in front of the tv for a few minutes at a time dancing with barney wrapped tight in her arms. its just about the cutest thing ever! i sure love that little hayley bug.

an unexpected bloom...

every year we get grandpa neilson a plant for christmas. it is usually one that we plant and watch grow... like paperwhites or amaryllises. well a few years ago, we got him an amaryllis. it bloomed and it was beautiful... and we all loved to watch how fast it grew. eventually the blooms died and we trimmed it up and someone ended up setting in the carport. then last summer... i saw that it was starting to grow again. so we began watering it and it produced nice big healthy leaves, but no blooms. eventually the leaves starting turning yellow, so we trimmed it back again and put it back in the carport. well... this same little amaryllis bulb started to grow again last week. we brought it inside and started watering it... and practically all of a sudden we have a beautiful amaryllis bloom... with two more to follow shortly. i didn't know if it would ever bloom again, but it has. maybe after it is done this round i will take the bulb out and clean it up... or maybe we'll put it back in the carport and see what happens next year! :)

the fourth of july...

i had to teach relief society on sunday, and since it was the 4th of july i decided to make summery looking cookies. i found this idea on a blog [sorry, i dont remember where] and i was just dying for an excuse to make them... so katie, kelsey & i whipped up our very first batch of watermelon cookies for the relief society sisters...

ps... they are just a sugar cookie recipe with a green frosting/glaze and mini chocolate chips as the seeds... too stinking cute... right? i just love them. :)

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i texted danielle a picture of the cookies, and she texted me back these adorable red, white and blue cupcakes. and that made me remember that i had bought this really cute cupcake set from walmart a while back... it came with cute festive wrappers and these adorable mini pinwheels. so i gave the townsend inspired multi-colored cupcakes a go... i think they were pretty good for my first time. and my family was impressed :)

 ps... those last 2 are courtesy of zac baker photography :) ... visit his blog, it is fantastic!

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that night we had a riveting game of croquet... dad, me, kelsey, austin, dustin, travis [and then adrian] played... it was a ton of fun playing on our lawn. the sprinklers even came on in the middle of our game... it was too funny!

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this whole fourth of july weekend was just a hoot. we swam a bunch and grilled even more. i love my family and i love my country... and i love hayley [i couldn't very well do a family post and not put a picture of her in... lol].