Happy Birthday to Benjamin!

We had a family birthday party for Benjamin on Friday night. We didn't have it on his actual birthday, because he had surgery on his teeth the day before his birthday, and the dentist said he probably wouldn't be able to eat much on his birthday. Several members of my family also had ward council on the night on his birthday, so it worked out. He is too young to know the difference anyway.

We ate pizza.
The first present he opened was a car carrying case from Aunt Kim, Haylie and Uncle Kelly. It is in the shape of a semi truck and you can push it around.
Emily made Benjamin an origami elephant.
Benjamin refused to open any other presents. He just wanted to play with his truck. So, Grandma took it hostage until he opened his other presents. He opened them under protest, and went back to his truck.

I made him a Mickey Mouse cake, which my sister Kim decorated for me. She is so much better at decorating cakes than I am. It turned out really cute, which is amazing, because I had the head and arm practically cracked off when she got there to decorate it. She propped them up with little plastic bag piles and it wasn't even noticable (click on the picture and look close under his arm and you will see it)! Hurray for little artistic sisters!
He blew out his candle and we ate cake and ice cream.
Then he played with his truck all night long. (Although he did take a break to check out the dinosaur playset that Grandma and Grandpa Bevans gave him)

My Baby is Two!

Swimmy

Tonight we went to Leilani's school play, "Swimmy." It was based on the book, but I think they changed it quite a bit. It seemed more like "Finding Nemo" in parts. Plays are always interesting at my kids' school, because they say everything in Japanese, and then they translate it (most of the time) into English so the audience can understand what is going on. I tried to put a snippet of the video on here, but evidently I do not have a program that will edit out a piece of video, so you are saved!Leilani and other "red fish" friends in their "school" Leilani as a jelly fish

Where Did He Learn That?!

When I got home the other day, I was greeted by this little man in sunglasses. He saunters up to me and says, "Hi, darling." LOL I have no idea where he learned that, but it sounded so funny coming from this little almost two year old. He definitely keeps life interesting.

I love making slideshows!

My new hobby is putting together slideshows of our family photographs. My dad gave me a program called Roxio, which has really been fun to experiment with. I learn new things each time, so my slideshows get better each time. I am hoping to put all of my slideshows together on a dvd that we can watch on the tv - one dvd for each year starting with 2007. I just need to learn a few more things first. I will also have to redo my slideshows from our East Coast trip and Benjamin's First Year, because I made those on a website that you can't save them from - you have to buy the movie from them if you want it. But, I have all the pictures on my computer, so it is just a matter of redoing it and finding my own music. I just finished my slideshow of our Disneyland pictures from our fall 2007 trip. Here it is if you would like to watch it.

Mike Bevans' Wedding Reception

My brother, Mike, and his fiancee Alicia Grachan were married in Washington DC on December 28, 2007. We had a wedding reception here last Friday. It was fun, and the little girls loved being flower girls again. He is the last one of us kids to get married, so we won't have any more weddings until the grandkids start...and that better be a few years!

The bride and groom in line with the flower girls.
Poor Benjamin was having a hard time keeping his pants on. They are only 18 months size, but he is small for his age, and when he ran around they came right down.
So his dad rolled the legs up at the bottom and the waist band down a few times and they seemed to stay on, although he looked kind of funny.
This is most of the family that was able to attend the reception. (By the time the picture was taken, Chris' wife and kids had gone home) Karilyn and her family were able to attend the wedding and reception in DC, and Mark wasn't able to make either one.

My kids with Uncle Mike and Aunt Alicia.
Mike with two of his sisters.
My cute family.

Never a Dull Moment

Mornings on a school day are never boring at our house. A week before Christmas, it was especially exciting. Leilani reached into the hair clip drawer and pulled out a mouse. I was in my bathroom doing everyone's hair, and I heard a scream. I went to see what happened, and Leilani was in the hall crying. She told me there was a big rat in the bathroom. I had visions of a huge black rat cowering in a corner by the bathtub. Of course Alan was at work, so I had to be the big brave parent. After further questioning Leilani told me that the "rat" was in the hair clip drawer, so I looked in the drawer from as far away as possible. I couldn't see anything, so I reluctantly got closer and saw a tiny mouse in the corner of the drawer. It wasn't moving, so I assumed that Leilani had killed it when she dropped it back into the drawer. So I figured it was safe to leave it for Dad to dispose of when he got home. Just in case, though, I put Emily on a stool to watch the drawer since her hair was already done. As I was doing Leilani's hair, Emily started yelling that the mouse was moving. Everyone wanted ME to go get rid of the mouse. Yeah, right. I told Leilani to step on it, since she was the only one with shoes on, but she just started crying again. So, I did the only thing a brave mother could do...I sent the crying child downstairs to call Grandpa and beg him to come down and deal with the mouse, while we watched the drawer and hoped it didn't get out. Grandpa came to our rescue (laughing as hard as he could). He took one of the girls' boots and chased the mouse around the drawer until he finally eliminated it. It turns out that the reason the mouse couldn't get out of the drawer and away from us was that somehow it had crawled through the middle of a ponytail holder and was stuck. That really made Grandpa laugh, and he suggested we take pictures. So, here they are.