My Birthday Week

We celebrated my birthday in many ways this year. It was so fun! First, last weekend we went to Monterey. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the trip...


In the hotel room



Monterey Bay Aquarium - water washes over you - Haylie thought she was going to get wet!



Haylie refused to touch any of the animals - instead she touched the filter and called it a clam



This picture reminds me of that scene in Romeo + Juliet



Our camera has an aquarium setting and it took some really beautiful pictures












Then, on my actual birthday (the 22nd), Eric got me an ice cream cake and we celebrated quietly at home...


Then on Saturday we had a barbecue with friends...this is what the sky looked like about an hour before the party - I thought for sure we were gonna get rained on...

...but we got lucky!! It was a great party (if I do say so myself!)


The kids all got to play outside (there were 15 kiddos here ranging from age 4 months to 9 years!!) And they all played beautifully together!


My awesome friend Stefanie (click on her name to the right to check out her blog and other cool cakes she has made) made this cake for me - I didn't want to eat it because it was tooo cute!!!


And what would a frog cake be without brownie lily pads??? The lily pads even had little gummy frogs on them. It was all DELICIOUS!!!

Happy birthday to me!!! :-)

PS
Don't forget to go to http://picasaweb.google.com/kmetler to see more pictures!

Father and Sons Daughter Campout

Last weekend, Eric took Haylie to the Father and Sons Daughter campout with our ward. She was the ONLY girl there! But she had a blast with her daddy and nobody else seemed to mind her little feminine presence. One of the men even told her that she had the cutest pink shoes in the campground! When they got home, Haylie told me all about the "noisy crickets" and the "scary potty". I guess the outhouse had a very large hole to sit on and Haylie was scared of falling in (I would be too!!!). So Eric helped her stay safe on the big potty. They had pancakes and eggs for breakfast and Eric had to get a second helping of eggs for Haylie.


She loved her new pink sleeping bag because it was SILKY!!!


They went out on a tube behind a boat and Haylie is STILL talking about it! And she got to play on the beach!!


We're definitely going to have to go camping this summer as a family - Haylie is a natural!

For My Mom

Since I'm not exactly super efficient at getting cards in the mail on time - I decided I'd write a little message to my mom here on my blog to let her know how much I love and appreciate her.

I don't know that I ever truly appreciated my mom growing up - I think as kids we sorta' take things for granted..."that's just what Mom does". I know I grew to appreciate her more when I went away to college and had to do it all myself. But now that I have children of my own...well, realization has set in. I realize now that being a mom is not easy. Keeping it all together is not easy. Cleaning up after kids day in and day out is not easy. Watching your kids grow up and make mistakes is not easy. There are four kids in my family - and I know we gave my mom a good amount of grief, but the one thing I think of when I think of my mom is her never-ending love and concern for us kids. She worries constantly about us - and is always willing to help us whenever we need it. I am so grateful for the way she raised me. I was taught right from wrong - but was given the agency to make my own decisions. I didn't always make the right decisions, and I know it must have been SO DIFFICULT for her to watch me make mistakes, but I am such a better person for it. She is incredibly talented (anyone who has seen her quilt collection can attest to that). I hope to be as good a mom to my kids as she was (and is) to me. I LOVE YOU MOM!!!

December 2007

February 2007 - boxing each other on the Wii

Getting Older...

I'm turning 29 in 2 weeks. I'm totally OK with that. I have no problem getting older. I'm actually looking forward to 30, believe it or not. I guess I just still feel like such a kid...maybe when I turn 30 I'll start to actually feel like an adult...maybe not. But, there is one thing that bothers me about getting older. This:

Yup - that is a gray hair. Plucked straight from my head. It is the 3rd gray hair I have found in the last several months. (I TOLD YOU MOM!!) When I called her and told her I found one a couple months ago, she did not believe me, so now I have proof.

I haven't dyed my hair in a long time - it may be time to get back in the habit. Hmph.

A Turtley Day at the Zoo

We went to the zoo on Saturday and it seems like all we saw were turtles and tortoises all day. And as many of you know, we like turtles and tortoises - almost as much as we like frogs. We have a box turtle named Moe...

and we just adopted a tortoise named Curly (he likes eating flowers).

So it was a beatiful day at the zoo - I just wanted to share some pictures...

"Look Mommy, I'm a monkey!!"

According to Haylie, this is a "Grandpa" turtle, cuz it's so big (small turtles are babies, medium turtles are mommies, etc.)

"Two turtles!!"

Haylie really wanted to feed the giraffe, but when we got up to him, she got scared and made me do it. Notice how tightly she is holding on to my shirt!!

Haylie's 3rd Birthday - Take Two

We had another party for Haylie's birthday on Wednesday - she was finally feeling better and it was good timing because Grandma Jane was in town too. So I made the long-awaited Spongebob cake...it came out pretty nice - definitely could have been better, but Haylie LOVED it! I made his eyelashes and pupils out of black licorice!! And the 3 candles are supposed to be a nose.... (Oh, and please ignore the fact that her hair is all over the place - that is just what it looks like at the end of the day!)

Here's a shot of Haylie with the Soldani boys - these are her cousins that live here in town (Eric's sister Rachel's kids)

She disappeared under the table when we sang the Happy Birthday song - then wasn't quite sure about the whole blowing out the candles thing...


So Eric helped her blow them out...

Finally! A smile after opening a present!!! A cute froggy box from Grandma Jane - to put little treasures in...

And a mini Cabbage Patch doll from Aunt Rachel

She's also finally been able to enjoy the shopping cart that Grandma Jo got her. It's so nice to have my happy girl back.