The Birthday Club

  Timi, Ed, Bethany, Lance

January is a busy birthday month  for Ryan's family. His mom, dad, brother, and sister-in-law all have birthdays in January. We decided to have a a little party at our house to celebrate. I decided to be all ambitious and  make them each their favorite dessert. After agreeing to do so I decided I was in way over my head when they started requesting things like Cherry Cheesecake and Angel food cake. I was expecting chocolate cake , spice cake or  lemon bars.  You know, something I could make from a box.  Now I know for most people cheesecake and angel food cake is not a big deal, but I have an uncanny act to ruin EVERYTHING I try to cook. (Just ask Ryan).  I decided to press forward and try something new. (But don't worry I had a back up plan- Albertson's sells both angel food cake, and cheesecake).

Much to my surprise, tho, everything turned out GREAT! We had a yummy Cherry Cheesecake thanks to the recipe Anne Marie gave me, yummy Chocolate Marshmallow Brownies thanks to the recipe Alicia gave me, and yummy Angel Food Cake thanks to the recipe the internet gave me. (I only made 3 desserts because Ryan's mom said she didn't have a favorite, so she just got a little of everyone's).

I was quite proud of myself that I didn't  even have to use my back up plan.  :)

It was fun to celebrate the January birthdays with most of Ryan's family. Unfortunately, his sister and her family weren't able to make it because of the weather. We missed you guys!

And of course, Hallie finishing Eli's leftovers

Party like its 1999...

Well not quite.

Jill, Meg, Hayley

Me and my good friends from high school, Megan, Jill, and Hayley went to Park City and had a fun over niter, where we shopped, ate, talked, and laughed. It was like old times again...Sort of. The only differences? Instead of spending money on ourselves, we spent it on our kids, instead of talking about fashion, boys, and the current Taylorsville drama, we talked about our kids, labor, bills, and the scary world we live in. Instead of cruising around all night "dragging state", we headed back to our room where we could kick off our shoes and sit back and relax. Oh yeah, and a major difference between 1999 and now? Two of them were pregnant!

Things have definitely changed, yet so much has stayed the same. It is so weird to think only 9 years ago we were 4 single girls, chasing boys, living in an apartment in Orem, going to UVSC (UVU now), without too many cares in the world. Now we are all married, have kids(between the 4 of us there are 8 kids, and 2 on the way, crazy!), have homes, husbands(who were so awesome to take our kids over night so we could all have a night away!), and have to deal with real life problems. I am so glad that we have stayed in touch, and still live so close that we can get together on a pretty regular basis.

And even though we are old mom's we were still able to almost pull off an overnighter. We didn't go to bed until 5:30 in the morning!! We then had to get up at 8:30. What were we thinking?! Oh, well it was so worth the sleep deprivation!

Love you girls. We need to do it again, before another nine years have passed.

*I tried to find a picture of all of us back in '99, but couldn't find one I was willing to post. :)