A Birthday for our Tween

Makayla is 12! Can you believe it? Despite us warning her she is not allowed to grow up, Makayla thinks it is okay to just turn 12 years old. Rude. 

Makayla's birthday was on a Saturday this year and we had so much fun celebrating our girl all day long. She opened a few presents in the morning. She got a new dress for church, a toothbrush, and a swimsuit. 

She wanted French Toast for breakfast. 

After we went to Caden's game, the two of us went out for a day of fun. Makayla has really been wanting her 2nd ear pierced, so we went to get them pierced. My hair lady does piercings, but she uses a needle instead of a gun. Makayla was nervous, but so brave. 

Look how cute it looks!

I got my 3rd piercing. I went with a constellation piercing. I love it! 

Then we were off to the Utah Gymnastics meet. Makayla even got a picture with Swoop. And the Utes won!

After that Makayla wanted to go to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Do you want to know a funny story? We called and got placed on the list, but they said our reservation was about 90 minutes away. So after waiting in the car for what seemed like forever, with the kids getting restless and hangry, we finally got the text that our table was ready and we could head into the restaurant. Well Grandma and Grandpa had called about the same time to sing Happy Birthday to Makayla so she was talking to them as we were walking into the restaurant. The hostess had us wait in the line to be seated and we were literally next to be seated when Makayla handed the phone back to Tyler. We had a weird message from Texas Roadhouse saying we had been removed from the waiting list. I guess while talking to Grandma, Makayla had accidentally sent a text back to the restaurant. The automated text responded that we had been removed from the wait list. We didn't know what to do until the people behind us got called to their table, then the people behind them got called to their table. I told Tyler to go show the hostess our text and sure enough we had been removed from the list... as we were literally the next people in line... after waiting almost 2 hours for dinner. Luckily Texas Roadhouse was able to find us a table and brought us out some yummy rolls so our kids would not die from hunger. 

We had the best steak dinner and Makayla got to sit on the saddle while they wished her a happy birthday. 

After dinner we went shopping for some new pants for Makayla. See the problem with Makayla is that she is so tall and so skinny, so a lot of the pants I have been buying her end up being floods. We went shopping at some new stores and Makayla got some cute new trendy pants. The style now is totally from the 90's with baggier jeans with holes in them. Funny how styles always seem to come back. Makayla looks so trendy in her new pants. 

The next day we had Makayla's family party.  We had Teriayki chicken for dinner and then opened presents. Makayla didn't get one toy this year.. sad. Instead she got lots of gift cards and clothes. 

Makayla came up with the game again this year. We played "Incoherent Family- Makayla Edition". This game has nonsense words that when said out loud make sense. They were all things that either described Makayla, or were things she liked. Let's see if you can guess some of them: (answers are below)

1) Shh hop king at tar kit. 2) Fem mel leave fake hay shin hue dis keel hand 3) Tough hay for writ chai old

How did you do? If you guessed 1) Shopping at Target 2) Family vacation to Disneyland and 3) Favorite child, you win. We were laughing so hard because if you know our family, you know how loud everyone can get and when they are speaking gibberish, it's pretty funny. 

Carson took 1st place, Karly got 2nd place, and Colton got 3rd place. 

Then Makayla blew out the candles on her cupcakes. 

Makayla thought her cupcakes needed to go this way... nope. Even though Makayla is very mature for her age, she cannot be 21!!

Our fun wasn't over yet because the next week was Makayla's friend party. She invited Haylie, Chloe, Layla, and Brighton from school and Maddie, Avery, and Harper from dance. We had pizza (which by the way, teenage girls do not eat a lot.. we ended up with 4 extra pizzas), opened presents, and then headed to Airborne where the girls played and jumped on the trampolines. 

They had so much fun! This was such a cute group of girls. Then we came back to our house and ended the fun night with cupcakes. 

Happy Birthday Makayla! We love the beautiful young women you are becoming. This year is going to be a great year that will be full of so many new experiences including middle school and girls camp.  I love to see the excitement you have at all the new opportunities that being a 12 year old will bring. It is bittersweet that you are no longer a baby, or even a little girl, but it is so humbling to watch you become a young woman and to see your confidence grow. You have a high standard for yourself in school and dance, and even when we tell you that you are too hard on yourself, you continue to strive for better.  You value loyal friendship and know how to choose good friends. I love how you challenge yourself in dance and even though you are nervous about competing a solo this year, you continue to push away your doubts and I can't wait to see your confidence grow as you perform onstage. You are so fun to be around and I love that you like to go shopping with me, or go get a drink at Fiiz, or just hang out. You love listening to music and are always dancing around the house... my favorite is when you bust out some hip hop moves. You are a great big sister and a great example to Caden and Brynnli. I know they look up to you and admire you. We love you so much and are so proud of you. Happy Birthday cute girl!!!

Here's Makayla's responses to her birthday interview questions

What are some things that you like or are popular today? " I'm thinking... stop typing...target, Taylor Swift, I like hanging out with friends"

What do you like most about yourself right now? "My second piercing "

What do you think your future job will be? " a vet".

What are you good at? " Dance... making jokes... and technology "

Do you have a celebrity crush? " No."

Who are your friends and what do you like about them? "You want me to name them all? Ok the top three are Maddi because she's really funny and we're besties. Layla because we like hanging out at recess, and Chloe because we have a lot in common and we're in the same class "

Where is your favorite place to eat? "Costa Vida "

What makes you really annoyed? "Caden and Brynnli when they steal my stuff and tease me "

What makes you feel proud? " When I get a new dance trick or tumbling trick"

Which of your nicknames do you like the most and why? "What if I don't like any of them?"

What is your favorite subject in school?  "Language Arts"

What do you wish you could do that mom and dad won't allow? "Watch YouTube shorts all day "

What is your favorite thing about Brynnli? "She's very funny and makes me laugh "

What is your favorite thing about Caden? "We are closer in age so we have a lot of similarities that we can talk about "

What is your favorite memory with Dad? " When he took me to get ice cream without mom knowing"

What is your favorite memory with Mom? "Going black Friday shopping"

Welcome to the New Year

Welcome to the Blog for 2023. 

I saw this meme and laughed. After the last few years I need to know what we're getting into. 

We started out 2023 with a whole lot of snow. We came home from The Land and couldn't even get into our driveway. All 5 of us got to work shoveling snow, and with 5 of us it didn't take long to clear our driveway. But then we saw our neighbor a few doors down and she was trying to do her driveway all by herself, so we all headed over to her house and got her driveway done in no time. But then we saw her neighbor across the street shoveling by hand and we couldn't let her work by herself, so even though we were exhausted and dripping wet from the snow, we helped her with her driveway. I was so proud of our kids because they didn't complain about helping and were the hardest workers. 

After shoveling three driveways, we were hungry! We decided to start out the new year right with dinner at Texas Roadhouse. 

On January 2 the Utah Utes were playing in the Rose Bowl for the 2nd year in a row. We decided to have the Jones fam and my parents over to make homemade pizzas and watch the game. 

Can't get much cuter than these Utah fans. 

Unfortunately the Utes lost the Rose Bowl again, so this is our sad face. 

On the bright side I got my nails did.

We still love our Muggies and fight over who gets to hold her. 

This is kind of a funny story. Caden showed me some of the work he has been doing in school. I saw this assignment and I yelled, "Caden! How do you spell your last name?" He was like, "Um... E-V-A-N-S?" and I said, "then why did you spell it "E-V-E-N-S!"  and he said in his cute little scared voice, "Because our teacher said we only had to do the even problems." I guess that would make more sense... 

So Tyler saw this really cool, $400 Lego set that was a grand piano and he bought it. Caden and Tyler have been working on putting it together for a few months now. They work on a bag whenever they can. This piano is so cool because the keys actually move and you can set it up to your phone and it will play music while the keys move. 

Here's the finished product. This might be the coolest Lego set they have ever built. 

Oh man, this kid is as cute as they come. In the morning Caden likes to have bacon, grapefruit, and juice for breakfast. Usually he has an Eggo waffle to go with it, but this morning we had homemade banana bread. 

Brynnli has the cutest imagination. She made a store with all sorts of products we could buy. She loves when we come up to her store. 

Speaking of Caden and Brynnli. Sometimes these two are best of friends and play so well together and other times they just like to try to annoy each other until one of them comes to me crying. I'm glad I could document one of the times where they were being so cute together. 

Santa brought us mini panookie pans so that we can all have our own. Best idea ever. Now we don't have to fight over who gets more and we can all put on our favorite toppings the way we like. 

Tyler had to go out of town for a sight visit to a mine in Guererra, Mexico. He was kind of nervous about it because Mexico is kind of scary right now. He sent us a few pictures from his trip. The big hole in the mountain is the entrance to the mine. 

After his trip and the stories he told about the living conditions in Mexico, I was reminded again of why I am so grateful to live in America. We have no idea how lucky we are. 

While dad was away with work, Makayla and I went to the "Best of Utah" gymnastics meet. We had fun watching our Utes beat BYU, Utah State, and Southern Utah University. 

Grandma and Grandpa took us out for Makayla's birthday dinner. She chose Red Robin, one of her favorite restaurants. 

Terry and Craig's house is getting closer to being done. The paint is now complete and the next step is carpet and some finish work. Hopefully they will be in their house by March. 

The Utah Women's basketball team is doing so well this year. They are currently ranked in the top 10 in all of the NCAA teams. We like to go to the games and the kids always hope they can make it on the big screen. They spelled out UTAH with their light up sticks and made it on big t.v. 

Grandma Terry made it on the big screen too by flexing her big muscles. 

The kids had a day off of school, so we thought it would be fun to check out NickleCade. The kids spent hours running around playing different kinds of games. Caden really liked the pinball machines. 

The girls liked to play the games where they could win prize tickets. 

Caden and Tyler have been playing chess lately. Caden is really intrigued by the game and has been having fun learning how to play. 

We love when Grandma and Grandpa stay at our house because they play games with the kids. Who doesn't love a game of Headbands?

Remember how Caden played with the Outlaws basketball team? Remember how the team dissolved and we have been looking for another competitive team to join? Well Caden's old coach told us that his son was playing for a new team and he invited Caden to try it out and join. The new team is called Mayhem and so far Caden really likes it. His first game with the new team he got 8 rebounds... more than anyone else on his team! 

In addition to the Mayhem team, Caden is also playing Jr. Jazz. Caden's team is doing so well and ended up winning all of their games!!

Caden loved playing with his friend Johnny. They played so well together that we started calling their plays, "Evans to Orton" because they reminded us of John Stockton and Karl Malone. 

What a fun season of Jr. Jazz

Caden has so many family members to love to come out and support our #7

Kenzee and Mason had their birthday party at a fun place where the kids could learn how to paint. 

The instructor would give step by step instructions to draw the cutest puppy.

Spider man even made an appearance and Mason was so happy because he loves super heroes. 

Check out how cute everyone's paintings turned out. What I think is so cute is how unique everyone's dogs look. 

Anyone else think Tyler needs more sleep at night? He can fall asleep anywhere, but Bella is sure content to have a sleeping partner. 

Speaking of our cute dog, it was finally time to get her a haircut. She looked pretty shaggy in her before picture. 

You would almost think we got a different dog. She looks so cute with her bows in her hair. 

And how cute is Bella in her new coat? It has been so cold when we take her on walks, but now that she has a haircut, she gets even colder, so she needs her coat to help keep her warm. 

January is off to a great start!