What in Whettenwild world was up with this week and the weather?

Murphy's Law. Enough said right? It's been 90 degrees here for the past couple of weeks. It hadn't rained in El Paso for over 100 days..........that was until Friday. For one day, the temperature dipped down into the 60's and it rained all day. That is great right? We need the rain. It should be nice to cool off before it hits 100 degrees this week. Of course the big dip had to happen on the same day as the annual Fathers and Sons outing.

Conal was excited to have the outing in Cloudcroft NM up in the mountains. It would be a nice break for everyone from the heat. They just didn't expect for it to dip down to 27 degrees. YIKES! That's cold for El Pasoans. Especially since we dug out the shorts and flip flops back in March. Fortunately, everyone was prepared for what El Pasoans consider "extreme weather" and they all still had a great time.

I'm not sure which Conal would prefer; Cold, wet, weather, or what he has come to refer to as the annual wind festival (only a true El Pasoan knows how funny that really is!). The last two years were so windy they were picking sand out of their teeth for days. I cleaned the grill for them two years ago and it was caked with grease and sand. I'm sure those hotdogs were tasty! Oh well, it makes for great male bonding and some good stories to tell for years.

At 7:41 am

So I have this nerdy thing that I do each year on my kids birthday. I take a picture of them at the exact time they were born, which for Hailey is 7:41am. Lucky for me none of my kids were born in the middle of the night. ha ha. Here is Hailey's picture for this year. My second nerdy tradition is that on their birthday I start thinking about what I was doing on the day of their birth at that time. This turned out to be an unwise thing to do yesterday. Unfortunately, my memory was too clear and I started remembering too many details about c-sections, and realization hit that I have to do that again in 7 weeks or less and that I DON'T WANT TO and that I have no way to get out of it. So today my goal is to get myself back into some form of denial. It's the best way to be I tell ya!

Whoa there, back to Hailey and her birthday. Since she already did the cake/cupcake thing she decided that she wanted doughnuts for dessert. Fine by me. YUM! I don't remember the last time I had a doughnut. She also wanted pepperoni pizza for dinner. Again, fine by me, I get a break from making dinner. My favorite part is Alexia trying to blow out the candle.

Hailey was excited to say the least about her present from Aunt Mandi and the J's. Yeah! Thanks!

She also got a water toy which I think is very appropriate for this family, and is also very appropriately mentioned on this blog due to the nature and description of this toy. It was kind of hard to get a picture of the writing since it was small and the plastic was shiny, but it mentions something about Whettenwild, I mean wet n' wild action. Wahoo!

Happy Birthday Hailey!

The promised party pics

As I was saying earlier, and I'm sure that you will agree, every detail of this party is so cute. From the invitation :
(The little guy actually moves down the path and it is a picture of the birthday boy sitting on his pinata)


To the cake and cupcakes:
To the ginormous pinata:
(Here is the real life version of the pinata.......except with Jackson on it this time=))

To the table setting.

I added this one just because I like it.

You are so creative Jessica!

Jackson's first birthday party

WHAT??? Wasn't Jackson's birthday in October? Yes! but this the was the first friend birthday party that he went to. Boo hoo, my little guy is growing up. Today he is getting invited to a friend's birthday party, the next thing you know he will be driving. Ok, enough of that. Seriously, this was the cutest little party. From the invitation down to every detail. I think my friend Jessica should be a party planner. She is SO creative. Conal didn't have our camera with him but I will see if I can get some pics to post from my friend. Here is Jackson wearing some of his party souveniers.

LOVE the hat and LOVE the safari scarf (or whatever its called, I'm not up on my safari lingo).

I even love sticky Jackson from his treats in his treat bag.

Even the treat bags were just as cute as can be. Some people are just so creative.

Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers.......say that 5 times really fast!

Ok, Ok, so I took the easy way out. Hailey had been planning her birthday party for this year since her birthday party last year. She had so many things that she wanted to do that it would've taken a week to get through it all. However, I started getting overwhelmed with all of the things that we have going on right now so I threw in the towel and opted to take Hailey and a few of her little girl friends to Peter Piper Pizza.

It turned out to be just as great. It was hardly any work at all and the girls (and Garrison) had so much fun. Mandi made the cutest invitations (thanks aunt Mandi!) and I made some butterfly cupcakes. They didn't turn out nearly as cute as they were on the website but I couldn't find the exact things that they used. Even if I had I'm sure I would've messed it up anyway.

We picked up all of the girls and they all thought that riding in the van with all of their friends was the coolest thing ever. Some kids are so easy to please. The best part of all is that they we all SO good and had a great time.

I know a name, a glorious name, dearer than any other.....

listen I'll whisper the name to you, it is the name of mother.

Typically I am not one for sappy Mothers' Day stuff (although I do like the primary songs for Mothers' day). I'm not one of those mothers that hate mothers day or anything, I just really prefer humor over sappy. Anyway, Garrison pulled one over on my non-sappy self this Mothers' Day. He brought home from school this darling dishtowel with his name, the year, and his hand print on it. Of course I loved it. Then he said "Mom, will you keep this towel up in your room so it will remind you of me when I am on my mission?". Conal immediately started chuckling because he knew that my non-sappy self became, well.....sappy. ha ha.

Happy Mothers' Day Mom! You are the best!
Happy Mothers' Day Mandi! Thanks for the book and for being such a great mom to my little nephews!
So much for not being sappy. ha ha!

So Long, Farewell.......and whatever the next line of that song is

Grandma and Grandpa Whetten came to visit the grandkids this weekend. They have been in Mexico for the past few weeks and will be leaving in the next month for the MTC and then to Panama City, Panama to serve in the new temple there. Grandpa Whetten has been called to the temple presidency.

We took them to Old Mesilla

and coincidentally they were having a big fiesta in honor of Cinco de Mayo. There was a ton of yummy mexican food, many booths with fun things to buy

and a group of dancers from the local university.It was so festive. I will miss this kind of thing when we move from El Paso.

I also found out something interesting about Old Mesilla. I knew that it was older than Las Cruces (which is a very old city that existed before the U.S. existed), and that Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to hang there. However, I didn't know that the Gadsden purchase was signed there. This is the treaty that made Southern New Mexico U.S. territory. Conal and I both love history and thought that was really cool.

Hasta la vista y buena suerte Grandma and Grandpa Whetten!