Birthdays, Birthdays, and more Birthdays

Even though I have been terrible at taking pictures to document it, I want to make it known that we are thick in the middle of the birthday season in our household. I have already posted about Alyssa and Ashley's birthdays. We celebrated Danny's birthday a couple of weeks ago. On the evening of Danny's actual birthday, Gawbie and Grandpa Wheeler kept the girls for us so we could attend an adult only Hawaiian Luau put on by our ward. It was fun to go on a date and meet a few new people from the ward. Since Danny's birthday is only two days before his sister, Shannon's, birthday, we celebrated the two birthdays together. Since we get so sick of cake about this time of year, Danny's mom was nice enough to make Danny some homemade oatmeal cream pies instead. They were delicious.

This past weekend, we flew down to Arizona for Great Grandma Ginos's 80th birthday celebration. We were so glad that we were able to go. Danny got to see a lot of cousins, some of them he hasn't seen in 10 years. I got to meet a lot of cousins that I have heard about, but had never seen before. While we were in Arizona, we stayed at my brother, David's, house. Alyssa and Ashley had so much fun playing with their cousins, Danielle and Kristen. They also loved playing with the new puppies. It was a fun weekend and nice to enjoy family and a little bit of warm sunshine in the middle of winter.

Bowling

 In December, we purchased the Seven Peaks Pass of All Passes. There are many things included with the season pass besides the water park. In the past few weeks, they added a bowling alley to the list of venues where we can use our passes. While Danny was at work on Thursday, a friend and I took the kids bowling. The bowling alley wasn't in the best condition as they are still remodeling it, but we all had fun. Alyssa even tried throwing the ball herself a couple of times(without using the metal ramp). Here are some pictures from the adventure.

 (I don't know why, but Ashley seems to be the queen of funny faces when we take pictures. This picture isn't as bad as a lot of them have been.)

I just love those kid sized bowling shoes. I think they are so cute. They were ready to be done around the seventh frame, but we finished out the game. I'm excited that we get to go bowling now, for free, along with the water park, miniature golf, and numerous other activities that are included. We went to a Hockey game a few weeks ago for free with our passes which was also a lot of fun(especially since Danny knew one of the guys that works there who moved us up to one of the suites halfway through the game).

Tea Party

Last week, Alyssa's Kindergarten class had a tea party. They have been reading the beatrix potter stories in her class so the tea party was themed accordingly. She was just excited because she got to go to school in her prettiest church dress instead of her school uniform. I also attempted to do her hair like a princess. Here are some pictures of her before she left for school.