Payne Family Fun: January is long gone.

Mark’s birthday was so fun. We had a crowd of family here…good friends….pie…presents…smiles…what more could you want? Getting his birthday banner done was a bit of an adventure on account of my color printer wigging out on his 7th year. Ken saved the day…I’m so lucky.

Mark got a trip to the shooting range and lunch with Brother Albertson. Some Sherlock Holmes books from my family, which both he and Jessie have enjoyed already, a cool robot bug from Heather’s family which entertained all the kids, a power drill from Ken’s family wrapped in manly paper (paper grocery sack) sealed with ducktape. He also got patterns for cutting out animals on the scroll saw, fancy thermals (which he got early to wear to the Klondike), and a date with mom and dad – a volleyball game at BYU. Mark was one happy guy! Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate with us!!

After pie and chatting Jessie played the Hokey Pokey for all the kids. Harper, Neil and Spencer danced while we clapped along. Fun with a capital F.

Here is Neil’s bruise healing.

We discovered the most heavenly muffins. Orange Poppy Seed. We made them 3 Sundays in a row and once during the week. They are Mark’s new favorite. Jessie used them for a photography assignment.And then took some pictures of Neil too. She was practicing some lighting techniques.

Neil and I have been way into trains after Isaac goes down for his morning nap. Some times we play with trains until lunch time. I build while he plays on the completed parts; then we race and chase with the trains. I love to make hills and watch the trains go down on their own seeing how far they can make it. But usually he likes to hold on to his train the whole time.Just because flowers. Ahhhhhhh….so sweet and beautiful.Mark has been dying to go to the temple now that he’s 12. Mark, Jessie and Ken got to go together for his first trip. Thank you mom for sending him some names to do. That made his day.

Abbie was working on her multiplication facts and Isaac found her flash cards and thought they made an amazing toy, despite the fact that I kept trying to entice him away with his own toys.Spencer’s amazing spinning football. Sometimes winter starts to seem a little too long….

Neil is our bed hopper. We are never quite sure where he will end up in the morning. This is where I found him sleeping one night when I came up to get into bed. He loves to wear his pajama pants over the top of his footed sleepers.

On Saturdays Rachel comes down to do laundry and hang out. This was a movie time…don’t they look cozy?

Mark using his new birthday drill. He was helping Ken take down the hooks we hung up for backpacks and coats. Even with dry wall anchors the kids backpacks pulled them out of the wall. They have since been put into boards and rehung and a decree was issued that stated backpacks can only be hung on the small lower hook.

The Albertson’s came over for a Nerf gun war. It was just too much fun. We did discover however that we need to build a few more places to hide behind. The tent and the love seat where not big enough to house everyone. Here are some of my favorite pictures that Ken took of the battle. There weren't really teams or anything.

The little boys played for a bit then looked at books and played with a remote control car. They were smart enough to do so in the tent so they would be protected from the darts flying every which way.Isaac learning to stand on his own. Man that kids loves the dishwasher.He joined Ken, Jessie and Mark to visit Grandma Jennie one Sunday afternoon. Which was really fun until he discovered the controls on the wheelchair. That was a little too much fun for Grandma and he went back to sit with Ken.Rachel invited us over for dinner. We took up some soup and she made us breadsticks. Yummy!Moving into February we celebrated Ken’s dad’s birthday.

For our gift we decided to make him an apple pie, because Grandpa only likes two kinds of pie….hot and cold. :-) Of course we added a bag of sliced cheddar cheese to go with it, because an apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze. Spencer was our photographer for the evening and he did a great job.