Memorial Day Weekend

We spent a wonderful weekend in Park City and created some great memories. It was a jam packed weekend full of family, friends, 2 large batches of Kays famous potatoe salad, Bill's amazing barbeque baby back ribs, hiking, mountain biking, trail running and other outdoor fun. That is what we LOVE about Park City. It really made me want to live there again.

Here's the whole Mammen gang minus Kyle's family at the top of Guardsman pass (EL 8900 ft)

My adorable nephew Axel with the Timpenogas Mountain range in the background.

Alex, Ayden, Grandpa and I atop a rock waiting for the rest of the crew to join us.

We gained Brad here.

Axel, River and Sassy join us.

Grandma, Hillary, Taylor, Kayce and baby girl on her way make it complete. (not totally complete since we did not have Kyle, Laura, Janelle and Spencer with us. We sure thought about you all the whole time and wished you were there!)

The wind is picking up but here is another group shot.

WHOO the wind was a blowin!

Cutie Alex with her cutie Daddy.

Hill, Axel and Kayce making there way to the top.

Grandpa helping Ayden up. Ayden was imagining that her and grandma were mountain goats.

Brad has to balance a rock everywhere we go. However, it is quite the talent I must say.

The kids and their dads all took turns sliding down this little snow hill.

Loading up Alex and the dogs to head back home.

Party Pictures

Here are some pictures from Ayden's birthday party. It was a lot of fun. We had bandanna's, scarfs, tattoo's, skull rings, and eye patches for all the kids and then we painted beards on them too. For lunch the kids got hot dogs with a pirate flag in it and the adults got shish kabobs. We had a scavenger hunt to the treasure box Piñata and then the kids got to smash it. The adults also got to be the bad pirates and throw canon balls (black water balloons) at the kids. I think everyone had a good time.

Ayden, Madi, Cassi, and Kelly at the beginning of the party before they got all of their costumes on.

Alex with her pirate patch.

The birthday group of pirates minus about 5 who wouldn't stay put for the picture.

What three year old's birthday would be complete with out a melt down.

Going on a treasure hunt.

Ayden having a shot at the Piñata.

After all the kids got a chance at the Piñata Ayden got another turn and then Scott broke it open so all the kids could get their loot. (I put all the candy in individual bags so they just had to grab one bag, it made it a lot better)

Ayden getting ready to blow out the cannon candles.

Opening the birthday gifts. She got so much stuff! I forgot that people bring gifts to parties and I could not believe all the wonderful gifts. We have had a lot of fun playing with all the stuff these past couple of days.

Grandma and Grandpa Mammen Score

Ayden's Present From her Mom and Dad

Ayden's Third Birthday

We have had a great couple of days celebrating Ayden's birthday. Two things happened; Jenni was able to organize and throw a pretty awesome Pirate Party with a lot of great friends, and Ayden got spoiled. (Pirate Party blog to come.)

Jenni and I are so blessed to have Ayden and Alex in our lives and we are absolutely lucky we have so many tremendous friends (somehow we end up with great friends where ever we go). Just recently we were watching videos of Ayden when we first moved here to Boise and her bald little head reminded us of how much Ayden has changed in such a short period of time. Ayden is constantly keeping us on our toes and makes our lives very interesting.

On Friday (May 18, 2007) I came home early from work to help Jenni with the party preparations and to help make a pirate cake. After trading a few ideas, one trip to the store and a couple of hours Jenni and I were able to construct a pretty awesome cake, if I do say so myself. All of it is edible except for the palms on the tree (depends how hungry you are). Ayden will tell you that the girl pirate is her of course. We also need to give a thanks to my sister Nicki for the email with the cake idea that got us started.

Notice that the candles are on the side of the ships stuffed into the cannons (chocolate HO HOs)

Ayden preparing to open her gifts from mom, dad and Grandma and Grandpa.
(See the videos above)

After opening presents we went to a ward party for a couple of hours. When we got home from the ward party my little sister Emily, her husband Jeremiah and cousins Caleb and Chase had arrived for Ayden's birthday party. Ayden was very excited because she has been saying for a long time that she really wanted Caleb to be at her Pirate party. (Caleb is 2 months older than Ayden)

(below) Ayden and Caleb taking a bath.

Chase and Alex kicking back watching Baby Einstein. Chase is 1 week younger than Alex.

We don't have all of the pictures and videos from the pirate party rounded up yet but here are a couple of teaser pictures. Wait until you see how many little pirates were rounded up for some good old fashion looting and plundering.

ARRRRGGGH Maties!!!!!!

A few Alex moments

River and Alex have a really cute relationship. River has always been a little leery of Ayden and he will play with her but he usually just keeps his distance. However, he does not seem to mind Alex at all and sometimes he even seems to enjoy her company. After church yesterday we found them both outside just hanging out and we thought it was too cute.

Today I went to the gym then had to rush home, shower and go visiting teaching so Alex got rushed from place to place all morning and did not have a nap. By the time I got home from visiting teaching it was about 12:50 and she was really tired but I thought she should have a little lunch before her nap. I got her all settled and left the room and when I went back in to check on her, this is how I found her, still holding a piece of sandwich and everything...

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I was trying to get some pictures of Ayden today for this blog but she just woke up and would not cooperate. Oh well, this is how she is most of the time anyway.

After talking to my mom today and telling her some funny things Ayden has said lately she told me I really should write this stuff down because I am going to forget it all. I know she is right and so since my blog is basically my journal and she also told me to update it I will share some Aydenisms with all of you with a dual purpose of having them written down somewhere so we can remember them in the future. I must include however that the tone of her voice and the facial expressions are half of the reason they are so funny. Too bad we can’t include that.

I was getting Ayden dressed the other day and she was standing there naked except for her underwear that was kind of low on her butt and I noticed that she has the same butt Brad has so I said “you definitely got your daddy’s butt” and she looked at me with concern in her eyes and said “what?” so I repeated it and she said “oh, mom your kidding me! Dad still has his butt, right?”

This morning Ayden got mad about something and told us that we made her sad which is a pretty common phrase around here “mommy (or daddy) you made me sad.” But this morning as Brad was getting ready to leave for work she said “daddy will you play me a tiny song so that I can be happy again?” So Brad sang her a “tiny” song with his guitar and when he was finished she said very enthusiastically “daddy, I am all better now, I am happy! You made me happy!” Brad said this made up for all the times he feels like his guitar talent is for nothing. Of course it is not for nothing we all love it Brad!

Ayden came up to me the other day with a very sultry look and her eyes half shut with a wisp of hair in front of her eye and she said “mommy, pretend you are a prince and you go like this to my hair” as she very sweetly swept the hair off her eye. Then very matter of factly said “that is what princes do huh mommy?”

She is really into Peter Pan these days. I think it is because it offers her everything she wants, pirates, a pretty girl, a boy who flies, fairies etc. Ayden LOVES pirates and always has but she is starting to get into the more girly princes/fairy thing too (thus previous paragraph). So Peter Pan has it all. She is also always pretending she is someone else lately. So all day on Friday and Saturday she was Wendy, Brad was peter pan and I was tinker bell. If we called her Ayden she became very upset and corrected us very quickly. Brad even tried teasing her and told her that I was Wendy and she was tinker bell and that really upset her and she started crying.

This morning I was helping Ayden wipe herself on the toilet and very concerned she said “mom, don’t flush me down the toilet, OK? If you flush me down the toilet you will only have one kid left named Alex and I will be all gone.”

One time when I was vacuuming Ayden said “don’t vacuum me up, mommy, because daddy will be so sad.” (btw…Alex LOVES being vacuumed by the dust buster, kinda gross, I know.)


Ayden’s favorite song is “Accidentally in Love” by the Counting Crows because it is the Shrek 2 song and that is her favorite movie. I know we are bad parents for letting her watch it but she loves it. She always has Brad play it on his Guitar and sing it and she knows a lot of the words and sings along. One of Brad’s favorite things that she does is the runs around the house singing the part that says “come on come on jump a little higher, come on come…” and every time she says jump she skips. (a little Alex side note: Alex loves when Brad plays this song too and it is so cute because she tries to dance on her hands and knees and she crawls in circles over and over.)

Sometimes when Ayden sees me she says “mom, you’re a babe” and she tells brad “mom’s a babe, huh.”

When Ayden wasn't at all into princesses if anyone called her princess she would say "I'm not a princess, I am a pirate...arrr matey!"