She's 3 years old!

Sarah's third birthday was a FANTASTIC day! Mark and I stayed up late decorating so she could wake up to streamers and balloons.

 

We had Sarah's favorite breakfast--Pancakes and sausage.

 

She got to open her Leapster. She's been asking for it for months.

 

The girls spent most of the morning playing with it.

 

Spencer spent most of the morning chasing the balloons.

I spent the rest of my morning working on this.

Spence spent the rest of his morning cleaning up after me.

After some much needed naps, we headed to Chuck e Cheese and played.


After dinner, we finally ate the cake and finished opening presents. Needless to say, we were all exhausted by the end of the day.

Tea for two!

 

We found this great little place that serves delicious lunches. They cater to little children by bringing them their own teapots and teacups, fancy boas, and hats. We met some friends there last week. The girls could not stop talking about it the rest of the week.

The things I do...

just to save a buck. It's no secret, I can be quite frugal. Yes, I want a lot of things, but having a healthy saving account is more important for me. Today was "cow appreciation day" at Chick fil A. It was a bit chaotic but we all had a blast. You just can't beat free combo meals and kids meals. All we had to do was dress like a cow.

Happy Forever.

Not too long ago, I wrote that I would be "happy forever" if I could have a minivan. Mark picked up on that and told me that I had to be "happy forever" now. Well, happiness come pretty easily these days and not just because of the minivan. I'm posting some pictures of our 4th of July. It was a fantastic--family-filled--day. We started the morning off in a neighborhood bike parade. Then we gorged ourselves on popsicles and hot dogs. We spent the afternoon playing at the park and swimming at Mark's brother's house. After our delicious barbequed dinner, we played softball. We finished the night with ice cream, swimming and fireworks.

 

 

 

 

The Party

We had a great time at Mark's birthday party. The girls made him several cards and we hid them in places he would find them throughout the day. We invited our family over for cake, ice cream and Rock Band. It really was a great day.

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday...

to the best (and goofiest) husband and dad in the world.

 

Funny Story!
Mark teaches the 10 year old primary class. He was surprised when he was called up to the front of the room for the primary to sing him "Happy Birthday". Later he asked the presidency how they found out it was his birthday. Well, one of the teachers informed him that she was sitting in junior primary when one of the children reached over and wiped a booger on her skirt.

The teacher said,"Don't wipe the booger on my skirt. Give it to your dad for his birthday."

The child says, "It is my dad's birthday and I have a lot more boogers in the other side to give him."

As you can guess, the booger wiping child was Avery and she told them it was Mark's birthday.

YAY for Avery telling about Mark's birthday.

BOO for the public booger wiping.

Dear IRS,

We are not sorry that our communications have ceased (for now). We want you to know how wrong we felt it was that our family and our measly income was worthy of an audit. However, without too much complaint, we spent 10 months of our lives preparing and submitting documents and information to prove we did not lie on our tax returns.

We even had a baby during the process.

Ah well! What's done is done. We appreciate the letter you FINALLY sent us stating most formally that we were off the hook. Oh how those words, "We are please to inform you we did not make any changes to the tax reported on you return" bring such joy to our lowly hearts. Now if you would please--LEAVE US ALONE!

Sincerely,
Mark and Lake Rhodes

Please Note: If you decide to "review" any more of our returns we may consider some of these helpful tips next time...

HOW TO ANNOY THE IRS
(Without Getting In Trouble!)

1. Always put staples in the right hand corner. Go ahead and put them down the whole right side. The extractors who remove the mail from the envelopes have to take out any staples on the right side.

2. Never arrange paperwork in the right order, or even facing the right way. Put a few upside down and backwards. That way they have to remove all your staples, rearrange your paperwork and re-staple it (on the left side).

3. Line the bottom of your envelope with Elmer's glue and let it dry before you put in you forms, so that the automated opener doesn't open it and the extractor has to open it by hand.

4. If you're very unfortunate and have to pay taxes, use a two or three party check. On top of paying with a third party check, pay one of the dollars you owe in cash. When an extractor receives cash, no matter how small an amount, s/he has to take it to a special desk and fill out of few nasty forms.

5. Write a little letter of appreciation. Any letter received has to be read and stamped regardless of what it is or what it's on.

6. Write your letter on something misshapen and unconventional. Like on the back of a Kroger sack.

7. When you mail it, mail it in a big envelope (even if its just a single EZ form). Big envelopes have to be torn and sorted differently than regular business size ones. An added bonus to the big envelope is that they take priority over other mail, so the workers can hurry up and deal with your mess.

8. If you send two checks, they'll have to staple your unsightly envelope to your half destroyed form.

9. Always put extra paper clips on your forms. Any foreign fasteners or the like have to be removed and put away.

10. Sign your name in ink on every page. Any signature has to be verified and then date stamped.
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