These are a few of my favorite things

I am so blessed! I'm very thankful to be a mother, and to have the children I have. They teach me so much, and make me laugh everyday. I love them so much. We've had November off from school so we went to Phoenix to visit Aunt Katie and Uncle Steve. We took some pictures while we were there, and it made me realize one thing: my babies are growing up way too fast! and I need to take more pictures- they change as they grow ;)

Back to School

I'm thankful for my kids' school and the fantastic teachers and staff. I do feel a little bad for them starting in the beginning of august when it is still 115 degrees outside but they were way excited.

Especially this little guy who started kindergarten this year (see he can hardly contain his excitement)


And Hannah's in 2nd grade. She grew 2 sizes this summer. I had to buy all new school clothes because the ones that I bought too big last year were too small!


Which brings us to my big tough 3rd grader who really didn't want to smile for the pictures. why do they have to get so "cool"?
I can't believe they are growing up so fast. Becca wanted to go too, but thankfully I have a few more years with her before she's ready!

It's gonna be a great year!

Summertime!

Soooo i have given up on completely updating our blog, but since it's the new school year I thought I would just jump back in where we are. Here is a quick review of the summer. We did basically nothing! It was nice and relaxing, but I have to say the kids (and Mom) were definitely ready for school to start.
The highlight of the summer was Grandma getting a pool! My kids went from being afraid of the deep end to diving and swimming the length of the pool in a matter of days. we might even do swim team next year beacause they love the water so much


this is before the pool was even filled all the way. My camera was pretty much MIA this summer so these are the only pics I have of the pool

We also escaped to the Hualapais for a picnic with cousins. Grandma and Grandpa were watching my fantastic SIL's kids while her hubby took her on a surprise trip to Mexico for their anniversary. **HINT HINT Kerry! Trips to Mexico are always a good present***

My kids have so much fun with their cousins especially Hannah and Sophee. those 2 are peas in a pod always posing or dancing when the camera comes out.




and I had to say goodbye to another really great friend. Jamie, I miss you tons already! We really had some good times. I told Kerry that if my friends would just stop leaving me it would save him a ton of money on pedicures.


So that and a lot of Mario Kart was pretty much our summer.
This cutie pie turns 1 next week and still has no interest in walking, but really why bother when you have so many people willing to carry you around?

Can you guess what I'm excited for?

Funny kids may 2010

1. Jared: (to Kerry's assistant while she cleans his teeth) "My dad works here. Do you know him? His name is Kerry."
2. Zach: (while playing family fued with Mom answering the question Name something people do to help them go to sleep) "How about a nightcap? that's what I do."
3. Hannah: (after the pediatric dentist put a stainless steel crown on her tooth) "Mom, check out my bling!"
4.Kerry's assitant: "You have little teeth Jared." Jared: "No, they are baby teeth."
5. Hannah: "I know Daddy doesn't like them, but I'm gonna buy my husband a motorcycle...and then he will buy me a motorcycle...and then we will ride them together."

A little catch up

So I am working on catching up my blog. It's been awhile! Not much has changed. My kids are growing up much faster than I would like, Becca is already army crawling, and I haven't had diet coke (or any caffeine for that matter) since January when I lost a stupid bet! I have updated the blog from November to January. Read on to see all I posted. I still have February til now to do I'm hoping to get all caught up by tomorrow, but we'll see.

Goin Shootin'

So some of my other favorite people, Mindie and Gordon Baxter took us shooting before they moved to big, bad, stinkin far away St George (but I'm not bitter about them moving at all hee hee). It was a lot of fun and I have found a new fun way to get rid of pent up anger. Thanks Gordo for teaching me some stuff and for showing me how dangerous I am with a loaded weapon! Here are some fun pictures of us.

Vegas Baby

We went to Las Vegas for a quick weekend after New Year's with a couple of our favorite people. Kerry's brother, Kory, and his wife, Andrea. It was lots of fun. We walked the stip, took Kerry to see the pawn shop from one of his favorite shows, saw Lance Burton (booo by the way), even did a little gambling- and I mean a little!
Here are some pics:

December

I'm skipping December, I may or may not come back to it later. It was fun and busy.

Daddy's girls

Yep he's pretty lucky:

Soccer...or lack therof

SO soccer was fun for the most part. I wish I had taken more pictures. Zach really improved his ball handling skills and always wanted to play goalie,


and Hannah learned to be aggressive thanks to a fantastic coach who taught her girls can be tough,


and Jared...well what can we say about Jared?

He looked cute in his uniform. Most Saturdays Kerry and I would rock paper scissors to see who would have to go to his game. He was only there for the orange slices. He did score one goal the last game of the season, but as I was cheering like crazy for him, he tells me "Mom, it was for the wrong team." Yeah he scored a goal in the wrong goal and he knew it. Oh well...maybe we'll try something different next year.
o and here's the best cheerleader ever:

Zach's Baptism

Our Zachary was baptized November 13, 2009. We are so proud of him for making this choice. We are thankful for all of the wonderful family and friends who were able to attend and especially for those who participated in the program

The "other" blog

so since this blog is private and all about my family, I decided to make my other blog the public one. I started it awhile ago just for fun as a place to just write whatever random things I felt like, but now I am trying to improve myself a little (I know scary) so I want that blog to be a place to post any positive step I make in that direction. I'm not promising anything, though- I mostly just wanted a place i could link to enter contests other blogs have. So if you read this blog and have been missing the links to other fun blogs that I used to have (ahem...Andrea) then go check out my other blog where I switched them all to. Did that even make sense?

http://justanotherprocrastination.blogspot.com/

p.s. I really am going to update this blog soon, I promise o and I have a link to my other blog down below.

V-Day

So I know that I am soooo behind in blogging, but I wanted to get this posted while I have a minute. Last night We had a valentine's party with a bunch of friends. It was so much fun! I got the idea from my friend, Kendra's, blog who did it a few years ago.

So we all met at my house, where I read the guys the rules, took their wallets, gave them their uniforms

and sent them on their way. they had to follow the clues using keys that they each had on their keyrings,
here they were supposed to shoot free throws (pretty sure they didn't)

(the clue was in Rod's mailbox)


They also had to complete certain tasks like:
1. buy your wife a present using only the funds provided- we gave them a bunch of change, they went to the dollar store & came back with some interesting choices.



And I'm not sure how thrilled the people working at the dollar store were with 9 guys in matching shirts paying for stuff with pennies!



2. obtain flowers for your wife without spending any money. I was impressed with the creativity! Some of the guys brought flowers they had picked from somewhere, and some of the guys brought flour from the kitchen. I didn't get pictures of the flowers as most of them didn't make it through the night.

3. At one stop they had to make us a card with my SIL's stamp collection.

There were some very nice cards. Our boys are mucho talented! Maybe Shannon can talk Rob into sharing his poem.

After they got back, we gave them the candy bouquets each wife had made while the guys were gone

and then ate dinner made by my fabulous friends, Jamie and Jenni! Thanks again you guys! And we watched a slideshow of every couples pictures set to every couple's songs. It was so fun to see everyone's pics from when they were dating or first married. Let's just say fashion and hairstyles have come a long way! Here are some of my favs (better to ask forgiveness rather than permission, right?)


After the slideshow we played "How well do you know your wife?" kinda like the Newlywed game. While the boys were gone, we asked each girl 5 questions and then videotaped her answers. Then we asked each husband the same questions and played his wife's answers to see if they matched. Great questions, fabulous answers, but my fav part was watching my sweet hubby's struggle with not wanting to answer cuz he gets embarrassed easy and wanting to answer cuz he wanted to win. So fun- and I learned a LOT about my friends, maybe too much in some cases! Congratulations to Josh and Jamie who were 5 for 5.

I am so thankful to have such fantastic friends to have so much fun with. Thanks everyone for coming, I had a blast! And thanks all you hubbies for being such good sports.


Here are the girls in their cute shirts:

Here are our "gifts" from the guys

***okay I realize I did not put the pics of the couples up yet. Hubby wants to take me out for valentine's so I will add them tonight or tomorrow***