St George Trip

My sister Kacie lives in St George, so I decided to take the kids and go visit her for a few days the first week of June. So we left dad home so he could go to work and headed to where it was summer.

We cannot go anywhere without checking out their Dinosaur museum. This is actually a place where a whole bunch of dinosaur tracks have been found. My niece was pretty disappointed that there were no skeletons anywhere. She told her dad that night, "We went to a dinosaur museum that had no dinosaurs!"

We also went to the splash park at the town square. I love that they had this and that it was FREE!!!! The kids had a blast!




Cambree and Brielle sneaking chips. These girls had a lot of fun together!

I'm grateful to my sister and her husband for letting us come and crash at their place. It was such a good week! The kids were grateful to get away to somewhere new for a few days (even if we did have to drive 6 hours to get there!) and I loved being able to visit with my sister, staying up late into the night talking. I miss all my sisters so much and wish they lived closer!

Also apologies for the poor quality of the pictures. I left my camera home, so these are all from my phone, which doesn't take the greatest pictures.

What's Missing in This Picture?

Yep, that's right! Tyson lost his 2 front teeth. I hate everything having to do with loose teeth and teeth falling out. It grosses me out to no end. But I love the little toothless grins that are produced! So I must take pictures to document this oh so sweet precious childhood look!

Baseball and Tball 2011

We had 2 boys of summer this year. Tyson played pitching machine league and Brennen (finally) played Tball.
Tyson had his first year of pitching machine and he had a great time! He had an awesome coach who really worked with the boys on fundamentals and the basics of the game. He was on the Pirates team.

His coaches wife did team pictures.
This is my favorite picture of Tyson. He just looks so dang cute!

This is Tyson's favorite one because he says he looks tough!

This is his team picture. I love that Coach Troy dressed as a real pirate! He is so much fun!

Each boy got the chance to play catcher at least once. Here is Tyson taking his turn. He said he didn't really like it that much though!

Batting. He actually hit the ball really well when he would watch the ball!

Way to hustle after it!

Baseball ready!

Brennen finally got to play tball after watching his brothers play all these years! Of course he was most excited about getting treats at the end, but can you blame him?
Brennen at the bat!

I'm amazed that we got such a good shot of him catching the ball because usually in the outfield.....

He was doing this.......

or this.

But this picture really captures the reason I love watching my kids play sports!
Yes!!!!!

May 2011

May has been a busy month in our house (and I'm sure everyone else's too!) The month started with our cousin Hillary's wedding in the Orrqurih Mountain temple. For soem reson, my kids think that dancing is an essential part of any good wedding, so they started some impromptu dancing of their own.

Aubree and Kaden

Cambree being not a happy camper having to wear a dress and a flower.

Tyson and cousin Crystal

Brennen and cousin Karlee (aka Bugga. Brennen will not believe me that her real name is Karlee)

Tyson had his spring program for Musical Mustangs. He and his buddy Kaleb were so excited to sit together and be "cowboy fish."

Silly Pose!

I put sponge rollers in Aubree's hair on Sat nights to get her hair curly for church on Sunday. Cambree decided that she didn't want to be left out.

Brennen had preschool graduation. This is a stressful night for me, as I am the teacher, so I make Bruce video tape it so I can go back and watch it as a parent. He has come so far in preschool this year, and I'm excited to get him going next year!

For Cub Scout Pack meeting in May, we had the Cub Olympics. These are the cookie medals that we made for treats. 751 is our Pack number. I have really enjoyed my calling as Cub Master.

I got to go to school with Tyson on the last day of school. He wrote a story about his year in 1st grade and got to read it to his class. His Teacher, Miss Eberhard, is in the background. She was an amazing teacher for Tyson.

Tyson set a goal at the beginning of the year to get perfect attendance so he could stand on the stage on the last day of school. I told him if he reached that goal, I would take his picture and post it on the blog. So here he is getting his perfect attendance award. I am so proud of him for setting that goal and acheiving it!

Brennen and Cambree swinging at East Elementary. They have been such troopers through all the craziness. I sure do love these little munchkins!

Star Wars Party

I think the whole birthday party thing is getting out of control! I love birthdays way too much! Kaden wanted a Star Wars birthday party this year, so this is what we did.

We had about 15 kids that came, mostly boys. As they came, they made their "lightsabers". I bought pipe insulation and wrapped the end in duct tape. Then I had colored tape that they could use to decorate their light sabers.

After all the light sabers were ready, we had lightsaber training. Each child had a balloon that they had to keep in the air using only their light sabers. This got a little tricky when the wind picked up, but it was still fun! Then they each picked a partner and had a duel. The only rule was only light sabers could hit light sabers. No hitting people on purpose.

After light saber training, we had blaster training. Each "padawon" was given a blaster and had to use it to shoot at pictures of different star wars villans. Each villan was worth a different amount of points. The kids probably could have just played water guns for the rest of the party and been happy. They had a lot of fun with those.

Next I divided them into teams and had each team build a death star with chalk. Then they had to use their blasters to destroy the other team's death star.

The original plan was to use water balloons, for bombs, but I ran out of time to fill the water balloons. It would have worked better to use water balloons, because the kids got frustrated with how slow it was.

Next they had to free Han Solo from Carbonite. I froze little army men in blocks of ice, and they had to get them out however they could.

We then took a food break and went to the Cantina for Jabba Hut pizza and Yoda Soda. They could choose to have their Yoda Soda with or without Dagobah Sludge (lime sherbet.)

Next we had training with Master Yoda. I set up an obstacle course they had to complete with Yoda on their backs. They had to battle the Storm troopers (buckets with pictures of Storm troopers they had to kick over.)

Fly their fighter into a black hole ( a frisbee with a picture of a star fighter on it they had to throw into a bucket).

Make it across the lava planet ( a red tablecloth with paper plates for stepping stones.)

Finally they were ready for battle. I made a Darth Maul pinata by buying a Spiderman pinata and spray painting it black, then taping Darth Maul's face to it. It turned out pretty creepy. The little girls I was tending that morning were pretty freaked out.

They were blind folded so they had to use the force to fight Darth Maul. It worked out perfect because the last boy to have a turn was the one who broke it open.

We ended by eating light saber cupcakes. The boys got to take home their light sabers, blasters, and all the candy they got from the pinata.
Kaden said that it was his best party ever ands thanked me for being the most awesome birthday mom! That's why I do these crazy parties. It is worth it to see my kids so happy and to be the most awesome birthday mom!

Kaden's Birthday

Kaden's Birthday was pretty much a party all weekend. His birthday fell on a Sunday, so we had his friend party on Friday. On Saturday we went out to see my sister Larissa's new baby and he went shopping to spend all his birthday money and out to dinner. Then Sunday was his actual birthday. It was also ward conference that day and the Stake President invited the bishopric over that evening for dessert and socializing, so everyone there sang to him too. What a fun weekend!

Blowing out his candles.

His Star Wars cake.

Opening presents. He got an Air Hog Chopper and a Star Wars Transformer.
I cannot believe it has been 10 years since he was born. Where has all the time gone? Kaden is a great kid; he is just naturally good. He always does the right thing, not because we want him to, but because it is the right thing to do. I don't know if that made any sense, but I really don't know how to explain it. He is also so kind and is always concerned about everyone's feelings. He doesn't like it when people are being picked on and stands up for others. His teacher this year always commented on the amount of integrity he has and how unusual that was for a 4th grader. He is a straight A student, especially excelling in science. Happy Birthday Kaden! We love you!