God Bless America.......

This year we took the family up to Estes Park to celebrate the 4th of July!! We had a great time, we got up there early set up a little picnic and then went into town for some Estes ice cream, slide, and go carts. The firework show was awsome turned out to be a great 4th of July!!



While Waiting for the fireworks to start we celebrated with sparklers and got all decked out in our glow in the dark necklaces and braclets.

The Kids fav was the big Slide!!


We even got Grandma on the go carts :)

Land That I Love

Dance Recital 2011

Billboard #1 Hits

Kaydra this year was in 4 dances. She danced ballet to "Hotel California" jazz to "Heartbreaker" and Hip Hop to "Jump" and new this year she did Ballroom she learned her first cha cha to "Fireflies" it was soo cute. I think her favorite this year was hip hop!!

Brooklyn was in 3 dances this year. She danced ballet to a piano version of "All the Small Things" her jazz dance was to "Material Girl" it was soooo Brookyn she got to be sassy wearing a pink sparkely dress and she did a hip hop dance to "Hangin Tough"

Today Kaydra bore her first testimony in church. I have mixed feelings about letting kids bare their testimonies, maybe some of you can give me your feelings on this, but we have been talking about testimonies alot with her because this year she will be baptized!!! To get her ready for this I just asked her how she feels when we go go church? I asked how she feels when we pray or have family home evening or read our scriptures. She said she felt like none of these were bad things the church is asking us to do and I feel good when we do it and I told her that was the beginning of her Testimony. She got up today and said "I know this church is true. I know God lives. I know my mom and dad love me." It was very sweet and talking about testimonies and baring ours to her has helped strengthen mine. I am so thankful for our church and the way it teaches us to live!! Love you Kaydra

A Trip Under the Sea!

The kids, Steph and I took a trip down to the Aquarium. The kids were so excited!!

When we first got there, there were all these bubbles in the air, kids probably would have been happy just staying and playing in the bubbles all day.

We had such a good day, but there were definitely some highlights. One of our favorite parts was feeding and petting the sting rays. Kaydra was the only brave one to feed them and Deker pretty much just wanted to splash in the water but they were so fun like little puppy dogs wanting to be pet.

This was Drakes highlight of the day, seeing Sharks. He thought they were "so cool"

Mystic MERMAIDS!

And of course the girls's highlight was the Mermaids. They put on a little 20 min show and then let the girls take pictures with them. Brooklyn was in Heaven.

So one thing we have started this year is...

celebrating each and every holiday no matter how small

with FOOD!!!

One of my favorites was Valentines Day. Emily and I had a mystery dinner for the fam. It was soo much fun. Each food item or utensil had a code name like "puppy love" which is crush soda or "Cold Shoulder" was ice cream. Each person ordered 3 items so some got a fork with spagetti sauce and icecream. It was so funny, kids really got a kick out of it! We also had so much fun with St. Patricks Day. Kids woke up to find the Leprechan had hidden all of their green clothes for school and they had to go on a scavenger hunt to find them and the pot of gold :) That night we had a fun dinner with Emily and her kiddos Wearing Green!!!!

And then of course April Fools day. I tricked the kids and made little meatloaf muffins and put mashed potatoes on top that looked like icing and then the dessert looked like chicken nuggets ketchup, peas and carrots and mashed potatoes, when really it was cheesecake nuggets rolled in graham crackers with strawberry sauce as the ketchup and ice cream with carmel sauce that looked like mashed potatoes with gravey. I also set the table underneath the table. The kids thought it was pretty funny especially when they thought they were getting dessert first.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY dRAkE

Drake turned 3 on August 22nd!!!

Drake's favorite color is Blue

His best friend is his cousin Taiden

He loves playing with any and all superheros

His favorite superhero is Spiderman

Drake's favorite food is everything!!

We love you Drake!!

We're going to the Zoo

How about you

Any Resemblance????

On Brooklyn's Birthday we were able to go to the Omaha Zoo. It was so fun to be with all the cousins. Sure it was a million degrees and for some reason the entire zoo seemed to be uphill, but the good news is us adults were able to sweat off 10lbs while pushing around all these kiddos.

Did I mention we had to push uncle Cortney around too in a wheelchair. He had just had knee surgery

There were a total of 12 children with us so as you can imagine it was hard to keep track of them all. We tried the buddy system but somewhere in the mix my little Brooklyn on here birthday go lost. We were all frantically running trying to find her when one of the workers picked me up in a little golf cart and drove me to her ( yes she was that far away) We both ran to eachother tears in our eyes. Poor little thing was crying and scared. The only good part was she got a free icecream out of the deal which pretty much made it all worth it to her, me on the other hand wouldn't let her go the rest of the day soooo scary!!