It's great to be 8!

Yesterday was Brenner's big day!  He was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!  I am so proud of him for making this decision and for being such and amazing young man.  He is always so willing to help me and has such a sweet spirit.

His dad performed the baptism.

 We had a lot of family and friends who were able to make it to Brenner's special day.  We want to thank all of them for coming!

 Just thought I'd put another cute picture that I took of him in his suit!

 I love you Brenner!

Family Camping Trip

We used to go on a family camping trip every summer... until Mom got cancer.  Well, she's doing pretty good right now, so Lucas planned another trip for us (and Dad bought a travel trailer for mom to sleep in).

Of course we had to go to the best fishing spot... Lower Bowns.  I confess that we have never really wanted our kids to catch fish.  We don't like them, so we never eat them.  So we have always bought them cheap character fishing poles.  Well, Brenner really likes to fish and he will actually eat it, so maybe it's time to buy him a real pole.  His pole wouldn't go out very far so he only caught one fish.  Legacy was really the fishergirl... she caught way more fish than anyone!

There was a fun red rock hill close by so we went on a little hike.  It was fun and a way to do something a little different.  Joren spent all of his time with Legacy and was on the 4-wheeler with her and grandpa or his dad most of the time.  Terek also loved to ride the 4-wheeler with his dad (not sure why I didn't take any pics).

We had a few tough setbacks the first day (flat tire on the trailer, long wait in Loa to get the trailer fixed, really windy, cold and our pump wouldn't work for our air mattress).  But it ended up turning out to be nice weather and a lot of fun!  (ummm, next time I should take a few more pix.... what has gotten in to me?)

My little grads

We had a couple of fun graduations this past week.  Terek graduated from his first year of preschool.

 They sang a bunch of songs for us and did a program.  I love this song that he sings with the bean bag.

 Terek has loved his teacher, Miss Robyn (Petersen)

 Today Joren graduated from Kindergarten.  Next year he gets to go to school all day!!!  That's going to be a little bit crazy.

 Joren has really loved his teacher, Mrs. Moore!

Thanks to all of the teachers that teach and love my kiddos!

Our Trip to Moab

A couple of weekends ago, we took the kids out of school for a Friday and headed to Moab!!!  Our main purpose was to visit Lucas and Shellie, but it's super awesome that they live in a fun place.

 Their town home complex has a pool, so we got to go swimming a couple of times.  The boys always love swimming.

 Just being outside and enjoying nature is always good.  They have a really awesome playground by a river.

 By the rec center in Moab is a skate park.  The kids loved playing at the skate park.  It wasn't super busy like the one we have in St. George (plus, ours is kind of scary).

 We went to Hold in the Rock.  We didn't go through the house, but the kids picked the petting zoo instead.

 We went on a hike to Bowtie Arch and Corona arch.  It was a great, quick hike.

 Some crazy people were "swinging off of the arch."  Good entertainment.

Hopefully Lucas and Shellie like visitors because we have the perfect place to getaway to.  (Feeling a little guilty about not visiting them in Rock Springs enough).

Oh, and I love my Iphone.  I love the camera on it!  And I love my fun apps... Camera+, Photo Frame and Labelbox!

Eight is Great!!!

I am mailing out official invites, but thought I'd throw this up on the blog so people can plan ahead.

When did....

....this little boy....

....grow up?

Actually, it seems like he's been a big kid forever!  But 8 is such a BIG deal!  No more booster seat....Scouts... and a Baptism!  I am so excited for my big boy to be baptized.

Brenner is such a joy to our family.  He loves to read.  He loves Legos.  And He loves to play with gadgets (ipod, ipad, computer, DS, etc.)  He's super smart and loves school.  I'm starting to get a little idea of what it's going to be like to have 3 teenage boys in the house... cuz this kid can eat!!!

Happy 8th Birthday Brenner!!!

April just flew by...

Blogging is a little underrated... 

Brenner participated in the Evening of the Arts at his school.  The theme was diversity is... so he submitted his Perler Bead art.  "Perler beads are all different and unique, but if they all work together, they can create a beautiful work of art."  He won 2nd place!

The boys participated in about 4 easter egg hunts.    Unfortunately, I only took pictures of 1.

Joren and his teeth.... he had some new permanent teeth starting to come in.  He was way too scared to have me or Ryan pull them out.  For awhile, he had two rows of teeth like a shark.  Eventually he wiggled one enough to pull it out himself.  It just so happened that he had a dentist appt to get some cavities filled.  Since he has to be sedated for dental work, I had the dentist pull out the 2nd one while he was doing the dental work.

Terek had Pet Day at preschool so he got to take Mia to preschool to show his friends.

We love the Kayenta Chalk art Festival.  This year we have been spending a lot of our weekends trying to fix up Granny's house in Kanarraville.  So, we missed the festival.  We headed over Sunday after church to see all of the finished products:)  These are the kids favorites...

Terek learned how to ride his bike without training wheels!!!  We knew he could because of how awesome he is on his scooter!!!  Now he needs to work on starting and stopping better on his own.

Spring has sprung and our garden is starting to produce.  We have lettuce, radishes and our favorite... PEAS!  My boys love them and will often be found over at the garden munching on peas!

We can hope for better blogging in May, but I doubt it!  For more up to date info and pics, follow me on Facebook or Instagram.

Here is our list of things to look for in May... Moab, Brenner's b-day, father's and sons, working on Granny's house, end of school, family camping trip... busy busy days... bring it on!

Miles for Molly

This morning Red Mountain Elementary had a fundraiser/charity race for the daughter of one of the teacher's at the boys' school. Molly is Mrs. Dixon's daughter and she has William's syndrome.

The boys did a one mile tuff kids run and they did it really fast!!!
It was kind of fun to see them with actual racing numbers on:)

Superstar

Joren got to be the superstar in his class on Friday.

I made a poster for him... it could have been better, but I was seriously running out of time. I either need to get a little more organized or not put things off to the last minute... I was a little stressed trying to pull this superstar together, but I think it worked out great in the end.
I told the class a little about Joren. We read a couple of his favorite books. We played a Lego bingo game and Joren got to put the calling cards up on the ELMO in his classroom.

Then we gave the kids all an airhead as their treats! Joren also got to wear a superstar crown and all of the kids in class colored pictures for Joren.

Legoland!

What's spring break without a vacation? We asked the boys if they wanted to go to Legoland or Disneyland and they picked Legoland. So, Monday morning we headed to SoCal!

The first thing they boys wanted to do when we got to the hotel was go swimming. It's a good thing the pool was heated and had a hot tub because it was COLD in California!

After they went swimming, we headed down to the Carlbad beach. We went to dinner at Las Olas... it was a pretty yummy Mexican restaurant.
After dinner, we headed to the beach... I just wanted the boys to see the beach... not really get wet. They headed right down to the water and before we knew it, Joren was up to his waist and Terek was tumbling head over heels in the waves... After I screamed at Ryan to go get him... I took after him myself. I got my pants a little wet, but saved my poor son from being dragged out into the ocean. Our time at the beach was cut short because... California was COLD! If it was warm, he could have kept swimming in his wet clothes:)
Day 2 was spent at LEGOLAND! There were a ton of cool things built out of legos. Animals, people, buildings, etc. The rides were totally for little kids, but fun and they had a blast!
That night we headed out to Ruby's diner at the pier in Oceanside. As you can tell from Joren in the pic... it was COLD in California!
Our 2nd day at Legoland we went on some more rides and then hit the Sea Life Aquarium.
Even though it was COLD, the boys still insisted on going to the waterpark. My excuse for not getting in the water was that I wanted to take pics... it was cold:)
That night we found the local pizza joint called That Pizza Place... it was obviously the popular place in town... a lot of high school sports teams were there. Our pizza was loaded with toppings... my favorite part!
I couldn't just head home Thursday, so we took the long way and headed down to San Diego. We went to the Mormon Battalion Museum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was really cool. The kids loved panning for gold.
I couldn't get over that we couldn't go to the beach, so we headed to Mission Bay Park and went to the playground by the beach. Plus, we needed to get some energy out of our kids:) After the park, we grabbed lunch and headed on our LONG drive home!
Every single night, Joren and Terek went swimming in the hotel pool... I think it was their favorite thing. They had tons of fun. It was great to have Grandma and Grandpa go with us! We had a fun trip! Spring break is almost over and it's back to regular life! I'm thinking it's about time for a trip for just Mommy and Daddy:)

(My pics were all taken with my Iphone... I love my iphone... I used the Camera+ camera for most of the pics. It has a built in Lightbox program to edit the pics. I made my photo collages with the Photo Frame app. And, I love sharing them on Instagram)