Gavin and Brett Sports 2016

Gavin and Brett love playing soccer and have done pretty well. I think they really like soccer because it is so fast paced....

On the other hand they DO NOT like baseball, but were pretty good and looked so darn cute doing it! On this particular day they decided to do the war paint...haha. 

Gavin and Cammi's Birthday--Gavin gets Baptized!!

So much went on during Gavin's birthday month! And yes we pretty much celebrated all month long. We tried not to leave Cammi Cake out but she didn't notice and was just happy to get some cake:)

Gavin is such a great big brother to her and plays so gentle with her and lets her win their "wrestling matches".

At 2 years old Cammi didn't talk too much, but she had no problem letting us know what she wanted. She is so girl and loves to wear dresses every day. 

Gavin got a BB gun that lasted a whole week so we will wait a year or two to get him another gun. lol.

Cammi enjoyed her princess house until the boys completely destroyed it 9 months after her 2nd birthday. lol. Dang kids.

After years and years of waiting for his turn, Gavin was baptized and confirmed by his dad. He had his Papa Owens give the talk about baptism and he had me and Grammy bare our testimony after the baptism part of the program. He had most of his Aunts and Uncles there and they enjoyed hearing Gavin recite the 4th article of faith after the other kids being baptized were not able to do it. 

The Member of the Bishopbric Eric Anderson was presiding and he told me after the whole thing that all of a sudden during the baptism he felt Grandpa and Grandpa Greer were there and he could feel their presence even though he never even knew them. It was very touching and made me shed a tear or two because of how badly I wanted them to be there.

We then had a family and friends party at the park afterwards where we had Pizza and Subs (Gavin's favorite) and several games.

The game that Gavin was most excited about was the human pinata. I glued a ton of candy onto a shirt for Gavin and a shirt for Jared to wear. The kids had a great time chasing them around the field trying to tear off the candy to put in their goody bag. 

It was hilarious!!!

Lots of fun gifts from everybody 

Since all of my siblings were there we of course had to take a picture. I look lovely at 8 months preggo.

Gavin was able to attend the Owens Annual Quail Hunt and did fairly well. I said fairly well because he got super hot and wanted to sit in the air conditioning truck, but then he got out and locked the keys in the truck and had to have a fireman come and get it unlocked. haha. Oh and he also broke his bb gun because he put the bb's in wrong. 😟

I love these pictures💗💗

A couple weeks after he was baptized we were able to get tickets to general conference and take Gavin by himself while the other 2 kids were left at Kristals house. It really was such a memorable time to be able to spend some quality time with Gavin. He is such a happy and positive boy and we loved just hanging out with him for a couple days.

Ready to pop...😳

He was so excited to be in the same room as the prophet and was really good through the whole thing!

Here are some pictures of a little photo shoot for his baptism invitations....

He is going to be a great missionary someday!

😍😍😍

Such a goofy boy!

Gavin, every time I turn around you are growing out of clothes and shoes and I wished it would stop!! I always tell you to stop growing but when I do, you give me that cheeky smile and say "too bad mom, I can't stop". I hope you will remember and enjoy This special time in your life as much as we do. I love you Gavin and am thankful you are part of the family. Please stay goofy, smart, positive and handsome just like you are today. Your little testimony amazes me and I know you will do great things with your life. We love you. 💗 Love Mom and Dad

Back To School 2016-2017

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I know this is a year late, but I saw that I had this post still in draft form and thought I would send it out into the virtual world for me to enjoy at a later point in time:)

So Gavin headed off to 3rd grade with Mrs. Holmgren and had a fantastic year! So much better than 2nd grade! His teacher was able to understand Gavin at a whole new level and was able to contact me and let me know of little things for Gavin to work on...like personal space and his failing reading grade. Yes I said that right. The kid who read books to his pre-school class was going to be failing reading. After talking with her for a while, I realized that Gavin was hurrying through his tests(Which are 60% of his grade), to read a book(Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a favorite). So the teacher and I corroborated and decided to take away his reading privilege to help him take his time on his tests and not to hurry through them in order to read. Sure enough, he not only brought up that grade to an A by the end of the year, but brought up his other grades to all A's! I promised him a steak dinner and I just made good on the promise a couple weeks ago😃 

During 3rd grade Gavin went from a size 10 pants to a size 12 pants and outgrew those before the end of the school year. He gained 13 pounds to weigh 100 lbs and 4'11'' inches tall. Remember he is only 8 years old!!! What a growing boy! I love his kind heart and cheeky smile. I love his positivity and despise his laziness. haha. It's ok, We are working on that.💗

These boys are still wild and crazy as ever and are teaching their younger sister their ways. Cammi just loves her older brothers and the love is reciprocated. I'm glad she will always have her brothers there to protect her throughout her life. 

Brett started full day kindergarten with Mrs. Lee and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. He can be pretty difficult at times and I was just hoping that he could somehow contain it at school. 

When I went in for the parent teacher conference the first quarter of school the teacher not only told me that he was a joy to have in her class but that he did not have one mean bone in his body!! 😲 Whuh?!? I was so happy to learn that she didn't really have anything bad to say about him and that she just loved the jokes he would play on her and the way he would help other kids and make everyone laugh. I was so proud and so happy that he was doing so well. I would get a kick out of the cute little stories she would tell me every time I saw her. She just loved Brett and his shenanigans. 

Brett doesn't grow as rapidly as Gavin but during kindergarten he was a size 6-8 and weighed 50 lbs and 52ish inches tall. I love Brett's willingness to help me when I need something and his ever inquiring mind. I could do without his potty mouth, but we have and will continue to work on that.😏

Summer 2016-End of School Year, Fun With Cousins, Fourth of July, Aunt Joan Funeral

Brett had a little preschool graduation party at the end of the year and as you can tell he was pumped! He learned so much and was definitely ready to go to kindrgarten.

As I posted earlier, Gavin had a rough year with his teacher and so needless to say, he was so ready for school to be over, and so was I!! 

I took these pictures as he was walking home from the bus stop after his last day of school. 

I watched Kristal's two youngest girls, Sophie and Allie for 5 days while she and Jason went to New York on a vacation. I was happy to watch them because Kristal hasn't been on a vacation in their marriage for like 12 years!! Ridiculous right?!?

Since it was so hot we had to be outside, playing in the water...

Boys vs. Girls...

I took them to the Verde river two different times and they had a blast!

This girl wasn't a huge fan of the ice cold water but she had enough fun playing around....

Then we went to Camp Verde to an awsome swimming hole with my friend Katie Anderson from Cottonwood

Both Gavin and Sophie jumped off this cliff. I told him not to even think about jumping and without me knowing, he had already done it twice. :/ 

                                                  

Cammi loved having some other girls around:)

I took them to the movies...

And we had a water balloon fight at the park...

The cousins had a great time even though Brett and Allie pretty much hated each other and didn't get along at all. haha. Hopefully they will grow out of it...soon...

Independence Day Celebration!

We got to be in 3 parades over the weekend to help Roger get elected to County Supervisor. The kids had a great time, but it was such an exhausting weekend!

Cammi of course being so stinking cute!

We were also invited to a pre-fireworks party with the Balthrops in our ward in Payson. They had a beautiful yard for the kids to run around and play in.

I was pretty impressed with Payson's fireworks and know that we will make it a tradition to be there to watch them from now on. 

Just before the 4th of July my Aunt Joan Boughan passed away (my mom's older sister) so we traveled down to Tucson to be there for it. They were so great to come visit my mom while she was sick and battling her cancer and so even though it was a quick trip, I was glad we could go.

So while Jared was working his tail off at work, I took Brooke with me to go to Sun Splash and try to beat the heat. All the kids had a blast and didn't want to leave.