Memorial Day Weekend

On Saturday May 28th we decided to go boating with some good friends.  The kids and I left the house at 7:30am to be there early enough to enjoy the nice weather.  When we were about 15 minutes from the lake I got a call saying the wind was too terrible to water ski.  Sam and Q had gone out on the lake and it was awful.  So they loaded up the boat and we changed our plans.  We went to a reservoir close to their house to just hang out on the beach instead.  It was so much fun!!!

Kory brought his canoe and the kids LOVED IT!  He also brought a knee board and 4 wheeler to pull the kids along the shallow part of the beach.

Little miss Ella made me a little crazy.   Super sensitive skin (not used to that),  lots of sand EVERYWHERE (mouth, diaper, snacks), and she's not walking yet!  Next year will be a little easier with that munchkin!

We packed up in the early afternoon because the wind became TERRIBLE.  But not before we took a few family photos on the beach.  Then we headed to the Bodily's house to swim in their pool and cruise down the zip line.

Swasey's

Bodily's

Aikele's

Stormo's

On the hour drive home the little ones fell asleep in the back.  Mia watched a movie on my iPod, but had to put her shorts on her head to keep the earbuds in her ears.  So creative!  It was a wonderful day!

Kellan's Baby Shower

My very beautiful and talented friend Kelly, had a new baby boy about a month ago.  Kellan Patrick is absolutely gorgeous!  She recently moved about 30 minutes south of us, so we don't get to see each other as often as I'd like.  That being said, Kristen and I decided to throw her a baby shower/ going away party/ birthday party, to let her know how much we love and miss her.  What do you get a Mom who is the mother of 3 boys???  That was the big question.  So we decided to give Kelly a BOOK shower to help their family library grow a little larger!

We had an ice cream bar with a storybook theme and it was so much fun to put together.  

4 flavors of ice cream...

And tons of toppings!

Story book decor

And amazing weather!

Kelly and Kellan

 
 

Primary's Got Talent

Back By Popular Demand...

Last year's "Primary's Got Talent" primary activity was such a huge success, we decided to do it again.  As if May weren't already busy enough!  But we managed to squeeze it in on Friday May 20th.  

We got these awesome snack containers online and they were so wonderful at keeping the kids snacks in one spot. Inside we filled it with Popcorn, licorice, M&M's and a drink.  

 Krista and Lyndsie took pictures of all the kids and posted them on the "Wall of Fame".

Mia and her friends were the first performance.  They did a dance to Jailhouse Rock.  Mia is on the far right.  I tried to load the video of the dance, but for some reason it wouldn't work.  Oh well.  Trust me... it was great!

Luke's talent was my favorite.  He sang the Alphabet song.  I love it how he ends with "Next time won't you sing with Youuuuuu".  So cute!

Cole displayed a Lego creation for his talent.  He's not really one for getting up on stage.

Last year the presidency performed a silly hoedown dance.  We weren't sure what to do this year because we didn't have time to practice, so Kristen came up with this funny last minute idea.  Remember doing this as a kid?  Draw the eyes on the chin and hang upside down so that you can look like a really creepy baby?  Yea...good fun.
Well, that's what we did.  We scrambled back stage to stuff 4 baby sleepers, shove our hair into them, and draw eyes on our chins.  With the curtains closed we just kind of laid on the stage and slid our bodies to the end, doing our best to avoid falling off.  We thought we'd hear kids laughing or some sort of noise, but NOTHING.  Dead silence until the music started ("Baby Baby Baby" by Justin Bieber), at which point we couldn't hear a thing but the loud music.  And we couldn't see anything with those darn sleepers on our heads, so we just swung our heads around with the music (because no... I don't know the words to the song).  After about two choruses I was getting so dizzy and confused, with all the blood rushing to my head.  So I drug my body across the stage and under the curtain again.  Lyndsie joined me, along with Laurie, but I guess Kristen didn't get the memo.  Dye hard Kristen was perservering to the end of the song, until Laurie grabbed her leg and pulled her under the curtain.
Then we just started asking each other "That was fun, right?"  and "They liked it, right?"  We couldn't tell.

Well, I guess those poor little primary kids sitting up front were so confused by what they saw.  And a little freaked out!  Mutant babies with weird shaped heads dancing to Justin Bieber... yea, that's a tremendous talent!
After it was all over we went to CiCi's Pizza for dinner, and Kristen and I were laughing so hard that we both started crying.  Makes great memories.

Soccer Practice

Every week we get the pleasure of going to soccer practice for two hours straight.  Cole's practice is from 5:30 to 6:30, and Mia's is from 6:30 until 7:30.  Cole loves it (Mia is luke warm about it), but it's great to get outside in the nice weather as a family.  Although I have to admit, the little ones aren't the only ones getting a little bored sitting there.  I took some photos with my phone, waiting for the time to pass.

Ella is almost walking, but she's still so nervous, so crawling is her transportation of choice.  But the grass is too uncomfortable for her knees, so she crawls around like a bear on her hands and feet.  It's so funny!

They look like buddies, but they fight more than anyone else.  Will this get any better?

Mia is such a doll.

Hurricane Half Marathon

Anyone that's been around me lately, knows that I've been training for a half marathon.  Crazy, I know.  I've never been much of a runner, so it was a random thing to attempt at 34 years old, but Why Not?  Well, on April 30th, I finally accomplished this crazy goal.  Here are the photos to prove it.

My sister Jill flew down for the event, and we drove up Friday morning with the kids.  Drew's parents met us in St. George to watch the kids at the hotel.  They are so wonderful.  After we were settled at the hotel we drove to Hurricane to check out the course.  It seemed OK, until we saw mile 5, which was a crazy steep hill that lasted for 3/4 of a mile.  I hadn't trained on hills so it didn't look good.  We both started laughing when we saw it for the first time.  Luckily I only had a few hours to worry about it.  We went back to the hotel and tried our best to go to sleep.  Then we woke up at 4:30 am, which was 3:30 from where I come from.  We parked at the finish line and jumped aboard one of 7 school buses to drive us to the starting line.  It was absolutely the coldest day in the past month.  Not sure how that happened, but it happened.  Here is a photo of us freezing our buns off waiting for the gun to fire.  I had to run with my phone to get these not so great quality shots.  At least it's something.

Here's Geneva in her awesome $3 pants she bought from Walmart the night before.  She was much more prepared than I.  I was super jealous.

I started off really slow and ran by Jill for the first 5 miles.  It seemed like it would be a nice day, so Jill ditched her jacket at the first water station before we hit the hill.  We ran up half the hill together, but Jill decided it was time for her to walk and that's where we were separated.  I had it in my head that I was going to run the whole darn thing, even if I was going at a snails pace.  The hill was torture and I was excited to get to the top to find some relief.  It was short lived.  Apparently the hill was shielding us from the monster winds on the other size.  Not just any wind, but a freezing head wind for the rest of the race. I was dying, but I kept on going.  By mile 11, I still wasn't sure I was going to make it or not.  I wanted to flag down one of those ambulances and hitch a ride, but I kept pushing forward and finished the race in 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 22 seconds.  Not fabulous, but decent.  I had a vision in my mind of sprinting to the finish line.  Not so much!  I was dragging!!!  But I ran the whole time and I was proud of myself for that.  Jill wasn't far behind me.  She finished in 2 hours and 35 minutes.  Here are some photos of her final stretch.  

I was freezing when we finally stopped running.  I could hardly hold still, I was shivering so bad.

 Here is a photo of the great gals that ran with me.  Minus April, who finished shortly after this was taken (sadly she injured her knee on the hill)- I wish she could have been in the shot.  It was a crazy day, and an eye opening experience (on how INSANE people are that run FULL marathons).  But I must say, I am very proud of my sister and myself.  I guess anything is possible.

Geneva:  1 hour 59 minutes (SUPER AWESOME)
Marquessa:  2 hours 5 minutes
Melissa:  2 hours 22 minutes
Jill: 2 hours 35 minutes
April: 3 hours 11 minutes

After the race we packed up and quickly drove home for some evening craziness at the airport.  - Drew we love you!  It was a really physically and emotionally exhausting day for our family.  I know I've learned so much from this experience.