For Me

One of my best friends just shared a quote with me:

"Our faith in God includes faith in God's timing"

- Neal A. Maxwell

*Thanks Stef! I really needed it. Love ya!

Follow The Yellow Brick Road...

On Monday, Pat saw in the newspaper that there was a Teddy Bear Picnic at the Orem Library that night. So we decided to go check it out!

The theme was 'Follow The Yellow Brick Road'.

We followed and it lead us to The Emerald City!!
We had brought a blanket with us and got a good spot!! My attempt at a picture with the whole family!

I love that Mara has a 'deer in headlights' look!
They had a puppet show, we sang some songs, and listened to some fun stories!

And what would be a fun family outing without some treats?!?!?!?!

I Love My Kids

No matter how hard my day is and how crazy my kids are, it's undeniable.

I Love My Kids!

Pool Time

We were able to get the pool out yesterday and the kids had a great time!

I invited my friend Andrea to bring her kids Jarom, Julia & Joshua over to play. They all had fun together. There was a lot of playing on the swing set and not much in the pool, but whatever, they were happy. (Xander is 7 months older then Jarom, and Mara is only a month older then Julia, so they usually have a great time playing together.)

This was supposed to be a cheese picture, but they all had a hard time looking at the camera.

Here is the funny face picture! I love how kids think that the only funny face is to pull your cheeks and stick your tongue out! At least Xander is an explorer!
After the funny face, I caught the girls doing the faces to each other!! Mara & Julia love to play with each other, especially in Nursery!! Mara calls her "Jula" instead of Julia. It's so cute and it makes me smile every time she says it!

Here is Andrea's youngest Joshua! He just turned one a few weeks ago and is the cutest little boy, and I love his curly hair!!

Thanks again for coming over Andrea!! I hope you didn't get rained on when you were walking home :) I hope we can do it again really soon!

Slippin' N' Slidin'

Saturday my mom bought a Slip n' Slide and a new pool for the summer. The kids were really anxious to try it out. We got the Slip n' Slide out and they loved it. There was a lot of slipping, but not much sliding.

Here is Xander on his first attempt, he did a belly flop and slid maybe a few inches. After that he wasn't too keen on trying again. But he did and loved it!

Mara had a hard time warming up to the idea of getting wet, but she finally did it and loved it!

Mara liked to have 'help' going through the slide, but she would only walk.

We had a great time and the kids are excited to Slip n' Slide all summer long!

I'm Still Behind

One of these days I'm hoping to be caught up on the blog. Life has just been crazy lately and it's finally getting back to normal.

First I have to post a picture of a note that Xander wrote to my brother JD. It is supposed to say "Me and JD like to be best, making best Lego Power Miners."

I had to take a picture of it before JD took it home.

We went to our cabin for a quick overnighter on Memorial Day weekend. I had to take a few pictures before we came home.

Mana & the kids on the way home.

I love going to Fairview in the early summer because there are tons of sheep around. I even took a video of the babies running and 'baa'ing.

The kids being silly in the car.

Saturday the 23rd we went up to the cemetery to put flowers on my dad's and my grandpa's graves.

My sister took this awesome picture of all of the flags they had out for all the people who have died that were in the service. My grandpa has a flag!!!!

On the actual Memorial Day, we got out Mana's new Dominos and the kids were busy for hours!!

I have some videos to post too, so I'll have to do that later.

My Other Graduate!

Xander Graduated Pre-School on Tues the 19th. They had a program and sang a lot of songs. He did such a great job! I'm so proud of him.

This is Xander with one of the girls in his class named Hallie. Xander tells me that she is his girlfriend and that he's going to marry her. I can't believe he's already going after the girls!
Xander was waiting patiently for his diploma and Mara decided that she was going to wait with him.

Xander and Mrs. Konni Youd! She is an amazing teacher and has helped him by leaps and bounds this past year! Xander was awarded for having the best handwriting! I am proud of him for that because he's left handed!!!

For a graduation present, we got Xander a new Lego set! He loves the rock monsters that come with the Power Miner sets!

A few things that Xander has learned this past year at school:

1. How to hold a pencil the correct way. (I tried for months to teach him, but after one week at school he knew how to "pinch a crayon"!)
2. He knows some songs that I don't!!
3. He knows the sounds of each letter.
4. Can write uppercase and lowercase letters.
5. He knows how to read and loves doing it!!
6. He knows how to do addition and subtraction and loves to play "plusses" with anyone willing to give him some numbers to add. (He does it in his head too!!! And not just single digits either!)

I'm so proud of him and know that he will love Kindergarten in the fall. Now, what am I going to do to keep him busy until then!?!

80 Is Great!!!

My Grandma just celebrated her 80th Birthday and we had a party for her on the 16th!! And as always Karri made the cake!! There are pictures of the whole family around it too! She did a great job and it was very yummy too!!

The Birthday Girl and Karri!!

One of the candles lit a streamer thingy on fire. I just love Max's face!!

The Birthday Girl and her cake!

Grandma Joan and 5 of her great-grandchildren.

We missed you Jen & Steve!

All of us out to dinner on her actual birthday (the 20th). My Uncle Rand & Aunt Camille came for an extended weekend to spend with her too! It was great seeing them, I just wish they lived closer so we could see them all the time!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

We love you!!!!!

Out With The Old & In With The Newer!!

The Old

(1999 Pontiac Grand Prix that we have had since Dec. 2003)

The Newer

(2006 Dodge Grand Caravan)

At the end of April, we starting having car problems. It wasn't all the time, but enough that it made us scared to drive the car. So we took it to the shop. It was there for a day (Mon, 4th), they didn't find the reason for the problem, so we picked it up. The next day the car died again (Tues), so we took it back on Wednesday and it was there for a full week, and they still couldn't find the reason why the car liked to die on us!!!!! So during all of this we decided to maybe start looking for another car, just in case this one couldn't be fixed. I searched online and found a good deal for a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan, so we test drove it (Tues, 12th), loved it and bought it on Thursday of last week!! We only got $1000 for the Pontiac, but we were happy to see it go! Now we have a car with a lot of room, and we won't be worried about it breaking down on us!! What's even better are the perks of having a minivan. It has power sliding doors on both sides, so I can push a button and they open. It has stow-n-go seating, so all the seats fold into the floor, which is great for moving things, and it gives extra storage space for vacations and the like.

I just love our new car!!!!!!

While we were waiting at the dealership our Salesman took Xander and Pat for a ride in a Shelby Cobra Mustang!!!!! Xander was in H-E-A-V-E-N!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I'm still not caught up in my blogging, so I will post more tomorrow!)

Dash It All!!!

My sister Karri got a kitten on the 2nd, and just gave me the pictures! We went to visit her on the 4th and the kids got to play with Dash!!! He's named after Dash from The Incredibles!! He's a really cute kitty and the kids just love him!

Xander & Dash

Mara & Dash

The kids were having fun throwing the balls and watching Dash find them!

This picture is from the 14th. Mara loves to follow Dash around and pick him up. She will always say "It's okay Dash, it's okay", grab him, hold him for a few seconds, then she'll drop him. We are trying to teach her to bend over and put him on the ground. At least he lands on his feet when she drops him :( She has learned how to hold him the right way though, so at least there's some progress.