Some Summer Fun

Ashley had a birthday! It's a busy time to have birthday's. I hope she doesn't feel like she got overlooked. I didn't quite get the invitations to any friends before school was out. I know she really wanted to have a party at the bowling alley, but instead we invited the missionaries over for dinner. :) She was really excited for the cake and presents anyway, so it all worked out.


Ashley's a sweet little girl. She loves to play with her friends and with her older brother and sister, and is such a good sister to her younger brother. She really takes care of him and tries her best to keep him happy. She already loves to play Tyler's Nintendo DS, or the Wii, or the itouch, and she loves to ride her bike. The last five years have flown--and I've loved every second I got to be the mom of this sweet little girl. I'm sad I won't get to spend all day with her this fall when she starts kindergarten. :(

We went to the town's annual fishing derby. It was a lot of fun, althoug it was still very cold. We didn't catch any fish, but we sure had a lot of fun trying. It was pretty crowded and the people around us had no problems casting over our heads from behind us. Weird. At one point, Jason was sitting on his camping chair and leaned forward. It folded and dropped him in the water. Poor kid, I stripped him and wrapped the blanket around him and took him home to change. We live pretty close, so we came back and kept on trying to catch the big fish. No dice.

School's Out for the Summer

The kids are so excited for school to be out. They had their little "end of the year" gymnastics program (for the girls) and swimming program (for Tyler). It was fun to watch them perform their "skills." The pictures are kind of bad, but I was trying to keep Jason from running out onto the floor (or into the pool) and then the girls were moving. With my phone, it was kind of hard to get one that wasn't blurry.

Ashley:


Hailey:


Tyler:


And we took a trip to the park with some friends. It was fun for the kids to get out and play in the nice weather (finally)!

We can't wait for more beautiful weather and more trips to the park, bike riding, swimming lessons, etc. I am so excited for summer!

Graduations

Tyler didn't have a graduation program. But Hailey did for kindergarten and Ashley did for Preschool. Some of the festivities:



Tyler's school does a track meet. This year he did the 50 yard dash, the long jump, and the ball throw. They were only able to sign up for three events :)
Here's the long jump. Which ended up being not so long...we'll give him more time to develop his track and field skills.


This is how Ashley entertained herself during the track meet. Little brothers have it rough.


Hailey's graduation program. They sang a bunch of songs for us and then we had some refreshments. Believe me, I tried to convince her she needed to wear something else. It's not Christmas for crying out loud. She wouldn't listen. I pick my battles.


Ashley's getting her diploma. Her class also performed some songs for us. They were darn adorable. She's excited to go to the big school next year. Or so she says. We'll see when the time comes.

5K

I know, wouldn't that title have been cooler if it were a 10K? Or even better: Marathon? But no, this is not the case. I've never ran in a race before (I mean post high school) So I figured it was high time. There was a race to benefit children (honestly, I should have looked more into it so I could say that's why I did it. All I know is that it was a children's foundation...) and I decided I would give it a whirl.

Now, mind you--I haven't been jogging a whole lot recently so I decided to start out with a 5K and see how that went before trying other things. I know, I know--there are some marathoners that frequent my blog so I'm a little trepidatious about posting this. But it was fun none the less. Plus, I came in fourth in my age group (ages 23-32. That means they're ALL younger than me :) ) And there were way more than four in that group. So I feel like I've achieved something. Here are some pictures...




And you must know by now how much I hate posting pictures of myself. So this is a big step for me.

I Bet You Wish You Lived Here

We've had this moose around town for awhile now. We live close to the river, so it frequents our neigborhood. We knew it's been hanging around in our backyard because we've found some "sign"...

Anyway, I woke up this morning and after walking out the bathroom door I saw a big moose butt next to our back door (the back door is right across from the bathroom door.) She was REALLY close, so it surprised me. The moose was faced with her rear right next to the door instead of away--like the picture above. Startled me.

My 8 Year Old

Tyler turned 8 this month. Am I really that old? Wow. I can't believe how the time has flown. We're so proud of this little guy. He's such a good helper to Trevor and me, he's a great big brother to his sisters and brother, and he's a great friend to all those around him.

I wasn't planning on doing a birthday party for Tyler this year. We had some busy weeks around his birthday and it just didn't look like the time to do it. Tyler kept asking if we could, and I told him I'd call the bowling alley (where he wanted to have his party) to see if maybe we could do it ON his birthday since the weekend before was busy and the weekend after we would have family here for his baptism. Anyway, I called the bowling alley knowing that they probably had leagues going on and then it would be their fault that he couldn't have a birthday party. Go figure, they were ending one session of leagues and not starting the next until a couple weeks later. Hurray.

Tyler was really excited to have a birthday party. We invited all the boys from his class (Shhhh, no one has to know: the rule is, if you take the invitations to school, you have to invite the WHOLE class...so Tyler gave them out BEFORE and AFTER school. Is this teaching my son to bend rules? ) and the boys from church. They all showed up. Well, except one. Wow, that's a lot of little boys. Here's a picture: some of the boys are missing--playing video games or something...




Tyler was baptized this month. It was such a great day--I'm so happy he's made the decision to become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

It was an amazing day and I'm glad I got to be there to witness it. Thanks to the grandparents (and uncle) who were able to make it and contribute to the program! You did GREAT!


Congratulations Tyler! We love you!

More Catching Up

It's been a few weeks since I posted. That's just how I roll :) So I found a few pictures on my phone that I wanted to post:

We took a trip to St. George to see my two brothers and families. It was a LOT of fun. I wish I was as good a hostess as my sister-in-law. We had a lot of fun things to do, even though we didn't get to stay too long. Here we are hiking around Zion's. This is Weeping Rock. Cool place.



Ashley decided she wanted her ears pierced, too. She wasn't as excited about it after they did the first one. What a sympathetic mom, taking pictures before I comfort the poor girl...


It's a special treat when they get the star ice cream at Dairy Queen. They get excited.


Here are some deer that frequent our yard. We always see their tracks, and if we're up early enough, we see them. This was a morning I got up early to exercise. It's a bad picture taken in the dark through a window. But you CAN make out the shape of the deer... :)