August 2013- Good times

August was a fun month.  Another busy month consisting of family reunions, new arrivals, fun times with friends, great entertainment, HOT weather and, of course, my birthday!

We were invited to Pleasant Grove to my mom's cousins home to celebrate my great-aunts 80th birthday.  They had a horse for the kids to ride and we were able to visit with some of my moms side of the family that we haven't seen in years.  It was a very nice event.

Great Uncle Gary, Aunt Joy, Aunt Jonia and my Grandmother Elaine.

Baby Quincee made her way into the world in early August.  We were all very happy to see her and I gladly will share my birth month with her. She spent the first few hours of her life in the NICU but soon was out and doing very well. Now she is 3 months old and as sweet as can be.  I love that my sisters are still having babies so I can get my fix. 

I stopped in for a visit with Ben and Jenice and my little nephew McCoy. He wants to be just like his daddy who is a police officer. What a funny kid.

We learned quickly that everything happens a little earlier in St George.  School began for the kids on August 14th this year...just in time for mom and dads sanity.

An Excellent trip to Lagoon!

We rarely go to the water park portion of Lagoon but decided to take full advantage of the beautiful day and great weather AND get the most out of our money.  The kids had a great time.

Our good friends, the Webbs, saw that we were at Lagoon (thanks to Facebook) and decided to come and join us.  It was a quite pleasant surprise for the day.  They are fellow amusement junkies and know how to have a good time better than anyone I know.

Football season officially kicked off in August.  Braiden had some good times this year with the Desert Hills Thunder, made some great buddies and still loves the game so all is well.  I can gladly say that football season has come to an end, but I know it will come again. More on football to come.

Birthday Shenanigans

August 24th marked my 36th birthday.  This year I was joined for lunch by a few of my favorite people. 

Eric surprised me with a quick trip to Vegas to see the Celine Dion show.  It was so cool.  Of course, we had to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, as I do every year.

August's Favorite Randoms and Selfies

The Rest of June 2013

Disneyland trip with Delaney

Braidens First Surf

Max turned 2 on June 17th!

Max needs a spotlight, even if its behind his big sister.  This kid has been lucky enough to celebrate his first 2 birthdays at Disneyland.  Its a timing thing more than anything but I would guess that there will be many more birthdays celebrated at the Happiest Place on Earth.

This collage might give you a little glimpse at the little ham we call Max.  He is so funny.  He will just start dancing out of nowhere and gets in these little moods where he wont STOP TALKING!  Its a good thing he is cute.  He can talk my ear off with his jibber-jabber.  He eats like a bird, then he eats like a horse... and his favorite thing to say is "Ine hungry" or "Ine stink-ee".  He loves playing with his little Match Box cars and will use any surface as a track while he makes little motor noises.  When I turn on the TV, he wants to watch football or Daniel Tiger.  He makes me stop on the channels that look like football (even if its baseball) and will actually sit and stare at it.  If I could freeze time, I would do it right now...I don't want him to grow up.  Hopefully when he is bigger he will still want to hug me and call his brothers and sisters "Way-nee, Ba-nen, Paigee and Cammy" and when he is upset, I hope that singing "I Am a Child of God" still calms him down and makes him happy.  And while I love it when he does his little "naked dance" I hope he grows out of that before he is a teenager.  My sweet little caboose.

Junes favorite RANDOMS!

Insanity and June'

I have been avoiding this for a while because I knew that trying to convey appropriately how crazy JUNE 2013 was for our family is near impossible just through pictures. I even considered skipping it but I started looking through my pictures and immediately I changed my mind.

Picture this if you will.  In 30 short days, this is what we made it through:

• End of school, beginning of summer, which means finding someone to watch the kids full-time.
• Paige's birthday and party (AKA I lose my mind)
• Week-long family vacation to California 
• Father's Day
• Trek for Braiden
• Football camp for Braiden
• Paige's dance recital
• Paige's Baptism
• Max's Birthday
• Cameron's Pre-K graduation
• Last day of Eric's job
• Move mom out of her house (where we were living) 
• Move ourselves to St George
• I'm certain I am forgetting something because this list looks way too short.

Anyway, you get it.  June was insane but so many good things happened. How could I even think about not blogging it?  June was awesome, great, happy, tiring, stressful, such a blessing and, oh boy, am I glad we made it.   Here goes.

We will start with Paige...June belongs to Paige.  I'm sorry Max, but really, even though you were born in June, you will have to take July.  June is all about Paige and there isn't much I can do about it.

This year, on June 6th, Paige turned 8.  What?!?!  What the heck just happened?  8 years just flashed before my eyes.  I can remember the day she was born like it was yesterday...well, I can remember the parts where I WASN'T drugged up anyway.  The story I always tell her about the day she was born highlights the fact that after being in labor with her for about 14 hours, all I wanted (after holding her for a brief moment) was FOOD!  It was about 10pm and luckily there was a Subway in the hospital.  I am pretty sure I inhaled it...foot long down in about 5 minutes...no joke. Then I passed out. She loves that story.  She is the lucky one that had an audience of 5 people (not including Eric and my doctor) to welcome her into the world.  

Paige is my sweetheart.  She has always has the coolest, calmest demeanor.  When she is TRYING to throw a tantrum, it just ends up being funny, because she doesn't know how to be a brat (well, she is slowly learning that skill, but mostly, she can't get the tantrum thing quite right).  She has her Daddy wrapped around her little finger and all she has to do is turn her smile upside down and bat her big blue eyes...and her wish is his command.  Oh boy.  I guess this is what comes when she is the only girl with 3 brothers.  

She hates getting her hair brushed, taking a bath, waking up, putting on earrings, and doing dishes. She LOVES to draw, My Little Pony, leave sweet little notes all over the house for the entire family, candy, taking care of her baby brother Max, dancing, reading with Daddy, and playing with Cameron and her cousins.

I keep telling people that I will only do a full-blown party for my kids every other year, but when it comes to Paige, thats a full-blown lie.  She has had a party pretty-much every year of her life.  I love doing it (even though Eric wants to commit me after every one) and I will likely continue to do it for the rest of her life...although she may not care about it so much after age 30 or so.  

This year's festivities were all about Cheer leading.  I am not sure where that idea sprung from but it turned out to be great.  I asked Braiden's little cheer leader friends to come over and teach the girls some simple cheers and it was a HIT!  They were so cool and the girls loved it.

From hand-made pom-poms and ponytails to eye-candy, we were DECKED OUT!  We're HERE TO CHEER!

They ate nachos, root-beer floats, and cupcakes then jumped on the tiny trampoline. 

Paige's Dance Recital

June 15, 2013

Jazz'n Place Junior Hip-hop & Mini-stars

More June to come.

   

The rest of November 2012

We have our little tradition where the kids like to make Eric a cake for his birthday.  Every year is has become more and more interesting. This year...animal cookies are the featured highlight of Eric's cake.  Can you say 'diabetic coma'?   Agh...but they love it.

Then, of course, Thanksgiving...2012 took us to moms house for Turkey Day.  She is such a good cook, we are always glad when mom hosts any eating event.

NOVEMBER RANDOMS

40 years ain't so bad...

November 2012 marked the 40th anniversary of Eric's life...in other words, one foot is now officially in the grave.  What better way to preserve his youth than to go to Disneyland...without kids.  Yes!

To top that fun off, I set up a little surprise to have Eric's BFF/mission companion, Brett, from Arizona and his lovely wifey, Whitney, meet us there...totally incognito.

We spent a day at Disney and that evening, they knocked on our hotel door and Eric was completely SURPRISED.  He had no idea.  It was so perfect. 

Eric and I have this little thing we do where we take a picture of him with every character we come across at Disneyland...the trick is, we don't wait in line.  In each of these pictures, you can see a character.  It may be about 50 yards away but they are there.  Get out your magnifying glass.  HA!  I love it. We don't wait in no stinkin lines.

Selfys and randoms.

I dont pay for no stinkin ride cam pictures...ha!

Here turkey, turkey.

Ok, maybe we will wait in a line for Mickey.

Last night there, trees were lit.  A little snow happening on Main St USA. Loved it!

Happy Birthday to you Eric!