Party Planner

I think my girls got my "Party Planner" gene. Not that I'm good at it, but I do love to do it!!! For their fun activity, the kids planned a "Birthday Party" for Shelby's teddy bear, Jack. I have no clue where they found these invitations, but I thought they were cute. I especially thought it was funny when Morgan and Preston actually called me to RSVP. HA!

Shelby made the cake ALL BY HERSELF!!! She learned the hard way that you can't ice the cake before it's COMPLETELY cool, no matter how pressed for time you are! But, she gets an "A" for effort! (It tasted good so I guess that's all that really matters right?)

We played "Pin the nose on the smiley face"

The girls put together "goody bags" filled with their old toys! HA!

It was fun. They had a blast planning the party and I thought it was just the cutest dang thing EVER!!!!

STRIKE!!

Ok so not quite!... The kids chose to go bowling for their "fun activity" yesterday. (It's only $4/person on Tuesdays if you're interested!) Anyway... It was SAD SAD SAD!!! Let's just say none of us will be going pro anytime soon, ok!  But we had so much fun! 

SO I don't think we actually scored a "perfect game" with all of our scores combined!!! HA! What's even sadder is that I'm 31 years old and I didn't even score well WITH BUMPERS ON!!!!

"KRAVE"-ing Some Ice Creamy Goodness

Shelby got to go to a softball clinic today for her "fun activity" so the other 2 got to go to the pet store and then for ice cream at the new place in town.  "KRAVE" is awesome. Everything is completely self serve. You pay at the end by weight (the ice cream not the person lol) They have a dozen or more different flavors of frozen yogurt and then 50 or so toppings. It's SOOOO YUMMY!!

The tables and walls have clear plastic and they have buckets of dry erase markers to color with!

Check out Preston's rhino that he drew. I'll be honest, half the time I have to ask him to "explain" his pictures to me, but I can TOTALLY tell what this one is.

A definite "do again" for our daily activity!

Let Summer Begin!

In Cedar City, the opening ceremonies of the Utah Summer Games is sort of the kick off of summer (despite the need for blankets and jackets). The fireworks were the kids "fun activity" for the day. We decided many years ago that watching the fireworks from inside the stadium with little kids is a joke!!!..So, instead we watch them from the church parking lot.

I realize the quality of the picture is horrible, but Shelby's little face is priceless!

Preston's is pretty cute in this one. We had to wake poor Morgan up to go, and she was NOT happy about it!!

New Phones

No we haven't fallen off the face of the earth, even though it definitely felt like it! On Sunday, Chris tried to do an update on his phone and blew it up. Sprint told him that "it happens all the time and isn't a big deal." and to take it to their service facility in St. George. So, I took it down for him and asked them to update mine while I was there..... an hour later-they had screwed our phones up beyond repair and we were going to be without a phone for a few days.  I WAS PISSED!!!!! Long story short, we're no longer with Sprint and have 2 new phones through Verizon!
So, the point of this blog is to tell how easily impressed my kids are. They were all about my new phone:

Until... they saw that Chris has a frickin' kickstand!!

Chris was being a smart butt and goes, "Yea well mom's doesn't have this" and pulled it out. All of a sudden the girls were squealing and Shelby said, "Yea your phone's lame mom!" So much for being the cool kid for once. HA!

Girl of the Year

Morgan LOVES her some American Girl Dolls!!! Kanani is the 2011 American Girl of the Year and Morgan has been wanting her since she was released in January. Since she chose to have a party instead of getting a big gift this year, she opted to use her birthday money to help pay for her. (Thanks Grandma Charlene!!) Bless her heart, when we went to order her she was on back order.... do you know how hard it is for a 8 year old to wait another 2 weeks for her birthday present...especially since the brush that came with her arrived 10 days ago.... TORTURE!!!!!

Shelby would rather have been shot than play with a doll at this age, so it's precious to me watch her play with it! She's so dang cute!(Morgan not the doll)

P.S. ignore the mess in the background please!

POLL: Who's Cuter?

 OR

I vote the 2nd one!!!  But then again, I'm a little biased.
I have to admit that the feather extensions are one trend that I DO NOT GET! I swear they remind me of Dog the Bounty Hunter but whatever....the girls think they're cool and that's what matters I guess. Although, with her hair curled like this, Shelby's keep tickling her nose every time she moves and she's not loving that...but it's keeping me entertained!! HA!

Who Says Learning Can't Be Fun!

The kids earned a trip to the park today. It's been a long time since we've been to Park Discovery, but it was still as cool as it was when it was first built. Park Discovery was built not long after Chris and I got married. It was completely built by the community (hand painted and everything). I was working at the Center at the time so Chris and I went over and helped for a few hours. It's kinda cool that 10 years later our kids are enjoying something that we helped build!

Most of the things in the park have some sort of educational theme that goes with them and EVERY apparatus is sponsored by a member of the community. The rocket in the background is sponsored by WECCO. It's a facility just outside of town that makes rocket fuel for NASA. On the inside of the rocket there is a scaled map of the solar system and up top there are 2 pilot seats with speakers that are connected to different areas around the park.  The Jeep in the background of this picture is sponsored by The National Guard and it has speakers that are connected as well. Behind the jeep there's a pirate ship, but I'm not sure who it's sponsored by.

Shelby FINALLY mastered Monkey Bars!!!

Me and "Mogo: The Star of the Show"

You can't see them very well, but there are "dinosaur bones" and other "fossils" buried in the sand box.

The kids had a ball "performing" in the amphitheater. This is Morgan doing her rather sad impression of a horse.

All in all it was a GREAT little outing. The kids had a blast and I had just as much fun as they did!!
Note: There aren't very many pics of Preston because he didn't sit still long enough for me to take a picture! He ran NON-STOP the entire time we were there!

Schools Out

School's Out! School's Out! WOOOHOOOO. Holy Cow this has been a LONG year. FUN! But LONG! The kids had a fun day filled with parties, movies, awards and games.

I have to brag on Shelby's creativeness this year. I have been wracking my brain trying to find something for her teacher. Do you realize how hard it is to find a non-cutesy gift for a male teacher? So this is what Shelby came up with. ON HER OWN!!It's a grill set with 2 ribeye steaks and our family's fave steak seasoning. I thought it was DANG creative!!!

Shelby won 3 awards: Reading, Math, and Science. She also got a medal for reading 150 books throughout the school year.

They did the drawing for the Rendexvous prizes. She drew out for 11 of the smaller prizes!

Morgan got the Science awards and a medal for placing 3rd in FRISBEE THROW at Field Day yesterday.  Let's be real, she didn't give a crap about the Science Awards. She's all about Sports!

Unfortunately, Kindergarten isn't included in the awards ceremony so I don't have any pictures of Preston. However, he says he had a lot of fun today. All three kids have AMAZING teachers next year. Shelby has the same one again (he's moving to 4th) Morgan has Mr. Niles (I hear he's fabulous and she had him for Spanish and LOVED him!) and Preston has Mrs. Van Blaricom (The girls had her and I'm SO excited to get to work with her again next year!!!)

Linus

You all know Linus from Snoopy right? Well tonight, Preston was playing on Shelby's keyboard and Chris says, "My hell, he's like Linus except instead of a blanket he's got Simba"
Let me tell you guys about Simba.... Most people would think that Preston got Simba when he was a baby.... OH! NO!!! He got him last summer at Disneyland. Preston saw this thing and that's all he wanted from then on out. This is NOT typical for Preston. He's all boy.. all the way.. and typically wants something like a car or gun. But we finally gave in even though we KNEW he wouldn't play with it very long. Boy were we wrong!!!!
Preston carries this stuffed animal EVERYWHERE with him, except school but he does take him nearly every week for sharing. When he walks in the door after school, the first thing he does is find Simba. If he knows I'm going to pick him up in the afternoon, he'll put Simba in the car on his way to the bus so that he can have him as soon as he gets in the car. It's generally an argument when he gets out of the car because I won't let him carry him inside stores. Would it really be a big deal for him to carry it in? NO! But oh my crap... my biggest fear is that he'll somehow lose him and then we're all screwed. Why? Cause he HAS to have him to sleep!!!! Simba got left in the car one time and Chris had to drive all the way out to New Harmony to get him so that Preston could sleep! I swear Preston gets more exercise in his sleep than he does when he's awake cause he either tosses and turns or walks around ALL NIGHT! But guess who is with him CONSTANTLY! Yep, SIMBA. He literally grabs him and rolls over with him even when he's dead asleep.
Ok, so I know what you're thinking... 1) he's too old for this and 2)boys shouldn't latch on to stuffed animals like this right? Well, he got this right around the time that his poor blankey disintegrated to NOTHING. ( I literally have a Walmart sack of string that was once his blanket.)  As far as the "boy thing" well trust me, he's not sweet and loving with Simba. Poor Simba gets drug through the dirt, thrown around, sat on, stepped on, used as a weapon.... you name it, Preston does it to him... Lucky for Preston, Simba is ever so patient HA!

It's Great To Be 8

Today was a big day for our family. In our church, children have to wait until they're 8 to be baptized. Today was Morgan's BIG DAY!!! We started off by celebrating her birthday with the family and close friends. We had homemade Cafe Rio salads (it's a Utah thing!) and cake and ice cream!

Morgan has been SO excited to wear her special Baptism dress.

Morgan and Daddy

Morgan's BFF Ryann is in our ward and her birthday was today, so they got to be baptized together.

Morgan and Ryan have some of the greatest friends EVER. They all came to support them.

I am so proud of Morgan. She is seriously one of the greatest kids I know and I'm so lucky to be her Mommy.

Birthday Gala

How the heck did my little girl turn 8 so fast??? I swear it doesn't seem like it's been that long since we brought her home. Now she's getting baptized tomorrow!!!
Yesterday, she got to kick off her "Birthday Weekend" with a "friends party" at the Aquatic Center. They're such a cute group of girls and they all had a blast.

(Hey- Don't judge the cake alright? It was a last minute purchase and that's all they had. I'll make her real cake for her baptism lunch!)

The gift bags:

After the party, we went out to dinner at the place of her choice... Guess where she chose! Yep, CHILI'S. I don't know what it is about that place, but my kids LOVE it! She was a little grumpy after the days festivities so she wouldn't let me take pictures, but that's ok. She had fun and they even gave her a yummy dessert WITHOUT the embarrassing singing! (I have to say: when I was in Provo last week, my friends told them it was my b-day and I got the singing but no dessert. WTH??? Get with the program Olive Garden! HA!)

Fun Times

The PTA sponsors a Reading Incentive Program for the students. Every year, we finish with a big party. This year instead of doing games, my Reading chair opted to hire Fun Time Inflatables to come do the party for us. (FABULOUS IDEA!) The weather didn't exactly cooperate so we had to move it into the gym, but the kids didn't care. They had a ball! I think most of the adults had as much fun WATCHING the kids! A lot of our kids had never played on the bounce houses before, so they were STOKED!

Morgan and some of her friends.

Shelby and her friend Makayla

After the inflatables were cleared out, the girls had their orchestra concert. I'll spare you all the video and ear bleeding HA! I love my little violinists (is that what they're called?)

Dance Recital 2011

The girls had their spring dance recital the other night. They were so CUTE! Now we get a break!!! YAY!!!! I decided not to post video of their company dances because I figure you've all seen them enough, but I did post video of their other dances.

Dance Pictures

The girls got their dance pictures back tonight. Shelby's company wore their Jazz costumes and Morgan's Company wore their Lyrical costume. I think they're both gorgeous! (But I'm a little biased)