Double Congrats!

We were super excited to have two graduates this year....Logan from kindergarten and Kira from elementary school :) Logan had a program of singing that was so cute. I love kindergarten because the children are so innocent and just singing their lungs out. We are very proud of him .
First grade here he comes!!!


Logan and his brothers and sisters who all wanted to see him graduate :0)


Logan and his teacher Mrs. Wood....she was also Kira's teacher and could not get over the personality difference in my two kids. Logan was not shy at all....Kira was. Logan did the Haka for the class (a maori war dance...the one done at rugby games) for his show and tell for the letter H. I need to ask Mrs. Wood for the video ....she said he was way into it. Kira would've dropped over dead instead of dancing in front of the class :0)


Kira had her fifth grade promotion and is now off to junior high school. It makes me nervous but I know she will do awesome. We were very proud of her for receiving the Presidential Award (G.P.A. of 3.5 and high test scores). Not to brag....but I just have to. Kira received straight A's on every report card in elementary school and to top it off, she got a perfect score on the math portion of the national CRT and Iowa testing. I think she got this from her mom right? (haha) Since she was student body pres. she started the ceremony off with the pledge of allegiance and did a great job. She was a little sad to leave elementary school behind, but is ready for middle school.



Her teacher this year was Mrs. Wright and she is AWESOME! Keenan will have her next year.



Kira and her best friend Lindsey.



Kira, Lindsey, and Addie




Kira with both grandmas.




Kira also had her D.A.R.E. graduation last week (saying no to drugs, alcohol etc. ) All of the students had to write an essay to finish the course. Hers got chosen as a winner so she had to stand and read it aloud at the graduation. This has been a really great year for Kira because she is normally soooooo quiet. She ran for president and gave an excellent speech, and has since had to do much in front of crowds. We're proud of her. She never did smile during her choir performances though....she didn't like singing high school musical in front of everyone ... lol... guess we'll take it where we get it.

Congratulations Logan and Kira. We are very proud and love you both very much!!!!

As for my other troops....Trajan just finished seventh grade and is entering his final and 8th grade year of junior high....CRAZY! Keenan just finished fourth grade and really loved his teacher this year. He was voted most athletic boy and was excited about that (not to mention Wayland being proud) Both boys also got straight A's so I couldn't have asked for anything better from my kids this year. They all worked hard and gave it their best effort. Trajan starts practice for football today (forgot to mention he made the jr. bulldogs team for fall) so will be be breathing, sleeping, and eating football all too soon. Anyway....just had to gloat. I love my kids so much and I'm so proud of them! They're awesome!

Just A Few Gripes

I went to the gas station last night to fill up my tank for the rest of the two days of carpooling for school....$113.00!!!! I could not believe it. I'm glad it's summer and sports are over and school will be done so I can just stay home and not drive anywhere. And of course I live in the hottest place on earth, so we couldn't even ride bikes to my mom's (maybe 5 miles) to swim without being dehydrated. Let alone we'd get killed by the cruddy drivers of Vegas on the main roads. And although I am extremely thankful for our mediocre temperatures the past week, I know the hundreds are on their way, and then the money I will be trying to save in gas will go to the gigantic electricity bill. Yep....I'm a bit irritable this morning, but now that it's out of my system...I think I'm good. :) I will ask myself one more time..."Why do I live here?". To all my friends who live anywhere other than Vegas....what are your utility bills like? Maybe I have a misconception that other places in the good 'ol U.S.A. are cheaper, when really I just need to deal with the reality of the times.

And one more thing....Kira told me this morning that tomorrow at her elementary graduation they are singing a song that made some of the kids in her class cry because it's called "It's Time to Say Goodbye". See...I'm already tearing up. That means tomorrow as I watch my baby end one chapter of her life, I will be a red eyed puffy mess for pictures. How sad is that song for a graduation? A friend of mine (hi Kell :) did something so creative for her kids last day of school. They had a BBQ by a fire pit in their backyard and her husband played games outside with the neighborhood kids. She totally inspired me to try and think of something creative to do with my kids for tomorrow. I would play with the neighbor kids...but they're all a bit weird and have cruddy mouths. (sorry...rude of me I know, but my kids don't really play outside...especially since Kelli moved my sons playmates up to Idaho...j/k) So give me some fun ideas if you can. I'm a bit brain dead because I've been so busy getting my teaching stuff together for signing my contract for teaching junior high next year. I just want them to have a good time...and of course not too much money involved :0)

This brings me to one more thing...originally I was hired to teach what I'm specialized in...life science. And now guess what? I'm teaching three classes of math and two of science. I have never taught junior high math in my life, so this will be an adventure. I have my final interview tomorrow (although I'm already hired...it's just the "make it official" thing). One more gripe...I looked in Trajan's yearbook...it was not my favorite thing that a bunch of girls left him their number and asked him to call this summer that they would "love to get together". Luckily for me, Trajan is VERY shy and will probably not even ask a girl out until he's a senior in high school, but how forward is that? And worst of all, I matched the girl's names to their pictures in the yearbook and they're totally cute. I'm not sure I'm going to like this teenage phase of life. I know...snoopy mom...but that's how I am--can't help it. Is there such thing as arranged marriages anymore? I'm sure between all of us we have enough to get everyone married to those we know....lol....just kidding, but wouldn't that be nice to have a say so?

So you are probably thinking to yourselves that either:

A. I'm having a bad day ...or B. I'm PMSing ha ha hee hee

The answer is neither...my friends who I call all the time know that I will go on forever talking about superfulous information that I'm sure they could do without. So I thought for today, I'd write it all down and let it go. Now I'm going to go watch Rapunzel with Celine and make some candy leis for Kira and her friends for graduation tomorrow. Thanks for being my listening audience. And don't forget....utility costs and creative end of school ideas....give me some replies blogging world :0)

Marriage Tag

This tag was a little different, so I thought it would be fun to do. And I think I tag everyone on my list.....Leslie, Jamie, Laurie, Val, Kristin, Steve, Lyndee, Heather, Heather (not a typo..there are two of you :), Kelli, Ginger, as well as anyone else I know in the entire blogging world :) Have at it RS sisters....it's fun to learn about you all!

Thought I'd give you a flashback to the early 90's since it was a marriage tag. Aren't the pics so funny? Gotta love the big puffy sleeves...sorry to my friends who had to wear those dresses. I don't know what the heck I was thinking. Did I really think you would wear a purple suit again? As I said....it was 1993. Bright colors were in :) And the worst part? I made you all wear black nylons, in July, in Las Vegas...I owe you all a cruise when I finally get rich. It might be in the eternities...but I will try to make it up. ha ha Love you guys!

How long have you been married? 15 years on July 17th

How old is your spouse? 38...but looks 28. lucky dog

Who eats more? He does....but I look like I do. again, lucky dog

Who said I love you first? He did. I couldn't help it if he was a lovesick puppy (this is MY blog right?) lol

Who is taller? He is

Who sings better? Definitely Wayland. He has beautiful voice...I love listening to him.

Who is smarter? Hmmmm.....I think I'm more book smart but he's better at life smarts. He's good at applying things in daily work and stuff. I usually jump the gun on things instead of thinking them through...I put my foot in my mouth a lot :)

Who controls the T.V. remote? He does. I'm not a big tv watcher....except for Thursday nights....ER and Grey's Anatomy. We are all sports fanatics, so we pretty much watch only that.

Whose temper is worse? Definitely his...I'm really easy going and he's very uptight.

Who does the laundry? Me...always

Who does the dishes? Me...always

Who cooks dinner? Me...always Might I just add a question...why am I going to work full time?
These "always" are gonna have to change :) Pray for me...lol

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? He does...I can't stand someone to sleep on my side of the bed or to touch/sit on my pillow.

Who is more stubborn? Hmmmm.....we're pretty equal on that but we're stubborn about different things.

Who is the first to admit they're wrong? Well, over the years this has changed a lot. You start to learn that compromising in any situation is best and that arguments usually aren't worth your breath. I guess we're equal on this too.

Whose parents do you see the most? Both sides of the family live in town...so we're lucky to see everyone quite often.

Who has more friends? Probably me....I'm a social butterfly. Way's more quiet

Who has more siblings? Wayland...he has four sisters. I have a sister and two brothers. But Way also has a few cousins he considers siblings. His family is DEFINITELY bigger than mine.

Who wears the pants in the family? He does....but I control the belt. :) ha ha j/k (okay kidding a little bit) We're actually pretty equal because we really do make all decisions together. I definitely have a lot of "wifely" influence though. Don't we all?

Happy Birthday Keenan!!

Keenan turned 10 today....bitter sweet for a mom. I look back and think about the fact that this beautiful little boy has been with me for 10 of my 15 married years. That's amazing to me. I have a tendency to focus on 'lasts' versus 'eing in the moment 'so I will try not to get sentimental and become a crying mess. I love him. Keenan has brought so much joy and happiness to our family. He has always been a ball of energy with that look of mischeivousnous (sp?) in his eye as well as a huge smile on his face. Even if he gets in big trouble, he still smiles, he can't help it. He is a ham and makes us laugh all of the time. I will share an example of my favorite story of Keenan. As most of you know, he has a cyst in his brain a bit bigger than a golf ball. Because of this, he has to have many CT scans, MRI's etc. Well, we went to one of these scans one time and it happened to be a longer one than the others because he had to have dye injected. Well, if you've ever had an MRI, you know you cannot move. You're in an enclosed tube and your head is placed in a vice. At that time, Keenan was 8 years old....not an easy task for a boy :0) So he was laying in the machine and I was sitting down by his feet. I could tell he was having a very hard time not moving. There's a mirror above his face so he can look down to me. His little eyes were so big and had a panicked look in them. The next thing I knew, he closed his eyes and complete peace and stillness came over him. I knew he had prayed to Heavenly Father to help him make it through the scan. What a beautiful example of faith. I didn't have to tell him, he knew. A few weeks ago we were talking about it and Keenan said, "how did you know I said a prayer?" and I told him that he just looked so relaxed and his eyes looked happy again. He told me Heavenly Father immediately helped him and that he relaxed and his heart quit beating fast. Wenever I have hard times, I think of Keenan. If I will but say a prayer and put all faith where it needs to be, peace will come. So although a manic running crazy most of the time, Keenan has a sweet spirit that will always rely upon what is true. He is the first to pray if he loses a shoe or if his brother is hurt. It's strange,as I'm sitting here typing this, I realize how many times Keenan has turned to prayer in our family. I could literally name 10 stories right off my head. His baptism day was very reverent for Keenan. He is normally quite hyper, but not that day. His presence eminated the solemnity of the day. He was so happy. What a blessing to be a mother to such a precious soul. Happy Birthday Keenan!Keenan is only two weeks old here. He was my fattest baby and one of the hairiest :)


Keenan on Halloween...so cute!

This picture captures Keenan perfectly...yep, that's how he acts most of the time.



Logan looks up to Keenan so much. If they're not fighting, they are best of buds. And I must admit, most of the time they are very close.



My favorite picture of Keenan

Keenan last summer in Hawaii. He loved climbing all the trees!

Time goes way too fast. Stop and enjoy every moment. All the chaos, all the craziness...embrace every moment. Those memories will be your favorite. Like the fact that Logan just brought a card he made to give Keenan when he gets home from school. It's a picture of the two stick figure brothers holding hands in front of the birthday cake. That's the best!

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Last Child Syndrome

Just wanted to post a funny picture. You'll read that we went to St. George in my next post, but when we got there, I wanted to get a picture of the kids together inside the visitor's center. As you can see below, Celine is not in the picture.


This is why she's not in the picture. No reason, just her throwing a moody fit.


Five minutes later, she is all better....again for no reason. That's a little girl for ya. Add on that she's the last child, and there we have it. She calls the shots. :0)

Spur of the Moment Fun!

So we got up early Saturday morning to get ready for the boy's city championship games in football. I packed lunch for the day, including watermelon, popcorn, sandwiches, drinks, etc...It was an unseasonably cool day for Vegas, with rain :) So due to muddy conditions, the games were cancelled. We were all packed up with nothing to do, so we took a quick trip to St. George. I have always wanted to go tour the visitor's center at the temple there and the historical sites in town, so off we went. First we toured the temple grounds which were of course beautiful. The visitor's center there is a smaller version of Salt Lake and was really nice. There was a tour of beautiful statues that happened to be there that day, so that was extra special to see. I'll have to post the info. sometime on the scultptor...awesome work. After the temple, we went to the park and spent a couple of hours there eating our picnic. It was so great to be in a park with green grass and gorgeous trees...never happens in Vegas. The weather was perfect and Celine asked to move there. Next we went to Brigham Young's winter home and toured it with one of the missionaries. The history there was so neat...we all really enjoyed it. We then went to Jacob Hamblin's home and toured it...again, lots of history. We learned a lot about St. George and about the pioneers. It was so much fun. We then treated ourselves to Pizza Factory...of course delicious! We were so full that we needed to walk a bit so we drove around and looked at some of the homes in the city. We wandered the mall for about 30 minutes and were ready to head home. It was so much fun to not have a plan, have no time limits, and just enjoy a day with our children. I could'nt have asked for more. I took a lot of pictures and took the liberty to post a bunch. :0)

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