Phone picture post

Because I am so far behind, I've just got to catch up. It's July and I'm still trying to catch up from January. It's important to me to keep this up and record the memories we've made and special thing we've done so my kids will have record of them, so I just have to do what I can do to get it done. I pulled up the pictures from my phone, so I will update from those and then I'll go to my camera pictures, so things might get out of order, but at least they will be documented!

 We got free tickets to go to a Denver Nuggets basketball game. The kids were thrilled to experience their first professional basketball game. It was a school night, so we ended up leaving before it was over, but over all, they had a great time. Caroline wanted to be on the big jumbo screen so badly. She ended up getting on there 2 times. The first time, she grabbed my phone and kept flashing it where she thought the camera people were and it worked! She got their attention and got herself on the screen. She said she learned that from Wee-mama.

In February, all the kids came home with a fundraiser for Jump rope for kids to earn money for kids with heart diseases. Caroline was the only one who wanted to do it and she worked hard to earn $100. We went door to door a few times and she went up and spoke by herself. She was like 100% on people donating until she said, " who could say no to this face?", and then in a comical turn of events, the next door said no. We all got a good laugh off that one. She did great though and I was proud of her for doing it.

Also in February, Brian and I took a little get away trip to Vegas. It was a great relaxing trip. We did a TON of walking down the strip and seeing all the hotel lobbies which was fun and impressive. We went to the M&M factory, the Madame Trusseau wax museum, and saw 2 shows. The Beatles Love, which was really neat and had amazing acrobatics, and we saw Jersey Boys, which had fabulous music, but terrible language! It was a great trip and I always enjoy the chances we get to spend some alone time together. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's wonderful!

After we got back from our trip, we had a few days to spend with Mom and Dad before they went back home. OH! They were so kind to come out and watch the kids for us so that Brian and I could take our trip! It was pretty cold, so there wasn't much we wanted to get out and do, but I took them to see the Red Rocks. It was Fa-Ree-Zing!!! Super cool though. I didn't know they had a museum, so we took some time to do that and it was pretty cool.

 

Bella took some ice skating lessons and really enjoyed it.

Cooper turned 7! He wanted a superhero cake, shocker, so I did my best. Always looks better in my head, but I think he was ok with it.

We went to Utah as soon as school was over. We hit BYU, had lunch in the cougareat, hung out with Nana, went to a dinosaur museum, hung out with Caroline and Evie and watched Jayde fly his cool self made plane and went to the creamery.

We  had a fun bday party for Maya which we made the cupcakes for

Fun sleepovers

 Date night

We were able to use our Christmas present from WeeMama and Papa John and go to Liberty Land. The frogger was the kids favorite. A few adults enjoyed it too! :)

Always love going into the mountains. We went up Provo Canyon for dinner before we saw the play Cinderella.

Papa John lost a whip cream fight to Michelle

 We watched Maya run like the wind. That girl is fast!

 Caught these little monkeys in the crib

Had super fun at the water park

Kikster had her dance recital (more pics later)

Brian and I finally finished our new beautiful table! Love it!

And Brian finally bought his new bike that he's been talking about doing for several years!

Sisters Visit

All my sisters came out for a visit. It was so fun! We did all kinds of things, even things we wouldn't normally do. Maybe not a good thing. :)  After the several trips to the airport to get them, we had a wonderful time just being together. We went shopping, out to eat, spent some time in Boulder, had a missionary discussion with a waiter, played some sand volleyball and a night of karaoke. We are getting old. The clubbin' scene was not a good one for us. We started out at a bar, but were the only ones not drinking, and then we were on about a 2 hour list before we were going to get to sing, so we left and went to another place and got to sing within 10 min. Some probably less than appropriate song choices. Haha! A great night with some great ladies! Special thanks to Brian, who stayed behind with the babies and even got one to sleep. He's a keeper.

 

We thought we'd do a serious picture, but it was terrible and we ended up laughing so hard we were crying!

So fun!

Basketball

Cooper and Caroline decided to play basketball this go round. This was Caroline's first time and she really enjoyed it. Both of them did well and really improved over this season. It's fun to watch them get the games and improve on their skills.

11 years old

Well Elizabeth turned 11! Crazy! One more year until she's old enough for Young Women's and she'll be starting middle school. Cu-ray-zee! She has been wanting a sleepover forever, as do all the kids, but we've decided not to do them. I go back and forth on this decision, along with many others, because I remember having sleepovers and how much fun they were. However, I'm more aware now of the evils around and even less aware of things that happen at other people's homes. It's been a interesting challenge with many of the friends since their families don't go to our church. Even though it's not a fail safe, at least you have a little insight to their families through church and a basic same beliefs. Anyway, that's a totally different discussion. So.... with this back and forth, we decided they could have a birthday party sleepover when they were in 5th grade. That way they get that experience, they are old enough to take care of and entertain themselves but not too old that they're into a lot of trouble. We'll see how it goes. So, Elizabeth had a sleepover here and of course had a great time. She was wonderful to let her siblings feel included for a large part of it. What a good big sister. They basically just hung out and watched Percy Jackson. I think all in all it was a success.

For her family party, Elizabeth wanted to go to Jump City, so we did. The kids had a blast. Brian and I didn't think we'd be up for 3 hours of jumping, so we just paid for the kids, but we had a good time watching them play and have so much fun. For dinner we went to Boston Market, which no one really liked and I found out in the end, Elizabeth said we could go there because she thought it would be easier on us because there wasn't any wait. She's such a sweet and thoughtful girl!