HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Yesterday was my sweet mom's birthday (I think that she turned 42 or something close to that!) I have the best mom in the world! My kids love their grandma (or as Faze calls her Gaa Gaa). I just want to wish my mom the best birthday ever!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

We love you!!!

Floating down the creek

Chris bought some fun tubes from Costco and decided to take the fam to a nearby park that has a small creek in it. The creek is perfect for kids to wade in and ride their tubes down the creek. Even Faze rode on a tube by himself. What a fun way to cool off on a hot day!

Roastn' weenies up the canyon

For family night we decided to seek out some cooler weather so we headed up the canyon with our friends the Thompson's. We brought along hot dogs and marshmallows to roast and make s'mores. It felt so nice in the cooler air. We had such a good relaxing time. The Thompson's live behind us and have become such dear friends to us. It is so fun to have someone so close to hang out with. Our favorite is to put the kids to bed then meet up at one of our homes to play games, watch a movie, or have dessert. I have ALWAYS wanted to have a next door neighbor that we can hang with and now we have it...what a blessing (especially when one of us needs to borrow an egg, LOL)!
I have been inspired by one of my new blogging friends Bekki to be more creative with my photo taking skills. I wish you could all visit her blog (sorry it is private now) because she takes such awesome pictures!!! So I tried to be creative while taking pictures up the canyon... Here is my attempt.
We really take for granted our wonderful canyon...we literally live one minute from the entrance to the canyon and we hardly ever go up there. We even have a season pass to go up there without the fee and still we do not take advantage of it. This is definitely something that we need to work on.

Faze loves to pose, he caulks his head to the side like this and says "cheeeese"
I love this picture, for those of you that know Faze, he can get into all sorts of trouble. This pic looks like he is the most innocent child around. And just look at those baby blues.
How many marshmallow can you fit in your mouth?
The kids mistakenly wore flip-flops... look at those FILTHY feet!

This is Emma, Faze's little friend....he just LOVES Emma!

Kissin on the mama

All the kids

Melissa and Emma
The Thompson's

Motorcycle mama's

My kids LOVE going on motorcycle rides with Danka on his Harley.



Ok, so he is not a motorcycle 'mama', but he is pretty darn cute in this helmet, so I had to add it.

A belated father's day (remember, lost my cables!)

I know, I know, Father's day was like forever ago. But I still wanted to do a post on two of the best Fathers I know. First my own Father... he is the most talented craftsmen I know. He can build ANYTHING with wood and everything he makes is the utmost quality, not detail is left unthought of. My dad is one of the most hard working people I know. Once he decides to do something he just gets it done. He is the most amazing organizer and purger, this is definitely something that I wish I was more like him in. He is amazing! He is such a great grandpa for my kids (who call him Danka), they love their Danka! For Father's Day we had a big dinner at my parents with some of my extended family...there was so much yummy food! It was a great day!

I love you Pa!

Now for my hubby. I feel so lucky to be married to someone that is such a great dad to my children. I fully hold him responsible for us having such beautiful children. Chris is so good to make sure that he spends one-on-one time with each child. The girls always look forward to their 'daddy-daughter' dates. The girls gave him a BBQ for the special day. I think that he was pretty excited about it.

We love you babe!

lost cables

So I have like four things to blog about with dang cute pictures to go along, but unfortunately one of my 'darling' little helpers seems to have wandered off with my cables that hook my camera up to my computer. AAUUGGHH. I will keep searching...once I find them, beware, I will have many new things to read about! So until then, Mmmwahaha

My monthly scrapbook night

For about a year and a half I have been a part of a monthly scrapbook club. Me, my mom and our friend Elaine go together. It is so much fun and we really look forward to it, our friend Karen hosts it at her house (she is a Close To My Heart consultant). Each month she creates a two page layout and a card for all of us to do... Karen is seriously one of the most talented scrapbookers I know and we walk away with some of the most darling pages EVER! I took these pics at our last get-together.

My mom and Elaine

This is Karen-scrappin queen

Just scrappin away!

I highly recommend this!

So I just finished this book and I LOVED IT! It took about 75 pages to get into, but once I was past that it was smooth reading! Oh, it was so hard to put down! The book was like 600 pages and I was up many nights reading, I just couldn't put it down...it is soooo good! If you have the chance to read it, please do! You won't be sorry!

Dance mania

Were off to see the Wizard....or so it appeared on Friday night. The girls had their dance concerts this weekend. Because the studio is so large they have to have three separate concerts, so Tae's concert was on Friday night. For the first half of the concert they did the production 'The Wizard of Oz', Tae was a red munchkin...too cute! I was so impressed with the costumes and especially the scenery. The studio went all out and did a fantastic job!!! This year their studio director is celebrating her 40th year anniversary. This is the same place that I took dance for many years when I was younger, so it was fun to see Miss Janet be honored by her students past and present.

For the second part of the concert each of the classes did one more dance. Tae's class did a dance to "Uptown Girl", I know that I am biased, but I really think that Tae has got so much talent with this sport. She did so amazing! We are so proud of how far she has come with this. I remember that she used to cry and not dare to go on stage and now she is front and center with her routines with a huge smile on her face, just shakin her cute little booty. She has enjoyed dance so much this year that she has decided to tryout for a competition team next week.

Sienna is on a competition team, so her concert was Saturday night. All the competition teams performed their routines at this concert. Sienna was in five dances and of course did amazing! It was a long concert though....there were 42 numbers!!! Needless to say that Faze did NOT enjoy the evening and spent most of the time running in the hallways. Oh well.

All the dancer got a cute trophy after the concert was over...Tae was very excited to begin her trophy collection, Sienna has about 12 right now and Tae has always been envious and wanted one, so now her collection begins!

Leadership retreat

I just got back from a fun little Leadership retreat with my guard girlies. Since it took me forever to download all of the pics it is easier for me to put a link to that blog and have you check it out there! Here is the link http://afguard.blogspot.com/

Check it out if you want to see and read about it.

A last hoopla

We had our end of the year party with our Riverton girls last week. It was sooooo much fun to hang out with 'my girls' one last time. These are seriously some of the best girls that I have ever taught! They all came to my house and we ate, played games, watched a FANTASTIC video that Greg (Bri's hubby) made, and handed out gifts. The girls made me a super sweet scrapbook that had pictures and letters from each of them expressing their love and thanks to me. It means so much to me, they wrote some very wonderful sentiments. I just love these girls and will miss them so much!!! Most of the girls spent the night and we had fun talking about our favorite memories from the past year. We had so many great memories together and MANY 'in the vault' moments that hopefully will remain locked up until I am long gone!!! ;-)

Brianna and Allison

Me, Amanda and Megan

Lexi and Allison (BFF'S)

Bri, Ashley and Heather (not sure what she is doing on this one...)

Mylee and Ariel
Allison looking at the scrapbook that they made for me

Ariel, Mindi, Heather and 'Hess'