Haircuts

Recently, CK got mad at L and so decided to cut her own hair as a way of "sticking it to her." I still haven't figured out this logic, but then again, 4 year old's don't always have the soundest logic. After I cut hers, I finally gave into L who has been begging me for sometime to cut hers and give her bangs. Here are the final results:

CK

L (before)

L (after)
together

They are both really happy with their new "do's" but I'm already missing how much easier it is to just throw their hair back in a ponytail, than to dry and curl it. Oh well!

Memorial Day

Dave has decided to have a tradition that whenever there is a holiday that falls on a Monday, we take the kids out to Breakfast. Here we are on Memorial Day.

Dave and KL

CK, B, L, D

After breakfast, Dave headed off to work, and we headed off to the Cemetery. We met up with my family. Here we all are at my sister's neice's grave who died last summer.Unfortunately, I didn't get the camera out when we went to my cousin's daughter's grave. I'll have to do that next year. My little sister pointed out how now, there are more and more friends and family graves than there ever were before. When I was little, we never knew anyone who had been buried there, but now that has changed.

L and Katy putting flowers on the grave of a veteran.

KL just enjoyed the day, especially when she got to ride on Grandpa's shoulders.

KL's Birthday

My sweet little baby has been 2 for over a week now. Hard to imagine. Times goes so fast it's scary. I wish I could freeze all my kids right where they are, but since I can't, I'll commemorate it with something of a picture montage.

Here she is bright and early before church in her new little birthday dress.
We had dinner that night at my parents house (as is typical for Sundays). CK insisted on bringing the little camp chair for her to sit on when it was time to open presents. Here she is, but she had found this little baby that she was being so cute with. This picture was taken just as she was getting ready to give the baby a kiss.


Opening her favorite present... bubbles. It's just too easy when they are this age!

D holding her up in front of her cake.

Blowing out the candles.

It was also my cousin Shannon's birthday! Here she is with her cake.

Memories

Here is just one more picture of the kids with Peyton and Spencer.

BR: Vasa, Peyton, Spencer, Tyton, Scottie
Mid: Josh, B, D, Roman, Zach
FR: Sam, L

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a busy and a fun Memorial Day weekend so I will now try and spend the next few days reporting on that! I will start by saying one of the funnest parts was my little sister and her family came down from Denver. They brought with them some friends. Peyton Hillis, who plays with Spence, and his fiance, Hannah. My boys were so excited to hear that he was coming. They have loved watching him almost as much as they have loved watching Spencer play.

I was able to convince my little sister to let me watch her little boy (Gunnar) one day (not an easy task with her). He was so much fun to have around and everyone loved playing with him. In the late afternoon, I had to run to the store to pick something up real quick (don't worry, Dave was home and he was having as much fun playing with the baby as anyone else). When I got home, I saw this:

That evening, we got to go to a BBQ at Spencer's parent's house, but before everyone came over, Spencer and Peyton invited all the boys over to play football. What fun! How many kids get to play football with not 1, but 2 NFL players!?!?! They had so much fun!

B and D were both on Spencer's team. D is 2nd from the right and B 4th from the right (as he wipes the sweat off his face with his shirt).
Peyton is the big guy on the left and Spence in motion on the Right.
It really was fun to watch. They were great with the boys, and really competetive with each other. I know it won't be something my boys forget anytime soon!

While the boys were having the time of their lives, so was KL!

Just because I'm weird... This is Becca... those of you who are big "cutest blogs on the block " people. Becca is one of the 2 founders of that. Of course, I don't actually have a "cutest blog on the block" template, but still... I have used them quite a bit. Anyway, she is a good friend of my sister's and so I had to ad this. :)

Football Party

A couple of weeks ago, the boys had an "end of season" party for football. Here they are getting their trophy's

B

Z

Coach Jay and Coach Eric w/ BCoach Jay and Coach Eric w/ Z

School's Out For Summer

The school year is over. Yea!! Here are some pictures from the closing events.

1st Grade Performance:

The picture is blurry but Anna is bottom Right, L right behind her, Zach right next to L and B 2nd row all the way on the Left)
In the classroom after. It was my little sister's last day of HS, so she decided to leave with a bang. She really wanted to be remembered apparently. This was a costume that Jill had when she was 12 for a dance festival, then revised at 16 for a play. Katy told me she couldn't believe that she had never thought to wear it before. Jill and I were both a little mortified and I told her that she shouldn't be ashamed of the fact that the though had occurred to her to wear it. She should be more shocked that it came TOO wear it. Nonetheless...we still love her and the kids were thrilled that she was there.

Katy
Jill, L, Anna, Zach, B, Me

Grammy also got to come. B was really hoping she would and asked me if she was going to be able to, but he has reached a "cool" phase, so he couldn't act like he cared whether or not she was there.

Grammy, Katy
Zach, L, KL, B

Straight from there, we headed over to CK's preschool. Here she is with what was left of her class. There were more at different times of the year, but this was the crew that made it to the end.

CK, Emma, Lacey, Sammy, Ms. Kimberly
Sam (aka Superman!)

This is their "Welcome Song." She was so excited to sing it. She told me about it all week long.

I also had 2 sisters graduate from High School. Here are me, Mary and Julia as we were waiting through the ceremony. It won't be remembered for being short. They had 5 student speakers, a school board member, plus a guest speaker all before announcing the graduates. It started to rain as soon as they started reading names. Lots of people left, but we stuck it out. It was actually a gorgeous night and I'll take the rain over the heat!

All of us who made it.
Mom, Roman, Scottie, Katy, Mary, Julia, Me, Dad
Vasa, Mariana, D, Josh
Mariana
Katy
(she isn't just pulling a funny face to be funny... she had some oral surgery 2 days before and she was still really sore and couldn't move that side of her mouth!)

Happy Birthday to My Honey!

I didn't get this post up last week, not because it isn't significant, but just because I didn't. Sorry, honey!

(a couple of years ago in Hawaii)

Anyway, last Thursday was his birthday. I'm so grateful for him. He is a great dad who loves me and his kids and we love him back. He is a hard worker who never gives up and I'm so thankful for his work ethic.

Here he is sharing his special treats with his girls. They love cuddling up with him as he shares his gummy bears with them. (B knows how much he loves gummy bears so he got his money and went and bought him a bag for his birthday.)

Our party was a simple one which is just wanted he wanted, though the kids just couldn't fathom why we weren't having everyone over. I had to keep reminding them it was about what Dad wanted not them. Some of them also couldn't figure out why he spent the whole day at work. At about lunch one of the twins just exasperated and just asked, "when is dad finally going to get home?!?!?)

With the kids who love him the most!

Hope you had a great day, Dave! We love you!

Water Day '09

Every year at the end of the year, the kids get to have a water day. Lucky. When I was little it was "track and field day". You may wonder why I sound bitter about this. After all, being out of the classroom all day long doing outdoor relays sounds fun, right? Well, please keep in mind where I grew up. It was ALWAYS over 100 and we were required to stay outside all day long sweating our guts out. Needless to say, although it was always billed as a fun end of school year activity, I would always dread it. Anyway, apparently, the powers that be realized that forcing young kids outside all day long in the sweltering heat isn't the best thing for them and have replaced "track and field day" with "water day". They get lots of big inflatable water slides and let the kids play. They don't get to do it for the whole day, in fact, they only get 30 min per grade, but I still would have gladly taken that any day over "track and field day."

I went to help out with the kids. It was fun to see them having so much fun, but unfortunately, they don't let the parents go down the slides, so despite it being water day, I stayed nice and dry... and HOT!!!

Naturally, the 1st graders went first. Here are B and Z playing in the "water tag" area. It was a little maze and they were all given water guns to shoot each other. I think those boys would have stayed in there all day, but I told them it was time to get out. The reluctantly obeyed.

Anna going down a slide.

L going down a slide.

Their awesome teacher agreed to go in the dunk take. Here are the girls as they watched her get dunked over and over again. They thought was hilarious!

(L 2nd from the left; Anna 4th from the right)

Here are my little 1st graders with their most amazing of teachers. We loved Mrs. McRobbie and will really miss her next year!

Anna, B, Zach, Mrs. MacRobbie, L

D with his friend Kade.

That is the only picture I got of David because I was helping with the dunk tank during his time. I was trying to get a picture of him with his teacher (who we also loved. thanks Ms. Selvaggi!), but my battery was dying on me and by the time I finally got him there, it was too late. Oh well!

My Baby? 2!?!?!

Could it really be? My baby is 2!?!? It has gone by so fast, but it has been so fun. She is such a fun, sweet little baby who is everyone's little sweetheart. Here are just some pictures of her, in no particular order...

This one was take last week at Dave's cousin Andria's birthday party. She just loves this little high chair. She will constantly drag it out of her closet and try and sit it.

This was from April in her Easter Dress.

November '08: This is the kilt my mom made for one of the twins for my brother's wedding after we went to Scotland.

She is 5 mo. old here and this will always be a favorite picture of mine. It had been a really busy day and I hadn't had much time for her, but she never complained. We had someone cleaning our carpets and our couches and so all the furniture was moved all around the kitchen making it so we couldn't eat at the table so I had set up a blanket on the floor in the kitchen and we ate picnic style. It was probably around 7 by this point and like I said, I had been pretty busy. I finally looked over at her and she had fallen asleep like this. No complaints... just couldn't stay awake any longer. Sweet little baby!

1 week old

3 mo. old in her blessing dress

With her daddy at the cabin... she is about 11 mo old here. She is such a daddy's girl. She will follow him around when ever he is home and when she wakes up, she always calls for her "doddy" first. He loves every minute of it too. But of course, who wouldn't?

13 mo.

About 9 hours old. The first time her big sister got to hold her.

We are all so thankful for the blessing that she is in our lives. It is hard to imagine a world where she isn't part of it. She really brightens all of our days, every single day!

Just a fun little video of her showing off some of her cuteness: