Happy Birthday Kevin!

5 years old!
Legally does not need a carseat, now allowed to have gum, and according to him, no longer needs naps. :)


I love how happy he gets here.



Here's the camouflage cake that Aunt Kristi made with her "new" cake pan. As you can tell, orange is no longer his favorite color.



Thanks for all the gifts and mail!!! He scored big this Birthday, and we had fun celebrating!

My first Arizonan born

While eating cereal the other day, Hunter was all ready for preschool in his long sleeve shirt, long pants and still pretty new tennis shoes.
He says "I'm cold"
"What?"
I check to see that the temperature is 73°. No wonder he doesn't hurry to get out of the 120° car.
Crazy kid!

Lucky America

We have Celtic Woman touring in the U.S. right now.
They will be in Tucson on November 16th, so Britney and I are super excited to see them live!
Lucky us!!!

Bangs!

Katie would ask for bangs when she was 3 and 4, but every time I cut them she wouldn't last a week before starting to pin them back, so I denied any further requests. Once they were grown out, she didn't ask for them anymore.
When I asked her a few days ago if she wanted them, she said yes, "but not a lot, I want them like Aunt Becky's"
Anyway, here they are right after the cut and before I used my straitener (don't have a curling iron :) to fix them.



Her teacher complimented her right away, but I think some of her friends weren't quite sure what was different at first.

Let us gather in a circle...

As we gathered around the trampoline for family prayer after scriptures one night, I had to grab the camera. No one was complaining that they had to go to bed or being sluggish about kneeling down, and Ammon was especially excited to be doing what everyone else was doing. Everyone was just happy.

It's nothing that amazing, but it's these moments that make life wonderful, and that's what's so amazing.

Feel the Love

Bryan, I love you because you are always up for having fun. You don't know how to hold a grudge, you work so hard and you cook for me. Most of all because you love me and love to be with me.



Katie, I love you because you are so helpful. You are a wonderful big sister and enjoy learning. I love to hear you read, laugh and make music.



Kevin, I love you because you put things in your brain and keep them there. I love to hear you randomly tell me you love me. I love to see you bust a move!



Hunter, I love you because you like to make me laugh. I love how you name everything by adding a 'y' to the end of the name.



Ammon, I love you because you are beyond super cute! I love the new squishy smile you do(yet to catch on camera) and how excited you are to play with your siblings.

To my family, I love you because you are mine. You are a part of me and I am so blessed! I thank God we can be together for eternity.

Hey Mom, take a picture of me!

Happy Birthday Bryan!

How is it I'm married to someone so old! 33 Yikes!
Another year older and hopefully wiser. :)

The kids wrapped some of their toys for him to open and we found a box of bows they used to stick all over the house.
Kristi was so wonderful to watch the boys so I could go have lunch with Bryan and his friends from work. I made some german chocolate brownies so he could share with the office. Yummy!
Unfortunatly, Bryan's allergies were pretty bad so he wasn't able to enjoy himself as much as he should. :(
The main celebration will be when his parents come to town, so the party's not over yet.

Sea World

These first two pics are not from Sea World, but Bryan spent most of our time in CA working on his parents house which is why we were there. I didn't get a picture of the new wall, but here's the floor that Bryan put in, and he can't wait till we have one just like it.

Grandpa and Ammon :)

Now for the Sea World adventure!
We went to Dland last year so when we asked what other park we should go to Katie insisted on Sea World. We saw 4 shows, but most of the pics are from the kids play area.
I just love this one.Walrus kisses.G&G Hiner were so awesome to watch Hunter and Ammon while we took Katie and Kevin on the two rides they wanted to go on. We had to stuff Kevin's shoes with my socks to make him tall enough, and he was so glad! We went on the rapid ride first, then after all day of them asking when, we took them on the roller coaster. It has the big splash drop at the beginning and it duely scared the children, but they loved it.
just thought this was kinda funny

And so it begins...
and to our surprise it continued to grow!


Some harvest days...
(these were from the front yard)

Some things got attacked by bugs, some rodent ate most of our onions, and some carrots, and not everything looks that pretty, but most things tasted great. I think the kids favorites were the strawberries, most of which got eaten before they got to the house.
We still have a few plants alive out there but the heat is getting to be too much so we'll plant again in September.

Bryan was so great on really getting us started, cause he read Square Foot Gardening that his father gave us. It is so much fun and great to finally have success in producing food!