Road Trip

Our family has driven to Colorado too many times to count.  It's about 12 hours with bathroom and food stops and not too bad with a DVD player.  So why not go further right!  I don't know what we're thinking, but we have decided to drive to Arizona this summer to visit family and to see the Grand Canyon.  The kids are very excited!  We don't take a lot of family vacations.  This trip has been talked about since Christmas and the week has come.  We will head out this week to 110 degree weather and hours and hours of movies.  We have read that the drive is 21 hours.  We plan to hurry out in 2 days, but then take it slow coming home.  We are going through OK and NM, instead of CO.  It sounds like an easy drive so far.  We're all in need of a small break from normalcy here.  I'm hoping that need and excitement will keep us going those first 14 hours....We'll post pics when we get back.

May 2012

Living the Summer Life

It's officially summer when QT offers their $.69 drinks...our crew gains a few pounds each summer, but love it :)

Landscaping Project

Blog Books Arrived!

It's hard to believe that this blog has been going for 6 years now and it is so fun to look back and read some of the funny things the kids have said or did.  I had not originally planned for this blog to be a family scrapbook in a sense when it first began, but it has sure grown into that.  If I hear something funny or cute that someone says or find a cool picture from an outing or moment, I add it the blog.  While many of you out there reading could sometimes care less about these interesting things we are capturing on record, I find it an excellent way to keep track of our crew.  So in 2008, I decided to start printing annual books of this blog for our coffee table for the kids to look back and enjoy.  The first program I found that will take your blog and put it in a binded book form, was a little choppy and not the best organized.  Since then, they have all come a long way.  They are still expensive, but so easy to make!  So this year for Mother's Day and my birthday, John and the kids bought me my first 2 blog books. We now own 2006 and 2007.  My hope is to buy 2 books a year until I am caught up and then buy one each year around Christmas for that year.  It's a much easier form of a family scrapbook.  Ashlyn has read both books already and I got them 2 days ago.  It's been fun to see Caleb as a baby and Jonathan's pregnancy and birth pictures all over again.  When you are all over to visit, you'll have to take a look at them.  I hope to get 2008 before the end of the year with some website money. The company we ended up using was Blog2Print in case anyone else is interested in starting the same tradition :) It takes about 5 minutes to customize it all and order it.  Then it take about 10 days to get it in the mail.  Enjoy!

Last Day of Preschool

We officially have a Kindergartener! Jonathan's last day of preschool was yesterday and he enjoyed an Olympic Day for his last day. After that fun, they sat in rows of 2 and pretended to ride the bus to Kindergarten. It was really cute! Here are a few pics from the fun...

Last Day of FCA

May 18th was FCA's last day of school this year. We officially have a 2nd grader, 3rd grader and 6th grader! We were really looking forward to summer this year and look forward to the break from school work. We still don't know if Ashlyn will home school next year or attend FCA.We hope to know by mid-July.  The two middle boys will attend FCA and Jonathan will stay in the Park Hill District for Kindergarten.  But, for now, we will all be HOME :)

Fifth graders trying out the Mentos experiment and shooting homemade rockets.

Joshua enjoying his ice cream sundae.  He had to read 4 chapter books for it.

Joshua with his teacher Mrs. McCullison. This was her last year at FCA and we loved having her a second time.

Caleb and his first grade friends on a scavenger hunt looking for a disguised Mrs. Denny.

Winning the scavenger hunt and enjoying their last day of first grade together!

Birthday party BBQ turned water fight

Spring Gladstone Soccer

Soccer season was a success! Both Josh and Caleb were able to play on the same team this year...one practice and one game a week. Caleb has some natural soccer talent! He scored a couple times and was completely red after each game. It was a joy to watch them both. Here are a few pics from the last game...

Spring Pictures

Sweet Brother Moments

Yesterday was Jonathan's birthday and Joshua and I were the first 2 up. So we wrapped his birthday presents together and put them out on the fireplace so they would be there when he woke up. Right after we put them out, Joshua told me that he remembered on Mother's Day that Jonathan said he would like breakfast in bed on his birthday too. So Joshua decided to make him cinnamon toast.  He took it into his room and Jonathan stumbled out of the room with a smile and a plate of toast.  I told him Happy Birthday really loud and he said, "Is today my real birthday?"  (I think he was confused because we celebrated his birthday at preschool in April and then people kept telling him Happy Birthday all week when we would see him.)  I said "yes, it really is." And he immediately, ran over to Joshua and gave him a huge hug and kiss for the breakfast. He remembered that he asked for breakfast in bed and that Joshua remembered.  It was really sweet.  Then they hung out talking in the living room together while he ate his toast before everyone else woke up. It was very precious and a great way to start my birthday too.

Happy Birthday Jonathan!

Hard to believe this guy is 5 today! And he is going to Kindergarten next year! Happy Birthday Buddy! We love you very much :) You're my favorite birthday present ever...