Success!

The first day of school went so well for the kids, especially Maddy, she's the one who is always the most nervous. Maddy has a really great and fun teacher, Mrs. Simi. Alex gets along well with any teacher and is pretty low maintenance compared to his sister.
It is such a relief to have happy kids!

Lake Powell!!

Every July we head to my very favorite place on earth, Lake Powell. I love the heat, the hotter the better, the warm water, being with family and this year, watching my kids learn new tricks. We always stop in Kanab for lunch at "Houston's trails end", a real cowboy epxerience, and to Dennys wigwam for a fun souvenir. I absolutely love this vacation! It's our fave for sure.

These are just a few of the over 400 (gasp!) pics I took this week .

Learning to dive :)

Alex's Thank you note to his wonderful second grade teacher :)

"Dear Mrs. Roberts, I loved you so much!!! And you don't smell like a monkey. You were the best teacher ever and I will miss you in third grade. I was overjoyed with all you do for us.

Always,

Alex"

I thinks his teacher will appreciate his silly monkey comment but I know that I will definitely miss Mrs. Canales-Roberts. She was so great and now my little guy is off (sniff-sniff) to third grade!!! (Whaaaaa!)

"Birthday season" come and gone!

Between April 26 and May 23 all four of my little darlings celebrate their 10th, 8th, 4th, and 2nd Birthdays. So I have dubbed it "Birthday season" and I look forward to it and dread it at the same time. We decided this year that Maddy and Alex would not have parties  but that we would let them pick their favorite place for dinner and an activity to do as a family instead. Alex picked Tepanyaki for his b-day dinner and an evening at Boondocks. This is so classic Alex and I loved it! We had fun gathering tickets like maniacs so he could bring home a big bag of crap, er, loot. He was a sweet brother though and he shared his haul with his sisters and little bro.

Maddy chose Olive Garden and to go see a movie. The movie wasn't a very good one but Maddy still had a cheery attitude and was glad to be with her family on her special day

Sadie baby was the one who got to have a party because I just couldn't resist letting her have her "wonderful" Tinkerbell party. She was the most excited 4 year old you ever saw and she just couldn't wait to share her beautiful pinata and cupcakes with her guests. We just played fun little games and let her feel like she was the most fabulous 4 year old ever!

T-man had no clue it was his birthday and he really could have cared less but we still had him open a few gifts and we sang to him and let him blow out candles. He actually HATED being sung to and cried the whole time until the torture ended :)

I love my kiddies so much and I hope to celebrate many, many, many "Birthday seasons"

with my little monkey's!

Delton lanes baby!

Every June the Orr family, that is my mother in laws family, host a family reunion at the family bowling alley in West Valley called Delton lanes. The name Delton is a combo of my mother in laws parents names; Milton and Delta. We used to have this reunion at a park every year until my BIL Justin suggested to one of his uncles, who now own a manage the bowling alley, that we should have it there and the rest is history! The most amazing part about these reunions is watching some really incredible bowling from this family! My MIL is amazing since she grew up bowling every day after school as a little girl with all of her siblings. It is like nothing for these people to bowl into the mid to high 200's!  Such a fun family gathering, they have cash raffle's and endless drinks and pizza, seriously the coolest reunion around :)!

I am terrible at bowling so I won't even acknowledge my score but my kids love, love, love this reunion and being with all of their extended cousins.

Boulder Mountain 09'

I am so behind on blogging lately! So I will start with our most recent goings-on.

We just returned from our annual camping trip to Boulder utah, it's in the Fishlake national forest and we had so much fun except for some mild meltdowns of my own. It was the first time we had taken our little camper out and it ended up being  pretty tight for our little family but for now it will work. We did the usual hikes and a visit to the water hole (in some cloudy, sprinkling weather) but the kids never care about temperature if there is water around. The first day there it started raining and we had left our camera out and it got ruined. So I only have few pics of the trip :( 

It wasn't my favorite year at Boulder because of the rain and my meltdowns! :<

But the kids had so much fun and that makes it all worth it! Here's to next year!!