Happy Birthday Lexi!!!

Happy Birthday to my gorgeous beautiful daughter!! It seems like just yesterday when you woke me up in the middle of the night so you could enter this world. You came into this world at 3:15 am weighing 8 lbs 5 oz. You were the most beautiful thing we had ever seen. Even though we were dead tired we could not stop holding you and admire you. You brothers were so excited to see you when grandpa and grandma brought them up to the hospital. It's too bad their constant wanting to hold you and love you and protect you has turned into teasing you, laughing at you and playing tricks on you to get you to yell at them. But what are brothers for??


Now 8 years later and 45 pounds heavier you have grown into a beautiful daughter of god. We are so proud of you Lexi and for your choice to be Baptized what a big decision for you to make on your own. I love the mommy daughter times we have and am looking to soo many more as you progress into a young woman!! You are our life and we love you more than words can express!! Just think as tall as you are getting and you 2 older brothers aren't growing very fast pretty soon you can play all the tricks on them cause you will be looking down on them and they will soon fear you!! Hope you have a wonderful day!! Love mom and dad!!!

Valentine's Day

Friday was such a hectic day! I had to help in the kid's classes for their Valentines Parties. Then Drew didn't want to stay for his school dance so I had to check him out. Couldn't find him anywhere had to search the Jr High's school dance for him for 40 minutes turns out he walked home. So I get him and rush to Jeff's sister's house to get my hair colored. Then Jeff calls me at 5:00 and says that John and Rochelle and Sam and Michelle just called and purchased tickets for the movie Taken and that they were going to dinner right then. Well hello just got my hair colored not done no way can I be ready!! Jeff of course told them we would meet them for the movie but not dinner since he still was on his way home from Roy. We get to the movie and it was so dang good!! A little disturbing but waayyy goood!! We got out of the movie at 9:00 and decided since Andrew was babysitting and all of Jeff's sisters kids were sleeping over that we were going to go out for dinner to have some alone time. We ended up at Olive Garden in south towne. The time alone was sooo worth it!! I haven't had a quiet and peaceful dinner in a long time. Thanks love. So Saturday we of course have to wake up early for Brayden's last Jr Jazz game. Which they won by the way. Then we had to sign up Drew for Baseball and then we spent the rest of the afternoon finishing tiling his sisters bathroom. Way fun!! NOT. But to make things better we went out to dinner with Xela and Brent and ended up going to Bucca De Beppo. So dang good!! After dinner we had tickets at the Desert Star Playhouse and watched Home School Musical. It was sooo funny they were making fun of High School Musical and Naploeon Dynamite. WAY FUNNY!! Thank you love for 2 awesome nights away from the noise and caous that always surrouds us! We decided not to get each other any thing this year cause why waste the money on things that die. I so enjoyed just being with one another without my little rugrats hanging on us and telling me that I can not kiss daddy cause it is gross. LOVE YOU BABE you are always going to be my #1 Valentine!!

Brayden, Brayden, Brayden,

I am constantly fighting Brayden to do his homework everyday after school.! It takes him literally an hour and a half to do 15 multiplication problems in math cause he thinks it's too hard and he whines and cries the whole time he is doing it. So we finally finish the math at 5:00 pm and start on the chore of writing out his 28 Valentines for his party today. Of course he starts to write out 3 and decides that he doesn't want to do anymore and he tells me that he will write the from on all of them if I will write the names of who they are to. Sorry buddy not gonna slide I could care less if you even handed any out! I had already sat and helped Baylee and stuffed the candy in all of Lexi's so you being 10 you are on your own except for stuffing the candy. Well after an hour of writing those out at 6:00 he tells me oh ya mom I have to decorate a Valentines box for tomorrow and my teacher gave me paper to decorate it with in my backpack. UGGGGHHHH!!! Why do they always wait till the last minute??? So Brayden got the scissors out and a tissue box and then he goes upstairs and gets on my cricut cutter and decides that he needs to make a bear on my Animal Kingdom cartridge and the sounds that the bear makes So he told me all it is is pushing buttons and glueing them on to the box any dummy could do it so he doesn't need my help! Well thank GOODNESS for the cricut machine cause he totally did it all on his own.!! Way to go Brayden!

Here is his finished product. He calls it his GROWLER MAIL!! He was so excited to take it to school today cause it was something he could actually do on his own and it only took him 15 minutes to make it.

U of U Gymnastics Meet

Last night we took the kids to the U of U gymnastics meet we had free passes from the school to get the family in for free. We had a blast!! We went with Jeff's two sisters Joyce and Vicki and their families. Ciarra and Baylee had so much fun dancing to the music and screaming at the top of their lungs with Brooke and Jessica. Lexi hung out on Uncle Tom's lap of course with Elizabeth. She loves her Uncle Tom. We have gone to these meets for the past 3 years and we never got a chance to go last year so we decided to start the tradition up again. Andrew was away at a Scout Klondike camp out so he wasn't with us but Brayden had a lot of fun watching all the girls in their cute outfits with their tight bods!!

It was so fun Jeff always takes his Binoculars so that he can see better and some college boys who one of them was on a blind date turned around and saw how Jeff was watching the meet and he kept hitting his friend saying "Dude check this guy out he can see every detail" "You can see every flaw on the all the girls" thats the way to go" So we got a good laugh at them laughing at Jeff. Of course Utah won out of all 4 school which were BYU (haha) SUU and Texas. This is Ciarra with her favorite Aunt Joyce!! When Joyce is around mom does not exsist!!

Refelctions Contest is now over for Us!!

We were able to go to the District level Reflections contest last night for the painting that Baylee painted. We had 6 kids move on from our school Heartland Elementary. While we were sitting there thru the hour and 15 minute thing none of the kids at our elementary school or the 4 surrounding elementary schools around us got to move on to State. Totally sucked!! Baylee was so dissapointed that she didn't get to move on to state that we had to take her out to Applebees with just Daddy and mommy. We had so much fun with her one on one that we decided to take a kid out by themselves every other week so they can have alone time with us and so we can spoil just them and only them for that night. Another boy Jacob in our neighborhood that is in Brayden's class his didn't get to move on either and he was devistated he was so cute while they were calling out the photography winners he sat with both his fingers crossed the whole time!! When they were finished he just put his head down and cried. It made me so sad for him. When 3-D art came up the little boy in Baylee's class Kyson he was dissapointed also that his didn't get to move on either. It was sad to see that even at 5 how dissappointed these kids get and that they do realize it was a big deal to get as far as District level. I told Baylee there is always next year and she is already thinking of something that she could paint.

Here is a picture of Jeff and Baylee enjoying their Shrimp and Parmesan Steak!! Baylee of course ordered a corn dog but once she saw mine and Jeff's shrimp and steak she ate off of both of our plates instead of hers. You think we would learn by now not to order what she says she wants and just let her share with us cause it happens all of the time!! We had to stop at the grocery store afterwards to pick up some milk for the kids and of course Baylee batts her eyes and daddy gives in and buys her a treat so she picked out a PEZ dispenser like she doesn't have enough of those but she was soo sweet and asked him if she could buy a pack of refills also so her brothers and sisters could have some too. Her siblings were very grateful cause daddy can never say no to Baylee.

4th Grade Field Trip

Brayden's class got to go to the Historic Veterans Museum in Lehi today for a field trip for School. It was soo much fun!! I have never been here before so I thought it would be lame once I saw the word Veterans but it was a lot of fun. The kids were mixed up into 8 groups from all 3 classes so I didn't get to be in charge of Brayden's group cause another mom dibbed that group but I got to go with some other kids in my neighborhood we had a blast!!

This is a sign that was at the front desk as we walked in, I tried to get Brayden to stand by it but he wouldn't he didn't think it was very funny! While we were there we got to learn about all different things, like rocks and minerals, we got to do a lot of hands on things, also. They got to make pictographs by scratching symbols and pictures into a pottery stone. They got arrested and put in jail, they were offered dead crickets that had flavoring on them like bacon and Cheddar, or sour cream and onion. Only half of the kids in my group would try it I even had a girl who tried to be brave and taste it but I had to run her to the bathroom so she could puke after it hit her tongue. No way would I even try it the kids tried to get me to but NO WAY was I going to! They got to rub buffalo skin with a indian made knife to make it into cloth for a tepee. And a lot of other things. So much to name!!

At the end of the field trip one of the guys that worked there decided to give us a treat and he brought out 4 very beautiful and awesome birds. He brought out a Falcon, a Hawk, and Owl and a Golden Eagle. This is the Eagle. It was so beautiful!! When it tried to fly out of his arms its wing span was so wide and pretty!! The kids loved it!! Brayden is still talking about all the fun he had today. They were saying that they are doing a Night at the Museum where everything comes to life coming up in February, so I am seriously thinking of taking the kids to it. It sounds like so much fun.

Kid's and their Thinking

Baylee has show and tell every Wednesday in her Kindergarten class and this week the letter was "P" We could not think of what she could take so when she got in my car yesterday after school she turns to me and says "I know mom I can trick my class and bring up my back pack and say It has brown hair, clothes and it talks. " So I asked her what that has to do with the letter P and she said " It's me I'm PRETTY!!! She thought that was so funny So after school I asked her if she did it and she said yes but she won't ever again cause the boys thought that was stupid!!

Party Night!!

Last night was soo much fun!! My friend Sheryl called me yesterday and asked if I would fill in and be a sub for her Bunco group. I of course said yes so I could have some me time. It was so much fun the ladies were so nice and we ended up having to call 2 more people from the neighborhood cause they were short people from their regular group. Dinner was delicious and it was great to be in the company of people who are older than 12. We were done playing by 10:00 but 5 of us decided to just sit around and talk and laugh. We were so into it that when I looked at my watch it was 12:45 so we finally decided that we better call it a night so our husbands didn't get mad. I got home at 1:00 and was so exhausted from laughter that I even slept in until 10:00 this morning. My kids didn't have school today so not only did they sleep in they let me also. Thank you my love for letting me have another night of no phone calls and time to myself. I guess I owe you another 4-wheeling trip to yourself again without kids. Knowing you you already have one planned like last time.