Are You Serious?

Kiersten has some luck I tell ya!

 She got invited over to the Smith's house on a Thursday night for a party (which is like Friday for our kids since they don't have school on Fridays).  It was Chase's friends at the party for the most past.....they are all in the 8th grade and then there was Kiersten and Maranda Smith both who are in the 6th grade.  

So Kiersten was excited of course since it was so many older kids.  They were all having a great time just messing around.  At some point they were all playing chase or hide-n-seek in the house.  Yes Tressie and Jason were home and they were letting the kids play this game.  

Kiersten was running in the hallway and ran into the bathroom to hide from Chase.   She was not aware that earlier in the evening Melanie (8) and Ashley (10) had made a huge mess in the bathroom.  It consisted of them washing their dolls in the sink with soap and water.  Of course they let in overflow onto the floor making the bathroom floor a big slippery mess!

So Kiersten comes running into the bathroom and slips on the wet, soapy floor and lands on her right elbow.

Because there were so many older kids Kiersten holds in the pain and doesn't make a fuss about her elbow.  She not only didn't cry, even though she said she really felt like it, but she stayed at the party.

When Tressie walked her home I was already asleep.  She stayed up most of the night because her arm/elbow was hurting so bad.

I asked her why she didn't wake me up she said, " I came into your room to wake you up but you looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you!"  Needless to say we had a long talk about waking me up next time!!

The next morning around 11:00 I decided to take her to get it checked out because she was holding her right arm with her left arm and wouldn't let it hang down at all.

I took her to the Urgent Care because they have an x-ray machine there.  We were both surprised when the doctor came back in and said it was "fracture in the growth plate of her elbow!"

I guess I was so surprised because Kiersten was tough enough to stay at that party after she broke her elbow.

I told Tressie when we were headed to the Urgent Care but she acted like there was no way it could be broken because Kiersten not only did not cry but she didn't even complain about it.  Plus she stayed at their house for hours after in happened.  When I called Tressie and told her the news from the Urgent Care doctor she was in shock!!!  And she felt extremely bad about it!

Kiersten had to wear a hard splint for a few days and then go see Dr. Bryce the orthopedic surgeon.  

When the doctor told Kiersten that her elbow was broke she just started bawling.  He felt so bad and thought it was because she had been in so much pain.  She was actually just very upset that she would break her elbow one week before her end of the year gymnastic show!

Kiersten had gotten her unassisted back handspring down.  I had even let her take about 5 private lessons to help her get it down because she was working so hard on that skill.  

She was so proud of herself for getting it down and then this happens a week before the show.

My heart just broke for her!!! 

At first we thought she might have her cast on for her dance competition and dance recital.  It was a hard thing to think about to this dedicated girl of ours.  But lucky enough Kiersten was able to get her cast off the week of competition and the week before the dance recital. 

She had to the cast for 5 weeks.

The whole situation was a sad deal.  But I was amazed at Kiersten's sweetness and strength through out it all.

Kiersten's Piano Recital

The is the end of the year piano recital.

Kiersten's teacher, Rea Schmitt, challenged her to do three pieces from memory for the recital.

Of course Kiersten will rise to any thing that is asked of her.

Sister Schmitt is a great teacher!

She is a bit tough on her students and pushes them hard.

It's been a big adjustment coming from the very positive atmosphere of Tracy Brown's lessons to Sister Schmitt's way of teaching.  But Kiersten has done great and plays the piano beautifully!!!

Kiersten and Ashlyn Brown

Kiersten played all her pieces so good!

It was a real joy to be at her recital!

9 Year Old Boys!!!

No one ever told me how much fun 9 year old boys are!  It's been fun discovering this truth on my own though.

This is what happens when you ask your 9 year old boy to vacuum out the car.  Now he did what I asked and did a great job at it.  He also had a fun time using the vacuum hose to create this nice hickey in the middle of his forehead.  Do you think he was embarrassed at all?  Heavens no, something like this is "AWESOME" when you are a 9 year old boy! 

This is Hunter with his 4th Grade teacher, Mrs. Jessica Skinner.  She is also our neighbor.  She has been Hunter's most favorite teacher yet!  She is pretty amazing teacher!

So this was on one of the many dress up days during the Love of Reading Week.  It was dress like a cowboy or cowgirl day.  Of course, for our "think outside the box", Hunter he decided he was going to dress up like a cowgirl!  He was so very excited to do it and even picked out his own outfit.  How could I say no, plus isn't he adorable!

I am always impressed with Hunter and his ability to think outside the box.  Plus he has a dang good sense of humor to match it!

Mrs. Skinner sent me this picture and told her this was her favorite day of the year.  She even asked of she could put it on her FaceBook page because she loved Hunter's personality and creativity so much!

So I must say, 9 year old boys are so much fun!  I am grateful I get to experience these fun filled moments with Hunter!

Our Conference Garden

Our tradition is to plant our spring/summer garden the weekend of General Conference as we listen to it on the radio.  I think we actually hear more of it this way and Justin stays awake!  The Sunday sessions are about all our kids can handle just sitting down listening to all the speakers, no matter how good they are.

We have quite the work crew this year!

And then we have a good three year old foreman, Mr. Grant!

Kiersten is our kid that gets into the garden the most, but Hunter is getting more and more interested in it the older he gets.  Kiersten is just like her dad in that way.  As a kid, Justin was the gardener of his house his mom tells us.

Apparently, Foreman Grant told Logan to come join him in the mud hole he made.  How can you say no to those smiles?  I know I couldn't!

Of course when you play in a mud hole you MUST cover each other in mud right!

Everyone enjoyed the day of planting the garden, listening to Conference and of course the fun of the mud hole!

Justin does a great job showing and teaching the kids about planting the garden!

These two were such hard workers!  Justin and I were super proud of them!

We enjoyed our garden the entire summer.......tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes, bell peppers, yellow squash, zucchini squash, green chills, jalapeños, and carrots.

Project completed!

My mud magnets needed a dip in the pool after their long day of "work".

Great job foreman Grant.  Pretty sure he might have had the most fun out of everyone!

Warrior Dash

After signing up for the Warrior Dash in Phoenix, my running partner bailed on me.

I thought about not going myself but since I already had the weekend planned I decided just to tag along with the ladies from the gym!

It was a very hot March day in Phoenix.

What an awesome cheering team we had with Hunter and Kiersten!

I joined Local Edge Gym in January and boy have I really enjoyed this gym.  Their CrossFit program is wonderful in it's own bad painful way!  The atmosphere is so friendly, encouraging and none judgmental.  It's the perfect place for me to workout!  I love all the coaches and the wonderful people that go there. 

These ladies are AMAZING!!!

Dayna & Lyle Broadhead, Jason & Maria Kouts (the Gym owners), Danny & Star McQuen, and ME!  I tired to not be in this picture seeing how it was all these couples and loner me.  But they all were insistent that I be in it.  They even left me out for a moment!  These amazing woman even bought me matching shirt and socks so I would feel included in their group.  

I would have been fine ether way, but it just made me realize what great people they are.  And just how thoughtful!

Hunter thought that the men's My Little Pony shirts were the bomb!

The Warrior Dash is a 5K run with many obstacles!

It was a great time!  The men were hilarious!!!  

We are about it enter the biggest mud pit.  You had to crawl under the bobbed wire so you really got covered in mud.

I am glad this was the last obstacle because all that mud really weighed you down.

Wonderful day, Wonderful people and a little bit of exercise!  Sounds like a great combination to me!

Thanks everyone for making me feel so included when it was a last minute thing for me to join your team!  I love you all!

My kids are the best!  They cheered us on, took pictures of it all for us and stayed together so they were safe!

That evening I took the kids to see Disney's Beauty and the Beast at Gammage.  We all loved it!

It was a fast fun weekend and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Fun Little Trip

We needed to meet our builder down in Phoenix on Saturday to pick out a few things for the basement.  Since Justin had a doctors appointment over in Tucson Friday evening we decided to just make a big loop around and make a weekend out of it.

My dad ended up Thursday night going to the ER, they thought he had a heart attack.  They were going to fly him out but the weather was too bad so they took him by ambulance.  It was around 11:30 p.m. by the time he left.  I went home to quickly back myself a bag and also back the rest of the family for the weekend.  Talk about a mad rush!  My mom was coming to pick me up as soon as she packed her bag.  I managed to get everything backed by the time she got there.  I back myself a little bag, the boys all a bag for our weekend trip and Kiersten a separate bag as she was having a girls weekend with Grammy Cluff and the girl cousins.

I drove my mom over to TMC and got there around 3:00 a.m.

My dad wasn't in a room yet still waiting in the ER.

They did say that he didn't have a full heart attack.  He was having some internal bleeding, either in his intestines or stomach and it caused his heart to be strained.  Good news!

He did have to have an NG tube placed down his nose which is extremely painful.  Crazy enough it was only three months ago that my mom had a blockage in her intestines and had to have the same thing, an NG tube.  Except hers happened while she was going through chemotherapy.  So it was extra rough!

I must say that in the past year my parents sure have kept me busy with healthy problems.  It's no fun watching helplessly while your parent suffers.  I am always so grateful to be able to help out and stay with them in the hospital during these difficult times.  My amazing mother-in-law and wonderful husband are the reasons I have been able to be there with my parents.  And I will forever be grateful for their help!

My dad had to spend a few days in the hospital but made a full recovery.

Justin ended up coming and picking me up at TMC before his doctors appointment that Friday evening.  I had only slept about an hour so I was pretty much delirious!  That and the fact that I am on some crazy hormone pills made for quite a time!

(Jan 4th)

The boys and I were starving so Justin dropped us off at Mr. An's for some teppanyaki.

This was the boys first time at a teppanyaki restaurant. 

 Boy were they impressed!

Mr. Grant was wickly good with his kids chop sticks.  It was so funny because he could eat with his way better than the older boys.

He loved eating with the chop sticks.

Of course he found other things to do with the chop sticks as well. He is three remember!

I really love teppanyaki!

Entertainment and dinner right in front of you......how can you beat that?

Love the volcano!

The boys were all thrilled with the whole experience.

This would be Hunter catching a shrimp.  See the shrimp flying in the air?  He actually caught it on the first try and was so excited!!!

It was a wonderful dinner even though I looked like death.

One lady who sat at our table said, "Oh sweetie you look like you've just pulled a night shift and a day shift right in a row."

I told her, "Yep that's pretty much what I did!'

I was relieved to explain why I looked so bad :)

From there it was on the Phoenix to stay the night.  Ends up that there was a huge accident on I10 so we were rerouted.  What should have been a 1 1/2 hour drive to our hotel ended up being a 4 hour experience.  Of course we were grateful we weren't the ones in the accident but man was I ready to lay down in an actual bed.

Next day I was feeling much better and we headed out to meet our builder.  After picking out several things we headed to some furniture stores.

Logan finds this chair and is in "love"!

He is so funny!

He told me all the reasons he "needed" this exact chair in his room.

Yay, bud not gonna to happen!

We decided to stay the whole weekend. Of course that involved jumping on the hotel beds in your underwear!  My boys think it's really something special to get to do that and the fact that I let them do it in just their underwear some how added to the excitement. 

Only rule....DON'T LAND ON DAD! 

The next morning Justin would not wake up so I decided to let him sleep and that I would take the boys to breakfast some where.  Cheesecake factory it was.

Really good morning......kisses from Mr. Grant and these two handsome guys sitting across from me!

Hunter gave his fancy french toast a thumbs up!

We let Justin sleep in til check out, 12:00........he was pretty happy about that!

Since the boys had been really good sports the day before with all our shopping we treated them to Xtreme Air!  One of our new favorite spots in the valley.

The boys were happy they had earned this treat.  Hunter has been talking about this place since his birthday trip with his dad.

It was an immediate hit with Logan and Grant!

So needless to say it was an eventful long weekend!

So grateful my dad is doing good and got released from the hospital in just a few days.

Spelling Bee

Hunter made it to the spelling bee at his school.

He picked out his outfit all on his own.

He insisted on wearing his purple earphones with his purple iPod.

Said, "He wanted to look cool while he spelled his words!"

I have to start off saying that I hate the spelling bee.  Actually let me rephrase that I hate when my kids are in the spelling bee.  It makes me so nervous for them.  And I know my kids ( at least Kiersten and Hunter) are such perfectionists that I know they are going to be disappointed with themselves regardless of how they do.

This year Hunter made it to the spelling bee!

Hunter was gone the day they handed out the list of words to study over Christmas break.  He was upset about that but we kept forgetting to ask his teacher, our neighbor to get us a copy so he could study it during his break.  So he never studied them.

Hunter can be such an emotional little guy.  He wears his emotions on his sleeves like his mom!  That and the fact that he expects perfection from himself are a bad combination for the spelling bee.

Hunter did a fabulous job!

He got forth place.

The whole situation is intimidating.  At DPA the room that the spelling bee in held in is tiny.  With the whole crowd right in your face, not to mention the panel of judges starring at you what kid wouldn't feel uncomfortable.  Hunter seemed to handle the pressure with easy.

The last four kids went five rounds before Hunter got out.

You know how spelling bees go.....it's just the luck of the draw if you get a hard word.

The round Hunter got out the other kids words were, "family......wonderful........react."

Hunter got the word, "dyer".......Example "I am in dyer need of help right now."

He doesn't even know what the word means and has probably never written that word in his life.  He was bummed that he got that word.  He could have spelled every other word that round but his.

He spelled it just how it sounds...."dier."

I was proud of Hunter for making it so many rounds especially considering he never looked at the list of words to study.

Since Hunter contained his composure, even though I could tell he was upset and really wanted to cry I decided to treat him, Logan and Grant to a movie.  Kiersten was still at dance.

We watched The Hobbit and loved it!

Great way to end a stressful day!

Way to go Hunter!