S'mores

For Family Home Evening we listen to a Mormon message, love those!

Then we made S'mores!

We found out that Silvio had never roasted a marshmallow over a fire before!  So fun to experience so many "first times" with him!  The first couple of times the marshmallows would catch on fire and then fall in to the fire but after that he got the hang of it.

Silvio LOVED the S'mores!!

He said, "Oh WOW!"  and later said "Those are too good!"

I see more s'mores through out this year!

It was a fun evening!

When Did This Happen?

When did Kiersten become a teenager?

Oh yah TODAY!  A part of me cried because I don't want her to grow up but a larger part of me rejoiced in the amazing young woman she is becoming!

Kiersten requested Fruit Pizza for her birthday!

She was super excited when she saw I was making it!

I love this girl with all my heart!  She was the one that first made me a mother and therefore we've experienced a lot of "firsts" together.  

13 Things I Love About Kiersten

1.  She has a big heart.

2.  She is super smart!

3.  She gives 100% to EVERYTHING she does.

4.  She is an amazing dancer!  I love watching her perform!  She really lights up a stage!

5.  She is very caring to her younger brothers.

6.  She adores her little sister!

7.  She is a good friend to those around her, even if they are "different".

8.  She hates it when people are mean or rude to each other.

9.  She has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ.

10.  I catch her kneeling and saying her prayers often. She is a great example to her family!

11.  She is thoughtful and often does helpful things without being asked.

12.  She is funny and sometimes even a little air headed!  But she can laugh at herself which is a great quality to have.

13.  She honestly wants to please her parents, teachers, church leaders and her Heavenly Father.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

I love you so much!

Roosevelt Lake

We've been wanting to make it to the lake this whole summer and it's just never worked out.  So we finally found a Saturday that worked!

We were super excited to have Guy Hollar and Justice Nelson be able to join us for some fun!

Grant and I having a turn on one of the tubes! Silvio pulled us on the jet ski.  Made for an adventurous time for sure!

It was such a fun day!

Hunter was excited that Justice got to come with us!

Shoot all of us were excited about that.  He is a great kid!

As we were out on the jet ski letting Justice have a turn at wake boarding we saw this beautiful rainbow!  So grateful to have a loving Heavenly Father who continually shows us his love!

Isn't it beautiful!

I was the one that got to show Silvio how to drive the jet skis.  Let's just say, he's just as scary of a driver on the water as he is on land!  LOL........ but by the end of the day he was pretty good!

In the process he threw me off the jet ski.  I warned him that he might not want to make a habit of that unless he enjoys being grounded!  

In all fairness, I threw him off first!  Hehehe.....

Everyone enjoyed the new tubes we got for the trip.  I like this one especially cause you get to sit up in it!

The kids all had a BLAST!

Guy is such a great person!  We sure are luck to get to spend some time with him!

Grant gave the day at the lake two thumbs up!

Guy is such a good sport and was always willing to do whatever the kids wanted him to. 

This picture makes me super happy!

I have not been wake boarding since my college days so I wasn't even sure if I would be able to get up.  But to my surprise I got up on my first try!! WOOT HOOT!!  Pretty big feat considering it's a jet ski pulling me up and not a boat.  Much harder to fight the water behind a jet ski.  A boat just lifts you up out of the water, such is not the case with jet skis.

Now I didn't get up every time, but I did get up about 7 times.  After that my arms were shot!

Kiersten on the other hand was like a professional at wake boarding.  Even though this was her first time!  She did amazing!  It was so fun to watch her!

Hunter was able to get up as well.  Silvio tried around 15 times but never quite got up.  Maybe next lake trip he will.

These kids are really enjoying their older brother.  They think, they need to go to Italy to visit him when he leaves!  We'll have to see about that!

Logan is such a stud!

He had a great day hanging out at the lake!

Guy was a wake boarding fool!!!

It was a fabulous day with wonderful people!

Can't wait for our next trip!  Although next time everyone will be putting on a lot more sunscreen!

Sun Splash Time

Thanks to our amazing Grammy Cluff, we had POGO passes this year!

This pass allows you to go to many different places, one of them being Sun Splash.  There was only one Saturday that fit our schedule to go so we decided what the heck, we might as well!

Smart choice on our part cause it was a great day!

As you can see from this picture, my boys are LOVING their older brother!

The water park might have been a little too much fun for Ella Jane!

She is such a good baby and loves going places!  Don't you love her bikini!!

She out grew her 12 month swimsuit.  Her new one is a size 24 month!

And yes she is only 7 months!!!

Ella loves her tongue these days!  

It is the cutest thing ever!

I sure love our blue eyed baby girl!

I love spending time with these people!

They are my world and I am so blessed to have them in my life!

Logan was such a sweetheart and played with Grant and the little kid slides.  Justin had things to do in Mesa so he wasn't here with us yet and with Ella I couldn't take Grant on any slides.  Logan is such a wonderful brother!

Grant was on happy boy!

This was his first time at Sun Splash!

Ella loves the water and loves her brothers!

Ella is one happy baby, as long as she has a full tummy of course!

Her smile just melts my heart!

Now this new ride is FREAKY!!!  You stand up in the green portals and then they count down, 3, 2, 1 launch!  And the floor drops out from under you.  You then pee your pants and shoot down the slide at rocket speed!!!

Seriously it was FREAKY!!!

It worked out great because Grant was right at 42 inches tall so he could go on a lot of the larger slides and he was thrilled about it!!!

He is growing up way too fast!

He is such a fun boy!

This is Grant and I on our favorite ride..... The Master Blaster!

It was a great day and I smiled a ton!

Then we went over to the side of the park that doesn't require tubes.  I didn't think Grant would try the Bonzi slides, but sure enough he did and he LOVED them!!

He did them several times!!

He loved that he was big enough to go on the slides that don't require tubes ALL BY HIMSELF and WITHOUT a life jacket!!!

So yes people we have a swimmer here!  He no longer needs a life jacket!  He enjoyed the whole day at Sun Splash without any floaties at all!  Man he is growing up way too fast!  But I love the 4 year old stage!!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!!

Ready to slide all by himself!  

It was a great day!

We ended with dinner at Red Lobster and then headed home!

A True Arizona Welcome!!!

We got home from the store and as we got out of the van we could hear what sounded like maybe the air compressor leaking air.  Oh how I wish that's what it was!  

Oh no this oh so lovely creature was in the garage!!!  Large rattle snake!  Thank heavens Justin was with us so I didn't have to kill it myself!  So scary!

Silvio saw his first snake and what I am hoping is his last snake.  At least while he's at our house!

But this is a true Arizona welcome!

The snake had 9 rattles on it!  YIKES!

Nelda, the exchange coordinator for our area, said she tries to find one ever year to show the students and never can.  Oh yay, so lucky us!  So glad we could show Silvio the rattle snake..... NOT!

And So it Begins...

Another school year has begin.  I needed a few more weeks of summer but ready or not, here we go!

Silvio - Senior, Kiersten - 8th Grade, Logan - 3rd Grade, Grant - preschool, Hunter - 6th Grade

Silvio was pretty excited when he found out they were going to consider him a senior.  He'll have classes with sophomores and juniors but as far as what class he is in, he's a senior and happy about it!

Logan, 8 years old, 3rd Grade

Because of our busy after school schedule and the fact that DPA gets out at 3:30 we made the choice to switch Logan to Pima.  He was super excited so that made the decision even easier!

His teacher is Ms. Ybarra and she is an absolute sweetheart!  I know Logan is going to have a great year!!!

Update on Logan..... he did not like Pima school!  Ms. Ybarra was amazing but a few kids weren't.  Poor guy missed all his friends and the familiarity of DPA!  After having him cry a handful of time to me we decided that regardless of schedules Logan needed to be where he felt good about himself.  So after just 3 days at Pima we switched him back!  

Guess we'll just have to figure out the crazy schedule and how to get him from school everyday!  But at least now he loves school again!

When he started telling me how he just "didn't feel like he could be himself at Pima.  And that a little boy was mean to him.   Wouldn't let him play on their football teams.  Same little boy tripped him two different days, Justin and I knew it wasn't a good fit, at least for this year for Logan.   That and the fact that this sweet but highly autistic boy is in his class and yells a lot, walks around the classroom and touches the other kids off and on all day.  I just felt that for Logan that was not going to be the best learning environment.  

So we are hoping that he can get adjusted and have another great year of school!

Hunter 10, 6th Grade

Hunter was excited to go to Pima.  DPA ends at 5th grade so all his friends were moving over to Pima as well.  Hunter is super happy to have Mrs. Debbie Turley for his homeroom teacher.  She is awesome and we became friends on our trip to Mexico!

Hunter is a character!  I told him he might want to save this bright colored outfit for another day of school.  Not the first day at a new school.  His response was, "No it's okay.  This was people will remember me!!!"

Yes they will Hunter!  This year he switches classes every hour.  He didn't even act nervous about it!  This kid has great confidence in himself and I love it!

Kiersten is super excited to be an 8th grader!

Can't believe she'll be in high school next year!  Makes me so sad..... where has the time gone and how can I get it back?  Kiersten is excited to be the top dog at the junior high!  Heres to a great year!  This year Kiersten is taking a math class at the high school and I so proud of her for exceeding her AIMS testing last year, especially considering her math teacher was horrible (the teacher was fired 3/4 way through the school year, so when I say she was bad I am being nice).  But Kiersten always pushed herself to learn the math at home, with the help of her dad!  She is a great girl!

Grant's last year of preschool!

Another year of Brighter Day Preschool and speech lessons.  Can't beat free preschool and transportation.  This year because of the bus route Grant gets picked up 30 minutes early and is dropped of 30 minutes after school is out.  So Ella and I have a full 3 hours to ourselves!!!

I am hoping once our dance, violin, soccer and gymnastics schedules get in full play that I don't loose  my mind!!!  Oh and Silvio is doing football!!   Gonna be a crazy busy  and exciting year!

Big Welcoming Party

Thanks to the help of the Shupe girls and Chase, we threw a welcoming party for Silvio!

We had over 50 kids come hang out at our house!  

Tasia Shupe being her usual beautiful self!

Love her!

Audrey Goodman, Emily Warn, Kailee Kay, Kayla Valles, and Lyrica Tavesi

Such beautiful and fun girls!

Watch out Silvio!

Adam McDougal and Kelby Brown

Luis Cabrera, Adam and Kelby

It was a fun party for the little kids as well!

They all thought they were pretty darn cool to be at a teenager party!

Silvio is one lucky guy to live across the street from these 3 BEAUTIFUL ladies!

Shelby, Hallie, Silvio and Tasia

The teenagers enjoyed a little laser tag in the backyard!  From the looks of this picture I'd say Silvio is enjoying himself!

Hunter and Carsen really enjoyed the teenager party!

Joe Filio, Alycia McEuen, Alek Pruszynski

Tasia is going over the "rules" and how the guns work before they begin the fun.

Grant loved having so many people over

Besides so laser tag fun they also played pool, video games and then watched a movie on the big screen!  We also had ice cream sundays with all the topping!

That was a big hit!

So many kids showed up....... it was awesome!  I was so glad that Silvio could meet so many of his classmates before school started!

They all had a great time mingling!

Nice photo bomb Emily

Emily Warn being cute as ever!

Dillon Jones, Braden Brown, and Corin Salyer

Such a fun group of kids!

Tasia, Rance Ramsey and Jessica Taylor

The party was a "success" as Silvio put it!

I was glad he got to meet some of the kids he'd be going to school with before the first day.  With only 200 students at Pima High School, having 50 kids over, Silvio got to meet a forth of his classmates!  Pretty cool!
Welcome to Pima High School!