Digger Party

Kurts birthday was about a month ago.  He wanted a digger (BullNoser) party.  It was lots of fun!  Can't believe my baby is 3!

Cake #1 got a little too much play time.   

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Soooooo.........we made cake #2. 

Cheetah in Florida

Dave and I just got back from our trip to Marco island Florida.  It was a wonderful break from the busyness of work and kids.  We took Lauren's little Cheetah along for the ride this year and she saw some amazing things.  By the end of the trip I was aching for the kids and for our home, but it was lots of fun.  We drove wave runners in the ocean, went parasailing, had lots and lots of food and read some books.  As always it's great to be home.

Cheetah on the beach with millions of seashells.



Cheetah watching the sunset from our balcony.



Cheetah with a waiter statue.

Cheetah with a dolphin statue in a floral pattern shirt.

Cheetah with a lizard on the sidewalk.

Dave and I parasailing

Sitting on a boat after parasailing.

Cheetah on the boat ride.



Cheetah watching the parasailing.  She didn't actually get to go up.  She's too small and might have fallen off.



The wave runners.  No pics of us on them because I didn't dare bring the camera going 55 miles an hour in the ocean. So super fun.

Cheetah in the sand.

Profile shot of Cheetah in the sand.

Cheetah in the bushes with an island flower.

Cheetah in a palm tree.

We had some great times in Florida.  I'm glad even if the kids couldn't come that Cheetah was able to enjoy the memories with us.  Big thanks to Tonya who came and stayed with our kids (along with her 5) and to my Mom for watching our little Kurt!

Mommy of a teenager

How crazy that we have a teenage girl.  She is so awesome!  I love that she is creative and kind and spiritual. I couldn't be a happier mommy of a teenager. 



Nicole had a Harry Potter movie marathon with her friends for her birthday party.  This is them getting their teenage wiggles out in the garage after 8 hours of Potter.



Remembering...

Today we are remembering a truly beautiful and wonderful mom and grandma.  The lovely woman who raised my husband.  

Mom with Jon and Dave



Mom with little Charity





Mom with Ryan (this is one of my favorite pictures because it captures the love of a mother)





Mom with Paul Ryan and Charity




Mom with baby Russ




Grandma with Grandpa and little Nicole on her blessing day.

 We love you and miss you so much.  Thank you for raising your children in righteousness and love. 

Let the Nerf wars begin

 The boys got these nerf guns for Christmas.  They recently got two more from Grandpa Pederson. I think I actually saw the boys cuddling their new nerf guns in their beds the other night.  Little orange darts can now be found all over the house.  In corners, behind couches, under laundry piles and even stuck to our fairly high ceiling.  Let the nerf wars begin. 

Real Heroes

For Christmas we got the boys some real hero posters for their room. 
So cool. You can see more at http://www.realheroposters.com/

Piano and Basketball...two of my loves

I had our Christmas piano recital at our home a couple weeks ago.  Including my kids I have12 students now:)
They did fantastic!

I also taught a beginning piano class as an elective at the kids school on Fridays for 12 weeks.  It finished up last week.  It was so fun!!!

For the last 6 Saturdays I've been Lauren's basketball coach.  Super fun!  This last Saturday was the last skill session.  The kids played 3 mini-games.  In the last few minutes of the last game Lauren made her first basket....ever.  I mean not her first basket in a game...I mean the first basket I've ever seen her make ever.   
That is not the complete story however......the really kind coach from the other team told her defender to back off and told Lauren's teammate to pass to her.  She shot the ball and it was like an invisible basketball angel lifted the ball higher and it went in PERFECTLY  I had to hold back the tears.  There are some moments that stay in a childs memory forever.  This was a moment for Lauren.  I picked her up and twirled her around.  JOY TO THE WORLD! 

White friday

Thanksgiving was awesome this year.  
We had lots of family come and visit throughout Thanksgiving week and did some really memorable things.    Friday morning the day after Thanksgiving we got up early and headed for the temple to do baptisms.  It was my sister's son Braytons first time doing temple baptisms and we arranged a special session to go together.  My mom serves in the temple friday mornings so she was there too.  Really special.

Another memorable event was the Turkey trot we did on Thanksgiving morning.  My brother really wanted to have us all run a mini-mini marathon that morning together.  It turned out to be super fun.  We ran a few miles (with many strenuous hills) around our house and neighboring houses with river access.  It was a wonderful crisp frosty morning.  It felt great.  Thanks Brig for setting that up! 

We carried on a tradition that Dave remembers doing every year with his cousins in Spokane at Thanksgiving of decorating graham cracker houses.  The kids had a sweet time.




This is my sister Tess who happens to be twins(20 years separated) with Lauren.  When Lauren wonders what she'll look like when she's older I say "you'll look like aunt Tess...exactly" 

There's so much more I could post, but this will do.  I LOVE THANKSGIVING!

 

Halloween

This year I got a Bob the Builder suit for $3 because the store forgot to take off the discount price tag from last year and they reluctantly gave it to me for the marked price...but Kurt being his 2-year old self didn't want anything to do with it (though he loves Bob).  So randomly he wanted to be an elephant. We had this one in the dress up box.  I was happy he'd get in a suit at all and it turned out he makes a perfect elephant.





Lauren as a Fairy princess...with dirty socks?



Derek as a Pokemon trainer.  Still questions about what that is exactly.



Nathan as Frodo Baggins



Nicole as Galadriel Lady of Light from Lord of the Rings





All in all it was a rather relaxing Halloween.  Since it was on Sunday this year we had the ward trunk or treat on Saturday and pretended all day it was Halloween yesterday.  The trunk or treat was at our neighbors property so we walked across the driveway filled the bags with candy let the kids run around in the dark a bit then walked home and called it a night.