Mamma Mia!

Ok, if you haven't seen Mamma Mia yet, you need to go! My Mom and my sisters and I all went together and had a total blast! We all sang along with the great Abba songs that we grew up listening to. After the show we decided that all of us girls should do a lip-sync/sing-a-long to Dancing Queen at our family reunion. We even talked our sister-in-law, Jill, into joining us... it was great! Here are just of few of the pictures of us in our best 70's attire (blue eye shadow, too), performing around the campfire! It was so much fun!

Memories...

A friend of mine had this on her blog with a challenge to add it to our own.  It sounded like fun, hopefully there are some "good" memories to share:) 

Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! Good or bad but be nice.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

Happy Birthday Boys!

       

Our two older boys both have their birthdays in July, Matthew at the beginning of the month and Jared at the end!  I usually ask the kids what kind of a party they want, and they usually come up with something that they are currently interested in for a theme.  Matthew decided he wanted a blue and green party...? I'm not sure why just the two colors, but we went with it and came up with a kind of water/ocean party.  He loved it and I guess that is all that matters! Then I asked Jared what kind of party he wanted, and he choose a "dog" party. He has a bunch of stuffed animal dogs that he really likes and thought that would make a great party! Thank heaven that didn't involve actual dogs coming to the party! Anyway, that is why he has a bone cake, I wasn't about to attempt to make a dog out of cake! They are both great kids and wonderful helpers around the house and yard!  They still like to do things together, they even devised a plan to "share" getting a new Wii game for their birthdays, so they could get other stuff too! So we wrapped it up for Matthew and then we wrapped it up again for Jared! We are so thankful to have these wonderful boys in our family... we love you guys! Whew, we've made it through all of the kids' parties for another year!

Disneyland pictures!

I'M BACK!

It has been quite a crazy summer so far!  We have already celebrated 3 of our kid's birthdays, and I have helped plan, organize and carry out Girl's Camp for our Young Women... whew!  It took some time to recover from the week up in the mountains. Poor Parker thought I had run away!  I told him that I had just gone up to the mountains, and he asked, "did you fall off?"  I didn't fall off, and neither did any of the girls!   The weather was great and so were the girls. It's quite a relief to have it over and know that it went well :)  Our theme was "Young Women Under Construction - Building the Kingdom One Testimony at a Time", that's why we have the hard hats and tool belts! It was a lot of fun!  A big thank you to all of the leaders and YCLs for all of your help!

I posted some pictures of Parker's "Cars" party!  He loved every minute of it, even though it rained that day and we couldn't put up the bounce house :(  He is such a happy boy, and a real joy to be around everyday!  He says the funniest things, too... he is always making us laugh!  He has the most expressive face and it usually has a smile on it :) We love you buddy!

       

Kaylee had yet another princess party... imagine that?  She requested a castle cake, so I spent most of the day attempting to create a castle out of cake! Thanks to some ideas from FamilyFun.com, I think it turned out pretty well :) She is definitely our little princess!  It's fun to do the pink, princess, girly parties for her, she absolutely loves it!  She is such a girl... her main concern while I was gone to camp was who would do her hair?  Love you pretty girl!

ZOO, LEGOLAND, SEA WORLD, FUN!

I finally found the time, and figured out how to put a slideshow on my blog (again), so we can share some pictures of our fun family vacation!  We had a  great time :)  We went all the way down to Hoover Dam before we told the kids where we were really going.  When we did tell them we would be going to the San Diego Zoo, Legoland, Sea World, Disneyland and Universal, I don't think they believed us!  They just looked at us like "yeah, sure we are", when it finally hit them that we really were going to all of these fun places they were very excited (except for Parker, who was not real happy to be back in the van again!)  This first slideshow has a mere 30 pictures of the 800+ that I took :)  Even my kids told me I was "picture crazy" on the trip.  I kept telling them that they would be glad they had them when we got home... they are!  It's been fun to look at them over and over and share them with our family and friends.  Does anyone want to come over for an hour or two to see all of our pictures!  Just kidding :)

The Zoo was awesome, lots of neat animals that our poor little Zoo Boise only dreams of having!  The Koalas and Pandas were so cute :)  We had fun watching a couple of young Sun Bears fight and play all around in the trees! There was a cool gondola ride across the Zoo. The kids loved that both a bear and a chimp came and pooped right in front of us!  What could be better?  

Legoland  was soooo fun!  Jared was in heaven :)  There were lots of fun rides and hundreds of things, large (huge) and small, made out of nothing but LEGO! They are really amazing, the pictures don't do them justice.  The the boy's favorite part was where they showed how Legos are made, gave us a souvenir Lego piece, and then we ended up in a Lego store with millions of Legos of every color and shape.  I didn't think we would ever get Jared out of there!  It's a good thing we still had a few rides we hadn't ridden yet :)

Sea World was awesome!  The Shamu show was totally cool, it's amazing what those animals can do!  We also enjoyed the dolphin show, and watching the dolphins in their feeding area. One came right up to us and talked to us, then he started swimming so fast  around the tank we thought he was going to fly out of it, but he just jumped out of the water and did a few flips for us.  So cool!  Check out our picture on Shamu (Parker was afraid of it)!

Coming Soon... Disneyland pictures!

ZOO, LEGOLAND, SEAWORLD