Just for fun

The kids (mostly Valerie and Hailey) are always taking my phone and making movie clips and taking pictures of themselves.

Mid life crisis?

Dave had a Birthday and bought himself an electric guitar with an amp? Hmmm he has never played the guitar but has decided to learn. I don't know where he will find the time but I am highly encouraging it. I think it would be a good form of stress relief to be able to rock out!


Actually I think Cade is going to benefit from this birthday gift. Cade is actually the one who has started to take guitar lessons.

So now we are the proud owners of 2 guitars!
Dave can learn on the acoustic and Cade on the electric!

We love you DAD!

Basketball

Hailey and Mikayla both just finished city league basketball. I only have pictures of Hailey because I coached Mikayla's team and obviously couldn't do both at the same time.

This was Hailey's first year. She was very unsure about trying something new. She said it wasn't girly and all you did was run so how could that be fun. After a few practices she got the idea of what you were supposed to do and started liking it. She didn't like to dribble a lot but had a dead on shot if she was in the key. It took a little while of not touching and being nice before she realized you can just grab the ball away from someone. It was fun to see her come alive and smile while running down the court.

Kayla Reaches Double Digits!

Mikayla turned 10 on February 26th! The day before she turned 10 she was able to play in her 3rd violin festival. She scored a superior despite Ty breaking a violin string 30 minutes before going in front of the judge.

For her Birthday she invited a friend, Marli Draper to go swimming, shopping and to dinner at Johny Carinos. They had a fun time trying on high heel shoes and being silly.

Marli was excited to walk away with her first ever Aeropostale shirt.

On Sunday we did a family party and ate her favorite dinner, RIBS made by her Dad and caramel popcorn shaped into a cake instead of real cake.

She got some Orbeez which we all tried out that night while watching a family movie. It is a foot spa with little balls that grow in the water. They feel awesome!

Mikayla is such a thoughtful girl. She let us celebrate her Birthday on a different day because we were so busy on her day. Ashley had a basketball tournament, I played in a volleyball tournament and Mikayla had violin festival. Ashley and I both awoke to a bottle of treats with a sweet note telling us good luck! What a sweetheart!

You Did What?

It wouldn't be a normal day if I wasn't surprised by something Ty did or got into.....

For instance tearing down all the clothes from my closet shelves (he did have help from a friend).

Trying to hide in the fridge?

Finding and eating anything that has sugar in it.

Coloring himself in markers or my makeup seems to be a daily job... I do have to say he is potty training and doing awesome right now! Anything for a treat!

He loves his CAR backpack given to him by the Poulsens. He loves it so much he wouldn't take it off. That is why you see him sleeping in it. Of course it is loaded full of his favorite cars.

It is a good thing he is just so dang cute!

Queen of Hearts Dinner

We had a fun Valentine Queen of Hearts Dinner for the family this past Monday night. It started out with me dropping off invitations for each kid at their schools. They all thought I was a little crazy (which is not new) for inviting them to a dinner at our own house.

Each person was able to find their place setting by looking in the glasses for the heart card that corresponded with their age. For example, Mom was the Queen of Hearts, Dad was the King of Hearts, and Kayla was 9 of hearts etc.

After everyone wrote something they love about each person we got down to the nitty gritty and played some games. We tried to see who could stack up the most candy hearts. We pretended we were cupids and shot arrows into a heart bowl (straw guns with qtips). We even played minute to win it with pixie sticks, M&M's, and red vines! I then presented this idea I had been thinking about for the past couple days. Since it is kindness week, I decided our family should take part and go out in the community and do random acts of kindness. We all thought of ideas to do and I wrote them down. Stay tuned......we plan on actually doing them soon! It was fun to get everyone thinking of nice things to do for people.

Of course, the evening ended in a dog pile!

And this is what your house will look like on Valentines if you have a lot of girls and an awesome Dad/Husband!

Girls Weekend Out!

We did it! We finally found a time where 3 of us could get together and PARTY! I met with 2 of my sister in laws, Jenn and Erin. We wanted my mom to join us but she was way too far out of the country to catch up with us. Don't worry Mom we will do this again when you get home from your mission! We were grateful she could lend us her unoccupied house as we all headed to Meridian without kids! We slept in, talked, shopped, ate, and talked some more! We did break girl rules and met with my brothers for eating at Cheescake factory and watching a BYU basketball game. Overall we had tons of fun and were so relaxed because we had absolutely no schedule! It felt great to be rejuvenated. We were all so grateful for our awesome husbands back home taking on double roles as mom and dad for 3 nights and 4 days!

As we were wondering in the mall we decided to visit Sephora and get our eyes made over. This was tons of fun. We each walked out of there with less money and a little tingling feeling on our lips from our new lip plumper gloss!

Cheescake Factory

Kind of funny that there were 3 girls and 3 boys (Justin, Brandon, Derek) and none of us were couples. We talked and laughed for a good 3 hours while all of us ate our favorite chicken dish (Justin was the only one who strayed from Chicken Medero).

The second day of shopping turned into finding suits for Dave. I thought we would be in and out of one store especially since he was not even there to try them on. Don't all suits kind of look the same. There really isn't a lot of options, right? Wrong! It was more time consuming than I thought but at the end of it all we chose 3 suits that had to be ordered and I still ended up getting the after Christmas sale! Dave should be set for another 15 years!I love my sis in laws like they were my own sisters (if I had any sisters). Even though they are younger than me I so look up to them. They are smart, talented, fun, good mothers, faithful church goers, and end up doing it all! Kind of funny that we are all 3 nurses (well actually Erin is a nurse practioner). Thanks for a great weekend! You guys are inspirational!

Of course I missed the family and was excited to come home and see them all! I realized I really do have all that is really important. There will always be material things I want but I feel blessed to have such a good family and knowledge of the gospel. How can I not be happy!