kailee's solo

Thank you soooo much to Leah for grabbing a quick little video of Kailee's solo at the Pop Concert! Here is the link.... Kailee...I will post some pictures and more about it when I have a little more time! She rocked....she sang so awesome!!! :)

the end of the year....

goofin' around before the awards

It is that time again...end of the school year and all the awards my wonderful kids have gotten! If you are not into the proud, bragging mom thing then don't read any of this post! It is my right though cuz this is my blog after all and I love my kids way too much!! I am sooooo extremely proud of how hard they work each year in school!! I know that the brains they have came from their dad! Kailee knows that when she has Math homework you go straight to dad...in fact one night when Shawn was out of town she came to me with a math worksheet and said "Mom I need help!" I looked at her and said "Did you want me to stamp the edges of that or put some glitter and stickers on it to look pretty? Cuz that's all I got for ya girl!!" We laughed and she went and called her dad! :)

So Austin was on the Honor Roll this year...no easy task...you have to maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher the whole year. {{yeah austin}} He also was in the top ten students in 6th grade (about 300ish total) for AR points. {{that is a reading thing...you get points for taking quizzes on books you read!}} He had about 260 points! Also...he got the most points in all of Ms. Moore's classes 286...so she gave him a new basketball!! If you want to know more you will have to google it! We are just over the top proud of Austin this year...on top of all he has done to keep such good grades he has learned to play trombone this year and has really excelled at it! He has been a den chief for Tyson's Wolf Den. He also has been ordained a Deacon and is keeping himself worthy to pass the sacrament each week at church! If I do say so myself he has turned out to be quite a handsome young man!! I would say cutie....but he wouldn't approve!! :) Way to go Austin you ROCK!!!Kailee's turn!! She of course got her awesome Choir award last week...Outstanding Choir Student in 7th grade. {see post below for more deets on that} She received an award for her participation in Destination Imagination. You will have to google that too. That was a great experience for her. She also found herself on the Honor Roll this year! She worked extremely hard all year to keep good grades and was self motivated to do so! I am especially proud of her for realizing how important her school work is and keeping on top of it! This year she was a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz at one of the local high schools...she also started taking voice lessons so she can continue to use that beautiful voice of hers! She will be performing "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus ion tomorrow night's POP Concert! She was recently called to be the president of her Beehives class! She is a phenomenal young woman and would make any mom proud!! ** One last thing....last night at the awards ceremony it struck me right away how proud I was of Kailee for looking so cute in a super modest way! I was shocked at how little clothing some of those young girls were wearing!! Great Job Kailee for setting a wonderful example!! :)

Miss Kailee

Kailee had her annual choir banquet this last Friday. They do awards and then have a DJ afterwards to dance and party with all the choir friends. She looked so cute. She did her makeup and I helped her with her hair...she had a new dress, cute silver flip flops and some silver earrings. She looked gorgeous!! I didn't go with her to the banquet...she said don't worry about it mom I won't get any awards. Shawn was out of town so I would've had to take the boys with me and it would've been a whole thing...she understood!
Anyway...our awesome Miss Kailee ended up getting the "Outstanding Choir Student Award" for 7th grade. Each grade level gives one to a boy and a girl. I can't believe it...well I can cuz we think she is phenomenal!! I am so bummed we weren't there to cheer her on though! She got a trophy with her name on it! It was so exciting! Anyway...here are some super cute pics of her before she left for the banquet! :)

Tyson's violin concert

This is when he was walking in and caught sight of us in the audience!! All of us were there...I am really proud of all my kids that they love to go to each others "things" and support each other! Kailee, Austin and Kyler were all very proud of Ty too!Shawn told him "Show me your violin."

Tyson had his first violin concert a couple of weeks ago. He did phenomenal! He has been working very hard this year!! He was so excited to play for us...we had lots of "pre-concerts" in the days leading up to the real thing! He wants to continue playing next year. He wants to be the worlds best violin player! :) What a sweet little guy!!

Kyler

It just doesn't get any cuter than this!!! {unless you count my other 3 kiddos than it does} but for now this is just pretty stinkin' cute!

just a little more rain...

We got a ton of rain last night! We got somewhere between 6-8 inches I think. Shawn and I woke up at 3:30am cuz the hail was pelting the windows and it was so loud. We wandered downstairs to look out the windows and this is what we saw. The water came much higher than last week. It's all gone now...it's just soggy. The flooding was so bad in places though that school was canceled today! The kids were very excited about that! :) We are supposed to still get more rain this week...I don't know how much though!
{in the picture you can see 2 or 3 rectangle things...those are water covers that ended up in our yard...I have no idea which direction they came from? they are still in the yard!}

Ty is a Tie

We were telling Ty to go find a tie for church. He didn't want to....I tried to distract him with a little humor and say "Look at that, Dad already has a "Ty" he can put on!" Ty immediately got up to run away but didn't make it very far.

Dad was trying on his "Ty". While he was on Shawn's shoulders {before I had even thought to get the camera out he said 'No flash photography please!'} So of course I had to pull out the camera and get a picture. Ty knows me too well...he knows I get my camera out for everything! :)

This Ty didn't tie so well around dad's neck but we will keep him around anyway! :)

Flood Waters

So we ended up getting just a little bit of rain on Saturday. It was actually really fun. The kids and I sat at the windows and watched the rain come down--hard, we watched the lightening and listened to the thunder and rated it to see which one was the best and loudest! :)

Of course it was garbage day...so there were all sorts of garbage cans floating by...I think 4 or 5 went past our house. You can see that our can is still on grass. {keep an eye on the little piece of grass that the garbage can is on in the next few pics}

Ok...it's still hanging in there but the water is almost taking over where the can is.

Grass is gone...this all happened in a matter of minutes! It ended up being about 8 inches on our street. It covered the sidewalk and came up into the front lawn and we had a small lake in the backyard for a little while too!

Shawn decided to go save our cans so he wouldn't have to look for them later down the road. I am not really sure why the shirt needed to come off...but it did!All the kids went out and played in it after the rain slowed down. It drained pretty quick but they still had fun. If we would have had a little raft we could have floated down our street! I only got a few pics of Ty...all the other kids took off down the street to see their friends and compare yards. Tyson didn't want the rain to drain so here he is trying to cover the holes in the sewer cover! :)

Feeding the Ducks

We have ducks wandering all over our neighborhood. On Friday, Kyler stayed home with a cough and the ducks were in our yard so I let him go out and feed them some bread. He had fun!

some things never change

The kids and Shawn were outside playing freeze tag the other night. I took pictures. Look at this sweet little Ty. Even when he is upset he is just so darn cute!

Check out the 2 pictures...April 2009 {8 yrs. old}

May 2004 {3 yrs. old}

Kyler's first soccer game

Getting ready for the parade. The teams get together and decorate the cars and then drive to the soccer fields honking horns and hollerin'! Kyler loved that part. We still have our car decorated...Kyler hasn't wanted to wash it just yet!
Do you see that tongue? When he is really concentrating that tongue came out every time!! :)
He ran it down the field and kicked it into the goal but it was blocked! He didn't care...he felt like he scored!
Throwing the ball in after blocking a goal. He likes to play goalie. He blocked all the shots that came to him!
Monkeyin' around while the teams were at the other end of the field.
Kyler had his first soccer game this weekend! It was so much fun! Watching 5 and 6 yr. olds play soccer has got to be one of the most entertaining things ever! He did really well and had a super fun time! He can't wait till this Saturday to play again!

Kailee's black hair

Kailee spent the night with her friend last Friday. They did some babysitting, then they took their money and went and bought some hair color. Permanent hair color. Black permanent hair color.
Now let me just start by saying this: I have let Kailee color her hair a few times and I have never said no to coloring her hair when she has asked (except for when she wanted to bleach it). So when she came on Saturday morning with black hair I was a little surprised! She didn't get the shock factor she was going for with me though. I thought it looked cute! I just thought it was funny...this was kinda her first teenagerish thing. Shawn on the other hand...he played right into the reaction she was hoping for. He gave her a "dad" speech about what kind of message was she trying to convey to the world with her black hair and make-up. (the black eye make-up she came home in, looking slightly raccoonish)--->again...that was a girly sleepover thing...she knows she can't actually wear it that way. Anyway...shortly after "the speech" and talking with me Shawn apologized for over reacting but still feels justified, cuz it is his little girl growing up. :)

cute, cute, cute

also...if the black hair is the start of her downward spiral and she is forever lost to this world...I can just blame the Relief Society President...it was her house she slept over at! :) :)

A Broken Window

Well...our 4 day weekend was eventful to say the least! I will get to all the other fun pictures I have later today or tomorrow. I will have some time to blog since my next couple of days are going to spent at home waiting for the glass man to come measure and then install a new front window.
Why you ask do need a new front window? No biggie...just someone threw a rock through it in the middle of the night on Saturday!! About 1:30am Shawn woke up up to the sound of the window shattering {he thought maybe a lightbulb had popped} After checking on all the kids and seeing that they were fine he headed downstairs to see what was going on. He got to the office and luckily turned the light on before stepping to far in. He saw the rock and the broken piece of the blinds and then saw glass everywhere!!! He called the cops and filed a report. They said what we already suspected...just some kids messing around. I woke up about 2:20am after the cop had left {yes I slept right through that noise...a little scary. I had actually just finally went to bed about 12:30-12:45} When I came downstairs I saw the mess, Shawn filled me in on what had happened. Someone walked by, picked up a rock from our front yard, threw it, really, really hard. It went through the double paned glass, broke a piece of the blinds that were closed, went across the room and put a hole in the wall opposite the window and then the rock landed on the floor. We started cleaning up, we didn't get to bed till after 4:00am. I didn't really sleep after that, not for fear of another rock but listening for the kids to wake up. Even though we cleaned up, I knew there were pieces we had missed and I knew the kids would be anxious to get downstairs to see their easter baskets.
The office has been off limits unless you have mom's permission and then you must have shoes on.
So what did we learn from all this? Well Shawn and I both are extremely grateful and felt blessed that our continuing prayer of safety was answered. Nobody was hurt and the kids slept through the whole thing. It was frustrating and I was a little nervous Sunday night as we went to bed...but mostly I was feeling bad for the kids who did this. I felt bad that they were out that late...parents not knowing or caring that they were out wandering the streets. I was grateful for my own children who I know would never do such a thing...finding entertainment in being destructive. I was also grateful for the opportunity we had Sunday night to talk about forgiveness. Right at first I felt a little violated...then after a prayer I felt safe again and have been so thankful for the peace we have had in our home. We have moved on and have decided to be a little more specific and include in our prayers that not only will we be safe and protected but that our house will be too! :) Of course the kids were so great about the whole thing. Sunday morning the comments were:
Kailee..."What?"
Austin..."Mom you saved that rock right? Where is it? We need to dust it for fingerprints! We will of course eliminate you & dad and then we will find out who did this!"
Tyson..."Kids these days...they don't respect anyones things!"
Kyler..."Do I have to look at this? Can I go back to my Easter Basket?"Don't ya love the ghetto cardboard look? I am diggin' it!! I'll miss it when it's gone! :)