Brady's Kindergarten Graduation

Look how cute he is?!?!?!?!?!

I can't believe that he has already finsihed kindergarten. He has grown leaps and bounds this year. Honestly, before school started, I really thought Brady would have no problems and love going to school but...

at the beginning of kindergarten, Brady wasn't so sure about this place. We couldn't even convince him to ride the bus to school with Rachel and Luke. But he was okay riding the kindergarten bus home by himself because he knew he was coming home. So for the first 1 1/2 months, I drove him to school everyday, got out of the car and waited with him by his classroom door until it was time to go in. There were tears every day for the first several weeks, but eventually he realized it was going to be okay and that he could make some friends.

This pictures cracks me up because it is so much like Dane and Brady. Dane ended up being on Brady's soccer team and since they were in the same kindergarten class, I meet Dane's parents and quickly set up playdates, hoping to help Brady make some friends and want to go to kindergarten each day. He and Dane have been best buddies this year.

 This year, Brady got to have Mrs. Beck for his teacher. She was just voted Utah Teacher of the Year and got to go to Wash DC to meet with all the other Teachers of the Year across the US and meet with the President and the Department of Education. She has been a great teacher, always excited and greeted the kids every morning with a cheerful smile and personal hellos.

 Gradually Brady has gone from knowing some letters and a few sounds to knowing them all and now reading. He seems a natural at math and actually draws now using more than one color. (He used to be too impatient before and just thought it was quicker to scribble with one color and be done with it.)

 Gotta get a yawn in there---did it make you yawn too??? I feel a yawn coming on...

 Self portraits in a slide show, while playing the song "Let them be Little". Love that song.

Isn't this picture hilarious? You have to look really close to see that Brady is NOT picking his nose.

Anyways, today was the last official day of school and Brady proudly announced..."I'm now a 1st grader!"  Yep, he's ready.

Happy 11th Birthday Rachel

As with tradition, we woke our birthday girl with singing and a cake - her choice was a donut cake.

 This year was technically just a family birthday since we did a fun friend party last year. However, Rachel was industrious and planned a low-key get together with a few neighbor friends.

 They had a great time. We ended up watching one of Rachel's and my favorite movies, EverAfter, too.

Easter Egg Hunt - 2011

It was a cold, somewhat rainy day for an easter egg hunt. We did color 2 dozen hard boiled eggs, however, I didn't get pictures of that. We did prevail in having the hunt outside even though it was drizzling a little bit of rain. Having the cousins here with us doubled the fun and the amount of easter eggs to look for. Jared and Chris braved the cooler temps and went out to hide over 120+ eggs. I think they perfected the "egg toss" during their hiding adventures. Thank goodness we've got a big backyard, but everyone needed good running shoes to even stand a chance. 

 Brady, giving me a smile, halfway through the hunt.

 Evelyn and Rachel near the back of the yard, seeing what eggs got hidden in the trees.

 Near the end, we just needed to make sure all the eggs got found and were happily nested inside somebody's basket.

What a fun day!

Grandma's birthday celebration

The grandkids decided to have a surprise birthday party for Grandma, a week before her birthday, since we were all going to be together for Easter. So in the midst of our Easter celebrations, the kids (by this I mostly mean Rachel, Evelyn and Josee) secretly got busy.

Evelyn volunteered to be in charge of the cake. If we counted right, she went through 3 jars of frosting.  Jared helped her a little, but overall, awesome job for Evelyn.

 Rachel was in charge of the decorations and boy did we have a lot. Balloons and streamers everywhere as well as a birthday banner. They streamered the hallway so that Grandma had to bust through the streamers as if she were the quarterback of the football team running onto the field during the homecoming game. And of course, we had to do yellow which is Grandma's favorite color.

 Josee had already been working on her part, the scrapbook, for a few weeks. Then she, with a little help from Evelyn and Rachel, finished it. Of course, Grandma loved looking at every single picture.

 Lizzie and Brady did their part, eating the yummy birthday cake.

Oh happy day. Grandma loved it all and was completely surprised since we crammed it all in on the same weekend as Easter.

Random Fun-ness at our house

 I still laugh a little when I see our subheading on our blog - "There is never a shortage of excitement at our house." Yep, I love my crazy kids.  Since I'm doing a little catch up on things that have happened, I thought I'd include some random craziness. During spring break, the kids decided to have a sleepover in the front room, all together. I'm so glad they enjoy doing things like this together. They are typical siblings, laughing, playing, crying, teasing, annoying, wrestling...but deep down I know it's pure sibling love.

 Don't ya love it when constantly your kids say "look at me" or "look at us". This moment was begging for me to take it's picture.

Ah, the imagination of children. Please don't let them loose it. You can also see how the younger ones so want to follow and be included with what the older kdis are doing.

And last but not least...ya gotta love this. I've been trying to get our kids more involved in the kitchen duties of cooking and cleaning. So one morning, Luke was begging to help cook the bacon. It starts popping and a little bit of grease bubbles start flying. I said "Luke you need to get something to protect your eyes since your face is so close to the skillet." So Brady immediately grabs the nerf googles and hands them to Luke and...Wha-la...problem solved!

Another Soccer season complete!!!

 Brady's team - The Green Tigers

Brady's best friend Dane was on his team this year. His Dad was also the coach. What a big year of change. Brady always loved going to practice, but didn't like the games at first. As the whistle blew to start the first game all the kids gathered into a wade and started playing/kicking. Too much confusion for Brady. It was very different than playing in the backyard with the siblings. He didn't even want to get on the field to play for the first 5 games during fall season. The last few, we convinced him it was okay to stand by the goal and play defense. Every great team needs a great defender.

Then spring season came and Brady was a whole different kind of player. In fact many of the parents saw the big change and would say "This isn't the same Brady from last fall".  He was running after the ball, kicking and enjoying the games. He decided that it was more fun to play offense and defense. During one game, he scored not one, not two, but THREE goals, or as we like to call it "a hat-trick". He loves soccer and is ready for next season to begin.

Luke's Team - The Blue Lightening

Luke had a great year playing too. This was the first year to have their games with referrees. The one confusing part was of the 12 boys, there were 2 Lukes. Somehow, our Luke was called "Lucas" by the coaches which was kinda weird since our Luke's official name on the birth certificate is just Luke. We tried to think of other nicknames but none really stuck. My favorite was "Lucky" but it just didn't work out. Luke wouldn't really respond to any nicknames, even Lucas. He is just our "Luke". He made some great assists for his teammates goals.

Some of these boys are ready and willing to move on to the competitive level of soccer, but Luke doesn't have that "love of the game" to be willing to go that next step. In fact, this summer we are going to try gymnastics and swimming.