WARNING: POST OVERLOAD

I realize I have slacked, BIG time. I have about a year and a half of pictures that I need to download onto my blog. I will be trying to do a few everyday or so. I will be putting them in order for journaling purposes, so the oldest will be added first. Please forgive the craziness as I try to catch up :) Thank you!

I am thinking of going private, please comment with your email address so I can send an invite.

First Day of School

Kayson-1st Grade

MacKenzie- 6th Grade

Zack-4th Grade

Here are my 3 sweet babies ready for the first day of school. I am very excited, as are the kids, to have all 3 of them going to the same school. All of them enjoy school very much and it is so fun to see how each one of them grow and learn new things thru out each school year. They each have such different personalities and I love seeing the wonderful things they bring to our lives. What a blessed life I have to be able to be their mom.

Feeding the Ducks

On a beautiful day in April, we decided we should take a much needed outting to go feed the ducks. This is one of our favorite family activities and hadn't happened in quite awhile. Once we were there, I remembered why we only do it occasionally. Taking a 2 year old to any place with water and no limits is quite an adventure :)

Jaycee loved the ducks and wanted to get closer and closer to the water to feed them. Once she was within throwing distance (not too far for a toddler) she would throw in the whole peice of bread.

Here are Zack and Kenzie chasing the muskrat we saw.

I love this one :)

All my beautiful children!

Bowling

The kids had been driving us CRAZY, begging us to take them bowling. We found a day Cameron was off and I decided to take half a day and go play with the kids. Most families have the luxury of having weekends off together, we don't and never have. Sad, I know, but dont feel too bad, we just have to make time to play and we definately make sure we make the most of it.

This particular rainy April day, we decided we would give in to the constant begging and pleading and head over to the local bowling alley. Kayson and Zack were SO excited, we could barely contain them to get the bowling shoes on, Kenz helped get everyone's names on the board and I was in awe that they made bowling shoes small enough for Jaycee, so CUTE! The kids went and picked out their balls, the girls, of course had to find the pink ones. We had a blast and everyone had a great time making fun of my unique, yet effective bowling technique.

After bowling, we headed over to the Bean Museum at BYU to spend sometime with Papa. He was very patient with a very persuasive 2 year old that kept insisting on seeing the elephants over and over. The boys were obsessed with the insects and the large fish on the wall. It was such a great afternoon and made me wish that I could spend everyday together.

I think the best part was the end of our outting. We went to the BYU Creamery for ice cream. The kids had never been there, I know, shame on us! Especially since their Papa works at BYU. The ice cream was so yummy and we all loved it!

Coloring Easter Eggs

On Saturday, we went over to my sis in law's to color Easter eggs. I will admit, I was a little nervous because Cameron had to work and I would be trying to help the kids and be the photographer at the same time. I forget what great kids I have! They had so much fun and didnt make one mess :) YAY!!!

Disney on Ice

On March 13th we all went to go see Disney on Ice for the first time. It was so much fun! The weather wasn't very good, so we decided to take Trax up to Salt Lake. That was a great adventure all by itself! Jaycee loves buses and Kayson is obsessed with trains, so they LOVED it. Once we got to Disney on Ice, we got settled for the show. Cam, being the fun daddy he is, insisted the kids get some fun souveniers and spent a small fortune on a gift for each of the kids. Plus, he was hungry. So not a good thing at a place like that! :)

Then it was time for the show! First came Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald. Then came Kayson's favorite-CARS! He was so excited to see Lightning and Mater. Little Mermaid was next and the colors were so fun. Lion King came after that and the animals were so creative and fun. After the intermission, was Tinkerbell and we loved it! Jaycee was clapping her little heart out the whole time and I think Kenzie just loved watching how much her little sister was enjoying it. Zack really had fun and when I asked Kayson how he liked it when it was over, he said, "It was good, except the girlie parts." He is so funny!

Here are all the kiddos right before the show, they were so excited!

Snow Day

Jaycee

Zack

Kenzie

Kayson

Winter in UTAH!!

We had a rare occasion one snowy day in December, Cam and I both had a day off TOGETHER!! We had also had a great snow storm. SNOW DAY!!

We bundled all the kids up and headed out in the snow. All the kids LOVED it and had so much fun. This was Jaycee's first experience playing in the snow and she was so funny. She would fall into the snow, face first, and just lie there licking the snow. It was hilarious!

We played and played, built a pretty decent snowman, shoveled all the snow off the driveway and sidewalks, made a fort and Kenzie made a throne. What a great day!

What was next? Heading inside for hot chocolate with marshmallows. Yummy!

Santa!!

We are very lucky!! Papa, Cameron's dad, is one of Santa's helpers during Christmas and so instead of having to wait in line at the mall, we are able to see a helper at Nana and Papa's on Christmas Eve and the kids all know that Papa will tell Santa just how good they have been and get their gift requests to him.

It is so great to have pictures with Santa and Papa all in one shot! Jaycee was a little nervous to sit on Santa's lap with all the gear, but once Santa took off his beard, she was ok.

He is the best Santa! We can hear him coming up the steps on Christmas Eve, ringing his bells and saying "ho, ho, ho." He sits each child on his knee and gives them a hug and a treat. Then he tells the story of Santa's light and Why Santa is like Christ. It has become a great part of our holiday traditions.

Decorating the tree

Time to Decorate the Tree

Every year I picture this peaceful time together putting up all our Christmas decorations.

You know, with 4 young kids, it never happens! :)

This year I was a little more prepared for the chaos. We got out the ornaments, the tree, broke out the Christmas music and got to work. It was fun, but crazy. Especially with a 2 year old, who wants to touch and play with EVERY ornament. I think we only suffered 2 broken ornaments and I will admit one was my fault.

We have a tradition at our house that we started with MacKenzie. Each year the kids pick out an ornament that describes them or one of their favorite things that year. It is so great to look at the ornaments from past years and see what everyone picked. This year, the kids all picked Disney ornaments. Kenzie picked a pretty tinkerbell, Zack had a crazy Stitch dressed as Elvis, Kayson picked a flashy Lightning McQueen and Jaycee picked and adorable Winnie the Pooh with Lumpy. We wrote their names on them and the date and added them to the growing collection on the tree.

We found out yesterday that Cameron will no longer be empolyed after the end of January. Albertson's was purchased by another grocery chain and they will not be offering him his position. We are very worried and stressed, we also know that everything happens for a reason and that it will all work out. It is just all the unknowns that worry me. Please keep us in your prayers that Cameron will have peace and find a new job quickly.

It's a New Year.....

I have decided to set some New Year's Resolutions for myself that might help me feel a little accomplished as another year flies by. I know that they need to be something that is within my reach, but something that will make me feel better about myself as I meet them. I have chosen a few areas to set goals in, I am kinda getting some help with this from a friend of mine. :)

Financial: I would like to start to pay off debt and no longer use credit cards. In order to reach this goal I will need to start to build a savings for emergency purposes. I realize this goal will take longer then a year, but this will be my year to quit adding to the problem and to fix it. I will need to start living within our means and really think about all those impulse purchases. I am hoping this will be the start of a great habit.

Intellectual: I would like to reach out of my comfort zone at work and begin to take on the challenges that might help me expand intellectually.

Social: This one is a little more difficult. We have lived in our house for 2 1/2 years and I only know a handful of people in our neighborhood. I would like to reach out and make some new friends. I would also like to make some more time for old friends that I dont see enough.

Spiritual: I need to make sure we have family scripture study and family home evenings. I also need to work on my own personal scripture study. I am making a goal of reading the Book of Mormon this year on my own.

Physical: I have so much work to do in this area..... I am going to start small and hopefully I can make some life changes enough to reach my big goal of someday running a marathon. Now I have never, never been able to run, so this is huge for me. I have asthma that makes it really hard but I am hoping to do this someday. My goal for now is to lose XX amount of pounds (XX= no way am I posting that) I will need to change my diet to quit drinking so much carbonation and eat more fruits and veggies. I am also going to work out at least 30 minutes 5 x a week. I dont care what it is, the wii fit, walking, water aerobics or just going at it on our punching bag. I MUST do it 5 x a week.

Organizational: I will get my scrapbook room organized this year. When we moved 2 1/2 years ago I was thrilled to have a scrapbook room and I just ended up using it as my catch-all, junk hole. I want to get it cleaned out and even if I dont use it for scrapbooking, at least be able to find a freaking sticker when I need it. Along with that I need to get all my photos backed up off my computer for 2009.

Emotional: K I am going to copy the friend of mine that I stole the catergories from ( Thanks, Ruth, I hope this is ok) As I read hers, I laughed because I am in the exactly same boat. So my goal is to write in my journal at least once a week. I, like my friend, have a few hilarious journals from my teenage years and only a handful of entries from after I have been married. That is more then a decade!! I am grateful for this blog and I have this to look back at and remember all the fun things we have done, I just need to start recording some more personal things.

Well, there they are and I hope I didnt bore you all too badly. I just had to lay it all out there so I could not only remember them, but also feel accountable because I am not the only one who knows about them.

Happy New Year

These 2 couldn't quite make it til midnight, but they sure enjoyed the evening and all the goodies. The leftovers are still all over Kayson's face :)

Then there is these 3! I think they could have stayed up all night. Silly kids!

Hope you all have a fantastic New Year!