Summer is here!

The kids are finally done with school! Yea! Friday the 30th was there last day. All day SaturdayChristena was saying "I am now officially a 4th grader!" she is a little excited. I can't believe how fast these girls are growing up. Friday and Saturday Christena and Savannah spent the day alternately on the phone with their friends. I finally had to kick Christena off the phone and Jake said he is going to set a time limit for how long they can talk. Christena is already worried about next fall and whether the boy she likes is going to be in her class next fall and if he will like her or not. She's not even 9 yet! I am dreading her becoming a teenager!

Last Tuesday was my 29th birthday- I figured I can admit to my age since I am still under 30. My kids informed me you are not old until you hit 30 (Sorry for everyone over this age!) They also said that 30 is old but 40 is officially old. I haven't figured out what happens after 40!

Savannah insisted on making my birthday cake. So I baked it before I went to work so it had time to cool and after Jake came home from work he helped her to make the frosting. Savannah wanted to do all the decorating herself and kept sending Jake out of the kitchen.

Here is the finished product-

They realized after they were done that they wrote on the cake upside down from the pictures. The pink picture is a cake and the green picture is a frog! Savannah did a great job!

Here is me with a few of my birthday gifts! These two are from Jake. The girls all gave me earrings.

This picture is one Jake snapped of Juliana doing her favorite past time...

Picking her nose! Everytime we tell her to stop she laughs and tries to stick her finger further up her nose- She does at least ask for a tissue when she is done!

friends in high places

It pays to know the right people!
Saturday night Jake and I went to a Utah Blaze arena football game. Three of the guys Jake worked with when he worked for the Grizzlies (hockey team) moved over to the Blaze, so Jake was able to get free tickets from them. Our seats were on the 25 yd line (if your not familiar with arena football this is mid- field) and we were only 4 rows up! The tickets were $110 and they gave us wristbands for the VIP dinner before the game. It was amazing! We could see everything, right down to the expression on the players faces and you could hear the helmets hitting. Unfortunately we were a little too close to the action for a girl that was sitting 3 row in front of us. She was on the front row and one of the passes came right over the receivers hands and hit her right in the head. We didn't see exactly everything that happened, but she was knocked out cold and they had to take her out of the arena on a stretcher with a backboard and a neck brace- I think this was just a precaution. The players were really cool about the whole thing. The Chicago rush defender looked over the side and could tell that she was hurt so he called for people to come over and help. The Blaze team also autographed a football and gave it to her. I'm sure this was a game she will never forget! You never expect this at a football game, I think that it made a lot of people more aware. There was one family that was just the row behind the girl that had some young kids that moved during half time.

Even with all the drama it was a really exciting game. The Blaze won the game with a field goal in the last few seconds!

It was a great night! Thanks Dave, Ryan and Michael!

family fun

So I have been a little behind on my blogging lately. You know how they say time flies when your having fun? Well I think time flies even faster when you are busy. It seems like I never have enough time to get everything done lately and blogging is what tends to get left out.

We have had a fun couple of week though. On the 8th Jake was able to get free tickets to the Albuquerque Isotopes/Salt Lake Bees baseball game, and who can pass up free! It was a fun game. The Isotopes had won the first two games so I guess the bees were due a win, but the Isotopes were thoroughly trounced! We left during the 8th inning when the Isotopes were down by 6 or 7 runs. We figured the game was over and we wanted to beat the traffic!
We did end up with a souvenir ball though. Just after we got to the game, the Isotopes hit a ball almost to the fence where we were sitting. Jake was yelling so loud the outfielder looked up to see what was going on. After the play was over the bees player tossed the ball over the fence to us. The girls thought it was great and both Christena and Savannah have taken the ball for show and tell.
Next was Mother's Day. I always love mother's day. A whole day of Jake telling me to sit down and put my feet up and relax. Jake fixed dinner and then we went and visited Jake's grandma and mom. It was a nice day. The kids were really cute with their presents. Olyvia gave me some new ponytails to use in her hair (her words), and Savannah gave me some bright red fingernail polish, again I think it was more for her. Christena gave me a box of chocolates and believe me those are for me. I hid them so the kids couldn't find them and eat them all.

I hope all the rest of you mom's also had a great mother's day.

Lastly, Friday night we had my niece Karyn stay the nght with us while her parents were in Las Vegas for a wedding. I survived 5 girls friday night and so saturday we went to the park for a picnic lunch and to let them get rid of some energy. Here are some pics from the park.

Juliana is enjoying her Capri Sun, she was exhausted, but not about to miss out on any of the fun!
Savannah is riding a lion.
Does this mean Christena is a tree hugger?
All the girls took turns taking pictures with my camera. Olyvia liked taking close ups of her face! She had some other lovely ones of up her nose, and she tried to take one of her tongue-the silly girl!

For all of the husbands out there- Jake got tired of me taking over the blog so he has started his own sports blog where anyone who is interested can read his rantings and ravings and add their own comments. I will try to post a link to his blog soon, although it may be a few days before I get the chance, I think the blog site is sportsblogger.jake.blogspot.com it may just be sportblogger (w/o the "s"). If any one is interested!

Double Tagged

Both Trisha and Dacia tagged me (thanks guys) so I'm going to do both on one blog.

The tag from Trisha is to share 3 of the following things:

3 joys:
I'm going to be cheesy and go with-
1. my family
2. time off from work -very rare these days
3. a long hot bath

3 fears:
1. something happening to my family
2. spiders
3. mice-but no one tell the ladies at work, they love to play practical jokes!

3 goals:
1. to go back to college and get a degree
2. buy a house
3. survive the upcoming teenage years times 4 girls-YIKES!

3 random surprising facts:
1. I love musicals!
2. I know all of the songs from both High School Musical movies and sing along while watching them.
3. I love to bake - The more complicated the recipe the better

3 current obsessions
1. American Idol- I've been a fan since the 1st season so I don't know if this really counts as a current obsession.
2. crossword puzzles-I do the one in the newspaper while I'm waiting for my kids to get out of school.
3. blogging- actually I do better at reading everyone else's blogs than updating mine.

I don't remember how many people I'm supposed to tag for this assignment, but since everything else is in 3's I'll go with 3- so Kellie, Wendy, and Michelle consider yourselves tagged!

The Tag from Dacia is:

1. On your post, link back to the person who tagged you - that would be me, in this case.
2. Post your assignment on your blog - seven weird or random facts.
3. Post these rules on your blog.
4. Post links to seven bloggers that you will be tagging.
5. Go to those blogs and give them a comment on their blog to let them know that you have tagged them.

So here it goes. 7 wierd or random facts about me:
1. -3. see above -is this cheating?
4. I often talk to myself
5. I sing in the shower
6. Jake and I suddenly start slow dancing in the living room, or kitchen, or almost anywhere, with or without music- he usually starts it however.
7. I love to read and often stay up until 1 or 2 in the morning reading.

I'm not sure if I can come up with 7 different people to tag so let's go with, Katie, Joshlyn, Brittney, Trisha, and the 3 above. (If you've already done this assignment I guess you lucked out!) Have fun!

Kellie's Wedding

I didn't necessarily want to blog both Olyvia's birthday and Kellie's wedding on the same blog so I figured I would just do two seperate blogs. Savannah took some really cute pictures at the reception that I really wanted to share.

Okay so I took this one outside of the temple. Here is the family after the wedding.
The rest of these pictures are the one's Savannah took. She did a great job with the pictures.


I thought this was a great picture of Britney. I have several others that are similar. Let me know if you want them Michele.

Here is the beautiful bride
and the handsome? groom!

This is how Scott looked after Kellie fed him the cake. He then proceeded to chase after Kellie and give her a great big kiss so Kellie could share the cake and frosting.

I'm not exactly sure what it is Randall is doing here. Again one of the many Savannah took of her cousins.

It was a great wedding and we had lots of fun, although it was a crazy weekend! Welcome to the family Scott!

Olyvia's Birthday

Olyvia had a "Princess Tea Party" for her 5th birthday. Her birthday was on the 20th which was a Sunday so we had her party on the 19th. We had a lot of fun- there were 8 girls there counting Olyvia and Juliana. My parents even came and brought Olyvia's cousin Natalya from Pocatello. We decorated these princess crowns, made necklaces and tried to turn a frog into a prince. I realized after the party was over that I did not take a single picture of the party-OOPS! Jake was at work and I was trying to run the show, so that is my excuse. This picture is from after the party. Natalya's birthday is the day after Olyvia's so she is opening her presents from my girls.

On Sunday we had the family over for cake and ice cream- that's my excuse for not blogging last week! This is Olyvia's princess cake. It looked a lot better in my head than it actually turned out. Olyvia was just excited to get the crown.

Olyvia loved her presents. Here are a few pictures of her opening her gifts.

A High School Musical shirt from Christena. My girls can hardly wait for the third movie to come out!
Olyvia asked me for a singing Sharpey doll. When I asked her what else she wanted if I couldn't get her that She told me a night light and a radio for her room. She was very excited to get her new lamp.
Olyvia also got some new clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Smith and Tonja and her kids. Savannah gave her a bubble set and Juliana gave her a new piggy bank because she broke Olyvia's. It was overall a good birthday.

No Time for Anything!

I have been meaning to blog for the past couple of weeks now, but never seem to have more than a couple minutes at a time to sit down. I should be working on my sewing right now, but can't seem to motivate myself to actually sit down and get it done.
Our house has been crazy lately. My time seems to be spent in the car more than at home lately. After I get my girls to school in the morning I have about an hour and a half until its time for me to go to my job at the elementary school. After I get home from the school I usually only have an hour until I have to pick kids up again. The girls started swimming lessons last week and so every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons we go to the pool. Luckily all their lessons are at the same time, but we don't get home until dinner time. By the time we finish with dinner and get the kitchen cleaned up it seems like it is already time for bed. Added into the normal everyday stuff we have achievement days every other week for Christena and parent teacher conferences this week. I'm hoping things will get less hectic when school gets out. One of the kids at the school was celebrating the fact we only have 2 more months-time sure flies when you are having- Fun?

Anyway we are finally almost healthy here now-We hope! The end of March Savannah ended up with an ear infection on top of her cough and cold. We passed the cough and cold around to all of us, but a few days after Easter- after her fever had finally broke, Juliana started complaining that her ear hurt. A quick trip to the doctor revealed a double ear infection and pnuemonia! She is finally feeling better! Jake gave her a blessing that she would be able to return to her energetic self. Kellie and Jake's mom just said, "Are you sure?" But I really am- even with all the energy she has and all the trouble she gets into I hated seeing her sick.

The Basketball theme of our blog is in honor to the NCAA tournament-which is now over, and the upcoming NBA finals. Jake complains if I make the blog to "girly".

A word on the NCAA- My bracket finally passed up Jake's on the final four-That's all I really hope for when I pick my bracket- unfortunately the two teams I picked for the finals lost- but then again, so did Jake's!

Hopefully next time I'll have a little more time so I can post some pictures! I'll try to make it a little sooner,