More vacaton fun!

Phase 2 of our vacation was spent at Travis's parents house. My kids love to do Pixos there. I think they keep going until she finally runs out of beads. They just love it!

Travis's mom had all the grandkids paint rocks to put in her garden. Ally could have painted all day. We finally stopped her when all the colors were just being smeared together.
The next 2 shots show all the rocks. I tried to show which were my kids, but couldn't get the type any bigger in paint. Too bad I don't have photoshop or something. Oh well. Jacobs is the red one and Maddy's is the one that looks like a bug.

Ally's is the pink and purple and Bryson's is the one w/ orange writing on it.

The kids also got to do sparklers. They had a great time!

I had to hurry to get this picture before the sparks got too close to his cheeks! Crazy kid!

They loved these ones that had red fire.

Here is what Ally did every time someone got too close to her w/ one of the sparklers. She only liked to watch from a safe distance. Smart girl!

She finally decided it was safer to just sit on the step with her cousin next to grandpa.

Thanks for the fun time! We had a blast!

Stay tuned for our reunion fun!

Fun at my mom's

We got to be at my mom's over the 4th of July. It's so fun because the kids get to do fireworks in the street and then we can just watch the big fireworks from her driveway. My mom lives 2 houses down the street from the high school where they shoot off the fireworks. You can even hear the music a little. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that I don't have to get stuck in any after fireworks traffic and yet get to have front row seats!

This is another picture from the reception, but it's the only one I got of my niece Jessica and her son Spencer who were at my mom's the whole time we were. It was fun since I haven't gotten to spend much time with her in the last few years. My sister Denise is also in the picture ( I think I caught her in the middle of saying something - sorry Denise!) It's not weird for me to think of Jessica as a mom, but I still can't believe that my sister is a grandma!!!
Here is another one of my kids' big cousins. Austin was wrestling and tickling the boys again. You'd think they liked it or something! :)
My kids love to go to the children's museum by my mom's. Here is a pic of the kids on a huge map of the USA. You press a button to hear a clue about a state and then run and stand on that spot on the map.

Here is my fire crew. I'm not sure they'd make it to the right place w/ Ally driving! Hopefully she won't dump Jacob off the side! ;)

Maddy's BEST FRIEND in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD moved last fall. We were able to go visit Payton while on vacation. They hugged for several mins. when they 1st saw each other. Payton's mom and I went inside to visit a little and they were still standing there hugging. I think they missed each other!

While Maddy spent the day w/ Payton, the rest of the kids and I went to my sister Dalynn's house and then to a petting zoo near her house. Here's a cute shot of all the boys "locked up" in jail. Too bad there's such a gap in the bars on the left side! ;)

The kids loved the pony ride. Ally was not sure that she wanted to get on the pony at first, but ended up LOVING the ride and didn't want to get off! You can see Jacob in the background too, Bryson must have been out of the picture.

After a picnic dinner at the park, it was time to go and pick up Maddy. Here are the boys saying good-bye to their cousins, Seth and Bryson - how fun to have cousins so close in age, only a year apart!

Jacob and Calvin - even closer in age, only 4 months!

Saying good-bye was hard! What cute friends! I guess these hugs (and webkinz and phone calls) will have to do until next summer!

As always, we had a GREAT time at my mom's!

Meagan's big day

My niece Meagan got married July 2 and we were lucky enough to get to go. Since we don't live close to anyone, we don't always get to be there for these special days, but we were glad we could make it for this one.

Here is Meagan and her new husband Garrett.

Since I'm crazy about hair, I fixed Maddy's and her cousin Morgan's hair in the same fancy do. Maddy really, really wanted to match Morgan and I'm sure Morgan's mom was happy not to have to worry about one more thing that morning! It's a little busy being mother of the bride!!!
Here's a view from the back. They got lots of compliments. Here is where I got the idea from.

It was fun for the boys to have some of their older cousins around. Alan was tickling Jacob, Bryson and their other cousin Calvin. Got to do something to keep them entertained! ;)

Here is a picture of all my siblings, my niece and my mom.

Doug, Denise, Me, Megan, Dianne (mother of the bride), Dalynn and Donna (my mom)

Notice all of my siblings start w/ "D" - even my parents Denzel and Donna!

Meagan wanted a garden reception, but due to rain, we had to move it to the church. It still looked very garden like w/all the decorations we had for the outdoors. She wanted the reception to be very bright and fun. Her colors were hot pink w/ lime green, yellow, orange and bright blue.

This was my kids favorite part of the reception! I think they could have hung around this table all night! Lucky for them there was leftovers!

What cute boys!

What beautiful girls!

Remember what I said about her wanting a bright and fun reception. I think the cake fit the bill! Meagan absolutely loved it!

Bryson is my "huggy" boy. If you ever, and I mean ever, need a hug - just come on over. His big cousins loved all his hugs! Here is is w/ his cousin Emilee (Meagan's younger sister).

Bryson couldn't let Meagan go without one more big hug! She loved it!

It was so fun to get to see so many of my family and extended family members! Weddings really bring everyone out. It was a really fun day!

Been a total slacker!

Well, I have been a total slacker this summer. Not even one post! The next several posts will be a major catch up of all that's gone on during our busy summer!

We spent almost every morning at the pool for swim team and swimming lessons. I was hoping that Bryson would be able to swim the whole length of the pool by end of his lessons so that he could be on swim team next year, but he's not quite there yet. Part of the problem was that we weren't as blazing hot as usual during June, so the water was really cold. Oh well, he really enjoyed it anyway. Here are a few pictures of him at his lessons.

He can swim about 1/2 the length of the pool. We'll keep working.
Jacob did so much better swimming this year! I always love the shots of him at the beginning of his races - he really starts well. His favorite strokes this year were backstroke and freestyle. An hour of swim every morning helped to use up a little of his endless energy.



At championships Jacob got to swim in the medal heat for the freestyle relay and his team got 2nd place medals!



Maddy really improved this year as well. It's fun to watch her swim because it's the only activity that she's involved in where we can cheer her on during it. Her favorite stroke is the butterfly with backstroke as a close 2nd. Her goal this year was to finally get a blue ribbon and she actually got several! One butterfly race had 9-10 boys swimming their heat at the same time as the 9-10 girls and only 1 boy beat her, she beat the other 3 boys as well as all the girls! She was only timed against the girls, so that was one of her blue ribbons!

Getting ready for backstroke. Maddy was fast enough this year to swim in the medal heat for backstroke at championships. That means she was in the top 8. She came in 4th, just out of medal contention. Darn.

Maddy's coach made a mistake and didn't put her in the medal heat for butterfly (her favorite stroke) even though her time beat 4 of the girls in the event. One of the girls didn't show up, so they told her she would get to swim after all. She was soooo excited that attempting to jump over a little half-wall, she scraped up her leg. She didn't even care about her leg, she was so excited to be able to do butterfly.
Well... at the very last min. (Maddy was already lined up in front of her lane for the race) they told Maddy that she couldn't swim because the girl showed up. She was devastated, but tried to pull it together for her other races.

Maddy was also in the medley relay, swimming backstroke, and in the freestyle relay. Her team got 1st place medals for the medley relay and 3rd place medals for the freestyle relay!

Our team got 1st place out of all 8 teams at championships! Way to go!
Here are Maddy and Jacob posing with the team trophy. It's taller than Maddy!
I didn't have my camera w/ me, but at the closing swim team party, their coach gave all the kids little individual trophies. Maddy was so thrilled because since swimming is really her only sport, she never gets trophies like Jacob does. She has lots of ribbons, and now 2 medals, but never had a trophy until now.

All in all, swim this summer was GREAT!

Stay tuned for more of our summer happenings. ;)