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. ;)

Graduation Day

Last week was Bryson's last day of preschool. Here he is with his teacher Miss Louise.

Bryson had his preschool graduation last Sat. Here he is marching in to pomp and circumstance.
Each class sang a couple of songs for everyone.
His favorite song was Tony Chestnut because it had fun actions to go along with it. (ie. they pointed to their "toe", "knee", "chest", Nut=head) In this picture he's doing the 2nd verse "Ilene Chestnut" - notice the lean.

This was the "Bob-Bob Chestnut" verse - his favorite because he got to hold up his arms and bob his head like a rock star. Too cute!

Here Bryson was giving his teacher "5" before she gave him his "diploma".

Here is Bryson with all 3 of his teachers - Miss Louise, Miss Bri, and Miss Yvonne.

All 3 of my kids have had Miss Louise for preschool. Sadly, they announced at the graduation that she will be retiring. I guess Ally will have to do w/o Miss Louise.

Now that Bryson is done with preschool he's really looking forward to Kindergarten. So much so that he thought he got to start on Monday. He's disappointed to have to wait until next year, but once the other kids get out of school too, I'm sure the wait won't seem so long.

Assemblies, Assemblies, Assemblies

As the school year winds down, my kids have been in a few assemblies to show off what they've been doing at school.

Both Maddy and Jacob had a jump rope assembly a few weeks ago. Jacob was really excited to show that he could do double dutch!

Maddy and her group choreographed their own routine. They did lots of tricks like this one where she is jumping w/ her friend using just her rope.

Maddy also did an assembly for chorus. They were doing an "Around the World" theme and sang songs from many different countries. Maddy is on the right on the bottom row. I tried to put a circle around her so you could see, but it's not very dark.
The kids read lines that told about the people and places they were singing about.
Here's a little bit of the song from New Zealand. She loved practicing with the poi balls. She taught herself how to do them with one hand just by watching someone on the computer. That was her favorite trick.

Maddy also had a 4th grade recorder concert last night. I haven't downloaded the pictures yet, so I'll post those later.

Fun stuff, but we're glad that summer is almost here!

Empty well

Do you ever feel like you're nothing more than a pair of hands?

Hands that:
wake the kids up in the morning,
fix breakfast,
make school lunches,
fix girls' hair,
fill up water bottles,
drive to preschool and sign in,
push the grocery cart and load it up w/ food,
put all the groceries away at home,
sign out of preschool and drive home,
fix lunches,
change diapers,
get out crayons and coloring books - put them away,
get out play dough - put it away,
flush toilets all day,
carry toddler upstairs and put her down for a nap,
vacuum and mop the floors, wipe the table and counters, clean the bathrooms, do the laundry, pick up toys, etc.,
refill drinks and snacks all day,
drive to various activities,
fix dinner,
tuck kids into bed,
etc.

Sometimes I think that if I disappeared and was nothing more than a pair of hands no one would even notice. I know it's not really true, but it sure feels like it sometimes.

Sorry this is such a downer of a post. I just needed to get it off my chest. I guess I just kind of feel swallowed up by day to day to life. It's not even that I don't like it. I'm so grateful to get to be the one who does all these things for my family and I love them more than I could ever express. I think I've just lost sight of who I am separate from my life as wife and mom and feel very inadequate as mom. There's always so much to do - much more than I can ever get done. I want to have a clean and organized house and can't seem to keep it that way. I want to be a patient mother, but inevitably loose my cool at some point in the day and have to apologize. I want to be the one my family can depend on and lean on, but I don't feel very strong. I want to be fun and someone my family loves to be around, but don't feel that way right now.

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. I know we all feel down at times. I'm just having a hard time pulling myself out of this rut. I guess I just need to keep trying and be more forgiving of my shortcomings and just try to focus on all the wonderful blessings I have. I just read "Daughters of God" by Elder Ballard from the April 2008 Gen. Conf. There are two things I from his talk that I know I can and should work on. 1) Live more in the moment and enjoy the moments more w/o worrying about the next thing that needs to get done. 2) Find time to cultivate my gifts and talents. Elder Ballard says that "water cannot be drawn from an empty well, and if you are not setting aside a little time for what replenishes you, you will have less and less to give to others, even your children". I think this is my biggest problem at the moment - I've let my well run dry. The problem with having an empty well is that I've forgotten how to fill it up. Thankfully, Elder Ballard gave the advice that I needed, "Turn to the Lord in faith, and you will know what to do and how to do it."

I have a friend who puts three things she is grateful for at the end of each post she does. I think I'd like to start that too - so here goes:

1. "big hugs" and kisses from my kids, 2. a family who is patient with me, 3. the gospel to guide me and to help give me an eternal perspective.

Bryson's special day

Last year Travis took all the kids out to have a "special day". We decided to keep doing this and to have him do even years and me do odd years.

Bryson decided that he wanted to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D for his special day, so on Sat. we had a date. He was sooooo cute. Once I told him it was a date, he got all dressed up and wanted me to wear a skirt too. Here we are before we left.

Bryson LOVED the movie and thought that seeing it in 3D was awesome! He ate almost a whole a bucket of pop corn, which was special becuase we rarely go to the movies, let alone get treats!

After the movie, we got slushy drinks and got a pizza to eat in the park.
Bryson wanted to show off some of the fun things he does at the park when his school class goes there.

Our community was also having a concert in the park, so there was some extra entertainment - including a balloon lady. Bryson is posing with his new tiger after a FUN date!

What a fun day!