Finally

I have been a bad mother! It is true. :P Although I have plenty of picture of all of my children that I take all the time, I had no pictures taken of Evan professionally. Yes, you read that right, none!! But, we finally got some current pictures taken of our family a few weeks ago and today I got them up on the wall! I love them. The picture of Evan turned out especially well. I was pleased with our pictures from Sears and will go back again. I have to admit that the reason that I had not had pictures taken in so long was that my favorite place, Kiddie Kandids, had changed hands quite a while back. I didn't like that they had a sitting fee now and that their picture prices almost doubled!! So I picked someplace closer. It was between Pennys and Sears, but Sears won out because they don't charge you $10 per person sitting fee like Pennys does. I am glad to have pictures of my sweet and crazy little Evvy miester in our house!! :D And pictures of all the other sweet kiddos too!!

Lazy Sunday

Yesterday we have a lazy Sunday afternoon! :) Sometimes the casual pictures are my favorite ones! I love Weston pretending to be asleep!
Aaron hanging out on the ottoman with his favorite thing.....his nutcracker!

Amber being silly on the floor!

And my sweet little Brian! It is hard to believe these kiddos are getting so big! Evan was not in the mood to have his picture taken. I know that you all think he is perfect, so I won't tell you that he was busy pitching a fit on the floor over the fact that I wouldn't hand him the camera!!! :D

Weston's 5th Grade Promotion

Later on in the evening, on the same day as Aaron's promotion, we had Weston's promotion! Weston had such a fun time at his promotion. The school's theme this year at school was peace, love and learning. So, at graduation, they gave all the 5th graders peace headbands and colored glasses!! Weston thought that he was so cool!!! :) The classes all came through this bus thing. Unfortunately, Barth got very, very ill that day, in addition to all the poison ivy that was going on at our house, and was not able to go to the graduation.
We got there early (the kids and I) and snagged awesome seats on the 3rd row. At the same time, the family of our favorite pediatrician in our practice also sat down, right in front of us. I felt sorry for them because Evan was so active and was up and down the entire time. They said that it was okay with them. This is the first year our Dr's daughter wasn't in the same homeroom class as Weston. Weston was really so happy about graduation. They go all out for the kids. The children all looked so fancy in their nice clothes. Here they had the kids turn around and wave at their parents before they started with the awards and program.

Weston got several awards that night. He got a certificate for the highest grade for the year in his social studies class! :D He also got awards for academic team and all A honor roll. Then they announced the children one by one, by class, for their graduation. There were 5 Fifth Grade classes and Weston's class was in the middle. This is probably the only time, ever that he won't be last when graduating. :D


Weston loves to be funny! When he was crossing the stage to get his graduation certificate, he turns to the audience and motions with his hands to "come on.....give me more applause!" I will have to see if I can upload the video. It was too funny!!! He is definitely his father's son!!!!!!! :D After everyone had graduated, they played a slide show that included pictures of all the children in 5th grade. You know, the pictures that they take for the year book. It was so nice. After that, there were pictures of the activities that they did throughout the school year. It was all set to music. The graduation started at 7 (but we had to get there at 6:30) and ended at about 9:20. It was pretty long, but so fun!



Afterwards there was a reception in the cafeteria with cupcakes (with yellow and blue icing- hence the blue mouths) and punch. We found Weston hanging out with one of his friends from this year at school. We found out that he lives just a few houses down from our pool! We will have to have him over to play this summer!

Our happy graduate! I can't believe that he will be going to middle school in just a few short months. Someone pause time please!!! How did my little Westy Pesty get old enough to be such a nice young man?

Weston and his homeroom teacher, Mrs Ives. Most of the 5th graders had 4 different teachers. Weston had just 3 because Mrs Ives also taught the advanced math class for 5th grade. That class was where they had the 6th grade math in 5th grade. His average score in that class for the entire year was a 100! (And it was not an easy class!!) He also made the all A honor roll every time. No surprise there, but one thing to remember is that here, an A is a 94 or higher, and and B is an 87 to 93! He worked hard this year, as he always does, and had a great year as the top dog of the school!!!

Every year, at the end of the school year, the 5th graders get to sign the cafeteria half wall. Here is Weston pointing to his name. During the summer they paint over it, but I think that it is a cool tradition that they let the kids do!

Here is Weston under the balloon arch that they had in the rotunda of the school for the promotion ceremonies! Happy Graduation Weston!

The teachers decorate the fence every year for the 5th grade graduates! It stays up the whole next day when the 5th graders have a day of fun! On the last day of school, they had a cookout outside in the courtyard for the 5th grade. They had an afternoon of fun games, (liking having to eat through a cool whip pie using only your face, until you found the 3 gummy worms), a photo booth, fun t-shirts just for them, more treats than you could ever imagine, water balloons, etc! Weston was on cloud nine that day. But a little sad too, that his elementary years were done. He has had such good teachers throughout all his years at elementary school! He is getting to be quite the grown up young man! I know he will do excellent in middle school. He has signed up to play in the band next year----and to play the french horn! He originally wanted to play the oboe, but when he got to try out the instruments, decided that he really liked the french horn better! Congratulations Weston!!! We love you!

Aaron's promotion

This past Thursday was a very busy day at our house!! :) It started off with Barth flying in on a red eye flight from Las Vegas and making it home in time to walk out the door 30 minutes later to go and see Aaron's Kindergarten promotion!!! It was such a fun morning and Aaron was sooooo excited about everyone getting to see him graduate. The nice thing is that they release the siblings of the kindergarten students so that they can come to the promotion as well! Aaron woke up with a bit of poison ivy that morning, but it didn't stop him from going to his big day! Here he is coming in to get on the risers. Lucky for us, our last name is at the end of the alphabet and so that meant that he got to stand on the ground so we could see him really well!
Here are two of the classes in on the risers, ready to serenade us. I wish that there was better lighting in the gym because so many of the pictures came out dark that were zoomed up. The children sang us 4 songs. Hopefully I can post a video of the last one that they sang about 1st grade because it was so very cute! As they were singing the first 3 songs, Brian turned to me and asked if those weren't the same songs that he sang when he graduated. Of course, they were. But they were still sooooo adorable. I think that one of my favorite parts of the whole thing was when we started off with the pledge and you could hear the Kindergarten group, loud and proud, above everyone else, saying the pledge. Hearing their sweet little voices made me proud to be an American!

Here is Aaron, waiting his turn to graduate. The lady with the microphone is his teacher. The other lady is our principal.

Yay for Aaron! Congratulations on a great year!!!!! :D

After all was said and done, we headed to the cafeteria for a reception of cookies and lemonade. Aaron had a great time. We even got to check him out early and bring him back home with us! (which was probably a good thing since their classroom had no chairs in it because they needed them in the gym for the graduation and they still had to be in the gym for the afternoon kids!)

The kiddos thought those cookies were yum, yum, yummy!

This was the teacher's helper in Aaron's class this year, Mrs, Johnson. She was so nice and Aaron loved her!

And Aaron's teacher, Mrs Strotman. He really liked his teacher this year, and she really liked him too! Overall Aaron had a great Kindergarten year!

Way to Go Aaron! Happy Graduation!!! I am so pleased with all the good things you have learned this year in Kindergarten!!!

Choose to be Thankful

I was talking to Barth this morning and had walked out of the room for like a minute, and when I came back, this is what I saw!! My little messer had struck again, with a brand new box of cocoa crispies that I had gotten as a special treat for Weston for being such a good helper to me lately! As I started to express my frustration to Barth about having to clean up another mess and the fact that I was getting ready to dress Evan in his 3rd outfit of the day, he reminded me of something I had told him a while ago. He reminded me that instead of feeling frustrated, I should choose to be thankful. And so, I decided that I would do just that. I am thankful that I have a very healthy, active, adorable little guy that can do so many things. Thankful that the Lord has blessed me enough that I do not have to worry about the fact the an entire box of cereal is wasted but that I can easily replace that box of cereal. (I can remember vividly when Barth and I were young and in school when we had hardly any money and losing an entire box of cereal would have been awful!) Thankful that I have a broom and dustpan to sweep up the mess. Thankful that I am well and healthy so that I can spend my days chasing little people and cleaning up messes! And thankful for a good husband to help me keep things in perspective!! :D Today, I choose to be thankful for the blessings and trials that the Lord give to me each day!
And I am especially thankful to have my wonderful, beautiful, active little children to help teach me the things in life that I need to learn!!!

Smile

We had our family pictures today, and I thought that they turned out pretty good!! Here is a look at some of our pictures! We had pictures of the family....
.....and just the kids.......

.....followed by individual shots! I LOVED this one of Evan!!! The photographer was great with all the kids. As long as she didn't get to close to Evan, he liked to smile away at her. :D

Really, most all of the pictures turned out pretty good!

This was the best one of Aaron of ALL the pictures that we took. He had a fake smile in most all of his pictures, but she captured his picture just as he was laughing at her joke!

Brian really is in need of a haircut, but I was glad that I didn't cut it yet because I LOVE those sweet blonde curls of his!

And really, Weston looks so grown up! I can't believe he is almost done with elementary school forever!! I hope you enjoyed the pictures!!! :)

Webelos Award and Arrow of Light

Barth and Weston have been working very, very hard the last few months so that Weston could earn his Webelos and his arrow of light before he turned 11 and went on to the 11 yr old scouts. At the end of April (yes, I am way behind!) at the pack meeting, Weston earned both of his awards. Since Barth was the one that worked the hardest with Weston, I thought it was only fitting that he was the one that awarded him with his award. :) I am so proud of Weston and how hard he has worked to get his awards. He has done a great job!
Weston and one other boy that is in the other ward, that our cubs meet with, and who turned 11 one week before Weston, both got their arrow of light that night as well. I think that the one requirement for the arrow of light that Weston liked the best was going with the bigger scouts on an overnight camp out at our local state park with Barth. They got rained on and it was certainly a very cold night (in the 40's), but they had a great time!

They awarded Weston and Payton arrows to build in recognition of their arrow of light achievement. These 2 boys also competed against each other the past 2 years on their academic teams. They are friends and enjoy talking about their similar interests.


Since our ward has so few cub scouts (or boys), our pack is combined with the other ward. At this pack meeting, there were 6 boys that were going on to the 11 year old scouts, with 2 more moving up next month. Guess how many were from our ward? Just 1- Weston!! Oh well!! Such is our luck. Another boy that is Weston's age (older by a month) moved in a short time ago and finally Brian has another boy in his class at church as well! Now I think we just need to pray up a boy to move in that is Aaron's age...... :) I don't mind too much, both of my bigger boys have made some good friends in the other ward through the cub scouts program!!

Way to go Weston! We are so proud of you and your great accomplishments!! We love you! You are a wonderful boy and you can do great things!!! You are AWESOME!!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's day to the best Momma and friend a girl could ever want to have! Thanks for all of your sacrifices in my behalf. Thank you for teaching me the gospel. Thank you for teaching me to always tell the truth. Thank you for instilling in me a love of the scriptures and of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you for taking the time in high school to brush and dry my hair every night as I sat and did my homework. Thank you for ironing my clothes. Thanks for lending a listening ear......always lending a listening ear over the past 33 years. Thanks for the daily talks on the phone with me to brighten my days. Thanks for being the "reading Grandma" to my children and going to the pool with us in the summer when we visit. Thanks for all of the times that we would go to the store late at night together (and still do when we are together!) Thanks for all the times you pushed me to be a better person and reminded me of the things that I needed to be doing, even if I didn't want to hear it. :) Thank you for helping me to become the person that I am today. I love you Momma! You are the BEST!!!! I am so glad that you picked me to come to your family!!!!

Time Goes So Fast

When did this little bitty baby (okay so he wasn't all that small, but small for me!) go from looking like this........
.....to looking like this? How has the last 11 years flown by so fast? I love the young man that Weston has become. He is sweet, smart, kind, helpful, generous, loving, gentlemanly, happy, funny, and a joy to be around. I am lucky that the Lord has blessed me with this sweet boy as my first born. He continues to set a good example for his younger siblings to follow. He loves to make others happy and finds pure joy in making others laugh. (He gets his funny bone from his Dad!) I love him dearly and am so glad that he came to my family and not some one else's!!! :) Happy Birthday to my sweet boy! We love you!

Happy Birthday Weston

Summer Chop!

This past Saturday we finally had a sunny, warm kind of day! The nice weather got to me and so at bath time I decided to give Amber a summer time chop!!! :) She loves it! Her hair was almost to her waist and even though she has had several good trims, this was her first real big cut. It was almost to her waist (you can see if you scroll down a few posts) and we cut off 6 inches. That is a lot for a little one! Now we will let it grow out again until next summer probably! :)

Keep scrolling down for more new posts! I have tried to catch up some these past few days with what we have been up to in our family!! Enjoy our happenings!

Making Applesauce

A few weeks ago, I decided that it would be fun if Amber, Evan and I made applesauce. It is something that I have done with all of my children and something that they really enjoy. They all love to eat applesauce and I love teaching them where it comes from. Amber loved helping me peel the apples and put them in the pot.
Evan helped by standing on the step stool and eating an apple. :)

After we got the 3 lbs of apples peeled, cored and cut, we put them in a pot on the stove with the water and sugar and put them on to boil. Amber was curious to see how in the world these apples were going to turn into applesauce!

Evan liked it too. I think that he probably thought it was novel that I let him get that close to the stove without making him move away. He was probably confused was I wasn't telling him "Hot! Hot!!" He didn't get to stand there all that long though because I was worried that he would get hurt!

After it cooked for 10 minutes, the apples were ready to be mashed!! When I put the pot on the table with the cooked apples, Amber kept telling me that it still didn't look like applesauce. She thought that the mashing was great fun, but hard work!!

I helped Evan to mash the apples too. He LOVED the mashing!! I am being multi-talented here......I am taking the picture with one hand and helping Evan mash with the other! (and all the while worrying that Evan was going to try to touch the hot pot while I was taking the picture.....I can be such a worry wart sometimes!)

Evan loved the masher. He cried and cried when it was time to put it in the sink. I am not really sure why so many of the pictures came out dark. :P

And afterwards......we enjoyed a warm cup of applesauce. Amber didn't really like it warm, but loved it once it was nice and chilled. Evan, on the other hand, loved it warm and had 3 helpings!! It was fun to spend some fun learning time with my little ones. I have been so busy the last few months that I was glad to have a nice little break in my callings at church where I could focus on my little family and take some time to relax. The break was nice, but I am glad to have a new calling, and glad that I get to stay in RS as the enrichment leader (even though it isn't called that anymore!) It should be a lot of fun and since I was the enrichment counselor, at least I know what I am doing!!! :) And, after that nice break, I am refreshed and feeling like I can manage all my responsibilities well!!! Here are to happy Spring and Summer days ahead!!!!