Best Friends

This week we got to go and spend time with some of our best friends at their pool. Denise and I met each other when our daughters, Sammie and Marissa, were in Children's Chorus together. They were just four years old. We immediately bonded over our loves of scrap booking and Gymboree! We soon figured out that our girls were just four months apart in age, and so were our boys, Connor and Joshua, who were just babies at the time! Without planning it we had baby girls, Madison and Sophia four months apart! Denise and I are no longer surprised when we show up with our kids in matching outfits or us with our matching diaper bags, again without planning it! We are kindred spirits! Now that Samantha is no longer in Children's Chorus we don't get to see our friends as often as we would like, but we always really enjoy the time we do get to spend with them. Here's some pictures of us hanging at the pool! Good times!

Tagged

Tagged, by my friend Denise!
A- Attached or single: Attached-15 years and counting!
B- Best Friend: Shaun and my mom
C-Cake or Pie: Cake, preferably chocolate
D-Day: Sunday, there's nothing I like better than a day of rest!
E- Essential Item: Diaper bag, I carry my life in it!
F- Favorite Color: yellow, it's such a happy color!
G-Gummy Bears or Worms: I suppose gummy bears, especially if they're covered in chocolate!
H-Home town: Orem
I- Indulgences: Haggen-Daas Peanut butter chocolate ice cream
J- January or July?: July-duh, who would pick a winter month?
K-Kids: 3 girls, 1 boy
L-Life is incomplete without: My family and the gospel
M- Marriage Date: June 11, 1993
N-Number of Siblings: 4 younger brothers
O- Oranges or Apples: Apples
P- Phobias or Fears: Dying before I see my kids grow up.
Q- Quote: "There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort"-Jane Austin
R- Reason To Smile: My great life!
S- Season: Summer, it's warm!
T- Tag Three: Katie Leigh, Kate Edenborg, Jenny Holman
U- Unknown fact about me: I can't say no to people, maybe everybody already has this figured out though!
V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: Meat eater, but I love my veggies!
W- Worst Habit: Biting my nails
X-Rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasound
Y-Your favorite food: Anything with pasta in it, unless it has some sort of seafood in it, which happens to be my LEAST favorite food!
Z- Zodiac Sign: Libra

A day at the beach

This is my idea of a day at the beach.

In reality this is what a day at the beach is like in Southern California with temperatures in the tripe digits.

We decided to brave it anyway, so here is a day at the beach with the Young family minus the dad. That's a 4 to 1 kid to adult ratio. We had as much fun as that allows! And why the red font you ask? Because that is the color of my back. I did remember to sunscreen the kids, that should count for something!

Samatha's Birthday

9 years ago today

Today

If any of you have been keeping up with Samantha's blog you'll already know that today is her ninth birthday! She has been excited about it for some time now! There is nothing that special about your ninth birthday. No real milestones. Age 5 you start school, 8, you're baptized, 10 is big because it's double digits, 11 means Middle School,12 you graduate primary and go into YW, 16 you drive...I really don't want to go much further than that because every other milestone means being able to do things that I don't approve of! Nothing exciting at 9. But that's what I love about Samantha, she makes life exciting! She is sooooo much like her father, and I can't figure out why that drives me so crazy, after all I picked him! I didn't get to pick Samantha, but I'm sure glad I got her and I wouldn't trade her for the world! Happy B-day sweet girl, I love you!

PS-Some of you may be wondering why a Garth Brooks song about a truck driver seemed appropriate for me to play for a post about my nine year old daughter's birthday. In the song, a truck driver is singing the song to the woman he loves, named Samantha. At our house this song is referred to as the "Samantha Song" and Sam LOVES it! If you listen long enough you'll hear the line, "Hello Samantha dear, I hope your feelin' fine, and it won't be long until I 'm with you all the time." Sam belts that line out every time she hears it!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day dad! I just had to put this first picture in because it is mom's favorite picture of us and I do like the "stache" you're sporting! The other picture is my favorite picture of me and you. It's from my BYU graduation when you got to hand me my diploma. WOW, that was an amazing moment. It was great to have you as a teacher in the classroom, but it's also great to have you as a dad!

Happy Father's Day to the father that raised my husband. I had a hard time finding pictures of just Shaun and his dad. The one I decided to include is a pictures from our wedding day and though it is a little stiff and posed I like that Dell is shaking his hand and, I'm sure, congratulating him on the prize he has just won, me! Every other picture of them that I found included an entire team and Shaun in some extremely embarrassing short shorts! Spending time, playing, watching and coaching sports is something they both love doing, and they seem to especially like doing it together! I so enjoy watching Shaun doing the same thing with our kids. Dell, you taught him well!

Teachers

We have all been looking forward to summer and school being out. The kids, because they get to be lazy and not do homework, me, because I get to be lazy and not bug them about doing homework! But I know the kids will miss seeing familiar faces every day, even their teachers! Their faces have become quite familiar to us since all three of my kids, that are in school, were lucky enough to have the same teachers two years in a row! Amanda was in a 4/5 combo last year and had the opportunity to be in Mr. Martinez class for her 4th and 5th grade year. I remember how nervous she was the first day of fourth grade because not only was Mr. Martinez a new face to her, he was new to our school so no one knew anything about him, except that he was the only "boy" teacher at our school! He turned out to be fantastic! We now feel very fortunate that Amanda has been in his classroom for two years. He is now one of the most requested teachers at the school! He will be teaching a 4/5 combo again next year and Samantha already has her fingers crossed that she gets him!

Amanda and Mr. Martinez

Samantha cried when she found out that she did not get the teacher that she wanted for second grade, and now that just seems hard to believe, because she just loves Mrs. Bevill! Mrs. Bevill had Samantha in second grade and then had the opportunity to "loop" up with her second grade class and teach third grade the next year. We think the world of her and she thinks the world of Samantha. We have discussed many times how the Samantha she gets at school is not always the same Samantha we get at home. At our first parent teacher conference we had with her I had to stop her part way through and make sure she had the right Samantha's folder in front of her (there happened to be another Samantha in the class!) because she just went on and on about how kind and sweet and helpful she was! In fact this year at the end of the year each teacher gave out an award to one female student and one male student that exemplified all the character traits our school emphasizes (kindness, respect, fairness, etc...), and Mrs. Bevill chose Samantha! I love anyone that loves my Samantha and Mrs. Bevill certainly did!

Samantha and Mrs. Bevill


Neither of my girls went to a formal two year preschool program, Connor was the first and it has been a great experience. He went to the preschool right at the girls elementary school, so it was very convenient for me and so perfect for Connor! We found out very quickly that his highest aspiration was to be the class clown! NO one could have handled him better than Mrs. Martin, she was very firm with him, but also very loving. And, how could I not love a woman who loves Disneyland as much( and possibly more) than I do! She said once that if she couldn't be a preschool teacher she would work at Disneyland. ( four generations of her family have worked there, and that is where she met her husband!) Connors classroom next year will be right next door to his preschool and we look forward to popping into Mrs. Martin's classroom once and awhile for one of her "Hugaroos!"

Connor and Mrs. Martin

Graduation Day

Today was Graduation for two of my kidos. First was Amanda's fifth grade graduation. She goes to Middle School next year, I can hardly believe it! It was held at the park next to our school and it was really nice. Right after that was Connor's preschool graduation. The dad of one of the girls in his class is a professional clown and he made special balloon graduation hats for each of the kids. Very fun! After both graduations we headed to Pat and Oscars for lunch with some of Amanda's friends. She sat at a table with her friends and not with the rest of the family. My little girl really is growing up!

Exciting Weekend

We had a pretty low key weekend this last weekend, except for the sheriff showing up on our doorstep on Saturday afternoon! Apparently Madison has more tricks up her sleeve than being able to quack like a duck (her one and only trick!). She also knows how to use the phone. We were just hanging out when Madison brought us the phone she had been playing with. She had it turned on, so I turned it off and hung it up. A couple of minutes later we got a call from the city of San Diego, but I didn't answer. I assumed it was a pre-recorded message telling me to vote, or to donate to our local sheriff's department, calls we get ALL the time! Then a couple of minutes after that there was a knock at the door and a sheriff was standing there (I LOVE living in a town that still has a sheriff instead of policemen, it's so small town Andy Griffith!). He said he was responding to a 911 hang up call. I figure that Madison had unintentionally dialed 911 and I didn't realize it! OOPS! I explained this to him, but he still had to walk through our home and make sure everything was really OK. I'm really glad that this didn't happen a few weeks ago when it looked like we were living in a crack house! As many of you know I am in the process of painting the exterior of our home. A big job, and I'm only one person and can only do so much at a time. My parents had come and helped me scrape it, but it took me awhile to get it all painted, so for a couple of weeks our house was this peeling mess with the house numbers laying haphazardly on the ground and the mailbox hanging by a nail. It really did look horrible! We definitely would have looked much more suspicious to the sheriff than we already did! He was very nice and let Connor carefully examine his "utility belt" (Connor said it was almost as cool as Batman's, quite a compliment!). Maybe next time I get a call from the city of San Diego I will answer it and maybe if it's the Sheriff's department asking for donations I'll do it, they deserve it!

Go West

Last night Amanda was in a musical play called "Go West". It was put on by her fifth grade class. In fifth grade you study American history and so this whole year they have been working on this play about the westward expansion. It was really cute and short, but sweet, which is bonus when you're chasing a 14 month old around the back of the auditorium the whole time!

Hanging out with friends/other cast members!

More of the cast!

The family hanging out afterwards and eating refreshments!

Squeaky shoes

Summer haircuts

Yesterday I took a couple of the kidos in for summer haircuts. I've never buzzed Connor's hair before (you never know if your kids going to have a really odd shaped head until you buzz their hair!) but a couple of his friends had it done recently and so that is what he wanted. He LOVES it! He was so excited after he had it done he was running around saying "You can't mess up my hair!" and "I'll never have to comb my hair again!" At the grocery store, he kept going up to perfect strangers and telling them to rub his head. That's a little odd, but we're used to that from Connor (refer to my last post).

Sam got her hair cut too and she loves it! I think it looks really cute on her!

Just Connor

When my girls were younger I had all this great dress up stuff. Every princess dress of all known Disney princesses, high heels, jewelry, the works. They had no interest in it. Then Connor came along. No, he's not into dressing up like a princess, but he LOVES dressing up. It all started a couple of years ago when he first started getting into pirates. He went everywhere in a pirate hat, and armed with a hook hand and a sword. We did have toinstitute a "no weapons or hats at church" rule. He then found a pair of orange and black striped tights from a witch costume we have, and much to his fathers chagrin, became a staple of his pirate get up. It has kind of spun out of control at that point. He now comes up with the craziest get ups! Right now he is obsessed with his Batman jammies I bought him recently (yes, they have the Velcro on cape!). The other day he came into the girls room, (they have a full length mirror!) in a particularly crazy get-up. I think it included his new shark goggles, a hat, the striped tights, I'm sure, and his cowboy boots. One of the girls asked him, "What are you dressed up like?" His reply, "Just Connor". That was really it. I realized as I was putting together this slide show, I didn't have nearly as many photos as I thought of his crazy get-ups. I think it's because it has now become so a part of our life, that when he's dressed up we just think, "Oh, it's just Connor". I really need to take more pictures of him because they really will be priceless someday, especially when he brings home his first serious girlfriend!

Good-bye Violin

I know...these are terrible pictures. It comes down to the fact that I am really a terrible photographer, and when I finally figured out that my flash wasn't working, the battery had died on my camera! But I decided to post them anyway because these will be the only record we have of Amanda playing the violin (she's the one on the pink leggings!). I have ALWAYS wanted to play the violin. So when Amanda had an opportunity to be in the 5th grade orchestra I convinced her that she would like playing the violin. She didn't. It's not that she really didn't like it, it's just that there are A LOT of other things she wanted to do with her time rather than practice violin. She already had soccer or softball practice (depending on the time of year), and piano practicing every day. So between that and homework it was just too much for her and me! I hated bugging her to do one more thing! These pictures are from her final concert of the year. The next day we returned the violin to the instrument rental store. Good-bye violin!