March catch up!

So I have to start off with part two of the cousins visit to Utah. The last night they were here we had Colton spend the night with us. My kids love when they can have a friend sleep over, because we never let them have sleep overs so this is always a special treat for them. They decided they wanted to all sleep together so they made a big bed on our family room couch and slept there. I can't say a lot of sleeping was done that night, but they had a good time and it's not often they get to see each other so for one night I guess it was alright.
While the cousins were in town Brittany and Savannah's basketball team was right in the middle of there championship games. Their team only won about two or three games the entire season but as soon as the championship games started their team kicked it into gear. It was a double elimination series and at their first game to our surprise they won it. Their second game they lost, so if they lost again they would be out of the series. But to our surprise, again, they kept winning. In fact, they made it all the way to the last game. The team they were playing had been undefeated the entire season. It was a nail biting game all the way to the end but they won it!


I love this picture because of Brittany's reaction to finding out they were tied for first place! Poor Savannah had her eyes closed, but I just love to see Brittany's face in this picture!
Here is the whole team after the big win! Unfortunately, the next night we had to play the same team again and we lost that one, but coming in second was such a huge accomplishment for these girls! We were so proud of them!!!

A few night ago, Clay's work gave us some tickets to see the Jazz play against Houston. It's always fun to go especially when Kennecott is involved. We get to sit in their suite and it's always stocked with food and fun souvenirs for the kids to keep. Since we aren't Jazz fans Cody talked us into getting him a jersey for him to wear while he was at the game. We had a fun time and Cody loved tagging along with the adults (he was the only child we took and the only child in the suite as well).


This morning I went to school with Cody to see him preform his book report. Every month his teacher has them do something different in how they present their book reports. This month it's a oral presentation. Cody chose to do his on Thomas Jefferson. They are required to come dressed as that person and they have to present their report as if they were really that person.
When Cody walked into his class room his teacher instantly got up and announced they had a special visitor with them today. She is seriously the cutest teacher and I love her so much. She started talking in an English accent (I don't know why, but it was cute). She asked Cody who he was and he told her "Thomas Jefferson, Mam". She bowed to him and told him what an honor it was to have him here with them today. Cody walked up and sat in his chair and started to give his report.

In school last week Cody and Luke both received awards. Luke's was for good citizenship and Cody's was for high academics.


Sorry for the dark pictures. Clay and I were actually out of town for the awards Assembly and my sweet mother in law went for us. She took our camera and you know how it is when you use someone camera, you don't know how it works and everything. Well, I don't think the flash was on for these pictures.

Cousin time!

These are my cute little nieces who have come all the way from Texas to visit with us this week.
Leah is the one in the top picture and Lexi is on the bottom. They are Courtney's (my SIL) twin girls. She also has four more and they were all over on Monday to spend the day and play at our house. We had a blast painting pictures, playing Guess Who and Hyperdash, but when all was said in done this is what they wanted to do the most. Leah loved our treadmill and used it like a slide. She would turn it down low and then ride it down till she fell off the bottom of it. Lexi just wanted to watch her movies on her Ipod.
Clay and Luke spent the day jumping on the tramp, until it started to snow, and playing the Wii.
I tried to get pictures of the older kids but they were to busy playing "texting go seek". You ask what is texting go seek, well it's 2009's way of playing hind and go seek. You see one kid hides while the rest get to go and look for that person. The texting part comes in when the person hiding sends out text messages to everyone, giving them hints to where they are hiding. Cody had a hard time at this game since he was the only one without a cell phone. Poor boy!

During all of this time Courtney and Trent were at BYU where he was giving a lecture. After I had the kids for 6 hours all by myself, thank you, all the other adults joined us for a very yummy dinner. I have a friend that made this salsa for a friends birthday luncheon last week, she was kind enough to give me her recipe and I made it for everyone that night. I paired it with taco meat and all the good topping you have with burritos and it was a huge hit. I also had chips and they used it for a dip as well. It's really easy to make and brings so much flavor to burritos and tacos as well.
We get to spend one more night with our cousins tonight. The kids are going to jump on it with them this afternoon and then we are all meeting up for dinner and then going to Savannah and Brittany's basketball game. They are in the championship tournament right now and every night they keep winning, which means the next night they play again, until they loss. They have been playing in the tournament for over a week now.

I'm Back!

Yes, some of you must of wondered, "where did Steph go", "is she alive?" Well I'm back and yes, I'm still alive. I've just been so busy this last month. I can't believe so much time has gone by since I posted last. I have to admit, when I do get a moment to get on the computer, I usually just check my face book and don't even look at my blog. It's just so much quicker and easier for me to do that, instead of having to type up a post on blogger. Sorry about that.

Well February was quick and seemed to fly by. I didn't even take any pictures of Valentines day or anything else I want to write about. That is how crazy my life has been lately.

We have had a lot of drama with Jessica this month. For any of you out there that have older teenage daughters, I'm sure you will understand. For the rest of you....just wait!! Jessica and Tyler broke up, well we kind of forced them to break up. Tyler needs to spend this last six month before his mission, preparing for a mission. And Jessica is just to much of a distraction to him. So for the past few weeks, Clay and I have been "Satan" in Jessica's eyes because we have cut off all communication between the two of them. That is about all I'm going to write about that. So much more happened, but I don't want to get into all of it, so I'll leave it at that.

I had our big Blue and Gold dinner last week for scouts. I'm just so happy when those nights are over and done with. It turned out to be a big success and we had a record number of people that turned out for it. Christine, my cousin, happened to see me while I was in the middle of that night and got to see me in all my glory, scout shirt and all. It's so much fun to have her close by and to always run into her at church.

The thrill of the month came last Thursday night. It was of course the night Rascal Flatt's was in town. My girlfriend Stephanie and I went last year together to the concert and had the best time so I couldn't think of a better person to go again with this year.
We never buy our tickets in advance, we learned that last year when we bought our tickets the same night as the concert and got great seats. So we headed up to Salt Lake to hopefully have the same kind of luck as last year. Boy were we right!!!! When we got to the box office we asked the guy if he had any good seat available and he tells us he has 9th row on the floor available!! We snatched them up and headed outside to try and win backstage passes with the radio stations. The radio stations had us call in on their cell phones and they choose a certain number that would win. I'm looking at he radio DJ talking on his cell phone with the winner and then happen to look over at my friends who is talking and could tell that they were talking to each other. She runs up to the front where the DJ is standing and then he announces that he has a winner. My friend Stephanie had just won a pass to see Rascal Flatts live!! Only one of us could go see them and she gave the pass to me. Yes, that is a true friend right there, for you!

Here I am with my three favorite guys!! As soon as they walked in the room I almost couldn't breathe! They set up a line almost like a wedding reception and they had everyone come by real quickly and then they were able to get a picture with them as well. Everyone else was just shaking their hands, but when it was my turn I walked up to them (well it was more like a skip) and I gave all three of them a big hug!!! Yes, I man handled them!

Then it kept getting better from there. When I went to look for my friend in our seats I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them. We were right up front, right next to the stage!!

Here is our seats, there is the stage!

Jessica Simpson was their opening act. She was alright, not as bad as I thought she would be!

Here I am down in the tunnel waiting for my turn to see the boys!

The rest of the night was pure heaven. We had the chance to hold all three boys hands during the concert. They were so cute to everyone. When they would hold your hand they would look you right in the eyes, and Gary (lead singer) would sing to you!!! I could not of asked for a more perfect night!

Well enough about that! I'm sure your all tired of hearing about my night. The rest of the week was spent buying a new couch for the family room, planning our family vacations for the rest of the year, getting the boys registered for baseball, basketball games, ortho appts and Doctors appts. You can see now why I haven't had time to blog much lately.
We decided as a family for spring break to go to Texas. We gave the kids the option to go to Disneyland and a few other places and they all picked Texas. We have been there twice already with the kids and it's one of their favorite places to go on vacation. Clay's sisters live out there and we will be staying with them for the week. The kids and Clay and I decided that this year we will have to go to Schlitterbahn Waterpark twice while we are there. If you have never heard of this place, you'll have to look it up on the internet. It is the most fun place, I think, to go in Texas. We will of course go to Sea World, go tubing down some river, I can't remember the name of, and water ski. Thankfully Clay's sister has a boat and loves to take us skiing while we are there visiting. The kids are so excited about this vacation and are even excited about the plane ride out there. Our next family vacation we are planning is for the summer. Clay's other sister owns timeshare on a huge houseboat that they take to Lake Powell every year. We are planning on going with them sometime this summer for a week on the house boat. The rest of the summer is already planned out as well. We have baseball for the boys, EFY for the girls and girls camp. That doesn't leave us with to many open weeks left to just relax and enjoy the summer.
I promise to try and do better with keeping up with my blog. Hopefully I will be able to do better in March!