Spring Madness!

I have one word to describe my life right now and that word is "Madness"!! Every spring I end up asking myself "what were you thinking", and then the next year I find myself in the same mess as the year before. First, Savannah as you know from previous post is involved in track, now I have Cody playing baseball, Luke in baseball and soccer and last but not least, Brittany and Savannah both playing softball. Cody and Luke both have two games a week for baseball, Luke has two games a week for soccer and my girls each have two games a week also for softball. But, even though my afternoons/evenings are now spent driving and watching games, I couldn't love it more! I love to watch my kids play sports and have to admit I'm one of those moms that loves to yell from the sidelines! My kids, I guess, probably hate this, but I can't help it. My blood just starts pumping and I get so into the game, I just can't sit there on the side lines quiet. I have found the perfect friend for me though at Cody's baseball games. She is Cody's coach's wife and we are just the same when it comes to yelling at the games. Yesterday at Cody's game she was yelling (nicely) at the ref. for a bad call he made, and I have to admit I felt a special bond with her after that!

This is Cody warming up for his first turn at bat!

Cody up for the first time this season. He ended up hitting it and making it to first.

I just wish this crazy Utah spring weather would corporate with me just a little. On Saturday, we ended up sitting in the freezing downpour rain for an hour for Luke's soccer game. He has been playing for a few weeks now and has played more games in the snow/rain than in the sun.
I don't know if I can talk him into playing one more time in the rain.

Tonight is Luke's first baseball game, and my girls start softball next week. I told the kids to say goodbye to home cooked meals and to start DVRing (is that a word) their favorite TV shows. Our lives are just starting to become insane!

Spring Break and Easter '09

We had a great spring break in San Antonio Texas last week. It all started early last Saturday morning. We had a 9:30 take off time so we were up and gone early that morning. I spent the evening before loading up movies on the kids I-pods and packing coloring books, hoping it would be enough to keep the kids entertained for our 2 1/2 hour plane ride. The kids all did great on the plane, Luke especially loved it.
We arrived in San Antonio and was expecting it to be warm, but it was cold and raining. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out with Clay's sisters family, the Kimballs, and his other sister Lacy and her family.
The next morning was Easter Sunday and early 9:00 church. The Easter bunny left a not for the kids explaining that he had a very busy schedule and wouldn't be there until after church.(wasn't that so convenient for us moms?) After Sacrament Meeting, Courtney and I headed home to hide the Easter baskets. Courtney has this family tradition that the hidden baskets have yarn attached to them and the yarn is strung all through out the house and the end tied to the front door. So Courtney and I had to hide 11 baskets and then string yarn all though out the house. It was pretty hard toward the end because we were tripping all over the yarn. When the kids got home they found the string on the front door with their names on it and had to try and follow it, where ever it led them through out the house until it reached their baskets. It really turned out to be so much fun and I think it will have to be our new family tradition a well.

After the kids found their baskets, Courtney had a Easter egg hunt planned in the backyard. All the kids were given a number and all the eggs had numbers on them, so the kids had to find the eggs with their number on them.

Luke went everywhere this week with those bat wings on. There are Little Clay's and I guess he never wears them, but when Luke found them, he never took them off!

Jess found the coveted "camouflage" eggs. These eggs were the "golden eggs" and were filled with cash! The kids, of course, looked for these eggs first before looking for their numbered eggs. Luke found the one with the most cash in it, a big $10!

Courtney was so nice and took this family picture for us on Easter Sunday. Luke is doing his "insane" smile that is now his trade mark smile these days.
Here is all the kids in their Easter Sunday clothes. Just so you know, when ever we went out of the house this is how many kids we had to take with us! Crazy!!!
That night we had movie night in Courtney's backyard. They have this cool blow-up movie screen that we used to watch Kung-fu Panda on.

The next day we went to Sea World! It wasn't as warm as I would of liked it to be, but by the afternoon the sun finally came out and it was perfect!



The day after Sea World we took the kids boating! This was the nicest day of the week, weather wise, and we soaked up every bit of sun that we could.





The kids just tubed all day, and the adults enjoyed working on their tan in the boat!

The next day we decided to tour down town San Antonio! We ate lunch on the river walk, took a tour of the Alamo and just happened to be part of the "Tea Party" protest that they were holding at the Alamo that day. If you didn't hear about the Tea Party protest, they held them all over the United States that day, protesting the way Obama is spending out tax money. Of course we jumped right in with the protesters and had a blast chanting "USA" and other patriotic sayings!

You can see, even the children got in on the protesting! The funniest part of the day was when Luke asked why all these people were here and we told him that "they were mad at President Obama because he wasn't spending our money wisely." Then he said "But I voted for Obama!" We laughed so hard! Then we had to shut him up or he would of been eaten alive by those people there, if they would of heard him!

And it was just our luck that Glen Beck was the speaker at the protest in Texas that day! We love Glen Beck!!
This cute little girl was walking around the protest with her father and we just had to get a picture of her with the kids. And oddly enough her name was Savannah!

After the protest we took a tour of the river walk on the boat tours they offer.

The next day was cold and rainy again, so we took the kids to see the Hannah Montana movie, which I hate to admit was really cute! After the movie the kids spent the rest of the afternoon in Courtney's pool.


We didn't get to go to Schiterbaun on this trip. We found out it doesn't open until April 25th. We missed it by a week :( But I don't think it would of been warm enough for us to go anyways. We are thinking of going back this summer so if we do we will for sure go then!
We had such a great trip and can't thank Courtney and Trent and Lacy and Jason enough for keeping us entertained the whole week and letting us crash at their houses!

Great Find

It's not often that I feel like I have to tell everyone about a new place I have found, but this one is just too good! Tonight for Brittany's birthday dinner she asked if we could go to Teppanyaki's for dinner. Now we leave for Texas in the morning and have been careful about how we have been spending our money so that we can have a fun vacation. We told her it would just be too expensive to take the whole family there for dinner. Then I remembered my friends telling me about this place called Habachi Japanese Grill. It's the same food as Teppanyaki's but it's more low key. You go in and order your food and they give you a number, when they call your number you go and pick it up. But the best part is, the food taste just as good as Teppanyaki's and for a fraction of the cost. It only cost the family $40.00 to eat there, when it would of cost over $100.00 at Teppanyaki's. Now I know your going to want to know where it is, for those of you who don't live close to Lehi, I'm sorry. It's just south of Wal-greens in Lehi, the one near Costco. It's near the Wener Snitchel, if you know where that is. Anyways, just thought I needed to get the word out so that this place stays in business, because, I'm going to be going there a lot!

Happy Birthday Brittany and Clay's new love!!

So today is Brittany's 14th birthday! Brittany is one of the most sweet girls I know. She hardly ever looses her temper, she always thinks about others and tries to make sure no one is left out. She was the Beehive president and was over 16 beehives. She has been on the high honor roll since she started Jr. High school. Her best friend is her younger sister Savannah.
This morning we sort of surprised Brittany with breakfast in bed. She knew we were going to do this and was almost ready for school, but kept her bathrobe on so that it looked like she just woke up. Forgive me for how terrible I look, I just got done working out. Before school, Savannah and a friend went and decorated Brittany's locker, she also wrote all over her bathroom mirror with a paint marker. She also decided it would be fun to write all over the windows of the Suburban. So when I went to pick Brittany up from school, the car was all decorated with cute messages of "Happy Birthday" and "We love you, Brittany".

Later that day we had a family party with brownies and ice cream and of course present .

Earlier this week Clay had the opportunity to go to Brisbane Australia. All I can say is that he is completely in love with Australia and is telling me that if we don't move there within the next six months he is going to be really mad!
This is down town Brisbane at night. This is the river that surrounds the downtown area.

The first day he arrived Clay jumped on a train and headed to the Gold Coast.
He did tons of shopping and brought back some great gifts for the family.
Unfortunately, there were some pretty bad storms just before he arrived which left the water pretty mucky.
This is a look at the beach on the Gold Coast. This is how Clay spent his birthday in Australia.
Here are some more pictures of the buildings that were by his hotel. This is one of the churches.

Clay brought Cody a rugby ball home and now the entire neighborhood is in on the action. Becky are you so proud?
Clay even found his favorite TV show while he was in Australia, it's called Bondi Rescue. It's a reality show about the "Lifesavers" (Life guards) on Bondi beach, it reminds me of Baywatch, but it's not scripted, it's real. Now that Clay is home he watches this show on the internet.

I thought I would include some pictures of Luke at one of his soccer games. As you can see he is the tallest kid on the field. He has to wear an undershirt under his soccer shirt cause the one they gave him was too small for him.
Of course, the best part of the game is afterward when you get the treats!