I made it!

I didn't want to say anything about this until I found out if I made it or not. It would of been way to embarrassing if I didn't, so I just keep it quiet until now. So I guess you are all saying, "just tell us already", so I will. I tried out to be in Jenny Phillips choir and I found out this morning that I made it in. Now this probably doesn't mean too much for most of you, but I have been a huge fan of her's for a few years now. Jenny Philips is a popular LDS inspirational music artist who has an amazing voice. Since I was in high school I have always listened to this kind of inspirational church music. Some of my favorite singers have been LDS artists. Jenny Philips writes and sings a lot of the music on the EFY albums, which were always my favorite. Anyways, I signed up to be on her email list and found out a few months ago that she was auditioning people to be in her preforming choir. The requirements were that you were to pick a hymn to sing (a Capella), learn Nearer My God to Thee (Alto part), to make sure you could sing harmony, and one of her songs that the choir sings during the performances.
Well, Saturday was the auditions and we had to sing in front of her and three other, who are directors of her choir. The best part was when I had to sing the alto part of Nearer my God to Thee, because Jenny sang the Soprano part with me. I know this is stupid, but to sing with this great singer was the biggest thrill of my life. I didn't want it to end!
Well this morning I checked my email and found out that I was one of 38 out of over 100 people to make it into the choir. She preforms a few times a week at different firesides all over Utah, Wyoming and Nevada. We are required to make it to 9 performances a year, but I know if I can do more, that I will.
The performance that we are putting on this year is called "Remember the Journey". I've only heard one song off the album (the one I had to learn for the audition), but that one is amazing! I can't wait to hear the rest.

In other news, Brittany received her Young Woman's Recognition Award in church. This is the equivalent of the Duty of God award the boys receive. She is the youngest girl in our ward to receive this award, so far. I'm so proud of her and all the hard work she had to do in order to receive this award.

The boys went to Father's and Sons this past Friday night. They didn't take the camera so I have no pictures of their fun night camping. Clay did come home bright and early the next morning thanks to Luke's crying most of the night, complaining of his tummy ache! I guess when you eat candy all night long it actually will make you sick. Plus the boys were freezing most of the night and Clay ended up putting Luke into the Suburban and turning on the heat for the last few hours of the night. Can you tell that we are not campers and this is why we only do it once a year!

My girls are leaving for girls camp in the morning. This year they are not even camping, they are staying at a ward members house in St. George. It's going to be pretty quiet around the house with only the two boys and myself. Weird!

Memorial Weekend

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I'm going to post about our memorial day weekend, but first I have to start where I left off and that is with Cody's birthday. On Cody's official birthday, Sunday May 17th, we had a small family party. Clay's mother and two sister came to our house for dinner and a very small party. We had already given Cody all his gifts and he had his big friend party the day before but we felt like we still needed to do something on his real birthday. Kym, Clay's sister gave Cody this Dora card that Cody thought was so funny (if you already couldn't tell from the picture). It was the only one she had at home and with a small baby around now, didn't have time to get to the store to by a more masculine one. But it had cash in it, so Cody wasn't too sad to receive the Dora card after all.

This was one of his favorite presents from his Aunt Chelsea, a pair of new Vans!

So on Wednesday of last week, Clay got up as usual and I thought was getting ready to leave for work. It was then that he informed me that he had taken off the rest of the week through next Monday from work. I of course love it when he doesn't have to work, but it also throws off my routine when he sticks around the house all day. He got dressed into his "yard work" clothes and went to work outside in our yard. Now, we haven't done much with our yard since we moved into our home and let me just say, it was in need of a lot of attention. I got the kids off to school and followed his example, got into my "yard working" clothes and went outside to see what needed to be done. Clay had a list of things he wanted to do and buy and we headed out to his favorite store, Home Depot.
We bought everything we needed to get our yard into shape and finished by renting a rotor tiller. The dirt in all of our beds was so hard and we had so many weeds, we had to get one before we could even start planting things. We then spent the whole day rotor tilling the yard, pulling up sod where we didn't want it any more and other off jobs, I can't even remember. All I can say is we were exhausted by the end of the day and basically feel into bed that night and passed out. Our backs and arms and legs were so sore it was all we could do to get up and do it again the next morning we still had more rotor tilling to do, even our hands were swollen from the day before, and it was just too painful to do it for very long. We some how finished up and actually wrapped up all the other jobs we had to get done too. By the end of day two I was so proud of what we had accomplished and we even got more things done than we had on our list.

This is the thing that I'm the most proud of, my garden. I first thought we would plant just a few things, but after I got started, I was having so much fun it turned into this big garden.

We planted watermelons, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots and pumpkins.

After two days of back breaking yard work, Clay and I decided we needed a break and thanks to my sister Libby, we were able to head to St. George for the rest of the weekend. Libby was going out of town herself and offered us her town home while they were gone. It was like having our own "vacation home", and let me tell you, we really enjoyed it!

On the way down to St. George, we had to stop in Beaver to get some Dairy Queen blizzards and to sit in the biggest rocking chair!

On Saturday we headed to Snow Canyon to do some hiking. This is a great place to hike with kids and the views are just incredible!

Lucky us, we stubbed across this tortoise while on our hike.

Yes, Savannah was in seventh heaven on this hike! She is my little animal lover!

Luke informed us, that he now wants a turtle for his birthday. He said "one that is nice, and doesn't bite and that will like me". Any one know where I can find a turtle like that?

Everyone got in on the turtle holding, but Brittany. She enjoyed our slow friend from a distance.

The nice part about this hike was there were places to stop and explore, climb and pose for more pictures.

The scenery here was completely amazing and I don't think any of these pictures has done it justice!

We not only found a turtle, but tons lizards and chipmunk looking creatures.

This was the end of the hike on top of this rock hill. After this we turned around and headed back to our car.

Savannah, Cody and Luke wanted to see how high they could climb the hill. By the time they reach half way I was ready for them to turn around!

Brittany of course stayed at the bottom and took in the scenery from a safe place.

Luke decided he needed sanctuary and decided to channel for inner peace.

The boys thought it would be funny to pretend they had slipped down the hill.

After the hike we went back to Libby's house and went swimming. The hike wore me out and I stayed home and took a long, quiet nap by my self. That night we went and saw Night at the Museum II, it wasn't worth the money, wait for it to come out on DVD.

The next morning we decided to wake up and hit the 11:00 sacrament meeting at the closest church we could find. Well it was just our luck that we found the seniors ward and were the only ones with kids in that sacrament meeting. The men who passed the sacrament were all over 75, some used canes to walk. The bishopric had walkers next to them up on the stand. It was so quiet during the meeting except when some one would whisper to their neighbor. You see elderly people don't whisper because they can't hear it when you whisper, so they would talk so loud, but I think only our family thought they were talking loud, no one else seemed to think twice at it. Luke said to me during sacrament that he didn't want to go to Primary after the meeting was over and I told him not to worry about it, they don't have Primary in this ward!

On Monday Clay and I got up early and wanted to finish the last of our yard work. We hooked up the tailor and set out to go and get some bark to lay down in our beds around the house. Since it was our last day together we decided to go to Kneaders for breakfast. Well, we weren't the only ones with that idea. By the time we arrived they were completely out of pancakes and french toast. It was so disappointing! After breakfast we headed to the nursery, only to be told they were completely out of bark. It just wastn't our day at all!

So with nothing left to do we headed home and had a yummy Memorial Day BBQ!

The kids rode the 4 wheeler, jumped on the tramp, played soccer and we even got Cody's pine wood derby made, good thing too, since the race is tonight!

You can't have a BBQ without some watermelon! I can't wait until I can get my own out of my garden!

Happy Birthday Cody!

We have a family tradition in our family that when even it is someone's birthday, that person gets their favorite breakfast served to them in bed. Cody requested chocolate chip and lemon poppy seed muffins this morning for his 10th birthday breakfast.

Every other year my kids get a "friend" birthday party of their choice (well, of course with in reason). Cody asked to have the "exact" same birthday party that Savannah had last year. I of course was happy to do this because it is so easy to do and everyone stays outside, so we are all happy!

This is the blow-up water slide we bought last year, and I have to say, it was soooo worth the money! The kids love it, and play on it all summer long.

Ten boys showed up and well you can say, it was crazy, but very fun!

This was the only time I really was nervous during the party. I was terrified I was going to be calling someone's parents telling them there was an "accident" on the tramp.

The boys thought it was so cool that I got them each their own bottle of silly string. Our front and back yard is a complete mess right now, but this is Highland and the winds will pick up soon enough and all that mess will be a thing of the past!

Luke especially loved the silly string!

I thought this was the best idea for a present! Cody got this balloon that was tied to a bad of candy, but inside the balloon was cash!

The theme of this years gifts were....guns! Cody got two different water guns and one Nerf gun.

Thanks to Costco, I didn't have to cook one thing. I love these cupcakes because not only don't I have to cook, but I don't have to cut a cake either!

Cody's gift from us was a new bike. He got to big for his old one and just two weeks ago it was stolen from our yard.
Cody's we love you so much and are so proud of the person you are becoming. Cody is truly one of the most selfless people I know. I know that Heavenly Father sent him down to be Luke's older brother for a reason. He is so patient with him and makes sure he is always feels included. Cody always has a smile on his face. This is the best thing about him and I try to be more kind and smile more often so I can be like him.

In other happenings this week, Savannah had her first 7th grade choir performance. Thankfully it happened to be right in between Cody's and Luke's baseball games, so I was able to sneak away to see it. The best part was when I arrived there, to my surprise I bumped into my Aunt Jo Ann, Nana Ora, and my cousin Susie. Susie's daughter was also preforming in the choir, so I was able to have someone to sit next too during the performance.

I had to put this video of Luke up to bat at his base ball game in. He was very upset with me that I didn't have any pictures of him on my blog of him playing baseball. So this one's for you Luke!!

It's graduation time!

Luke got to graduate from Kindergarten this morning, even though school is not officially out for another two weeks. Because I'm his room mom I got to walk the kids down the hallway into the gym for their ceremony, I also got to hand them their hat and diplomas. Before the ceremony began they started by singing us a few "season" songs, one for every season of the year.

Some more cute songs preformed by all the kindergarteners

I'm sad the picture was out of focus for this one. Luke was receiving his diploma just then.

After everyone received their diplomas they had them all stand together for a group picture. Yes, Luke looks like a giant next to everyone else.

Following the ceremony we headed to the atrium for some cookies and pictures.

This is Luke with his teacher Mrs. Eldredge

Just what the Doctor Ordered!

I couldn't have asked for a better Mother's day weekend. It was filled with pure relaxation and fun!
My friend Steph and I took off on Thursday around 1:00 p.m. to head down to St. George. We arrived around 5:00, checked into our condo and than immediately found a phone book, looked up and called Massage Envy and made an appt. for us that evening. We were starving by then so we took off to eat dinner. That night we were feeling like pasta, so Olivie Garden is where we went. It was amazing as always. After dinner we had a few hours to kill before our massage appts. so we hit a few stores and shopped, of course. It was so nice to not have to worry about any kids, we just walked around the outlet mall and looked for some cute clothes to buy. When it was time for our massages we headed over to Massage Envy where we got to enjoy an hour of pure bliss. I love to get massages and it had been way too long since my last one. The best part about getting them this late at night was we were so tired from the day and the massage by the time it was over we just took off back to the condo and crashed for the night. I have to admit it was the best nights sleep I have got in a very long time.
The next morning after sleeping in late we put on our work out clothes and hit the gym. We worked out tails off in the gym, went back to the condo, changed into our swimsuits and hit the pool. I love to lay out and just soak up the sun, especially after suck a long winter it feels so good to be hot! We stayed at the pool most of the afternoon, only leaving to get us a big diet coke! Heaven!
That evening we met up with my sister Libby and had dinner at Texas Roadhouse. It was a blast hanging out with my sister, except for the part when we went to the movies. We saw the worst movie ever made! Please what ever you do, do not see Obsessed. But after the movie we made up for it by shopping. We hit Kohl's and we did some damage there. I think we kept them open later than they were supposed to because we didn't get out of the store until 11:00 p.m. We just ran around the store finding cute clothes for all of us, then we would try them on, then go and find more clothes, try them on, well you know the routine by now. Libby made out with an entire new wardrobe, I think. We even found matching dresses to by. We both loved the dress so much we each had to have one.
After spending so much time shopping we had to get a late night snack so we hit Red Robin's and had some french flies and a chocolate malt.


The next morning we again slept in and then headed straight for the pool. We were smarter that day and first hit the Maverick for our diet coke and then hit the pool. We stayed at the pool until lunch time and then went to a place Libby told us about. It's called 25 main and it's wonderful for anyone looking for a great lunch in St. George. We shared a BBQ chicken pizza that was amazing and then had some of there cup cakes. These were even more amazing and we couldn't help ourselves after eating one so we went back and bought 6 more (for each of us). We spent the rest of the afternoon doing some more shopping and we hit the pool one last time before dinner. That night we were in the mood to get out of town so we headed to Mesquite for there all you can eat crab legs and prime rib. It was night of us being way to relaxed and really goofy. We laughed harder that night than I have in such a long time. The food was alright, it was just fun to get out and do something different.
The next morning was Mother's day and we slept in again, then got up and got ourselves ready and checked out of the condo. Libby told us of another great place to eat called the Bear Claw and we had a fabulous Mother's day brunch of Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries on top, yummy potatoes, bacon and eggs. We stopped by Libby's to pick up a few things from her on our way out of town. We left her a few cup cakes from 25 Main for her Mother's day gift and she made us some Oreo Truffles to take and eat while driving home. I was able to stop in Cedar and say Hi to my mother that afternoon. I was hoping to catch her at home but of course she was at church, so I ran in (in my shorts) found her in the chapel and got to spend a few minutes with her before I had to take off back home.
When I got home my cute family had a sign on the garage door for me that said "Happy Mother's day". To my surprise the house was as clean as it was when I left and they had some red roses on the table for me and some very cute homemade gifts the boys made at school. I love when they give me these cause I love to read about all the different things I love and didn't know about. Here is an example. This one is from Luke.
My mom is beautiful, her hair is ( and this is the part Luke wrote) curly?
She is 1000 inches tall and 1 pound
My mom always helps me...do my chores?
My moms favorite food is....lettuce? really
She doesn't like it when.... I fight (spelled I fit)
Can you believe how tall and skinny I am. Wow!

Cody's is a note that he wrote and they framed it for me. I'll just just write the whole thing
I love you because you are so nice to me and you're like my best friend. You are so special to me. I don't know how I could live without you. You're a very good mom and cook. You make delicious chicken. You're the best mother I could ask for. Happy Mothers day, Love, Cody

I couldn't have asked for a better Mother's day weekend. I just hope I get to do this every Mother's day.

Mother's Day get away!

This is my partner in crime, Stephanie Decker. We used to live right by each other when I lived in Cedar Hills about 4 years ago. Back then I would walk to her house just about everyday to hang out with her. We were visiting teaching companions, worked together with the activity day girls, were in the same Bunco group, and our birthdays are only a few weeks apart. She goes with me every year to the Rascal Flatts concerts, even though Tim McGraw is here favorite man! We are always joking that she must of been given up at birth because we have to be sisters! When I moved away, we stayed pretty close, she even came out to Valencia with her family and stayed with us for a week. I tell her all the time that she was sent her just for me because none of my real sisters live close enough to me to have this kind of friendship, and the Lord knew I would need this kind of friendship in my life.
Steph is the one person I call when I need a break from all this "mom stuff". She is always right there to come and get me and we take off to get some good food, see a movie or shop. Well Steph called a few weeks ago, pretty much strung out and was in need of a break. She called to see if her time share was open and found out that on May 7th- 10 they had an opening down in St. George. She imediatly called me to see if I would want to go on a girls retreat and I told her to "count me in"! We thought if we got around 6 girls to go with us it would keep the cost down for the time share. Well come to find out that weekend is Mother's Day weekend. All the girls backed out when they found this out, so Steph asked me if I wanted to do the same. Ok, so here I am left with the question, "do I want to be gone out of town on Mother's day". I must be really horrible because the I didn't even have to think about this question, my answer was "Heck Ya!" I mean don't we all just want some peace and quiet on Mother's day, a day that we don't have to work at all? And has that ever really happened? For me, no! I still have kids that fight and argue with each other, I still have to make dinner, and I still have to go to church and do my calling. So that is my Mother's day gift this year, a weekend away, by myself, with a guarantee there will be peace and quiet and no cooking! I couldn't be more excited!