Van's Baptism

I can't believe another child of ours has been baptized! 

This means my kids are growing-up way too fast!

 Danny baptized Van, Andrew gave the talk on Baptism, I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, Hanna and Ruby sang "I am a Child of God"  and Max and Hanna gave the opening and closing prayers.

 Uncle Kurt and Skye were there.

Baxter and Vincent were there.

 Uncle Greg, Aunt Heather, Brody and Ella were there.

  Grandma Mike and Grandma Susan were there.

And of course, Mom and Dad and all your siblings were there!

I was so busy I forgot to take pictures afterwards of everyone that was at your baptism. 

Uncle Tom, Aunt Becky, Taylor, Hailey, Zachary, Ruby, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Cindy, Raquel, Andrew, Olivia, Grandma Dee Dee, Aunt Janet, The Blackwells and The Leavitts were there too!

 It was a beautiful baptism Van! What a blessing it is to have the Holy Ghost as your companion. 

May you always remember how you felt on this day and
strive to follow your Savior Jesus Christ daily!

Family Night

We went out to dinner as a family!

It doesn't happen too often, but we enjoyed the night, for the most part!

Max

Max is growing up way too fast!

First of all he got braces and second of all he went to the 6th grade "ball"!

 All these kids are in the 6th grade and all but one are in our ward! There are even more their age, I guess they just weren't at the dance. I am so grateful he has such a good group of kids so close!
After the dance they went to one of the friends' house for a movie night!

What a blessing it is to be here!

Pink Zebras

Hanna had another great soccer season! She met some good girls and enjoyed playing with her team!
I always love watching her play! She mostly played forward this year and was able to score quite a few goals. They were so close to making it to playoffs yet another year! It was a great season!
Now it's time for basketball, which mom will be coaching!

Daisy

Daisy can ride her bike with no training wheels! 

We had her training wheels up so high for so long now, 

I put her down a grassy hill on Walt's bike and said you can ride it, go! And she did!

 She finally got confident enough to try it on the road.

Walt's been riding for over 2 years now, not sure if I ever documented it.

 Daisy is a Cheerleader at her school! 

She gets to go to practice once a week and wear her uniform every Friday. 

She's a natural!

Wicked

We won 2 lottery tickets at Wicked and got orchestra seating for $25. 

Hanna's name was called at the last call. We had a great time!

We've Been Busy

Danny turned 36! We celebrated his birthday and our 13th Anniversary!

We stayed the night at the Mandalay Bay without the kids. Thanks to my mom for keeping the kids for the night. Then the next day she brought them to the hotel so we could have a fun time with them.

Danny and I went on a date to the Panda show.

The kids decorated the front door for Danny's birthday! Their idea.

We are just loving this super fun new park a block away from us!

We enjoyed the Nevada Day Parade with our cousins! Celebrating 150 years old.

We also enjoyed the Civil War reenactment at Bonnie Springs. (NV is the Battle Born State).

Invited friends over for a very fun Fear Factor FHE.

We finally got ourselves Children Museum Passes! The museum was a hit!

 Enjoyed Big Hero 6 in 3D with the family.

 Helped the Blackwells and the other Jensen's with a fun surprise for Jeff and Cindy Jensen.

While out of town we gave them a backyard! 

With grass, a fire pit, a sitting area and a trampoline, it's so fun to surprise people you love!

Proud Mama

I love that Doral Academy gives character awards.  

Max received an award for being RESPECTFUL. 

He is such a good, respectful boy and we are so proud of him! 

 Walt received the GOOD CHOICES award! 

We too are so proud of Walt for the good boy he is.

Hanna also recieved the GOOD CHOICES award! 

She also recived stright A Honor Roll!

We are so proud of each of our children and feel so blessed to have them in our family!

Van's 8th Birthday

I can't believe this cute boy of mine is 8 years old!

Grandma Susan made him his 8 year old quilt. And the kids made him cards on their own.

Walt taped some quarters and candy to a card for him and Hanna made some 

really good coupons for him. I love these kids of mine! They're kind of awesome!

Van's birthday was on Veterans Day so we went to the Children's Museum, 

to a neat park and to Cici's Pizza for dinner.

We got Van a teather-ball court instead of a party this year. He loves teather-ball!

Happy 8th Birthday Van! We love you!

Kids Love Face Paint

We went with Grandma Susan to her work party and the kids had to get their face painted!

Fun times!

Halloween 2014

The pumpkins! 

As you can see Hanna and Walt are missing. Walt started the evening upset with not liking the pumpkin he was given and Hanna ended the evening upset with not liking how her carved pumpkin turned out. So we had a success of 4 out 6 happy kids.

The costumes!

This is the first year the kids were able to dress up at school!

Max's grade do a PINK day and he won the most PINKalicious for his grade.

Hanna=Nerd, Van=Zombie, Daisy=Ariel, Walt=Ninja

Clark was a skeleton. My mom made Daisy's Ariel tail, which turned out great!

The kids were happy with their earnings!

We had our traditional dinner in a pumpkin.

At our ward Trunk-or-Treat/dinner.

Fall Festival

This was such a fun night at the kids' school Fall Festival. 

We are just loving their school and feel so blessed to be there.

The whole Star Wars crew was there!

The kids had fun running in these fun bubble balls like hamsters.

 

The kids had fun on these riding toys.

Cute "Nerdy" Hanna!

 Chewbacca was huge!

 Just a random silly pic. of Van and Hanna.

My Little Helper

I have to admit I feel like I'm a much nicer momma with just one little helper. I let him use the little cart at Albertson's and I think he's so cute and I even take pictures of the moment. Thinking back I wish I did have someone take a picture of me at the store with my 5 toddlers 5 and under. I remember my cart would be so full with babies I had no room for groceries. I would have Max pushing our food cart, I would hold one baby in the sling, one in the car seat, Van would sit in the cart and Hanna would hang on the side of the cart. And grocery shopping was stressful and I had no time to even think about taking a picture of what we looked like. I do remember the looks I got though.

Clark gets to enjoy lunch dates, which I never did with my 5 helpers.

We are eating at daddy's favorite noodle house, Monta.

Clark put on Max's glasses and said, "I'm Max!"

Clark reminds me most of Max. I'm not sure if it's because of all the one on one time I was lucky to have with both these boys or if it does have something to do with their personality or their looks, but being with Clark brings back lots of memories of my young mother years with Max. The funny thing is my way of daily tasks have changed a lot! With Max I did everything for and with him that consisted only of his interest. With Clark I go about my day as if I would without him as well. Once a week I attend an institute class, I just go in a different room and bring him some toys and a snack and turn on the speakers. I do all my running around that needs to be done while the rest of the kids are at school. For some reason when we have our first 2 children we feel like we can only go to parks and play dates and child like activities, but then when we have a few more children we realize we can actually still do what we need to get done and want to do with them along.    

Halloween is just around the corner.

I love this little boy and feel so blessed to have him as my little helper.