Happy Birthday Stephanie

Happy 33rd Birthday!!!

Here are a few things that I love about her:

Strong willed. Has great determination when she puts her mind to something.
Teacher. As a profession, but mostly as an example and a mother.
Endearing. She has a special way of connecting with just about anyone.
Prankster. She loves to tease and have fun with family and friends.
Happy. A result of how she lives her life. Always sees the bright side of things.
Anxiously engaged. This is how she serves the Lord.
Nurturing. She's a great mom and I know our kids love her for it.
Irresistable. Simply put, she's HOT!
Eternal companion. I'm thrilled to have her as my wife and be with her forever.

Jacob's short cut!

Jacob is 10 months old now and crawling all over the place. He is constantly trying to keep up the his older siblings. Our couch forms a dividing line between our kitchen and our family room, on one side of the couch is an end table. There is plenty of room for one to walk around the end table to get to the kitchen. Jacob on the other hand thinks there is only one way and that is through the bottom of the table. After several weeks of him falling off the bottom shelf, he's has mastered crawling completely through the table and does it several times a day.

What a funny little boy!

A weekend for the boys!

Some weekends are full of house projects, others are busy with church activities and meetings, last weekend was full of events for Landon and Mason. All of which were a lot of fun!!

Friday night was Pack Meeting. Landon and Mason LOVE scouting.

Here they are singing with their Wolf Den.

Here Mason is receiving his Wolf badge. He worked hard and was so thrilled to be receiving it.
Landon also received his Wolf. He was just as excited.
I got two pins, from my favorite twin boys!
As part of the pack meeting, they had a cub-anapolis! The boys designed cars out of boxes and raced them around a track in the gym. They had pit stops along the way.

The pit-stops were: Wash your windshield (spray water in your face) Fill up with gas (drink a cup of water) and change a flat tire (take of shoes and put them back on again).

Mason wanted a Denver Bronco car:) And wouldn't you know Mason insisted on wearing his helmet and jersey while racing.

Landon wanted a Subway sponsored car. Too bad they didn't give us any money for the free advertising (maybe next time).

After the boys raced the siblings got a turn to race as well. Lydia loved it, and did alright considering the size of the box.




Then it was the dads turn. Oh how funny it was!!



Then the moms got to race. I couldn't stop laughing. What a fun pack meeting!




Saturday afternoon, we went to our School Districts "Reflections" Awards ceremony. Landon and Mason both entered this year. Mason wrote a song for the piano titled "I Can Make a Difference by Picking up Litter". Landon wrote a paper titled "I Can Make a Difference..." They both placed first place in our Elementary School's reflection contest. Those that place first, second and third go on to the district's contest.

Mason was invited to play the song he composed on the piano. He did a great job, and had fun playing on a grand piano.


Landon was awarded a certificate for participating in the Intermediate Literature Category.





Mason was awarded 1st place in District for Intermediate Music.

Mason's song will now be entered in the State competition.



Right after the Refection's Ceremony we raced across town to the boys first ever Basketball game. The boys joined their first basketball league this year and are loving it.

For being their very first game they did alright. Besides a few double dribbles, I think they understood the game alright. Landon was trilled that he was able to score a basket for the team on his first game.


Landon giving his coach a high five.



Mason with the ball!

East High

My kids have been fans of Disney's "High School Musical" movies. Our sister in law, Jana suggested we drive to the real East High in Salt Lake and show the kids where the movie was filmed. We thought that was a great idea, so on our last day in Utah we went to East High. Our hope was to be able to take a picture of the kids in front of the school. When we arrived we thought we would go and peek in the windows. We found the doors unlocked, so we slipped inside and ended up meeting the vice principal of the school, who gave us a tour of the school.

It had never been so fun to tour a High School before.

Unfortunately, my camera started to give me problems and so the pictures didn't turn out too well.

First stop: The Cafeteria

The "Wild Cat"

The real East High's mascot is the Leopard.

Sharpay's Locker! They didn't leave it pink.

The classroom

Lydia loved sitting on the desk just like Gabriella.

The boys remembered this stairway in the movie.

Dancing in the same hall has Chad.

Gabriella's Locker (Middle behind Lydia)

Troy's locker Hall leading up to Troy's locker Gym "We're all in this Together" In front of the school. There was never any snow in the movie. In fact they painted the grass green and put fake leaves on the trees.

New Years in Utah!

A week before Christmas our family made last minute plans to fly to Utah for New Years. It had been a year since we had last been to Utah and we were excited to see many family members during this quick trip.

First of all it is quite the experience to fly as a family of 6 around the holidays. We checked in 11 pieces of luggage, and one stroller. I was so nervous we would lose something, because believe it or not I really did try to pack lite.

First we stopped at my sister's family house. My kids love playing with their cousins. Here some of them are right before they were pulled behind a four wheeler in the snow.
Later that afternoon we went bowling. Zeke says he doesn't have very good luck bowling with the Findlay's, he always does awful.
Landon and Mason brought their new Nintendo DS to Utah, Cameron also got one for Christmas. They had fun emailing back and forth to each other on the DS. It was their first taste of texting--oh no!
Jack is such a fun cousin for Lydia, he loves to play Polly pockets has much as she does. They played Polly's non stop.
I don't allow my kids to have sleep overs except with family members. So my kids had a blast sleeping in the same room as their cousins. It was so hard to go to sleep.

After a few days with the Finlay's we headed south to be with Zeke's family. First we enjoyed an afternoon sledding. Wow it was so beautiful!

My kids were excited to see some of their Evans' cousins and go sledding with them.

(Here is Landon and Spencer)

Lydia and I had fun sledding together. This was taken right before we went down a large hill backwards. After that run, Lydia only wanted the smaller hills, which was fine with me.

Zeke of course is never to old to be crazy. He and his brother Nate found a jump and had a ball going off that.

That night we rang in the New Year with yummy food, games and lots of laughs.

It's always fun to play games with the Evans, they just love to be silly.

For Uncle Dan, a party isn't a party without some Martinelli's. I will never forget a time he came to our house to watch a football game with Zeke and he brought Martinelli's for the drink. He was generous enough to share some of his drink with Zeke and I this night, too bad it only made all over our shirts-Thanks a lot Dan!

At midnight the kids gave us a concert, using pots and pans.

New Years Day we went bowling with the Evans.

We also spent a day up in Providence visiting my Grandparents. It was so good to see them. This was Jacob's first time meeting them.

Jacob loved both of them!

Our family had so much fun visiting so many love ones. When our plane started to leave the SLC airport Lydia turned to me with tears running down her checks and said "Mom, I really didn't want to leave". Then she cried softly most of the flight home. We are so grateful for all our family members and we look forward to seeing them in again this year!