Hat Club

My mom has a small collection of old hats. When we were at her house this past weekend the kids all decided to model the hats and it was so completely adorable. I had to share some cute pics of our little hat club...

Here's most of the girl cousins having fun playing dress-up with Grandma's hats.


Alli, Emma and Connor - aren't they sweet??


My nieces - Kenzie, Natalie and Shaelee


More nieces - Ashley (the oldest cousin at 15) and Hailey (the youngest at 8 months)

4th of July Fun

I love the 4th of July and dressing the kids up in red, white & blue. I'm so grateful for all the men & women that have served or are serving our country. I feel so blessed to have freedom and love to CELEBRATE the 4th of July!! We escaped the heat and headed up to Snowflake/Taylor for the 4th of July. The weather was SOOOO nice and we had so much fun. My entire family was in town and the cousins had a ton of fun playing together. There are 18 cousins - oldest is 15 and youngest 8 months - CRAZY TIMES!!

Friday morning we headed up to the Show Low parade. Here are some cute pics from the parade. All the kids were lined up waiting for someone to throw some candy out.



After the parade we hung out at my sister's house. The kids all went swimming in Aunt Julie's pool - thanks Aunt Julie for letting us all crash (destroy?) your house!!


On Friday afternoon we decided to head down to the ball fields and play a family baseball game. It was super fun and the kids all had a blast! I also got to visit with my bestest friend in Taylor - Jolene. She has a little girl (Brooklin) a few weeks older than Alli and she happened to stop by the ball fields while we were there. It was so great to visit with her - if only she would update her blog more often (just kidding Jo!!) Here are some pics of the kids getting ready for baseball...



Taylor celebrated the 4th of July on Saturday morning with their traditional anvil explosion and the Jennings band. Dana headed out the door at about 5:00 in the morning with Connor in tow. Connor loves following the anvil and watching it explode into the air. I didn't even think to send the camera with Dana - so unfortunately no pics of that. All in all a great weekend with family, good food and all American FUN! We hope you all had a great 4th!!

2 Dancing Princesses

Emma & Alli had their dance recitals on Saturday. They both did so great and I was so proud of them.

Alli is in a tap/ballet combo class and they did a cute tap routine to "ma, he's makin' eyes at me". All the girls in Alli's class are so sweet & completely adorable. It's been so fun for her this year and we sure love the girls & their mom's. Here's Dancing Princess #1...

Here are the girls in Alli's class - aren't they the CUTEST??


Emma is also in a tap/ballet combo for her age group. She has had a lot of fun and it's been fun for us to see her become a little more graceful. She loves to get all dolled up and was so excited when I put some makeup on her for her recital. She is such a beautiful little girl and she is growing up way too fast. Here's Dancing Princess #2...

Here's part of Emma's group. Most of the group shots I took with my camera didn't turn out well so I'm hoping one of the other mom's has some good pics.

Happy Birthday to Connor!!

Sunday was Connor's 7th birthday. I have no idea where the last 7 years went - 7 years old seems so big! We were up at my mom's house and did a little family birthday party with some cousins. We are going to go bowling next week for his friend party and I'll post more pictures of that later. Connor - we love your energy and your sweet smile - our family would not be complete without our sweet boy!!
See how sweet & innocent he was when he was born??

He was super cute on his blessing day and had even put on a little weight!!

At 6 months old he was even cuter and we spoiled him ROTTEN for his 1st Christmas.

Pictures from his 1st birthday...

He was already into cars by the time he was 2 years old. He already has about 4 cars picked out that he wants to own when he gets big (a blue Mustang, a monster truck, a Dodge Charger and a Toyota).

He was a true 3 year old and I don't know how I survived that year!

By 4 he had mellowed a little bit but he still keeps us all busy!

The movie "Cars" came out one day after his 5th birthday so we went to the movie for his party and had a ton of fun!

Last year when he turned 6 we were at Lake Powell - we'll always remember his fun birthday at the lake!!

Here he is on Sunday blowing out candles at my mom's house. He is such a good boy and we are so lucky to have him in our family.

Last Day of School!!

I was so ready for school to be out and my kids to be home with me. They had such a great year and we're READY FOR SUMMER!!

Emma's kindergarten teacher this year was SO GREAT!! She is super sweet and Emma is really going to miss her. Here's Emma with the best kindergarten teacher EVER!!

Emma loves to sing and I was so excited to attend her kindergarten program. I was not prepared for her sadness - she cried with her head down the ENTIRE program. It was soooo sad! I think she wasn't feeling that great and when she saw me come into the cafeteria she wanted to sit by me and not with her class. Oh, well, here's a sad picture.

She did perk up as soon as the program was over and it was time for snacks!!

Connor is sooo excited to be a 2nd grader next year. He took off this year and did awesome in math. His teacher was great and we're going to miss her!

Here's Connor with a few friends - Carson & Christian.


Now - Speaking of summer - the last day of school was crazy weather here and not like summer at all! My kids wore jackets to school and as we were walking home from school it rained on us and was actually chilly!

Right after school we drove to Utah for a wedding and guess what?? We got snowed on more than once. When we stopped for gas in Panguitch it was snowing - the kids were trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues - it's a little hard to see the flakes but they were there!! Anyway, it was freezing!!

Caribbean Cruise

WARNING - This post is WAY TOO LONG but I couldn't cut anything else out - SORRY
We didn't plan on going on a cruise this year but our good friends said "hey, let's go on a cruise together" and, of course, we jumped at the chance! Here's pictures of us, the Andersons and the Adairs at dinner one night.

Raith is on the left, Kent in the middle and, of course, my handsome hubby!

Julie is on the left (married to Kent), I'm not sure who the cheeser is in the middle and Tori is on the right (she's married to Raith).

It was so fun to be with two awesome couples. We all got along so well and I have not laughed so much in a long time. I almost wet myself watching Raith (the guy who never shows public affection) get hypnotized and hug a total stranger among other things. We ate, laughed, worked out, ate some more, laughed and watched some really good shows. We are already looking forward to another vacation together when the kids get a little older. (Cerise and the Judd's, this is your 3 year notice for watching the kids - just kidding!!)

We went on a 7 day Western Caribbean out of Miami. The weather was so nice and the scenery - wow!! It only rained on us once while we were on Roatan Island, Honduras, but the temperature didn't drop and it actually felt good. We left from Miami on a Sunday, spent Monday at sea and got to the Cayman Islands on Tuesday morning. Dana and I decided to do an exploratory dive on Grand Cayman. An exploratory dive is where you can scuba, but don't have to be certified - you just don't go down very far and have a guide right with you. I have to tell you that when we had to sign the waivers and fill in an emergency contact, I got a little nervous. But, we stuck with it and it was AWESOME!! I wish we lived closer to some sort of scuba diving - I would definitely get certified. Here's a pic of us getting our scuba gear on.

We went down to about 30 feet (which was just right for me) and got to explore a ship wreck off the coast of Grand Cayman. The visibility was about 98% - almost like being in a swimming pool. This is what the water looked like...

The only thing I decided that was bad about the cruise was that we didn't have enough time at the places we visited. There are so many things to see and do and we just had to pick what we wanted to do most. Anyway, on Wednesday we were on the island of Roatan, Honduras. It was a gorgeous island - completely lush with some great beaches. It didn't seem like there was a middle class on the island - people were either extremely impoverished or really wealthy. We rented scooters that day and hung out at a beach club for a while (see picture below) and then went snorkeling at Half Moom Bay and saw some awesome fish and coral. The scooters were so much fun - we looked hilarious in the "Beetle Bailey" helmets! Note, I didn't attach THAT picture!

Okay, moving on, we went to Belize on Thursday and it was another completely gorgeous place. We decided to take a tour of the Mayan ruins that day. Our tour guide was really nice and told us a lot about the Mayan people. The pictures of the Mayan Ruins DO NOT do them justice. The temples were so huge and we didn't even get to see the best ones - they are too far away and harder to get to.


Now moving on to Friday...Our last port was Cozumel, Mexico. There were so many things to do on Cozumel and the water and beaches were so amazing. We ended up going snorkeling in the morning and had a great guide. He even found an octopus for us - it "inked" when he picked it up.

After snorkeling, we took a taxi to a beach club and we were just going to lounge and read all day. When we got to the club we found out that they had a parasail boat so we all (except for Julie - she got to relax) went parasailing. I'd been once before and had a blast so I wasn't prepared for the windy conditions and I got a little motion sickness. It was still really fun and the view was amazing from about 400 feet in the air!! Here's all of us parasailing - sorry the pictures aren't that great!

This is me coming in - I think I look a little green =(

Here's Dana - he didn't get motion sickness but he also didn't bounce around quite as much as I did.

Here's our friend, Tori. She was so much fun to cruise with. She'd never been on a cruise before and had this same HUGE smile on her face the entire week!

Here's Tori's husband, Raith. He was so funny before he went up. He was checking and double checking all the harnesses to make sure he'd know how to bail out just in case something went wrong. Unfortunately, Tori and Raith also got a little motion sickness.

Here's our friend, Kent. He's the adventurous one of our group and it seems like he's been everywhere and done everything at least once. He's a certified scuba diver and we relied on him a lot to hook us up with fun things to do - thanks, Kent!!

Well, here we are at the beach club on Cozumel just before getting back in a taxi to get back on the boat. I swear, the scenery looked like a fake backdrop!

Raith & Tori - they got married just a few months before we did. They also have a son that was born on the same day as Alli!!

Kent & Julie - Dana grew up with Kent and has know him for about 30 years. The first time I met them was at their son's baby blessing. That son just turned 16!! Wow, I feel old.

Okay, here were are. I had just gotten up from a little nap and I don't think my face was awake yet.

So much fun in 7 days!! We were at sea again on Saturday and it was nice to have a relaxing day and not get off the boat. The food was so good on the boat and most nights I ate more than one dessert. If I ever get a hold of their recipe for "chocolate melting cake" I will invite everyone over to my house for dessert!! I also have to say a huge THANKS to my sister, Cerise, who watched Alli for me and had Connor and Emma for the weekend. Also, a huge THANKS to the Judd family, who watched Connor & Emma and then had all 3 of our kids for the last 2 days. We love you guys so much and we wouldn't have enjoyed one minute of our cruise if we didn't know our kiddos were having so much fun and getting loved on by you guys - THANK YOU!!!