Scott Came to visit!

Finley had to put on her boxing gloves because Uncle Scott came to visit!

Ha ha...just kidding.  But he did come to visit.  He had to push his drive back a day because of a volleyball tournament that Macey's team was in (they won!) and it turned out that he had to drive pretty much the entire way in a pretty bad snowstorm.  I'm glad they made it safely here.

So the kids did some snowman building.  They each made their own so we had 3 full size snowmen in the backyard for a while.  Here's Macey and Sadie in front of Sadie's snowman.

Emery with her snowman.

They spent hours outside building these!  

Scott brought this game that we call the "100 dollar board game" because that is how much he bought it for on Ebay.  It is a pretty fun game.

We kept finding more snowmen pop up in our yard.  It was fun.

Zac and Emery and Riley built this cool snow wall.  

We played the 100 dollar board game again...this time with Zac.  

We hit up Tucanos to use my free meal coupon for my birthday.  So yummy.

We went up to Syracuse to visit my grandparents and three of my aunts that were there also.  I love visiting my grandparents.  They are so kind and patient with me and my kids.  If I ask them to tell me a story, they can always come up with something from their past.  :)  They loved seeing Cade.  Here is grandpa after he helped Cade with his shoes.  

I love this picture.  Every time I visit my grandparents, my grandpa walks us out the front door when we are leaving and he stands there until we are out of sight.  

My kids loved having a little toddler around.  Everything he did was adorable.  Zac was so excited to show him off to his friend Braden.  ha ha.

We went to Cabella's one day to ride the Ferris wheel.  Unfortunately, he ended up being a bit too short to ride.  Scott was pretty disappointed and let the ride operator know.  I missed it all because I was riding the ride at the time.  But when I came down, the ride operator pulled me aside and asked how many people were in our group.  I told him and he gave me a stack of tokens to take everyone in our group to get free ice cream before we left because he felt bad about Cade not being able to ride.  Then we started wandering the store and I kept noticing one of the managers near our group.  He wasn't following us, but I think he was staying nearby.  When we went over to the gun shooting area, Scott was about to put a dollar in the game and the manager guy yelled out "don't put that dollar in!!  I'll just turn it on for you guys to play!"  ha ha.  I think it was his job to keep our group happy after the incident at the Ferris wheel.  :)  I must say their customer service was excellent.  We had a great time.

Zac and Gunner keeping the girls safe from the bear.

Emery and Finley driving the Stomper!

Zac and Cade pretending to play their arcade games.

We decided to do an Easter Egg Bash while they were here.  So we got that set up and decorated a bunch of eggs one afternoon.  When the kids got home from school, we started the Egg Bash.  

Cade just threw his egg.  He did NOT want help. 

Here is the moment that Cade beat Zac.  Ha ha.  

Macey with her adorable egg.

Finley vs. Riley.

It's a miracle!  Scott won the Easter Egg Bash of 2022!  He has NEVER come close to winning.  I don't even know if he's even won a single match.  But he won it all this time!

I'm pretty sure this was the highlight of his year!  ha ha

Cade was just too adorable.  We loved having him here!

He LOVED when the girls pulled out their bubble wands.  

It was hard to get a clear picture of him because he was always moving, but he was so happy playing bubbles!

 

Here are some cute videos of Cade.  

St. Patrick's Day

I decided to go "all out" this year for St. Patrick's Day.  I am constantly telling my kids that when I was young, this holiday was just that you had to wear green or someone might pinch you.  Now I feel like people go a bit overboard buying presents for their kids every holiday.  Good for you if that's what your family does, but I decided that if my kids wanted to celebrate this holiday we would do it with food.  :) Since...you know...you gotta eat anyway.  ha ha.  

So I got some fun paper to use as a table runner and someone had given me this green paper table cover.  It was perfect.  Put some fun napkins on there and sprinkle with chocolate coins.  Done.  I think it turned out really cute.

I made these fun sugar cookies and rolled them in rainbow sprinkles and green sugar sprinkles.  They were really tasty too.  I'll probably do these for every holiday now!

Sadie helped me make this fruit rainbow to have with dinner.  It makes me really happy to look at...and eat!

The girls made rainbows out of skittles at their church activity.

Emery's

Riley's.

I love traditions that have to do with food...because like I said, we gotta eat anyway!

 

Sidewalk chalk

I love it when it starts to get warm and it gets to be sidewalk chalk season.  I hate the feeling of the chalk on my fingers, but I love the bright colors and the fun art we can make on the driveway.  Finley loves to color chalk, all the kids do.  But it is especially fun when the older kids actually want to go outside and color with me.  :)  These are pictures from the other day when Zac and Sadie spent some time outside coloring with me.  

I made this rainbow collage. 

Then I drew Zac...

Because he drew me like this.  Ha ha

Sadie drew these guys from Phineus and Ferb.  I think she did a great job!

Then Zac decided he wanted to draw a "bobgoblin" really big.  I was watching him and I loved seeing him draw a bit and then step back and look at it and giggle to himself.  I wish I had my phone on me because I wanted to make a video.  It was so cute.  He is so proud of this new creation he made.  He draws bobgoblins everywhere.  ha ha

Now we just need some rain so we can have a clean driveway for new drawings.   

 

Sadie's 14th birthday

 Here I am way behind on the blog posts again.  What's new?  Sadie turned 14 back in February.  Her birthday was just a few days after we got back from Disneyland.  She had a couple friends over and they decorated cookies and played some video games.  

Sadie is just such a sweet girl.  She still likes hanging out with me.  She's getting into volleyball.  We bump the ball around pretty much everyday after school.  She has done great on her rec team.  She's aggressive and it's fun to see her enjoying it so much.  :)  A lot of people that get to work with her or spend time with her tell me how awesome she is.  That is a mom's payday.  

We have the same shirt and we ended up wearing it on the same day.  Then we took this picture and I realized just how much taller she is than me.  :)

Went to the mall for a birthday shopping trip and felt not cool enough to be there.  So we took this picture.  

Sadie loved to steal my phone and take selfies.  I'm not too mad when I find pictures of us together.  

I think she looks like a teen here in this picture.  At the beach in California.

Birthday cake!

Happy Birthday Sadie!!!

BYU Vocal Point Concert

We got tickets to see BYU Vocal Point in concert!  Rob and I went a few months ago and I was kicking myself for not bringing the kids so when I saw that they were going on tour and preforming in Salt Lake, I got tickets for the whole family.  Then after I bought them I saw that it was for kids 8 and older, so I invited my friend and her son who is Zac's age to come.  

I love listening to good music.  Those guys are so talented.  The kids all loved it.

Sadie and I got to sit by each other.  We giggled at the girl in the front row screaming at the top of her lungs.  Then we laughed really hard when they were singing a Beach Boy medley of songs and they threw a beach ball out into the crowd so we could hit it around for a bit.  But when they threw it, it landed in a walkway.  Then a kid ran over and grabbed it.  So he was just holding it and going to keep it until the guy singing between breaths said "Let's get that beach ball going!"  it was hilarious.  Then the crowd hit it around for a bit.  :)

It's amazing how music can bring the spirit so strongly.  They sang a lot of fun songs, but they also sang Nearer My God To Thee and I Can Only Imagine.  Those were probably my favorites that they sang.  

Riley's church teacher today told me that she said the concert made her feel closer to Jesus.  I thought that was pretty cool.  If anyone gets the chance to go see these guys sing in person, do it.  You won't regret it!

 

The beach and getting back home

Here's all the girls at home with their Minnie Mouse ears on.  Notice we had to take the picture at home because I FORGOT TO BRING THEM!!!  So annoying.  These are the ears from the last time we went about 6 years ago.  Oh well, hopefully I remember them if we go again.  

We need to remember to schedule a whole day at the beach next time.  We have spend half a day at the beach and then gone straight home the last two times we've gone to Disneyland.  It's just not enough time.  We told the kids to try not to get too wet or sandy (fully expecting them all to be soaked and have sand everywhere by the end of our time there) and sure enough all except one (Sadie) fell all the way into the water.  :) 

Before.  Right when we got there.

Sadie looks so old in this picture.

The best family picture we got at the beach.

Me and Rob.  The waves are so fun to watch roll in.  There were a lot of people out there on their surfboards.

Footprints in the sand.

Sand is so fun.  

Sadie 2 days before she turned 14.

So much to explore at the beach. 

Rob doing Kung Fu at the beach.

He did this for a good long time. 

We decided to take some jumping pictures.  

Sadie, Zac and Emery were pretty good at this.

This is my favorite picture.  Look at Zac!

The kids were just covered in sand.

The sand just gets everywhere.  It's so great thought.  

Riley right after she fell in.  

More jumping pictures

 The kids were definitely tired by the time we left after a week of fun.  So many good memories were made.