First Day of School

Very belated and not very great pictures of the first day of school for my boys. At least I have one right? If you can't tell I'm trying to chronicle the last 6 months or so of our life in a couple of nights. Bear with me.

Cooper started preschool this year and goes twice a week from 9-2:30. He LOVES it and I love it too. Every morning Cooper wakes up and asks if he has school that day. Every time I say he does he says in a very cool voice, "Yes". It's very cute.


Caden is in 3rd grade and is really enjoying it. At first he was struggling with the lack of "Fun" they were having. (His teacher informed me that 3rd grade is very different from 2nd. They don't do any of that "coloring" anymore.) But now he's adjusted and even has "Fun" sometimes aside from lunch, recess, and specials that are always fun. Luckily Caden is a very good student.

Summer Trip- Las Vegas

After spending 10 days in California we went to Las Vegas for about a week to spend some time with my parents. I actually don't remember everything we did, but we swimming ALOT, played games, headed down to Bass Pro Shop to look at the fish and do some shooting, went to the children's museum, and Jeremy and I headed down to the strip for a night out while my parents watched the kids. My Dad hooked us up with some tickets to a great show. It was one of the smaller ones, but they were great singers and very entertaining. I can't even remember what it's called now. This is why you probably shouldn't blog about something several months later.

Caden's Baptism

Ok so Caden's baptism happened before the CA trip but I forgot my camera that day and have been waiting for some pics. My brother-in-law Brett downloaded some pics to Jeremy's computer before he went back home, but that's the same as never giving them to me. I finally got some pictures from my Dad. Here's some quick info on that day.

It was the 4th of July which made it neat, but also different at the same time. My parent's and my sister, Kim, along with her family traveled down for the event. Jeremy's parents and his brother, Spencer, and his family also made it out for the baptism. It was so special to have so much family around for this great event and it made for quite the full house. I've very grateful they were all willing and able to make it out to support us and Caden.

It was a stake baptism with 6 kids from our ward alone! Needless to say it was very full and crowded. It felt a lot like a sacrament meeting. We had to stand during the baptism and the confirmations of all 6 kids due to limited chairs and space. It was also a little loud due to so many children and adults in such a confined area. However, Caden was beaming and seemed thrilled to finally be baptised and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was very proud of him that day and couldn't believe I was old enough to be the mother of an 8 year old.

Caden is such a wonderful son. He's thoughtful, wants to always choose the right, and he's a great example to his younger brothers. We love you Caden!

All the cousins that made it out for the baptism: Joy, Hope, Liberty, Cole, Trevor, and Lexi.

Caden with his Dad and Grandfathers.

Summer Road Trip- California

I know I haven't blogged in ages, but my computer has been on the fritz and barely working. So we got a new computer and know I can start blogging and trying to catch up a little.

This summer we went on a 3 week road trip to AZ,CA, & NV. Below are some pictures from our California trip. We had a great time there. I met up with an old high school friend and her kids at the park and got together with a college roommate and her boys at the beach. We saw grandparents and went to Disneyland with them. We ended our trip at Jeremy's brother's house in Lake Elsinore where the kids had a blast playing with their cousins and going to Legoland. We miss California, especially the beach and family, but not enough to move back.

Hangin with the cousins at LegoLand.

I love Disneyland. It really is one of the happiest places on earth to me.

At the beach with my college roommate, Sheri King, and her 2 boys. We went to the beach several times while we were there, but apparently I didn't take very many pictures.

At the park with one of my best friend's from high school, Christina Pyka. It was so good to catch up. She also has 2 adorable boys. Does everyone I know have boys?

Schlitterbaughn & Austin

Caden turned 8 on the 4th of July so a lot of my family and Jeremy's family came out for the event. My family came out early and we all took a trip down to New Braunfels and Austin for the week. We stayed at the Schlitterbaughn Resort for 2 nights and had a blast!! It was awesome being able to walk back and forth from the park for naps, food, etc! I'd highly recommend staying there and Schlitterbaughn is the best. It's the #1 rated water park in the US and is huge! There's four sections to the park and a tram that takes you between the 2 sections. It has an old school section (my favorite) and then a new more modern section. All the pics in the video were from the new section. I only got the camera out once because we were having too much fun! After Schiltterbaughn we stayed in Austin....saw the bats, visited the children's museum, and went to the main city park. It was a great trip and we missed all of our family members that weren't able to attend. Love ya! Enjoy the video.

Summer Swim Team

Most people know I was a competitive swimmer all growing up and through high school. Therefore, I've always said that all of my boys will have complete one season of swim team and after that I'd let them decide if they wanted to do it again. Well, I've changed my mind after going through a season of summer swim team. I've now decided that the new rule is they have to swim in enough seasons to be proficient at all of the swim strokes. One season on the summer swim team here is not enough. They have 500 swimmers and so the amt of actual swimming and learning going on at practices is not much. Luckily for me Caden wants to do it again anyway. He complained some about practices, but we seemed to really enjoy the meets and racing. The end of year regional meet was especially fun because he did so well and it was at an outdoor pool instead of the indoor pool that most of the meets were at.

At the final regional meet Caden placed 8th overall in his freestyle out of about 40 swimmers and his free relay team placed 1st! Caden was the anchor on the relay team and it was such a fun race to watch. Caden's team was in 2nd place by at least 2 body lengths when Caden dove in, but Caden really swam hard. First he caught up to the other boy and then passed him and ended up finishing at least a body length ahead of him! Needless to say I was quite proud. Wish I had taped that race so I could post it.

I hope to have lots more swim meets to go to in the future! (Jeremy not so much....he wasn't a fan of how long the meets were and all of the waiting around. Oh well, he'll get used to it.)

Here's Caden with his 8th place ribbon. Only the top 8 swimmers got a ribbon so he just barely made it. He didn't get his 1st place ribbon until later.

Here's Caden swimming freestyle. He's the one at the top of the picture.

Here's his backstroke.

Did I mention that Jeremy didn't like the waiting around? I think the boys thought it was pretty fun.

It's game time!

Caden played baseball again this Spring. This is our third season on this team and Caden is having a great time! Same coaches.....3 different uniforms. Not really sure why we have to get a new name and uniform each time. The newness has worn off so these are the only 3 pictures from this season. How many pictures of playing baseball do you really need anyway?