ScHoOlS oUt FoR tHe SuMmEr

I remember the last day of school when I was a kid. I remember the feeling of absolute freedom!! I still get that feeling when it's my kids last day of school. Let freedom ring!! No more homework! No more spelling test! No more early mornings! No more dragging my kids out of bed and yelling at them to hurry hurry! We are onto... swimming... frogs... vacations... late nights... sleeping in... drive in movies... fighting (oh yes it has already begun)... and carefree days! It was their last day of school last Thursday, May 21st. The girls had a great last week of school. On the last day they had a picnic at the park. Jason, the younger kids and I tagged along for the fun. Jason brought our grill and cooked up some dogs...hot dogs that is.

Here is Taylor and her teacher...Ms. Bedan


Lexi, Anika and her friend Shaylee

Anika and her friend Hope

Bring on SUMMER TIME. I am ready for everyday to be like this:

undies or panties...

All parents dream of this moment!! Now I know some of us may agree and disagree on certain parenting issues, but this one I'm positive we all agree on. We count down the days wondering if and when it will ever come, especially if we have two in diapers. That's right I'm talking about being potty trained. Now I don't think we look forward to the training part just the trained part. What a glorious day that is when it finally arrives. Jackson is the first boy I have had, and I must admit I was a little nervous when it came to the potty training part. Everyone has told me boys are so much harder to train than girls. My girls really were quite easy. Taylor, my constant over achiever, potty trained herself. I walked in one day to find her sitting on the toilet and she never went back to diapers. I have known for a few months that Jackson really was ready. He KNEW when he had to go to the bathroom and would just go hide. I had had enough of this. So I set out on my mission to get this boy trained. I never bought one of those fancy little pottys with my girls. I figured they were just a waste of money when I had a perfectly good toilet they could use. But I thought maybe this time I needed one, since boys are you know so much harder than girls. I was positive that if Jackson had one of those cool toilets that played music when you went that he would be hooked! Well Jackson did use that potty, just not the way I intended.

He would use his potty as his candy holder, you know for those Elmo watching parties. He would put his licorice in it and use it as his bowl. So I guess I proved my own point that it was a waste of money. well last week I had had enough. I woke up almost two weeks ago, on a Tuesday, and had a heart heart with Jackson. I told him he was a big boy and that he needed to just go in the toilet. And that was the end of that. He just started going in the toilet. It was as if that was all he was waiting for. I even let him wear his undies to the store that day. I am proud to say he has mastered the art of going in the toilet, he has not had one accident! (well he still wears pull-ups to bed, he's not that good)

So there he is sitting on the toilet like a champ, with his licorice bowl smiling proudly at him in the background. Look how proud he is...I must say I was smiling just as big as he is....I'm down to one in diapers, WAHOO! So it appears that my biggest problem now is calling his underwear undies in place of panties. I had three girls before Jackson so panties is the vocab I have always used with them. But seriously how manly is panties. He already gets his nails done, wears his sisters dresses and lets not forget all the times he parades around in high heels with his purse over his shoulder while pushing his baby in the stroller. So I will do my best to refer to them as undies so that all his manhood is not stripped away. Way to go Jackson!!

She is growing up way to fast...

Lauren was eight when Jason and I got married. I can remember watching her and thinking to myself how lucky I was to have her in my life. Time has gone by way to fast!! She is now 17 and only has one more year of high school left. I can still remember when I was in high school and doing all the things she is, this is just to crazy. She recently went to PrOm and we had the honors of having her get ready at our house. I love it because she always wants to invite everyone over to our house for pictures. It was so much fun to have her friends and some of there parents come over for pictures.

Just like every girl Lauren could not figure out the whole bootinere thing

Lauren looked soooooo beautiful! I know she was a little disappointed with us at first. She bought her dress before Jason and I had a chance to see it. Once we did, well lets just say it showed a little to much boob for us. Jason had her alter it twice before he was finally comfortable with it. I know she liked how it looked at first but I must say it looked a ton better after. Looking at it I'm sure none of you even realized it was sewn up. Tyler, her date, looked pretty spiffy too if you ask me.

Jason is such a good dad. I know it is hard watching his baby grow up but I love watching the two of them together and their amazing relationship with each other. She will always be his little girl...no matter how big she gets. We love you Lauren!

LaLaLaLaLa

Anika had her last choir concert for the 2009 school year. She joined the Monfort Singers at the beginning of the school year. She had her practices every Tuesday and Friday morning before school. I was so proud of her and her dedication to the monfort singers. Her music teacher, Mr.Apadoca, was amazing! How lucky the school is to have him!

Here are her sisters waiting for the program to start

When Lauren was in kindergarten her teacher was Mrs. Franzen. When Taylor was in kindergarten her teacher was....Mrs. Franzen. She played the piano for the performance so we could not help but get a picture of the two of them with there teacher.

Here is Anika with Mr. Apadoca. Great work Monfort Singers!!!

It's come (wahoo) and gone (YIPEE)

OK for those of you who are not aware (where may I ask have you been) are family is CrAzY into soccer. Every season we look forward to it and every season we look forward to it ending. I must admit that there have been a great deal of times I really have not liked it. It takes up so much of our time. On Saturday's we live at the field. But something funny happened at the end of last season that really changed my vision on this crazy time of our lives. Lauren had a project she was working on for her photography class. She decided to do her project on soccer...surprise surprise! She had to take a whole bunch of soccer pictures, but what I did not realize was that she had to write a paper to go along with all those pictures. Her paper helped me see soccer in a whole new light. She talked about how soccer helped her to keep a great relationship with her dad after her parents divorce. She truly believes soccer is the glue that held them together. She talked about how close it has made our family. I started thinking about it and you know she was right. Jason started off coaching Lauren when she was 7 and continued to do so until she was 11. From there he went on to coach Cailyn and from there Anika. the younger kids can not wait until it is there turn to have daddy as there coach. I can not tell you how much it has meant to these girls to have something special that they do with there daddy. Although our Saturday's are crazy busy I would not have it any other way. It is so much fun watching our children support one another and cheer each other on from the sidelines, and let's face we make up a pretty big cheer squad! This is the first season we had all five girls playing. Lexi had been counting down until she was old enough to follow in her big sisters footsteps. Lauren was playing for the varsity high school team which helped out our game schedule. She would play on weekday evenings so we only had four girls games to worry about on Saturdays. Now practices were a different story, here is a sample of our practice schedule: (Lauren practiced everyday but we only had to worry about Tuesday and Thursday's) Tuesday's: Lauren 4:00-5:45, Cailyn 4:45-6:30, Anika and Taylor (we were smart his season and played Taylor up a age group so we could put them on the same team) 5:00-6:00 and Lexi 5:30-6:00. And then we got to repeat it all over again on Thursdays. Oh and did I mention that they were all at different places?!?

Cailyn really proves herself to be a dominate soccer player.

Lexi loved playing soccer this season. I think it would be safe to say though that she loved her soccer bag a bit more.

Anika loved having dad as her coach again this season.

Taylor also loved having daddy as her coach, I hope she won't be to disappointed next season when he is not her coach again....she will have her turn soon enough!

Lexi is very proud of her first trophy!


GrEaT season girls!!!

boys crash our time again...

The girls and I had a little fun putting on some masques. We had a chocolate one that smelled so very yummy and a strawberry one that made your face all warm.

Jackson of course can never be left out. He thinks he is just one of us girls.

GaMeS oN

We just had another one of our ward parties. This time we had a game night. It was fun, at least I think it was. We had all different kinds of games set up. We had air hockey, foosball, ping pong, basket ball arcade, a fun corner for the little ones, and tons of board games. I should have this calling down sometime, but we all know as soon as I'm feelin like I know what I'm doing I'll get released..Isn't that the way all callings work?!? Hopefully it will take awhile for me to feel like I know what I'm doing because I really am enjoying it!

The high light of the night was a game of family feud. I put together a priesthood "family" to go head to head with a relief society "family".

We won't talk about my BIG mess-up, but we will tell you that the women brought home the Victory!

Fun times were had by all. Thanks to all who helped out!!

Celebrate life and those we love

I just finished reading this:

I joined a book club a few months back and this was our recent reading. I have to admit that when I first heard what we were reading I was a little nervous, not sure if I could emotionally handle it. for those of you not familiar with the story line of Randy Pausch I'll give you a brief synopsis. Randy is a 47 year old man who was diagnosed with cancer. He was only given three to six months of good health. He had a wonderful wife and three small children ages five, two and one. He had the opportunity to give a last lecture at the college he had been a professor at and then turned that lecture into a book. I was already familiar with his last lecture when I started reading the book so I knew that it was more inspiring than it was sad. I really enjoyed reading this and must say I learned A LOT. It helped put things into perspective and made me want to be a better mother. I found myself laughing at times and not ONCE, until today that is, did I shed a tear. When I woke up this morning I only had the last section of the book to read. But it was those last 15 pages that really tore me up. He talks about his dreams for his children and for his wife. I could not help but think of how lucky his children are to have this legacy he has left behind for them. I'm sure the fact that I just finished reading this book on the fifteenth anniversary of my own fathers death did not really help matters. I can not believe he has been gone that long. Life has gone on and I really truly am happy. I've gotten through it and moved past it. But that does not change the fact that it still hurts at times. Every year as this date rolls around I'm sure I won't remember, life's to busy. Right?!? But every year whether I want to or not I do remember. But this year I have a different perspective on it, thanks to this book. My dad may not be here and I may not have a book that he left behind for me. But I have my memories, and my stories that I can and should be sharing with my own family. This morning I was putting some things away that my children had made me for mothers day. As I went and put them in my box I noticed a project I had done when I was in sixth grade. I opened it up and out dropped a letter my dad had written me. It was titled "why Summer is a wonderful person to know". Of all days to stumble across that...I can not tell you how much that letter meant to me, to have something that I had forgotten that he had left behind for me. This book, the last lecture, has given me a new direction. Instead of dwelling on the fact that my father is not here and that some day, I to will die and leave my children, I am going to celebrate life. I am going to celebrate how lucky I am to be a mother. How lucky I am to have my children to love and to hold. How lucky I am to have time, time to leave a legacy behind that hopefully, someday when I am gone, my children will be honored to say I was their mother. Today I am going to celebrate my dad's life. I am going to go dust off the book that I have hidden in the basement that holds all the precious stories and pictures of my dad. I am going to be sure to let my children know what a wonderful man he was and is! And so I'm on my way to the store. I now need a cake, a chocolate cake. What kind of a celebration would it be without cake!?! I LOVE YOU DADDY!!

I LoVe BeInG a MoThEr

I love being a mother. I love everything that comes with it. Hold Up....maybe not everything. I could do without the dirty diapers and tantrum throwing but that just comes with the territory. I love watching my children grow up and in process teach me about the little things in life. Carter just recently started crawling and it is so fun to see how excited he gets about the door stopper. I love watching Jackson as he gets as low to the ground as possible to watch the bugs in the grass. Or how excited they get at the sound of an airplane. How often do we really take the time to smell the flowers as they are starting to bloom? My kids remind me not to take the little things in life for granted. I love how excited my Anika and Taylor get to come home from school and tell me all about it. I can tell when they have something really exciting to share because I can see them running home from the bus stop. I love all the times we snuggle on the couch for a laugh on Americas Funniest Home Videos. I love listening to my Lexi laugh. She has the best giggle EVER. Come to think of it I love listening to all my children laugh as they play and have fun together. I love how being a mother has made me appreciate my own mother and all the sacrifices she made for us. I am thankful she has taught me to be a strong independent women. I am so grateful for her and the many times she has been there for me! I love being a mother, every minute, every day. I can not think of anything I would rather be doing!! Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers!

HeAvEn on a tosted BuN

So I had a realization the other day. Jason and I have a trip planned for just the two of us this July. We have known about it for some time now. When we first found out we were like OK we have seven months to get in shape and lose the weight. It's funny how you think seven months is soooo long. Pretty soon I realized I had six months to do it and then five and OK you get the picture. The other night as we were dozing off in bed I sat up in a panic. We were down to 2 1/2 months to get in shape and lose the weight we thought we had seven months to do! I made a pact right then and there to start eating better. And I really did. I can not tell you how much better I ate the following day.

Well today Jason called me and told me that he had a meeting in Fort Collins. That's all he had say and my mouth started watering. He knew from the silence on my end that I was to busy wiping the drool from my face to say anything. He then proceeded to say "So my meeting is at 1:30 want to come with me and hit FiVe GuYs BuRgErS aNd FrIeS for lunch?". We have a teacher banquet to attend tonight and so I had planned my lunch so that tonight I could eat dinner and not worry. I was so set on that 70 calorie chicken and stars soup in a can. I was really truly trying to be strong. But look at this and tell me if you could resist? (OK maybe you could Cami but lets not forget you hate hamburger so you don't count.)

I wish I could say I was strong but I just gave in. So much for my diet that lasted all of ONE day. Oh well I'll just start tomorrow......won't I?!?