Blogging is not my specialty..

It's summertime. My kids are outside PLAYING TOGETHER NICELY. This is a rarity around here so I thought I would take advantage and play a little "blog catch up." I had the best intentions of blogging this year. I even made a goal of at least doing one post per month. Yeah, that happened, NOT! I'm just going to go through some pictures on my computer and we will see what I can come up with here...

 AAAhhhh!!! I am the parent of a graduate! A 6th grade graduate that is...which in my opinion is almost just as bad. Rylee had an emotional last week of school. I think the whole 6th grade class was in and out of tears, even the boys. It's not so much the friends that they are going to miss, (because they will see them next year) but their teacher and the school as well.

This is Rylee and her awesome teacher Mrs. Jones. I swear she wasn't much older then a 6th grader herself. She was a great teacher!

 Rylee and a group of her friends. (Brittin, Jaci, Rylee, Barrett, and Brayden)

 The 6th grade graduating class of Riverview Elementary 2012 (Rylee is in the right on the front row)

 Getting her diploma from the principle, Mr. Beckstrand

 

Before the last day of school, the students put on a dance festival. Each grade danced to their own music and had their own choreographed dance. The 6th grade kind of did a modge podge of a dance. They had different snippets from different songs. It was great to watch and the kids looked like they were having a blast.

 

Mya's turn. The 3rd graders did a little hula dance. It was so cute. Mya is such a shy girl when it comes to doing things in front of people. She tried to fake a stomach ache to get out of going to school that day, but it didn't work! HA! She did a great job!

Oh, and we got a cat at the first of the year. Her name is sugar and the kids love her.

 

We planted our garden this year. We've got tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, carrots and peas...like 5 rows of peas! While I was at the store buying seeds, the kids wanted to buy their own flower seeds. I decided to let them plant their own seeds in their own little pots. It has been fun watching them grow (and not grow, haha!) (each kid is sitting next to their row of plants)

Hopefully now that it's summer time I can get the camera out and start taking pictures and BLOGGING!!! Until then.......

Ski lessons

Ryan took the girls and I to Brian Head over the weekend to learn how to ski.(Finn stayed home with Grandma Ter.) We had a really great time! We got there late Thursday night and the first thing the girls wanted to do was go swimming. Friday morning we headed to breakfast and then off to our lessons. The girls went to ski school which was really nice because they were taken care of from 10:00 to 3:30 and we didn't have to worry about them. They were even fed lunch, the "best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I've ever tasted" according to Rylee. Ryan even paid for me to have lessons and It was really nice because for the first half of the lesson it was just me and this other lady and then for the other half of the lesson it was just me and the instructor. AND.... I only fell getting off the lift once and that was because I was on with Mya and she decided to go all "pizza" off the lift and clipped my ski. Other than that it was fantastic! For Friday we just spent the day practicing our newly learned skills and had a fun time together. The girls enjoyed going to the pool every night and Ryan and I really enjoyed the hot tub; It felt nice on our old people muscles! We had a lot of fun and can't wait to go skiing again!

Ryan teaching Mya how to do turns.

Rylee practicing "the Pizza."

Rylee and I cheesing on the lift.

This is one of my favorites. The girls were so funny. Lets face it, ski lifts are a little scary; A small seat dangling quite a ways above the ground, hanging by a mere wire. Here is Mya hanging on for dear life while trying to chillax on the lift.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

We had a pretty good present turn out this year, even though the girls didn't really get what they wanted. Again, I failed though. I make it a goal every year to focus more on why we celebrate Christmas in the first place and try to get the kids to think more about our Savior, and not Santa....but it never fails, commercialization wins. Maybe next year. :(
For New Years, we were complete party poopers, haha. We spent the day at Ryan's moms house and chillaxed with family. That's actually what I look foward to most though, so I guess I can't call us poopers. As far as anything exciting though...Ryan was asleep by 10:30 and the kids and I followed a little after that. I did force everyone to write down 5 goals each that they want to work on for the new year, then we shared them with each other at dinner on New Years Day. I think we will make that a tradition. Some of the goals shared were (no particular name or order),
Learn to swim
Have better handwriting
Family prayer and scripture study
A fun activity weekly with the family
Get better at Soccer/basketball
Eat better portion sizes
Be nice to each other
Be better at math
Be Dad's buddy
Not be so shy
Go to the temple monthly
Get lots more toy cars

Those were just a few. Then, on New Years Eve 2012, we will look through our goals and see if we were able to accomplish any of them. I'm excited to see what will happen. Here are just a few pictures of Christmas morning. I was sad that I didn't get more, but everything just happens so fast.

Happy Birthday Finn!

Yup, my baby turned 4. We threw him his first friend party, and I think he had a good time. We are so lucky to have Finn in our family. He is so fun to have around. He has crazy energy, sweet dance moves, and can be quite the cuddler. Happy Birthday Finn!
We had a Monster Truck party for him. He LOVES anything with BIG tires!
We played "throw the snowball into the tires."
I bought white T shirts for all the kids and they painted them with monster truck tires.



Just so I get a little bit of credit..... I BAKED the cake(s).
But I have to give the awesome decorating credit to my talented hubby. He was pretty proud.

I am such a horrible blogger. I was going through my pictures and got overwhelmed knowing that I needed to put them up. So, here it goes, there is no real order...basically things that have happened between school getting out and Halloween.... Whew, yeah, see how bad I am?