Relay For Life

The other night the Relay For life was held at the ASU track. I have attended this event for 4 years now, and I love it! The night kicks off by the survivors of cancer take the first lap around the track. Half way through they are joined by their supporters. There are games, food, activities, and lots of stuff going on the entire time. The event runs from 6pm to 6am. Scott and the kids have always spent the night, but we took most of our camping stuff to SLC already!

This year there were jumpers and slides for the kids...

And adults! It took my mom several minutes to climb the stair, but made it with a little help!

Around the track there are these lunch bags decorated by random people. The write something on there about how cancer has effected their life. I made one for my moms friends, Carolyn and DeEett. I also made two others, one for my aunt Kathleen and the other for my cousin Debbie.

Jamborama!

We celebrated with many people a couple Saturday's ago at a beautiful park. What were we all celebrating? 100 years of Scouting. How wonderful is that?!
There were a ton of fun events and games for the boys to participate in. A little golfing...

climbing and walking across this awesome bridge...

Cool Army uniforms to try on....

Making homemade SLIM!!!

More bridges...

More cool Army gear...

FORE!!!

Will was in heaven! He wants to be "an Army guy" when he grows up.

Some marshmallow guns...

A very fun obstacle course. I raced against Jackson and Dad raced against Tyler...So creative and fun!

It was like 90 plus degree outside, but we all had a blast! Thank you Cub Scout program!!

Photo Class

In Chandler there is a cool art museum that offers children free art classes. We've been attending for the past few years and have really enjoyed it. The boys have done painting, drawing, masks, ornaments, wood working, sketching....and photography.

Photography was a few Saturday's ago, and it was a lot of fun. The teacher taught the children (and me) a few cool tricks about your camera and how to take a good picture.

Here are some shots the boys took.Here is a great one I snapped...

Mini Goals Week 20

That was amazing! I was perfect for the first part of the week, and it felt wonderful. (Remember my mini goal last week was praying morning, noon, and night) Then, my mom came to town and we made jammed packed days full of fun things and I got too busy. I know what you're thinking...too busy to pray? What the? Well, I was still 100% on the evening prayers, 80% on the morning and about 50% on the afternoon ones. So, I'm going to try it again. I know, I don't usually do the same mini goal 2 weeks in a row, but this is a good one and I wanna do it better.
What is YOUR mini goal on the week? Working out? Spending more time reading? No soda?
Good luck to YOU!!!

Whatever helps you sleep at night!

Brig's is such a funny little kid. He sure has a growing personality. What he wants, he wants. And, it's usually pretty funny. The other day it was nap time. Well, he had to take all this stuff with him to bed.
How funny is that?! Sure love that kid!

Easter Eggs

Happy Easter to all! I know it was a few weeks ago...but I'm behind! So here it goes. It was a great weekend! We dyed eggs, which is always a blast with so many kids. We colored some with a white crayon to make hidden messages....added stickers to others...put rubber bands around some to make a tye dyed look...And some eggs never even saw the water (they were eaten!)

On Easter morning the Easter Bunny usually hides each basket somewhere in the house. The younger boys usually find their baskets first, because they're not hidden too hard. Well, this year was a little tricky because I had most of the hose packed in boxes. The Easter bunny was very clever and hid ALL the baskets under an empty box. It too the children forever to find them. We were laughing the whole time. We even gave them several hints to the special location...

All the boys also received bats, mitts, gloves and baseballs. It was awesome!

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!!

Conference Brunch

During Saturday's session of General Conference we hosted a ward brunch, (I'm on the activities committee, and LOVE it!) We served fruit, juice, muffins, bagels and cream cheese. The weather was perfect, just so beautiful in the spring here in Arizona. It was a great turn out, and a lot of fun.

Park Play

A few weekends ago we took some of the boys to a fun park close by our house. We first did a little GeoCaching and then played. There is a little toddler area, swings, fields, basketball courts, a large play area, rock wall....You get my point. It's fun for all ages!

Here we are GeoCaching!

Sweet baby Nathan on the swing for the first time. He liked it at first, but it quickly changed and started to scare him a little.

It was a beautiful day and we all had a wonderful time together.

Mini Goals Week 18, 19

Holy Crumb! It's been WAY too long since I've posted anything...but it's been a little crazy around here! Last Friday Scott gave his 2 week notice at work. A little earlier than we planned, but Ive been packing since January so I've been prepared! :) 5 days went by and Housing offered him a nice severance package to stay until June (the original plan). So here we are in a clean, painted, bare house with boxes all over. Well, I had Scott move the boxes out of my way and into the storage unit. It feels so good to have so little. We don't need all that junk!
So, last week NO MINI GOAL! Too busy planning and preparing! But this week I have a GREAT one!
At church today in Relief Society there was a lesson on prayer. I was impressed with so many different parts of this great lesson. The thing that stood out the most was how often you (should) pray. Morning, mid-day and night. Man, sad to say I haven't prayed mid-day since my mission! Now, I'm not talking those silent prayers randomly throughout the day. I'm speaking of those prayers on your knees, alone in a room. I remember I had calluses on my knees from praying so much, on my mission. Why don't have that now? I do pray for my children but am I doing it enough? Hmm...So I will pray morning, mid-day and night...on my knees in prayer.
I challenge YOU to do it too! It's just for a week, come on!!

Suprise!

One of my good friends, Jori, celebrated her 50th birthday! Some of my other friends and I planned a surprise party for her! It was fun planning it and fun being part of it! She is such a wonderful person, I admire her courage and determination. I am so blessed to have her as a friend of mine. And, it doesn't hurt that our kids play with each other too!

The party was held at her house, I know sounds strange, but her yard is perfect to host many children! I came and picked her up and blind folder her. I had told her a few other girls and I wanted to take her out to dinner. When we picked up the first friend, Jori had to ask yes or no questions and I would interpret the answers for her. It was fun to watch Jori guess the gal sitting in the car. We laughed and laughed, mainly at Jori because she had no idea what we were doing! See, the plan was to be back in 30 minutes. So, I had 30 minutes to kill. I only had 3 girls to pick up, so we had to waste time. I was driving slowly and in circles. We were all laughing. We picked up Liz, Brittney and Alicia. Silly Stephanie went to the Udall home (which was planned!) We drove back to the Udall's, Jori still blind folded). We all got out of the car and Jori began asking these random questions. Everyone was silent! It was awesome! All of a sudden we all shouted, "SURPRISE!!!" It was great! There were lots of friends and family there, and Scott grilled up some tri tip! YUM!

Thanks everyone for you help and THANKS Jori for having another birthday for us to all party! :)