End of School 2009

End of the School Year 2009

Here are pictures from some of our end of the school year activities:

Preschool Graduation

It's hard to believe the twins completed their first year of preschool at Miss Nicole's Shining Stars Preschool. They have loved every minute of it. When it isn't a preschool day they still want to go to school. They learned a ton too. I feel like when you have 5 kids, you don't work with your youngest kids nearly as much as you did with your oldest. Thanks Nicole for all they've learned from you!! Nicole gave a super cute graduation program complete with graduation caps!

Riley!! Great smile!

Tanner, love the fake smile!

The class doing the Pledge of Allegience. I'm noticing that Riley is one of the few kids that actually has her right hand over her heart!

Yep, they really are twins!!! And Tanner really is 14 minutes older!

Riley with Miss Nicole and her cute packet of stuff she sent home.


Tanner really loves Miss Nicole, but for some reason doesn't look too happy!

Kindergarten Graduation
CTA put on a great Kindergarten graduation program. They had a cute program with singing and speaking parts. Mia recited a short poem. I was so impressed that my shy little Mia actually did it. We ran off to Mia's dance recital right afterwards, but it all worked out. It was also nice that my mom was in town for all of it.

Mia with her wonderful teacher, Mrs. Moore .


Singing one of their cute songs. Belle, the little blonde girl behind Mia, was in the same dance class as Mia. She already had her make-up done for the recital!

After the main program, Mrs. Moore had a slide show and award ceremony. Here is Mia waiting for it to begin.


Hailey, Camilla, Mia, Taylor and Avery


Mia, Kinley and Camilla

Mia and Lia

Mrs. Moore and Mia. We love you Mrs. Moore!

Brayden's Last Days of 6th Grade

It's hard to believe that elementary school is over for Brayden. For the last few days of school, the kids were given free dress days, had field day, played Survivor and had the traditional 6th graders against the teachers softball game. I stopped by for field day and the end of the year party and yearbook signing. Here are some pics from field day:

Here are some pics from the end of the year party and yearbook signing:

Brayden with his best friends: Brayden, Trevor, Cameron, Dallen and Jack

Brayden with his homeroom teacher, Mrs Suhre, along with Zane, Brendan, Noah, Nathan and some other kids.

The twins got in on the yearbook signing. Tanner is signing McKenna's yearbook!

Brayden with his friend, Emily Malm

Goofing off in the hallway with a bunch of kids from church: Lauren, Brooke, McKenna, Kaylie, Devin, Loren, Brendan and Brayden

Brayden, Trevor, Cameron, Dallen and some other kids with Mrs. Pisano, Brayden's other 6th grade teacher.

Tanner and Riley continued signing yearbooks!

What a great school year the kids had. I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of Chase's end of the year party. When I stopped by his class they were watching a movie with the lights off!

Brayden Turnes 12!

Brayden turned 12 on May 5

I can't believe Brayden is now 12. It's amazing how fast he's grown up. He is such a great son and a wonderful example to his younger brothers and sisters. I'm so proud of him. Here is a picture of him at church right after he receieved the priesthood and became a deacon.

Here is a picture of him (that didn't scan very clearly) of him 10 years ago when he was 2. These years have gone by so fast. It seems like yesterday. What happened to my little blondie?

Matt and Brayden

Matt and I with Brayden. What is up with my hair??? I'm just going to assume it was windy outside. It was actually Mother's Day that day and I was so rushed getting everything together for my calling, I didn't even have time to wash my hair. I had to throw it in a pony tail!

Brayden with our bishopric: Brother Hancock, Bishop Guttery and Brother Poulsen.

For Brayden's actual birthday, I went to the school and brought him lunch. I also brought Krispy Kreme donuts for his class.

Brayden with one of his best friends, Trevor. It was his birthday too. They both have the same birthday! You've got to love the school uniforms and the lovely school cafeteria background!

That night we had dinner at In-n-Out. Since Chase had baseball and it was a school night, we didn't have time for much else. But, who doesn't love a good In-n-Out burger?

Brayden chose a chocolate bundt cake for his birthday cake. Tanner kept calling it the "butt" cake! You got to love Tanner. I guess Brayden wanted to light his own candles!

Opening the presents.

A couple weeks later, we had his birthday party with his friends. We came up with a "Fear Factor" theme where they had to perform different tasks and eat some nasty food. It turned out to be a hit. We also bar-b-qued and the boys topped off the night with capture the flag at the park when it got dark.

Left to right: Jack, Loren, Trevor, Bray, Cameron and Dallin. Brayden has such a nice group of boys that he hangs out with.

Devin and Rylee came to crash the party and be the judges for Fear Factor.

Nice look, Bray.

Do you think Cameron was a little hungry? The funny thing is that he had at least one more hot dog after eating all that!

One of the first Fear Factor challenges was a basketball and free throw competition.

Here are the very intimidating judges, Rylee and Devin.

After basketball, sucking on a lemon for a minute and eating some yucky foods such as pickled beets, the boys had to find a piece of gum in the pudding and blow a bubble without using their hands.

What a surprise, Brayden wanted a BYU football cake!

We had a great time celebrating Brayden's birthday. Happy 12th birthday, Brayden!

BYU Women's Conference 2009

BYU Women's Conference 2009

April 29- May 2, 2009

A big group of girls got together and flew up to Utah to go to Women's Conference at BYU. Our husbands were brave enough to take care of the kids and hold down the fort while we were gone. I know that Matt tried to work from home one of the days I was gone and he quickly realized how little you can get done with the twins around. There were six girls in my group. And there was another group of six of our good friends in the dorm next to us. I felt like I was in college again. We stayed in Heritage Halls. Our particular dorm, Whitney Hall, looked right out at where my dorm in Desert Towers used to be.

We were so excited to go to that we had to take a group pic in the Phoenix Airport. Our airplane was full of women going to Women's Conference. Even the sky cab guy at the curb asked if we were going to Women's Conference. Are we that obvious??

Here we are on our plane probably driving everyone crazy!

How is that lady behind Angie actually sleeping through this??? Kristen and Amity failed on making the crazy faces!

We made it to SLC. Everyone looks very happy here. They were all dying by the time we got to Provo. We rented an SUV and I was the designated driver since I had lived in Utah for so long. We could BARELY fit our luggage in the car and we had to cram 4 people in the middle. They were a little car sick by the time we got to Provo. Everyone survived even though they all seemed a bit nervous with my driving. Is my driving that bad? I havn't had an accident since I was 16!

We tried so long to get a group pic while using the automatic timer. Our group of 6: Vonda, Marcee, Angie, Amity, me and Kristen in the front.

Cute picture of Marcee and Angie!

Angie, Nicole and I on our way to the first class. We booked it so fast to get seats that my shins were so sore the next day from running in flip flops.

Amity and Nicole in our first class. Check out those seats!

Angie, Amity, Kristen and I. Check out the Y behind us.

We had to pose by the pretty tree. We loved all the flowers. Arizona isn't quite so colorful. Yeah, we're pretty much dorks!

We found the perfect parking spot outside our dorm and didn't want anyone to take it when we went to dinner. Kristen and Marcee came up with a great idea to move the trash cans in our spot! It was still available when we got back that night.

Before dinner we stopped by the Service Booths. I saw my good friend's daughters, Jen and Ashlee. They both grew up in Louisville. I was showing my friends from AZ what Kentucky girls look like-they're not hicks. When we were talking, I saw my friend, Tiffany who had also lived in Louisville. So here I am with Ashlee, Jen and Tiffany. Why does everyone else seem to look so cute and I look totally trashed and tired?

Dinner at the Pizza Factory. We followed that up with a movie at good old Movies 8. I felt like I was in college all over again. Why am I holding the menu in front of me?

The next day we went to several great classes including one by John Bytheway. I had known him while in college and I was an EFY counselor. We used to go running together around Provo. I had to go up and say hi. I wanted my kids to know that I really DO know John Bytheway! I felt like I was getting my picture taken with a celebrity. There was a line to talk to him!

Here we are in the Marriot Center after the closing session given by Elder L. Tom Perry. It was awesome. We were so sad for it to be over. It was so cool to be there with all of those LDS women from all over the country.

Here we are right outside the Marriot Center after it ended.

In front of our dorm, Whitney Hall.

Angie!

We hooked up with the rest of our group for dinner that night. We started out at the movie Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, but walked out because it was so trashy. We ended up at Bajio and then played games back at our dorm.

The next day, we drove up to Salt Lake, did some shopping and went to lunch on top of the Joseph Smith Building. We had an awesome view of the Salt Lake Temple.

Back in Phoenix! When we left Salt Lake, it was cold and rainy. We were a little over-dressed for the 100 degree weather of Phoenix. We had such a great trip. I'm so glad I went. We were all exhausted and eager to see our families, but I hope we can all go to Women's Conference again sometime!