Jack turned 5!

The kids are decorating Jacks dinosoar b-day cake. Now a tradition in our family. Except for Mike who prefers store bought cake.

Jack opening his presents

Some friends came over to eat the dino cake

Turned out pretty good considering...

Blowing out the candles, help from Ayden came just after this pic.

Jack is playing with one of his new toys, I think they are known as bend-a-roo's.

Mike's Birthday

Mike got a suprise for his birthday from the Holladays, complete with confetti raining from the 2nd floor. Notice the pink princess crown.

We had some friends over and enjoyed some cake. Too many candles for me to lite!

The Holladays gave him a pink tie because he always makes so much fun of Tom for wearing one.

Here is the next birthday cake. Everyone is wearing pink in his honor.

Here are all the kids enjoying the cake

Getting ready for school

We went to "Meet the Teacher" night at the kids school.

This is Jack and his teacher. (I blocked out identifying info, for those creep-o's out there.)

This is Christsia and her new teacher.

This is Christsia in her new classroom.

This is Jack in his, already taking advantage of the blocks

The cafeteria which they thought was huge!

Here is the library, complete with ocean scenes on each wall.

To prepare for school, we packed some snack bags. I was surprised to find out that they take snacks each day. Lunch is at 10:30 in the morning, so they need an afternoon snack.

We made a chart for getting ready in the morning. They flowers around the edges are window clings, so they can put them on each task when they are done with it. We will see how it goes.

Can't forget the clothes, we got the clothes ready for the week for each of them. Hopefully the morning will be a breeze :) It all starts tomorrow.

Random things

Jack is looking at a book, isn't he adorable?

Stephen is a great helper with Liberty

okay, that is weird...the whole lot of them.

Liberty and Ayden

The kids lately

This is how we found Liberty the other day. She is such a good baby. She just rolls around until she is tired and then she falls asleep. Not all the time, but several times. Too sweet.

This is my work pot luck a few weeks ago. We had a fun time. This is in the training room. My office is just down the hall from the windows on the right.

Our dear friends are moving to NY in 10 days. We are going to miss them so much. They are the kind of friends that you can get together on the spur of the moment and each contribute a dish and have a spontaneous dinner. These are their kids Ayden and Ethan.

Here is Liberty...she is now 7 months.

I can't believe that my two oldest babies are going into Kindergarten. It just freaks me out to think about it. These are their preschool graduation pictures from last May. School starts on the 24th and we are going to meet their teachers tomorrow night. Should be exciting.

Liberty's first baby food - a complete mess - but she ate it and has done very well since.

All the kids. Christsia almost 6, Jack will be 5 this coming Sunday. Stephen is 3 and Liberty is 7 months. Priceless.

Now Christsia is taking our picture. She loves to do that. I come home and find 50 random pictures on the camera. It is always a joy to see what they are pictures of...what really goes on when no one is watching...those little sneaks.

Jack and I. Jack is so sweet, not a bad bone in his body. He is so aware of others and always wants to help.

Liberty just falls asleep wherever/whenever. Apparently even the bright toys were not enticing enough to stay awake for.

Home Decor

This is the front room and the left side of the kitchen when we moved in. There are two windows to the left that you can't see in this picture. (Don't mind the Easter eggs all over the floor)

This is the same corner now! Wow! I was pretty out there to do orange and red in my front room but we are loving it. More updates to the dining room coming soon!

Heidi's graduation

Oh my goodness! My twin is graduating from H.S. She is actually my youngest sister. I can't believe it. She is actually moving away to college TOMORROW! Life will not be the same at my mothers house. My poor younger brother is the last one home and it must be so boring. Heidi is just awsome and will do so great in college. She is hugging my nephew Benson in the picture.

Annie, Heidi, Levi, Julie, Lori. All the siblings except me.
Go Heidi!! I am so proud of you!

Heading to Utah for vacation!

This is all the luggage we had to take to Utah for the 10 day trip

Jack is coloring and listening to a movie.


We stopped by our friends house in OK, the Miners. It was so nice to see them.

Then it was on to Kansas!

Mike said that Spangles is his new favorite burger joint...apparently very good.

So I got pulled over...at 11:00 at night...5 min from the hotel...after driving about 12 hours. ugh!!!! Then the nice cop proceeded to check each of the car seats and give us a demo about how to secure them the best way. Mike was sitting in the middle seat so he had to get out for the cop to get in. Mike was standing outside the sliding door...right behind the cops tail end. Notice the exposed gun. Well, 30 min later.................

He let the kids try on his hat, it was actually cute. He assured us that he doesn't have lice, oh, hadn't thought of that.

Beautiful eyes!!

Getting closer.......and cooler

This is the boys on the balcony of the room at snowbird, 13th floor, awesome view.

check out that snow blower

Do you think they mind that our kids used their equip for a playground

Stephen

Sorry the pics are not in chronological order, there were too many pics from too many cameras to catalog properly, so here we are back on the road to Utah again. This is one of the tunnels between Denver and Utah on I-70. The kids went nuts about the tunnels. I think there are 4 in total.

Our dear friens - The Lewis' - moved to Grand Jct one month before our trip, how convenient. It made for a great visit. They have a lovely home and community. The weather was perfect!

This was the rainbow to follow the storm. While driving along the mountain ranges an hour outside of Grand Jct it was raining so badly that I couldn't see. Suddenly the cars in front of us came to a stop. We saw 2 foot high boulders in the road and looked to our right up the mountain. The mountain side was moving....a mud slide. Rocks were hitting our car, Mike yelled..."Go! Go!" We got out of it, I was almost in tears, it was so scary. We deserved the rainbow after that storm. It was the biggest rainbow, complete across the sky, that any of us had ever seen. Our family in Utah reported seeing the same rainbow.

These are the mountains right outside of Lewis' home. Very pretty and unique, nothing like it in TX that is for sure.

Finally, we cross the last state line, downhill from here