Sunday Afternoon with Family

Last Sunday my favorite brother Tyler and his wife Taylor were in town.  

My mom and Cliff were around as well, so we all gathered in Springville at Tay's family's home to see each other.  

Let's be honest.  The real reason we all came was to see this sweet girl.

Oaklee is Ty and Tay's baby girl, and she is SO adorable!  We all love her so much!

My mom also took a picture of my sweet family while in Taylor's family's gorgeous yard.

 I kinda adore this guy.

 What a nice summer Sunday afternoon.  We have a great family and love them all so much!

Sew fun!

What can be more fun than two new baby nieces in one summer?  

Baby Josie was born earlier this month, and I had so much fun making this sweet princess quilt for her.  Sorry about the wrinkles; I forgot to take a picture before I packed it up tight and mailed it - oops!  I loved the fabrics I found and had fun piecing different sized blocks together.  Still pretty basic, but a new step for me!

My second baby niece is due to be born this week, and we are so excited!  I also made a quilt for her, this one full of owls and bright colors.

I had so much fun making these that I can't wait to start another quilt top!  I am thinking I will make my next one a bit more complicated, and slowly teach myself how to piece more complicated patterns.  Blake is getting ready for a big boy bed soon, so maybe I will make his new bedspread! 

Goin' Fishin'

A lazy Sunday afternoon, looking for some family fun.

What do we do? 
We make our own fishing poles and go fishing!

Fishing off Katelee's bed, that is.  ;)

 

It's amazing how much fun we can have with a little paper, yarn, magnets and imagination.  :) 

We actually did this activity on Mother's Day Sunday, and we had a lot of fun.  I can't think of a better way to celebrate Mother's Day than playing with my cuties.  I am so blessed.

Summertime

We are enjoying our summer break so much!  

Our days so far have been filled with library time, crafts, play practice (Katelee is in a community play this summer), playing outside, LOTS of swimming, bike riding, reading, visits to the museum and farm, and, of course, 

picnics at the park!

We went to the park for lunch and playtime with our good friends the Shills, and Tiffany snapped these fun pictures for me.  

All our kiddos:

We love summertime!

Good-bye 2nd Grade!

Now that it's officially three weeks into summer break, it's about time that I blogged about the end of the school year.

I just have to say, Katelee ROCKED the 2nd Grade!

She got awesome grades, read about a million books, really became a positive leader in her classroom, made lots of friends, adored her teacher, and had lots of wonderful experiences.

We couldn't be more proud of her!  

I am proud that she's such a little smartie, but I am much more proud of her kindness to others and her ability to be a friend to anyone.  This past spring, she brought home the following letter from her school principal.

She was so excited!  She had fun eating lunch with the principal, but her favorite part was that the principal made silly pictures of each of the students to keep.

  

The end of the school year is always filled with fun events!  Field Day was held that last week of school, and I got to volunteer and be there for the morning.  It was lots of fun, as usual!  Also, a couple days later, the annual Dance Festival was held!  Katelee's grade danced to the song 'Dynamite,' and she was so cute, out there boogieing her little heart out! This girl has some great dance moves!

 On the last day of school, we held our annual
'Welcome to Summer' pool party!  Katelee invited lots of friends.  Luckily, my cousin Abby was also in town and so she was able to come as well!

Abby & Katelee, May 30, 2014

A pool full of friends!

Blake loved the party as well.  His favorite part was the cooler full of never-ending popsicles.  :)

  What a great end to a great school year!  I can't believe I have an almost-third-grader!

In the meantime, we plan to have a stellar summer!
Happy Summer everyone!

Coloring and Cleaning

Every kid does it.

The inevitable coloring on the walls.  

We recently found this masterpiece done by Blake.

At least the artist was willing to help clean it up.  Here he is scrubbing with a wipe.  This little sweetie does really love to help.  We worked together until it was all off the wall, even though his attention made him want to quit much earlier.

Hopefully his future masterpieces will be limited to paper and color books.  I can hope, right?  :)

Katelee's Piano Recital Performance

Unbelievable

I do a lot of unbelievable things.  

For example, it's unbelievable that Katelee recently played an entire eight-week season of soccer, and this is the ONE AND ONLY picture that I can find.

I obviously need to work on my photography.  And my memory!

Katelee really had a blast playing this spring season of soccer, though.  She loves her teammates, her fun coach Rich, and practicing.  She has improved a lot this season and we are proud of her hard work.  Her favorite position to play is goalie, followed by defense, though she is a good forward when she is asked to play that as well.  We love our soccer player - she's unbelievable!

Spring Piano Recital

Last May we had our Spring Piano Recital.  The theme was "favorites" and the students played their favorite songs, ranging from church songs to Taylor Swift to the Star Wars Theme.  It was a fun night, and everyone did really well!  I made these cute cupcakes for the treats: 

Katelee performed "I am a Child of God."  She did a GREAT job!

I played Pie Jesu.  What a fun night!  I really love my job.  :)

Birthday Video

I just found this fun little video of my kids helping me blow out my birthday candle.  Too fun not to share!  ;)

My Birthday

I had a great birthday this year.  I got to spend the entire day with my sweet little family; what more could I ask for!  We went to Kate's soccer game in the morning, followed by a BYU softball game in the afternoon.  (Go Cougars!)  My awesome cousin McKenzie plays for BYU softball, and they played a great game!  After the game we walked around BYU campus, enjoying some of our favorite places in all the world and sharing them with our kids.  We ended the evening with dinner at Olive Garden and an ice cream cake at home.  I felt spoiled rotten.

 We only lit one candle, but we DID blow it out at least 33 times, because Blake was having SO MUCH FUN helping blow it out.  He kept yelling, "AGAIN!" 

 And then of course we needed Katelee to join in the fun!

What a wonderful birthday. I am so blessed.