Catch up time

So, I realized I have a lot of pictures to post, so I did four posts today, sorry! Hopefully that will get me caught up for a while!!
Sam starts registering for middle school this week. I know she will be fine at school, but I am freaking out! when I was in sixth grade it was ok for me to be in middle school, but Sam is not!lol Actually, she really is ready. She is very mature and she has a good head on her shoulders and she has great friends. It still freaks me out that she will be at school with eighth graders, YIKES!! She has decided she wants to play the trumpet. This is good news for us because Steve played the trumpet, too, so that saves us from having to rent an instrument!

Trey's Birthday

Trey turned nine yesterday and I can't believe it. He went to breakfast with Steve in the morning before school. Mark, Carly and Chase came over for dinner and presents. As you can tell Trey really likes Pandas. Lizzie was so excited for him to open it she could hardly wait! All of his other presents were Transformers. We have discovered that they are very complicated, and Mark, who can restore old Mustangs had a hard time getting Trey's transformers to transform! When he went to bed, he said, "I'm kind of sad because it's not my birthday anymore." Ahh, remember those days! When birthdays were so fun and you were so sad when they were over. I think that's one of the fun things about having kids, you get to relive your childhood excitments with them!!

Fire Station Field Trip

Lizzie's pre-school went to the Fire Station yesterday. Lizzie had been so excited for this field trip. She had been talking about it all week and woke up at 6:30 that morning. We got there and she got very nervous. Being in the fire engine freaked her out and when the firefighter put on his mask she came and stood by me and held my hand. It's amazing how afraid the little kids all were of him. I guess that's why they do these tours, to let the kids know not to be afriad of them, but all the kids in Lizzie's class were still pretty nervous!! Lizzie's favorite part was seeing the fridges and the lazy boys in the tv room!!

PUMPED UP

"I'm Steve, I'm Trey, and we're here to PUMP.. you up!"
Steve ordered a faucet for our garage and it came with plastic bags that we blown up. Steve and Trey had to play. It was pretty funny to see Trey who disappears when he turns sideways..big! They had a lot of fun!
I especially love the fact that Steve has his BCS busters shirt on. Go UTES!!

Manitou Cliff Dwellings

Day at the Zoo

The kids had no school last Friday so we decided to make a trip to the zoo. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is a beautiful zoo. The kids got to feed the giraffes and the weather was beautiful. We had a great day, we were there until it closed and the kids did great. I'm so glad we have so many friends that we can do fun things with! Thanks Carlsons, Flemmings, Drapers and Ike for coming with us, it was great!!

One Year!!

So, we are officially Coloradoers (I have no idea what they are called!!) We have really loved being here. When we were in Rhode Island thinking of the places we wanted to live, Colorado was always top on the list. After our prayers last night Steve said, it's weird that we are actually here, isn't it? Sometimes it feels like we have always been here and sometimes it seems like we just got here.
We have made so many amazing friends and we absolutely love being back in the mountains.
Trey had his final cello concert tonight. After his group was done the other groups of the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony performed. They really have a ton of talent. It was so great, the top group had three cello soloists tonight. It almost made me cry because I thought 'I will get to listen to this for the rest of my life' I am so excited for Trey to continue with this instrument. It's so beautiful and it's so great to see him have something that he really is good at.
Last week we bought a new mattress. Yeah!! We were so excited about it. It's a memory foam and it has a twenty year warranty on it. Steve was in bed and he said 'Oh, my gosh! When this warranty runs out I will be 56!!' WoW! That really made me think about what my life will be like in 20 years. Twenty years ago I was just starting young women's. Hello, that wasn't very long ago!! It was kind of one of those moments that kind of slaps you in the face!
I wanted to tell Melanie thanks for the Cafe Rio recipe.. MMMMM!!!! LOVE CAFE RIO!!!

Marigolds in a Red Cup

Sam's first science fair!! She decided she wanted to plant marigold seeds and water them with different liquids to see which ones grew best. Well, it was very interesting. the seeds with just water grew great, the sugar water, 7-up, and milk did nothing. We think it's because the sugar formed a hard crust on the soil and the seeds couldn't come through. The dirt was like a brick on them, so it was kind of cool!! She did a great job with the poster and we are all glad that it's over with!! The air force came to be the judges, so that was fun, but Sam was so nervous for her oral presentation. She did great and I am very proud of all the hard work she (and Steve and I!!) did. We are (not) looking forward to Trey's projects over the next three years and Lizzie's after that! YIKES! I am so not good at coming up with ideas and then doing the poster, oh, well, C'est la vie!!

Moab

I have a ton of pictures of Moab and for some reason I can only post five pictures at a time so keep looking. Lizzie hiked to Delicate Arch and she did great-it was hot and cold and hard and she liked to be very dramatic about the whole situation. We had a good time visiting arches. Steve, Lee, Sam, Trey, Brody and Payton hiked all the way to the arch. It was SOSOSO windy and Sam was pretty freaked out by the time she came back to the ridge. I was really proud of her though, she does not like heights at all!!!

Moab anyone??

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MOAB

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MOAB

We got to go to Moab over spring break this year. We went with three other families in our ward, Steve's brother and his family, Steve's parents and the Bensons, and our friends two sisters and their families. We had so much fun being there. My kids have never been so it was a blast to take them to Canyonlands and Arches. We camped and the first night was pretty miserable. Our air mattress appearantly had a hole in it! And it was FREEZING all night. Needless to say we didn't sleep that night. Fortunately we were able to buy another air mattress and the next two nights were much warmer and so much better.
It was quit an adventure though. Two of our friends were staying in cabins at the same campground that we were at. When the Johnsons got there they were unloading their bags (they had only been there ten minutes) and their three year old daughter fell off the top bunk and broke her arm. They had to go to Grand Junction the next day and have surgery, putting screws in her elbow!! The next day one of our other friends little one year old boy grabbed the exhaust pipe of the motorcycle his dad had just ridden and severly burned both of his hands. they had to rush him to the ER.
It all has worked out for both of our friends, and Jake's hands are looking great, he wont need skin grafts or anything. Jen says it is definately because of priesthood blessings!! We were a little on edge the rest of the weekend waiting for some other disaster to strike! Thank goodness nothing terrible happened. Although our other friends little boy got a fever the day we left and it ended up he had an ear infection and pink eye. Yeah, it was quit the trip.
We did have a great time though and we can't wait to go again, hopefully injury free!!
I have to explain this picture. When we got to mesa arch in canyonlands Lizzie had to poop. I had to take her in the cactus and pick it up like a doggie bag! So, we are walking to the arch and Claire decides she has to poop! Then, Graham (the other four year old) says he has to poop. Well, Lee was carrying his take-out box from Hogie Yogi and that became the poop box. He had to carry this around the rest of the hike. It was great fun!!

Easter

We had Easter with my cousins who live here in Colorado Springs and my grandma from Utah came to visit also. It was a lot of fun. We had the egg hunt on Saturday and made Sunday more focused on Jesus' resurrection and the atonement. It worked out really well. At Mark and Christy's we read the story of Jesus' last day and had the 'resurrection eggs' to go with the story. I am so glad to have such wonderful family here to add so much to our lives. I am grateful that I have such healthy grandparents and that my children adore them as much as I do.

Sam's been tagged

1. I love soccer. I love to run and kick things.

2. I don't like PINK! Green and purple are the bomb!

3. I have a playful personality. Annoying people (especially my dad and brother) is my specialty!!

4. My favorite holiday is Easter because we learn about Jesus' resurrection.

5. I love to travel. Traveling with my family makes me happy.

6. Spaghetti, mom's enchiladas, sushi and Chinese food are some of my favorite foods.

7. I like to be around little kids because they are so cute!!

8. I like to buy stuff. Stuff that I don't really need, it's really fun!

Freedom: Sam's Choir Concert

Sam's school has a choir for the third, fourth and fifth grade classes. It was a really fun thing for Sam to do this year. They practiced before school every Wednesday and the program was so fun. It was entitled "Freedom" and the songs focused on our country. Every child had either sung a solo, had a speaking part or marched the flags. I was very impressed with the talent that was shown. One of the really fun things at this performance was the band that accompanied the choir. It consisted of staff and parents from the school. Their principal played the piano and there were a couple of guitars, a violin, clarinets and a percussion section. It was so fun to see some of our friends playing in that band.