Joel's latest project (well one of his many projects) a 66 Ford Mustang. He is starting from scratch and going to make this piece of junk look beautiful. Summer loves to help her daddy. They are buddies. She is still trying to talk him in to painting it pink.

My handsome boy turned 8 and got baptised. What a special day that was for all of us.

Owen spent quite a few nights sleeping on the deck with his best friend, Mustang this summer.

He sure is a sweetheart when he is asleep.

This was the first day of school, out on the front porch. Owen started 3rd grade and this is his best year so far, thanks to the best teacher at Cedar Ridge Elementary, Mrs Taylor. She is so good with Owen. We haven't been to the principal's office yet this year. Let's hope it stays that way. Sophi started 1st grade, which she loves. He teacher is also wonderful, and her favorite part of school is eating hot lunch in the cafeteria. She also loves art-her teacher says she would just color all day if she could. Owen is the opposite, he hates art and wont draw or color anything for school, but he checks out "how to draw" books from the library and spends hours at home drawing cars and motorcycles. I guess he just has it in his head that he doesn't like any school work, so we are working on changing his attitude on that. I told him he has to go to school until he is 29 (like his mom), so he better learn to like school. He does have a lot of homework, which is hard for all of us. Sophi sits down and finishes her whole week's worth of homework in an hour. She loves doing homework, and when she is done with her school work, she wants to color or draw. Summer has a little preschool book that she likes to do "homework" out of too. She does not want to be left out. She started preschool and thinks she is so big now. She is also in ballet and her and Sophi take gymnastics together. I love to watch them.

Owen is still in tackle football. His team is in the playoffs, which is very exciting! They won their first playoff game yesterday. I will be glad when it is all over though because of the time commitment. He has 2 hour practices during the week and games take up our whole saturday, so it will be nice when that is all over, but it is really fun to watch him play. He is the fastest kid on his team and loves to tackle.

Joel and I have been married now for 10 years, which is so unbelievable to me. I still think I'm 23, so I don't know how that happened. We are a very happy family though, and I love to spend time with all of them

Summer Fun

My sweet girls standing in front of grandma's poppies, holding her puppy papi. They loved that puppy. He got hit by a car-my poor kids cried for 2 days about it. Grandma bought them all a stuffed animal puppy to help them feel better.

My cute boys took the 4-wheeler up the mountains behind our house after a rain storm and had a blast going thru mud puddles. They came back filthy. They love doing anything outside. Owen rides his bike a lot too. He has started playing tackle football again on the 3rd grade team. He has practice every day for 2 hours, which he loves and we love that he is able to burn some energy.

Summer LOVES to play dress-ups. Actually she is wearing dress-up clothes more than real clothes. Her daddy takes her everywhere in them too. They are great buddies. My kids are so lucky to get to spend so much time with their dad. They have so much fun together. I'm sad I miss out on a lot of the fun cause I am working so much but it has been really nice to be getting paid for working finally! And since being out of school, I have been able to spend much more time with my family. We are loving life. Sophi will be starting first grade soon and will be gone all day with Owen. She is excited about starting school. Owen is not. Summer wants to start school too. I think she is ready now for kindergarten but still has to wait 2 more years. Aah.

Graduation Day

Most of my family. Natalie, me, dad, mom, Austin, Alison, and Jack is on a mission in Chile.

Isn't that the happiest family you've ever seen. It was an amazing day!

We had our graduation banquet at La Calle, which was beautiful. The food was good too.

2 of my best friends from pharmacy school. They made the last 3 years bearable/fun. I will miss them so much.

Sophia is 6 years old

Backyard Fun

I am so glad that spring is finally kind of here -it has been cold and rainy for over a month, and we can finally enjoy our yard. Joel has been working on this new waterfall/pond and it is so nice to look at an listen to. We have a few fish in there and the kids love to climb on the bridge and watch them swim around.

My trees finally have blooms on them and the girls love to play with the flowers. Sophi turned 6 today. I will have to post more pictures of her birthday. She is such a sweetheart. I cannot believe she is 6.

We wanted to include a recent family picture in with my graduation announcements but it really is impossible to get everyone to look at the camera with a happy smile at the same time. Is it weird that my favorite one is actually the one where Joel is looking at me? He is probably more excited for me to be done with school than I am.

St George

4 Generations: My cute Grandma, beautiful monther, me, and my adorable girls at Grandma Walker's house in St George.
We went to St George for my Grandma's 80th surprise birthday party. We did a game show theme of my grandma's favorite shows. Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy= "Joyeparty" (her name is Joye), and The Price is Right.
All of the questions were related to my Grandma's life.
The party was so much fun.

My super-talented husband made the PLINKO game for The Price is Right. The kids especially loved to play it.

My grandparents were so surprised.

We went and hiked around Dixie and took some cute pictures of the kids.

It is almost impossible to get them to all smile and look at the camera at the same time.

I sure do love having a day off to spend time with my wonderful family.

We spent a 3 day weekend at Panguitch Lake in January and had a blast playing in the snow.

Summer crashed into her cousin while sledding and her eye swelled shut. Poor baby. Surprisingly, that was the only accident.

Fun was had by all.

Joel's sister, her husband and their 5 kids came too. It was so great to have all the kids together.

There was so much snow that Owen was able to sled right off the roof of the garage.

I was glad Joel's dad brought his snow mobile so that we didn't have to carry the kids or all our gear while we snow shoed in from the mail road.

Owen loves his new "snow mobile" sled that he got for Christmas. He can turn it and it has breaks so he can slow down. I think that saved him from crashing into other kids a few times.