Today our sweet Rachel turns 8! We had a fun few days! She is so lucky to get 3 different day celebrations! Last week we had her b-day party, (pictures coming soon), today we celebrated as a family, and tomorrow, Grandma & Grandpa are making dinner for her! Special days for a special birthday! Happy Birthday Rachel! We appreciate your kindness to everyone around you and for all the help and love to show to your family! WE LOVE YOU!!
(thanks for the cute picture Grandma!)

HAIR CUTS!!

The week after girls camp my girls were in desperate need of a haircut! Thanks to our awesome friend and neighbor for doing them for us!

Here is Kaycie before...

And Kaycie after! She has bangs now! Her hair is of course not styled in this picture, but when it is all done, it's super cute!

Sarah, my model, before...

and Sarah after! I love it! It is a cute little bob! Something she totally needed. Her hair was getting so scraggly!

Rachel before...

Rachel after! Rach just got a trim!

This is Bryce neither before or after! Just thought I'd throw him in!

Seriously, could this be an freakier? It can't to me! This is what Chris and I were woken up to at 2am this morning. Someone through a rock through our window! Scared us to death! It was soooo loud! We called the police because there have been a lot of break-ins in our neighborhood! Our neighbors across the street were robbed, and the bad guys broke their back window to get in. See why I am freaked! Chris teased the officer telling him that they probably looked over the fence and thought that we had abandoned the house, cause our backyard is, let's just say...SCARY!!

Big jerks!!!!

GIRL'S CAMP

This year I had the privilege to go to Girl's Camp again! The theme was "We Believe". It was executed beautifully! The stake camp director staff did an amazing job! It was all about the believers! We did a believer walk. That is where each ward was in charge of a believer. They had to do a 3-5 min presentation on that believer. It was done very reverently. We walked around by ward, one at a time visiting and learning about the person. It was really neat.

I was the Stake Craft Assistant. Isn't Assistant such a wonderful word!! It was a lot of work, I have to say. But a blast to boot! (and I wasn't in charge! Loved it!) Not very fun pictures, but here are some...

We names ourselves the "Peony Sisters". There were 3 of us. Don't worry, we vinyled this onto the back of our stake shirts. Cool, I know! We thought we were so funny because we were making flower clips as one of our crafts, so we made ourselves these ENORMOUS peony flowers as our flower clips. Here is a picture of Sarah wearing my clip.

Of course we had to let all the girls know who we were!

Here are some of the finished ones I made (stole, I totally didn't make any!) to bring home!

We were the "Peony Sisters, your Creative Design Team"

We wore these necklaces every day with our t-shirts! We had to be "blinged out" somehow everyday!

here is one of them, I also have a super cute black and white one that I put away so well from my girls that now I can't find it! Heatherlea (the big craft boss) and her sister-in-law made them for us!

We made these fun rings for all the stake staff to wear so that they could be "blinged" as well!

They are made of sparkly fun foam.

We decorated the craft cabin with fun vinyl lettering and tissue paper balls!

Of course candy at every table!

Here are the flowers all laid out ready to be created!!
We bought just over 350 flowers. That was a fun trip!

Here are the girls making our other craft, binder clip photo holders. So cute!!

Finished project, that once again I did not make myself!

(wait, I did glue the paper on!)

Of course most of you know I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE girl's camp so I was so excited to be called! Of course our little "creative design team" were very loud, and probably irreverent at times, but we had a BLAST!! But of course were blamed for every prank that was pulled in the stake cabin, all done by the YCL leaders, I must say! Next year girls, next year!

SOoooooo.... I have been blog lazy lately, which goes without saying. We have done a TON this summer, so it will have to come to you in spurts, that is if you care to know.

Lets see.......

We sure did A LOTTTT of this.....

SWIMMING

We went swimming at our friend's house! They have a fun slide that KAYCIE loved!! But she is so tiny, she just flew down it!

And this would be Sarah...well being Sarah!

FUNNY! Love this!

Hey there Delilah (I’m at the MTC)
Hey there Delilah, what’s it like at BYU? I’m just a quarter mile away, but feel so far away from you, But that will do, Cuz two years from now I’ll be with you, I know that’s true. Hey there Delilah, don’t you worry about the distance, Few more months and I can call you both on Mother’s D ay and Christmas. Close your eyes, Then just think of suits and ties, But not other guys. Cuz, you said you’d wait for me, O, you said you’d wait for me, O, I’m at the MTC, O, I’m at the MTC, at the MTC. Now have some patience and don’t think of dating Conner, Cuz two more years you may be done with school, But I’ll return with honor. I can’t wait, Just two more years till our next date, It will be great. O when you told me I was the love of your life, And I just held you close and kissed you just like I’ll kiss my wife. We can goodbye, And I gave you my favorite tie, There’s no need to cry. Cuz, you said you’d wait for me, O, you said you’d wait for me, O, I’m at the MTC, O, I’m at the MTC, at the MTC. There were RMs who made fun of me and said you’ll never wait for me, To them I say ‘oh ye, of little faith.’ Cuz we’ve been dating for two months and I think that that’s long enough, To know someone enough to feel this way. I carry your picture with me and talk about you constantly, I’m driving my companion insane, And you’re to blame. Woke up this morning, checked the mail right at dawn, And just believe me girl how shocked I was to read those words, “Dear John, I think we’re through, I meet a guy better than you, Go ahead and cry if you want to, Sincerely Delilah, missing you, P.S. we’re through.” O, you didn’t wait for me, O, you didn’t wait for me, O, you didn’t wait for me, O, and I’m only at the MTC, at the MTC… ~Jason Cassel

Does anyone know a inexpensive but quality company or person who makes company t-shirts?

(you know silk-screened type)

Rachel's Field Trip to the Phoenix Zoo!!This was my little group! They were fun!

A closer look at the giraffes and zebras!

Got to love those squirrel monkeys!

Rachel and her friend Adysn playing playing with the camera!

Rachel's whole class!

We had a SUPER fun time! The weather was AWESOME! Thanks to Jamie for watching Sarah and Kaycie! I am glad I could go!

PINEWOOD DERBY!!

You've got to love it! Only one more to go! Yipeeee!! This is when I am glad to only have ONE boy! I know that Bryce loves it, but it is all a little too stressful for me!

Thanks to Grandpa and Great Uncle Mark for helping Bryce cut his car out!

Bryce's car is the one that is black with orange flames!!!

Setting it up....
Go Go Go....!!!

I had the privilege of being the one to release the cars and make the trophies. Okay my dad made them but I spray painted them and added the vinyl! Fun huh!

12 YEARS!

I failed to blog on time about our anniversary!

12 years old I married my complete opposite! The one who would rather stay home then go party. He always took me home at night if there was nothing to do, so that he could go to bed. The one who wouldn't go tee-pee-ing with us at midnight because he was sleeping. (can you tell sleep is very important) yet I fell in love anyway. How couldn't I! He is a peacemaker, calm, level headed treats me right and with respect and is an awesome father! Perfect for me! keeps me in line!



It was the golden one. The 12th on the 12th. Cool huh? Although the stinky part was it was Easter Sunday. Hard day to try and celebrate! We ended up celebrating the next weekend. My parents took the kids for the night and we took off to Outback. We thought we were going to pop, but headed to see a movie anyway! We are a little behind on movies, you know we only date 3 times a year..hee hee, anyway we saw Taken. I agree, it is a very good movie! the nice thing was that because my parents took the kids for the night, there was no rush coming home.



Next morning we had breakfast, got chores done around the house peacefully, then off to get the kiddos who were exhausted and sugared up, but hey, we'll take it! Thanks mom and dad!! Someday we will take off somewhere more exotic then our house, but hey, no worries!



Thanks for a great 12 years! buy the way, i got married really early, i promise! I am not that old! really..stop laughing...I was really young...uh huh....

KAYCIE IS 3!!!! are you kidding me? My baby turned 3 on Sunday! She is so much fun! I kept telling her it was my birthday and I kept singing "Happy Birthday to me" and "Today is my birthday shout Hooray!" She kept saying "No, it's my birthday!" Then she started singing "Happy Birthday, not mom, Happy Birthday, not mom" It was sooo funny!!

She has been busy, busy, busy since the day she was born. Guess she has to with 3 older siblings. She cracks us up everyday! We love you so much Kaycie!!!