Looking forward and back

It seems like May always a busy month! I am excited for Gavin and Mary's wedding, our family cruise, dance recitals... And great things happened the past couple of months too. My brother in law Casey received his mission call and he will be going to Florida! We're so excited for him! We had the Easter Bunny visit, General Conference, swimming with family and friends (brrr...a little cold), keeping busy with work, I think I forgot to post about the track meet we did at the end of February, Ivan bull riding, lots of playing at the park, etc.

Here are some pictures during those fun times!

We ran in the Grand Canyon State Games open track meet.
Our team took first in our 4 x 100 relay! And had a lot of fun training for it.
Ivan and his brothers/in- law ran too.

Looking nervous....but then excited!

All of us girls at Casey's opening of his mission call!

EASTER:
We had a great family breakfast at my mom and dads house with Natalie's family.
Then the kids went on an egg hunt!

Josie and Papa


One of the Mack family friends' dressed up as the Easter Bunny (hope Marlee doesn't read this)
And came over to visit the kids. Marlee was probably the least scared. The night before Easter, Marlee was praying that the the Sun will wake up and the Easter Bunny will come. She was ecstatic when she arrived (I think the Easter Bunny is a girl, right?)

Josie was a little scared, but Marlee was helping her feel better :)

At the park with Amanda and her kids.
The kids would stay in the swing all day if we let them.

Here is the cute, soon to be married cute couple! We are so excited to have Mary in the family!

Fun Filled February

Wow, February just flew right on by. I know it's the month with the least number of days in it but, I seriously can't believe it's March already! It is a crazy month for Birthday's for my side of the Family. Shawn, Mike, Ivan, Evie and my mom all have February birthday's. My sister's and their families came down for the birthday celebrations and so we were all able to hang out for a week or so. Ivan and I enjoyed a date night for his birthday. We went an saw a movie in a theater! We realized we hadn't done that in so long. We are use to getting a red box, putting the kids down and that is out typical date night. So it was a real treat to go and watch a movie on "the big screen!" I snapped a quick shot before we headed out the door...I think my huge, cheesy smile shows my true emotion of excitement to be KID FREE that night!

We attempted a "grand kids" photo but since five of the seven grand kids are two and younger, it wasn't as successful as we had hoped for. Here are a few photos from our photo shoot attempt! (The two older boys were very cooperative and would say, "Man, these babies sure cry a lot!")


Evie turned ONE!!! She enjoyed the biggest personal cupcake I have ever seen. (You will notice Marlee is in NONE of the pictures because she was so tired she slept through the whole party)


And... my mom turned 50! So we had a little birthday party for her. Let's just say we have way too much fun when we all get together and leave the kids with babysitters!!!

I apologize for all of the collages, but I had 300 photos from my camera for February and I just couldn't pick which ones to post :)

January in a nut shell

We decided to try and get Marlee off of her pacifier at the beginning of the month. One day Marlee wanted to go on the "alligator" which is an escalator... So we decided that girls who don't have a pacifier for a whole week will get to go the mall and go on the "alligator." This was quite the reward for Marlee. We never thought she would brake the habit, but she has been pacifier free for a month! While we were at the mall, we decided to go on the carousel, elevator, indoor playground and visit the pet store. Who knew you could have so much fun can be had at the mall?!
Josie turned ONE!!! And she's walking!! It's so much fun to watch Marlee and Josie play together. They feed off of each other and love to laugh and play dress up. (Marlee even enjoys dressing up her babies and stuffed animals.)


Ivan rode a couple of bulls last month and it's been fun to watch him. The girls enjoy watching and looking at the bulls and horses. He rode the first bull for the whole 8 seconds! I'm not great at photography and didn't get a good picture, but this was the best I got.

Well, that pretty much summed up our month of January. We are all healthy and enjoying life! Looking forward to some fun events this month! :)

Happy New Year--2010!

There are no pictures in this post because it is late and I am too tired to run out to my car to grab our camera, but since it's my blog and there are no rules to blogging, I guess I don't need a picture every time I make a new post. I am just excited for the new year and for the great chance to write goals down. I have a goal to blog once a month and I thought if I did it on every fast Sunday then I had a set day to blog each month. So it's the first fast Sunday of the year. We have so much fun with our little girls. Josie is starting to be a little character. She's in the stage where she thinks she's funny, she loves to dance to music and is such a happy little baby. Marlee is such a little talker. She is still working on being fully potty trained, just when I think she's got it down, she wets her pants. I am grateful for my health and strength. I am able to run at the track, play volleyball and be a mobile mom! Ivan is a hard worker and I miss having him work from home. I enjoy every minute we can all spend as a family. I'm excited to look through all of our pictures that we took over the holidays and upload them. So maybe my next post will include some pictures!-good night!