Friday, December 31, 2010

Natalee turns 12 or 16?

So Natalee got a phone for her birthday and she can text. The world must be perfect for her right now. What she doesn't know is that makes my heart rest a little easier too. I like to know that I can get a hold of her at anytime I want to. She is really excited and it is fun to watch her grow up. She only got 3 other little things because the phone will end up costing us. But she did not mind at all.

For her party we went to Fat Cat's with 14 girls. I was a little afraid but it turned out to be the best party we have ever had with that many kids. They are growing up and are pretty responsible young ladies. We had fun.


Here is the crew. They are all such cute girls and I am glad that Natalee has good friends.



Now if someone could remind Natalee that she is only 12 that would be great. She has always been a little older than her age but I am not ready for 16 at 12. Happy Birthday honey we love you so much and I could not imagine my life without you!!!!





Tuesday, November 23, 2010

First snow of the season

This was the first snow of the season and it was a big one. We woke up to no power and over a foot of snow on the ground. There is another storm that is hanging around right now as we speak. Here is Carson working on his igloo. It looked really good but the sun came out the next day and made it slump in a little bit.
Here is Natalee on the other side of the drive way. She was begging Matt to help move snow over to help her with her fort.

Here Matt is with a shovel. Don't let that fool you he didn't help with the drive way he only helped Natalee move the snow to where she needed it.


They had a great time and could not wait to get out there. The trees in our neighborhood did not fair too well. About every third house had broken tree limbs. Some of the trees were split in half.



But the kids don't care about the cold or the broken trees they just love to play in the snow. I would really love to be in Florida right now.




Monday, November 1, 2010

Halloween Fun

We had so much fun this Halloween that I forgot my camera every time. Here are a few of the pictures that I did manage to get. Here is Natalee and her friend Whitney at their piano recital. It was Natalee's first one and she did great. She played "A Whole New World" and "Joyful Bells" You would have never known that she had only been taking for 9 months.
Here she is with her paino teacher. She is such a nice lady and has the kids dress up in their Halloween costumes to help take some of the nerves away.

She was awesome and we had to go and celebrate with the Grandparents at Cold Stone after. What a fun night. I am very proud of everything that Natalee has done.


Here are the kids right before Trick or Treating. This wasn't the best picture but everything about that night was rushed.



They carved their pumpkins to be Jack the Pumpkin King and Oogie Boogie. Can you guess who carved the one that looks like a deer? Natalee was a Haunted House Maid and Carson was Major Bruiser. They both looked really cute.




Thursday, September 23, 2010

Family Reunion Fun

Here is most of the gang up at Silver Lake which was right outside our front door. Here are the kids climbing all over the rocks up there. It really was pretty.
Natalee took this picture of us in the great outdoors. Matt was so happy to be up there.


Here are Grandma & Grandpa with all of the grandkids. It was so much fun for all the kids to run around together all weekend.



Here is my Dad after the hike where we hauled all 19 of us up the mountain to this lake. If you ask me and some of my other siblings this lake looked alot like the one that was at the begining of the hike :)




Here is my daughter and I. I like to document the fact that I am still taller than her because I know that won't last for long.





Here are the kids up in the toy loft. This place was amazing and I wish I would have taken a picture of the bunk room.




We just went up to Brighton for a family reunion with my family. We had a great time and my Dad and Mom found us a mansion to stay in. We loved just hanging out with no schedule. We had a fun family photo shoot. It was an all around GREAT time.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Fun at Cherry Hills

We went to Cherry Hill's again this year. We love to go there and play. We stayed at the Roundy Ranch and the accommodations were amazing and the breakfast in the morning could not be beat. Thanks Roundy family!!! This was on the miniature golf course. We love to play but we do not like to keep score.
The kids took this wonderful picture of us. It really is a pretty place.

Here are the kids with their cousins. We went to play with them and the Hamster Haven was being repaired. So we got ice cream and headed down to watch the kids hit balls.


Natalee did really well at it. She hit those balls just as good as the guys did.



Here is Matt in action. He doesn't like to admit that he is getting older so he has to show up the kids every once in awhile.




Here is the baseball kid himself. He is getting ready to start a fall league for baseball and wanted to keep up on his mad skills.





This is the next day and this ride is called Cardiac. We went down this one so many times. The kids love it and we had a good time too.






The trick is to hold on to the other tube for as long as you can.







Here the kids are in the lazy river. That was one of my favorite rides in the park. Because we just hung out in tubes and talked. It was great we can't wait to do it again next year.








Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Cruisin

We went on a seven night cruise to Mexico. We had a great time. We got to do lots of things together as a family. We love to vacation because we don't have to take any phone calls or be to anything. With Matt's new calling it could not have come at a better time. Here we are all geared up to climb the rock wall. We all made it to the top, some a little faster than others.

Here are the kids in Mazatlan on the body boards. They had so much fun doing that. We also had the best fresh salsa EVER there.
Here we are with some of the locals. If you look closely the one that Matt is holding has a little hat on. We had to have a picture of them.


Here we are playing Miniature golf on the ship. It was a little windy and if the boat rocks just right you can get a hole in one. Just ask Carson.



Here we are in Cabo and that is our ship in the background. The weather was wonderful and we enjoyed our time on the beach.




If you like Mexican food you need to head on over there. We were not disappointed with any of the places that we ate while we were at port.





Here we are in the dining room on formal night. Natalee was so happy to get lobster and she also enjoyed the escargot and shrimp cocktails. The food on a cruise ship is right up her alley.






Here are the kids on our balcony. We have never had a balcony room before but it was great. We saw hundreds of dolphins, sharks, flying fish and even a whale.







Tuesday, June 22, 2010

California Fun

We spent a week in Newport Beach with some of my family. We stayed in a beach house that was beautiful. We walked out the front door and our feet hit the sand. My 2 cousins have kids also and our kids had a ball together. It was such a great week. Thanks to all that we shared it with. We went to Medieval Times for the dinner show and the kids cheered hard for our blue knight. We had a great dinner that we had to eat with our hands. Here are all the kids together.

It is nice to travel with other people so that you can have a picture of your whole family too!


We also went deep sea fishing. There were a lot of fish being caught on the boat and only one sickness from our party. We all had a great time.



There is Natalee's long fish, but it was not fat enough to keep. But it was a beauty.




Here is Carson's prize winning fish. I don't know why but they made us throw that one back too. My uncle cooked the ones up that we were able to keep and that was some seriously good fish.





One guy caught this starfish and then let the kids all take pictures with it. They loved it.






This guy was right out front of Disneyland and this is the team that Carson played for in Baseball. He thought that was pretty cool.







Here is 10 of the 14 people we were with at Disneyland. We had a great time.








After 16 days on the road Matt was missing work so we stopped by the Post Office in Toon Town.









This was at the Discovery Science Center in California. Who wouldn't want a picture of their kids in a nostril?










Here is Natalee and Hailee on the beach in Newport. They played with all this wonderful ocean stuff. The beach was a little piece of heaven.











Here we are at Lego Land. We didn't even get through half of it in one day. The kids loved every minute of it.












We went on this ride over 4 times in a row. It was hilarious. You had to pump the truck back and forth and then get to the water pumps and jump out and pump those also until you put the fire out. Then you jumped back in and pumped it back to the beginning. There were major bets on the winners of each round.