Preschool Carnival

This is the first year that Jake's preschool has done an end of the year carnival. The kids loved it! They had so many fun games - fishing, bowling, bean bag toss, hidden treasure, and the duck pond. I think Jake's favorite game was fishing (probably because I was volunteering at that booth).They also had a ton of other activities going on everywhere. Some of the other booths were hair painting, cookie decorating, cake walk, and face painting.

Jake loved getting the snake painted up his arm. He thought he was so cool and he couldn't wait to go home and show everyone his green hair.
I think the carnival was a huge success and I am very thankful that two of my good friends headed it up. Without them we would not have had the carnival so thanks...Nikki and Sara!

Next year I might have to limit what Jake eats. So in about an hour and a half Jake had 2 snow cones, a bag of popcorn, cotton candy, cookie, and a cupcake. Talk about a total sugar rush he came home and crashed on the couch completely zonked out.

Wizards Club

Tyler was very excited to be one of the first kids in his class to make it into the Wizards Club. To make it into the club you have to know all of the kindergarten sight words. Once you have passed off all the sight words you are given all of the first grade sight words to learn and pass. Tyler loves reading and asks to read me books every night. I am so thankful that he has a love for reading and school. It looks like he is following in his older brother and sisters footsteps.

Ben gets his Masters

Mike and I were lucky enough to see my brother Ben's Graduation Saturday. I am so proud of him. He has put in countless hours and sacrificed a lot for this degree. I remember all to well what a balancing act is was for Mike when he got his Masters Degree. Full time work, wife, church, and trying to somehow have a social life...its crazy!

My parents along with his wife Esther were definitely Bens biggest support group. We all knew he could do it, and that whether he wanted to believe it or not it would fly by.
In attendance: Uncle Bill, Aunt Melanie, Dad, Mom, Mike, and I...of course Esther.Ben receiving his diploma.

Masters of Business Administration
What a huge Accomplishment!
Great Job Ben!

Mothers Day

Mothers Day was awesome thanks to my wonderful kids and husband. The best gift had to have been sleeping in. As most of you know I'm not the best morning person and as most Moms sleeping in is out of the question. So being able to sleep in until 10am was amazing. I was woken up by all of my kids jumping on me to give me lots of hugs and kisses...now that's worth waking up for. Mike and the kids made me breakfast in bed. A yummy omelet and diet coke just my style, and Brooke went out to the garden and picked a flower to put on my plate. After breakfast all of my wonderful kids gave me cards they had made. I love homemade cards they are always so thoughtful and genuine. Mike made my day so nice. Beautiful flowers, awesome meals, and taking care of whatever the kids needed...Thanks babe!

Sometimes well most of the time I look at my children and become so overwhelmed with gratitude for each one of them. I am living my dream. Ever since I was a young girl I knew that all I wanted was to be a Mom. Not only did I become a Mom, but I get to be the Mom to the worlds best kids. My kids are the light of my life and they are truly a blessing to me.

I know that my early thoughts of wanting to be a Mom all came from my mother. Talk about perfect I am pretty sure I can live all my life and still not measure up to her. That is OK because now my kids have a perfect Grandma and a Mom who is still trying to learn everything she can from the best. There has never been a time when I needed her that she didn't come running to my side. Even when I didn't tell her I was having a problem or was upset some how she always knew and was there to comfort me. I Love you Mom!



Brooke is
definitely a
Grandmas girl






She can't
smile much bigger
than that



There is now another wonderful Mother that I get to learn and grow from. My Mother-in-law is also fantastic. I appreciate everything she does for me and my family. It is comforting to know that we are always in her thoughts and prayers. I guess being a mother never really ends as your kids get older and have families of their own that is just more people to love and care for. I am grateful for you, and for your love and kindness you have always shown to me...Love you!

I count my blessings daily for the great examples that surround me.

Boys Campout = Girls Night

Mike took the boys to the annual Father and Sons camp out. They look forward to this every year. One of Mikes rules is that the boys have to be potty trained before they can come. So this was Jakes first time going with all of the boys and was he ever excited.
Ever since I told Jake that he was going to go camping with just the boys, he some how thought he was going to climb a mountain with Dad. As they were leaving I told Mike before they come home that he had to find some sort of hill to climb up and tell Jake they were climbing up the mountain. All of the boys had a great time and already can't wait until next year.

Girls Sleepover
Well of course I didn't think it was fare for the boys to have all the fun...so I made a few phone calls and got most of the girls in the family together. Wendy tried to get a hold of Janna, but I don't think we gave her enough time to make arrangements to come down. We definitely missed her and Sammie. Tera offered her house for the party as usual she is the greatest host. Wendy came down from Bakersfield with Susie and Kate. She is always so good about making an effort to drive out to see us. Not only did she make the drive, but she also brought her rock star stuff to do our toes (thanks). Mom met us for dinner at the Claim Jumper where we all enjoyed silly girls and a great meal. After dinner we went back to Tera's house where Esther met up with us. The night was off to a great start in my opinion as the Lakers won. The girls trying to waste a little time (for the Laker game to end) decided to go night swimming. They loved it and said the water was really warm. Then we all snuggled up to watch a chick flick with chocolate cake and popcorn. The girls went to bed around midnight while my sisters and I stayed up way too late I think we finally turned in around 3 or 4 in the morning. I truly enjoyed hanging out with my sisters...my best friends.
All of the girls had such a fun time together. I think they thought it was rather relaxing without all of the boys. They enjoyed some individual time with their Moms and Grandma.

What a cute bunch of girls!

Fun in the Sun

It has been very warm here the past few days. So I had the perfect idea...one great big water balloon toss/fight.
So I thought this was a great idea until I realized the kids were having a hard time tying the balloons. I ended up doing the tying until my fingers were raw. I think the kids counted 70 balloons. I thought wow that's a lot of balloons and should last the kids a long time...that is until the tossing turned into throwing :)As soon as the balloons were being thrown I think it turned into boys against girl. Brooke held her own and they all had a great time. Unfortunately it only lasted about 5 minutes. I guess next time I might enlist the help of Mike to do the tying. Then we could get twice as many done.

I love that summer is just around the corner. Lots of warm days to play outside and get wet.

Track Meet

(thanks Nikki for the pictures...I can't believe I forgot my camera)

Well Saturday was our first experience with one of our kids participating in a track meet. Once a year in our school district the Rotary Club sponsors a big track meet between all the schools from grades 4-7. So Brooke's teacher was the coach and he placed the kids at her school into their selective groups. At the time he only thought it was between the 4th and 5th graders. With that being said he thought that Brooke should be placed in the highest group not knowing she would be competing against 6th and 7th graders.

Luckily Brooke was up for the challenge and she didn't have really any expectations. This was her first time ever running track and they only had 2 one hour practices. She decided to try the long jump. It was a lot of fun watching her try to figure it out. After the 3 jumps she was happy to make it in the middle of the pack. Next she ran the 50 yard dash...you should have seen her she looked like such a baby. The girls she raced against were ALL as tall as me...crazy. She was awesome though she made it to the finals and then came in third overall. I was so proud of her she held her own. I probably would have been too intimidated to even try. Her last race was the 800 or the half mile. I though that this would be Brookes best race. Any kind of distance is right up her alley. She ran 3 miles the other day and I don't even think she broke a sweat. Anyway she ran an incredible race and took first place by at least a quarter lap. Most of you that know Brooke know that she is really shy and doesn't necessarily like to be the center of attention. It was so fun to see her cute dimples shining through as she came across the finish line as her entire school was chanting her name (she was so embarrassed) and I was so proud of her. Our school had a couple of relay teams and one of the girls didn't show up. So the girls on the relay team were scrounging around to find someone to replace her. They finally found a girl. but she only had flip flops on. Brooke was nice enough to let her borrow her shoes so the girls would still be able to race. 10 minutes later a girl from the second relay team got sick so they were frantically trying to find someone to replace her. So they begged Brooke to be their anchor and of course she said yes. One little problem now she didn't have any shoes...so off went my shoes and I quickly put them on Brooke tied them really tight so they wouldn't fall off and they left to line up for the race. Pour Brooke was wearing shoes that were 2 to3 sizes to big and had never even practiced doing a relay. She was a good sport and they came in fourth place not bad seeing how first and second were taken by the Junior Highs.

All in all it was a very fun day. However it reminded me why my kids don't run track. Brooke and I got to the field at 8am and we didn't get home until 6pm. It was a very long 10 hour day we were both exhausted, but very left happy.

Spring Gardening

We only had one basketball game on Saturday which is very rare. We got home and had the whole day in front of us...whatever will we do. My thoughts were a nice afternoon nap, but as you can see Mike had other plans. We have been meaning to get our garden replanted so off we went and what a beautiful day to start. Our backyard is constantly growing with just about everything. Lets see if I can remember it all...I will start with the trees - Orange, Lemon, Lime, Peach, Banana, Mango, and Avocado. Next in our garden we are planting - lots of tomatoes, cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, onion, zucchini, and blackberries. Lastly we enjoy having a colorful backyard so some of the plants we planted are - gardenias, hibiscus, bougainvillea, bamboo, and geraniums. This awesome mix of vegetation is mostly due to Mike. Working in the backyard is very relaxing to him and as you can see he's out there a lot to keep up with everything. I'm still trying to find my green thumb and still hoping his will rub off on me.
All of the kids are always great helpers. They love to spend time out side with Mike and I doing just about anything. Sometimes they get side tracked and lose focus on what their working on. Somehow that big green ball was calling their name to play with it.
Lucky for us Ben and Esther stopped by and joined in the fun. We always welcome their visits the kids absolutely adore both of them.

Now just think what we could accomplish if we had every Saturday open...haha

School Nurse

Spencer came home from school with this note from the school nurse...
"This is to inform you that Spencer Seay was given first aid for an abrasion to his left ribs. He hit a Grand Slam during PE and slid into home plate. A player from the other team slid into to try and get him out, but he was safe. I washed the area and applied a band aid."

As soon as I read this I was picturing Spencer telling the nurse about what happened not leaving out a single detail. He was so proud of his hit.

I think I smiled for hours after that...loved it.

Academy Awards

Every 4 or 5 years our ward puts on a huge ward activity "The Academy Awards." This year we made 3 movies and split the youth into 3 groups. It was the Beehives/Deacons, Miamaids/Teachers, and the Laurels/Priests. Of course I was one of the leaders that was in charge of the youngest groups the Beehives and the Deacons. We only have 3 beehives but we are definitely not short handed with the boys they have about 15 deacons. So needless to say I was pretty intimidated trying to make a movie being so out numbered. Luckily we have 2 great YM leaders who took control. We spent about 5 weeks coming up with an idea, writing the script, and then filming. I was very pleasantly surprised out how well our little movie turned out the kids did a great job.

So last night was the BIG night. All the movies were judged by the activities committee and were given various awards. We had members of the ward who looked similar to movie stars dress up and they were the presenters of the awards. Everyone that came was to be dressed in their finest clothes. I was amazed at how much everyone took that to heart. Some of the women wore full formals, feathers, hats, boas, ect. and the men were all in suits or tuxes. The youth looked great many of the girls wore prom dresses and they all made a grand red carpet entrance. As they walked down the red carpet they were followed by the spotlight and the paparazzi. It was a very fun and exciting night.Jake and his friend Kai...so darn cute!