Riley turns 8!!

At the end of March, Riley turned 8 years old. I can't believe my kids are growing up so fast!! He got to have a party with friends. We went to the park and the kids had an Easter Egg hunt, and played a little golf (it was a little hard to hit the ball with long grass), and some baseball. They ate pizza and had cupcakes. Riley seemed to have a great time. I forgot to bring my camera so I didn't have it until the end when Stefan brought it to me.




We had to light the cupcake in the box because the wind was so strong and kept blowing the candles out. I was just hoping that the flames weren't going to catch the whole box on fire.

The boys all seemed to have a good time!




The next day, on his birthday, we had to run some errands. We wanted to get Riley a Cub Scout shirt for his birthday so we had to go up to north Mesa to the Scout Shop to get what he needed. We tried to make it seem like this was a fun trip for him, even though we realized that why we were way up in that part of Mesa that there were several stores that we needed to go to. Luckily there was the Bass Pro Shop right there so Stefan took the kids in there so they could see the fish and other neat things in there. Riley also got to practice shooting a gun - a fake one at their shooting range. He thought that was a lot of fun. Then we went to Chik-fil-a for lunch. We chose a place to eat that had a play area for the kids so Riley would think this trip was all for him. :)
That evening we had foil dinners and roasted marshmallows. I put 8 candles in a marshmallow for him to blow out.






We are so grateful to have Riley in our family. He brings a lot of joy to us, and I love his smile and laugh. He is a good worker too!

*I wanted to post a baby picture on here, but I don't have one on my computer since I didn't have a digital camera when he was a baby, and we don't have a scanner.

A Trip to the Tucson Zoo

Over Spring Break I took the kids down to the Tucson Zoo. I personally like the Tucson Zoo way better than the Phoenix Zoo. You can get so much closer to the animals, you don't have so much walking to do, it is way cheaper, and they have a polar bear too. My sisters-in-law came too with their kids. We had a good time, even though it was pretty crowded, and a little on the warm side.











I know it's hard to see what this is a picture, but this is a little monkey. This monkey was so cute, but for some reason it seemed like it did not want it's picture taken. I was trying to make noises to get the monkey to look at me, but it would not look. One time I had my camera aimed and ready to snap the picture, and the monkey looked really quick, and it seemed like when he saw the camera he quickly turned away. I don't know if the monkey was that smart, but it sure seemed like it. I thought it was funny!





The whole crew!


Garrett being silly - I don't remember what why he was doing that.

WAY BEHIND!!

Ok, for those of you who haven't noticed, I am way behind on my blogging. It would take me forever to catch up (or at least a few weeks), but I really want to blog about some things that have happened just recently. So, I am going to skip ahead and blog the things that have recently happened. Then, hopefully I will get back to things that happened a while back ago. These are the things I hope to blog about in the near future.
- A day trip to Sedona
- A fun family dinner
- Halloween
- Carson's 5th Birthday
- Christmas

There may be a few more things that I forgot about. Hopefully in the next couple of days you will see new postings of the the recent happenings in our lives.

Ward Campout

At the end of August we had our ward campout. I was really looking forward to it because I enjoy camping, and we also got a new tent so I was excited to use it.

We went up on Thursday, and got there late at night. It wasn't very fun trying to set up camp in the dark. We squeezed all the kids on a queen size air mattress. It seems that my kids don't move around much in their sleep which was good. They all slept really well.



It was really nice on Friday to sit around, relax, and visit with friends. The kids had a lot of fun playing. They had a big tire swing that the kids loved to play on.






That night we roasted marshmallows. Carson was so excited to have s'mores. I guess that the day had been too exhausting for him. He just couldn't stay awake. We tried waking him up by shaking him, and even by putting a roasted marshmallow to his mouth, but nothing worked.

It looks like his head is resting on Stefan's leg, but if I am remembering right it wasn't.





On Saturday Keslie and Riley played tug-of-war and egg toss.






There was a tree close by that had fallen down and Carson liked walking on it. The tree was big!




The bad thing with not blogging something soon after the event happened is that you, I mean that I forget some of the details. Anyways, Garrett got into something and put it in his hair. I don't know if it was bug spray, lotion, or hair spray, but it was something like that.




We had a really good time, and I can't wait to go camping again.

New Postings will be coming soon - I hope!

I can't believe that I have gone this long without posting anything. I think, or I know that I got caught up in the Facebook Frenzy, but I don't think I am the only one. :) The holiday times are always busy, and even after they passed things did not slow down. I am hoping that after today that life will slow down a litte, and that I can spend some time working on my blog. If nobody sees any new postings in a week, you need to check on me. :)

I'm a slacker

Ok, so I am way behind in my blogging. I don't know why I have lost motivation to keep it up, or is it because I have been busy? No, I think I could've found some time to update it. Do other people get in this rut? I will try really hard to get something new up for those that are still interested in knowing what we have been doing. :)

Carson starts preschool

I am a little slow for this posting, but 2 weeks ago Carson started preschool. He was so excited!! I think the most exciting thing for him was getting a backpack. Once he got it he was already wanting to put things in it, and was showing it to everyone. He seems to be enjoying preschool so far.

Here is a picture of him on his first day.



Garrett wanted to be in the picture too.



Of course, Carson had to have a picture of him making a silly face (and Garrett too).