Mother's Day

Mother's Day 2019

 I sure love these babies of mine! Each one has blessed my life so tremendously! I love being a mom even with all the sacrifice and tears. Each kid has taught me something and made me a better mom. I am so grateful that God has trusted me with these sweet angel babies. I hope I am doing a good enough job that they turn out to be wonderful men and women with strong testimonies of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Lukas I love you so much. You are so funny and take after your dad so much . You love computers and gaming. You are happiest playing with your dad. I love your love of reading and love finding you with books. You have grown to be such a fine young man. I am very proud of you. Thank you for being the one who made me a  momma first and helping me stretch my wings. Lukas, I love you.

My sweet Kynzee girl. I love you so much. You are the sweetest and most loving little lady I know. You genuinely care about others and have such a strong testimony. I love your desire to serve God and finish your personal progress. You are so talented too. You are a very good gymnast and I love watching you. You are so beautiful inside and out. Thanks for being my friend. MaKynzee Ann I love you.

Bowen, my boy with spirit. You try me and stretch me but I love you more. You are the sweetest and I love your cuddles and hugs. I love your sweet smile and your desire to help. You have such passion for life and I hope you direct that into a positive light. Be kind and love others, stay sweet. Bowen, I love you.

Keelee my sweet baby girl. The last and most fierce. I love your sweet personality and the love you have for your siblings. You are so smart and want to learn. You are such a happy person and I hope you continue to be a light to all the world. Continue to dream and play your heart out! Keelee, I love you.

EPIC Pinewood Derby 2019

The Pinewood Derby starts long before the race. Here the boys are putting the finishing touches on the car.

 At weigh in your car could only be 141.7g. We were a little heavy so we drilled some weight off.

 We won for the PERFECT weight! Right on the money!

 The day of the race was so exciting. Bowen was really excited and couldn't wait. Here dad and Bowen are adding the graphite to the wheels. We are hoping for a winner!

The line up! Lookin' good!

Let the races begin! Bowen was in the very first heat...

 He took first, the smile says it all!

He continued to race and took 2nd the rest of the Wolf heats.

2nd PLACE

Dad was super proud and Bowen was over the moon!

A Puppy love and is it spring???

This week was sure a busy one. We started out Sunday with Come Follow Me after church and studying as a family. We love the new curriculum. Then mom taught MaKynzee how to iron and sew-patching holes and such to work on personal progress.

 She's beautiful!

This last week was National Puppy Day and so I wanted to throw in just how much I love my puppy dog. Mr Bones is such a delight and truly good therapy for me. I love how upside down it looks like he is smiling.

 We are FINALLY starting to see the lawn. The snow has slowly been melting and Keelee was determined to play in the snow all week. She was getting bummed that her "crystals" were melting and were gone the next day. We had another snow storm roll in Thursday night and snow all day Friday which led Lukas and Keelee to build a snow man.

 Keelee and her "crystal".

 Lukas and Keelee building their snowman. It was the perfect kind of snow for it.

Other news: Lukas started golf with the middle school this week and we are super excited about this opportunity for him. Hopefully he has fun!

Miss MaKynzee's Weekend

Last weekend was all about MaKynzee. We traveled as a family to Sheridan, Wyoming (pretty much Montana) for State Gymnastics. MaKynzee has done really good this year in gymnastics and qualified for state in the one meet she was able to go to. She really should have done like 3 but with moving and death in the family we one got one in. She is really good and getting better all the time.

This is her team, Rock Springs Gymnastics!

MaKynzee did really well. It wasn't her day on the beam. She fell off twice and got really discouraged it was her first event. I was really worried. She did the floor next and she did really well coming back from the beam great! Then she did the vault. I was so very proud of her! We were all so impressed.

Getting ready for the vault...

 MaKynzee's last event was bars. And she nailed it!

Her score...

She ended up placing 2nd in bars! I was speechless and so impressed! She did awesome for her first time ever at state! She also took 9th place on vault and 8th place on floor.

 It was a great weekend with our decorated little lucky lady!

The next day we drove home and it was MaKynzee's birthday. Although it was boring we made the most of it and was able to stop at her favorite Dairy Queen for lunch and she got a blizzard. When we got home we had her favorites and opened presents. She was spoiled rotten and definitely deserved. She had her favorite cheese cake and drumsticks and ranch pasta.

Bringing Back Blogging

So as a recent development...i.e. a family directory I was asked to put the family blog down if I had one and since I have not posted in the last....well forever I decided I really needed to update and keep this update as eventually I would love to turn all these posts into some sort of journal. So here I go with a little update on each person...

Spencer is slaving away at a job that he LOVES! (sucha blessing to do something you love!) He has been with the school district 3 years and loving every minute. He is being a "Sponsor" i.e. adult leader for the East high school ROTC division with Cyber Patriot. He teaches them about servers and cyber security. He loves the challenge and this year there are no returning peeps, so he is in for some hard, smack the forehead, days. He is serving as the Executive Secretary in our ward but that changes Sunday...

Brandee is having to deal with the daily challenges of keeping a house of 6 afloat and enjoying the world of Labor and Delivery. I love the challenge it brings. I love being at home but I love my "mommy" time as a nurse too. With Keelee turning one we are going to be taking a hard look at my health and the appropriate action to get checked out. Right now I am in good spirits and finding a balance with my meds so that is good. I just recently got called to serve as the Primary President in our ward. It comes with so many blessings and as my sister said I "belong" in Primary.

Lukas keeps us on our toes. The kid is a brainiac! He loves to read and I can't find a book he hasn't been able to bust in 3 days. He loves learning through reading and can't wait for this years science fair. He is certainly more active than in the past as he is in flag football with the school, rec. soccer, and has joined orchestra playing the bass...yes it is bigger than him but we love to watch him play. He loves it because it is the biggest thing and it has such a low sound. He is also very active in our cub scouts and is already half way through his Webelos.

MaKynzee is our pretty princess with a slight clutz disclaimer, She recently got as excited about books as the rest of us and loves reading about ponies and princesses. She still loves imagination play and dress ups. She is an author like her Aunt Melanie and hoards papers every where. She is such a big helper and everyone in the family begs for her attention and she so graciously allows us in her presence. I have tried really hard to instill that she is a Princess and a daughter of a King and she lives it!

Bowen is Mr. Minion/ Tazmanian Devil. People ask me all the time if he ever stops moving and the answer is NO! I think the kid runs in his sleep. the best thing about Bowen is he is almost always happy. He definantley has a Mr Grumpy face every now and then but he loves to give kisses and cheer everyone up!  He started preschool this year through the school district and I am happy to report he LOVES it, I LOVE it.

Keelee is our little porcelain doll.She turned ONE today. I can't believe she is here. She came in a dream almost 9 years ago and now she has completed our family. She has the cutest 8 tooth grin. I totally love her little personality. She does perfectly fine as long as she can see us. If we leave a room she gets fussy but when we come back she stops. She walks along walls, chairs, couches and coffee table but hasn't taken that first step yet. i am trying to soak up every ounce of baby hood. She is such a joy and we love that her blue eyes stayed!

Kindergarten Field Trip with Miss MaKynzee

OK so in the fall I went with Lukas to the Denver Aquarium and MaKynzee was heart broken she didn't get to go and made me "pinky promise" I would go to her on her big field trip. As it turned out it wasn't till the end of the year but it was SUPER FUN!

MaKynzee and mommy at the Rhinos

Bears OH MY!

WOW doesn't she look like a model! GEEEEEEE

This chimp and it's baby were playing hide and seek. It was so cool and MaKynzee loved shouting "run" to the baby. It was really sweet!

Eating lunch with my favorite girl! Are those Cheeto lips??

MaKynzee at the hippo statue

MaKynzee at her favortie spot. We ended up at the hippo 5 times and every time we picked a new animal to see she would ask if we would go by the hippo again. So mommy helped make it happen. The hippo is in the mud hole here but we also got to see it in the watering hole and blow a huge spray of water up and call out. It was AWESOME!

Miss MaKynzee was in charge of course! My little map reader!

We loved watching the giraffe eat. It was soooo tall!

This was taken shortly after a DOWN POUR! We had to run to the gift shop and get an umbrella...thing was we were not going to let rain stop us, as soon as we had the umbrella we were out runnin' in the rain!

MaKynzee loved the Lion "cubs", there are 3 that are just over a year old. Do they look like cubs to you??? 

The 3 Princess Musketeers 

That is what they call each other. Too cute eh?

Jorieauna (left), MaKynzee, Kiley (right)

I love these girls! 

Rain or shine we had a WONDERFUL day at the zoo! It was awesome and thanks to the rain MaKynzee got a umbrella so that was HER favorite part!