Shooting some Guns

I didn't do Easter baskets this year because our California trip was their Easter but I did get my kids a bag each of their favorite candies. Rylee and Avynlea dyed Easter eggs and I managed to only get a picture of Rylee with one of her eggs, Mom fail. Later that night I let Rylee practice doing a french braid on my hair and thought with some instruction that she did a really great job!

The next Saturday was Emmett's Youth Appreciation Day. Avynlea had some of her friends stay the night and go wth us to the event, but not before doing braids in their hair. They all wanted me to braid their hair and I was happy to oblige.

Avynlea, Sadie and Rose 

Rapunzel was spotted walking around the event and Kefford talked Ryker into going over and getting  a picture with her. Kefford wanted him to put his arm around her waist but he refused, getting in the picture was about all he could handle.

One night Rylee wanted to sleep in our bed with me, she asked Kefford if that was OK and he was super nice and slept on the couch so she could have some Mommy and me time.

For Family Home Evening I made a picnic dinner and we loaded up the kids, guns, bullets and the bow and arrow and went out for a little target practice.

Rylee was first up with the bow and arrow and watching her facial expressions are my favorite thing ever!

I was impressed with how well Avynlea handled the gun. She was a little bit of a pro!

I took a turn and then Kefford showed us all how it was done!

We all took turns shooting at the water bottles Kefford had set up and we all managed to hit them, it was a fun time with my family and I am happy for warmer weather so that we can get out and do more things together.

Dance Pictures

Picture week at the dance studio is my favorite week! I love how excited the girls are to get into their costumes and to see them all fancy and made up is so much fun! While it is a lot of fun it is also a lot of hard work trying together the girls posed and smiling for the camera. Group shots are the toughest because you have to get a whole bunch of littles smiling at the same time and looking at the same place, hard work, but still really fun. 

I was able to get shots of the girls after I had them posed and I love seeing all of their fun personalities!

Disco Hippo and Twinkle Twinkle

Picture on left

Back Row:Desi, Lily, Aida, Morgan and Ady
Front Row:Sadie, Eva, Lucy and Brynlee

Twinkle Twinkle and I'll Do Anything For You

Top picture

Back Row: LeeAnna, Paisley, Sofi, Juliette, Hannah, Annie

Front Row: Madison, Dottie, Reagan, Rylee and Sara

Flowers and When Can We Do This Again

Top Picture

Back Row: Kaya, Abigail, Savanna

Front Row: Rimi, Sophia, Amelia, Kylie and Ashtyn (missing Taytum)

Oysters and Stompy The Bear 

Back Row: Roen, Ellie, Aden, Kya, Eden Haley Bateman

Front Row: Colby, Kate, Etta, Eleanor and Gueneviere (missing Lennox)

Because i have two Eden's in this class I will usually call them by their first and last name. When I do this Eden Bateman would always correct me by saying her name is Eden HALEY Bateman, cracked me up every time

The last two classes were on friday night and Kate's Mom was watching me handle the kids and do what I do admit all the craziness and decided I needed something to relax with at home. After pictures were done little Kate told me I couldn't leave because her Dad was bringing me a present. When he arrived he handed me a box with a slice of chocolate cake in it and a bottle of wine and told me I deserved it and now should go home and relax. I died, I didn't know what to do with that bottle of wine and stressed about it all weekend while simultaneously laughing my head off about it. I finally decided to regift it to my dance boss Melissa which she appreciated! The cake was really good though and I truly appreciated the kind gesture.

Disney 2019

California Road Trip

Kefford and I are going on an Alaskan cruise the first week of August with some of my family. He is also the Young Men's president and will be going to scout camp the second week in July. Because of these two trips he didn't think he could take any more time off this summer and so we are not going to be able to go to California this year for our annual Lutes beach trip. We wanted to do something fun with the kids to make up for not going so we decided to do a Disney trip the week Kenedy was between semesters at school. We left on April 13th and drove down to California where we stayed with my Mom and then went to Disneyland on the 15th and California Adventure on the 16th. We then drove back home on the 17th. It was a really quick trip because I did not want the other three kids to miss too much school, as it was they were missing 3 days and I tried not to let that stress me out. We had a lot of fun and made the most of the trip. I took so many pictures that I stressed about how to condense them to fit in my blog. I decided to make a separate book for our Disney trip and will just include a few highlights from our Disney days on this blog and focus mainly on the small amount of time we had with my family here. :)

Usually we are really crowded in when we drive to California because we have all of our beach stuff with us. Since we didn't have the extra stuff this year the kids were able to spread out a little more which was really nice. 

The highlight of our time at Mom's house was all the Cousin time, the kids were especially excited to meet and love on Baby Atticus. He has the cutest little squishy face and we all loved holding him and made the most of our time with him. 

Avynlea took my phone and did a little phot shoot with herself. She is a beautiful girl and took some really cute pictures!

Atticus and his Dad Andrew Brown napping was such a cute sight that Rylee had me take a picture of them.

It was good for Rylee and Jaylynn to spend some time together. They got out my Mom's box of Barbies and enjoyed the sunshine and warm weather out in her backyard.

And the terror teens got to enjoy their catch up and visitation time. I absolutely love seeing the close relationships my kids have developed with their Cousins. I love that they are best friends and are able to stay close in each others lives despite the distance. 

Kefford is so good with babies and kids and I love seeing him holding and interacting with the little ones.

We had a great time at my Mom's house and I am so glad that Ashleigh and her family made the time to spend the day with us as well as Jeremy's kids and Stephanie's. It was a good day!

Playing with Caleb

On Tuesday Michelle dropped her boys off so she could go to the Temple and do a session. I found out the night before that Ryker didn't have school on Tuesday which made me happy that he would be around to help with the boys. 

He was so good to play with Caleb and keep him entertained while I held Garrett.

 Monday night I made homemade macaroni and cheese and I also made a loaf of bread to go along with the meal. I love homemade bread and this loaf was looking extra delicious as I was cutting into it. 

The church of Jesus Christ instagram page posted a couple of quotes from Conference for people to screenshot and use as wallpaper for their phones. I took a screenshot of this one because it was one that I really liked. I don't know if I will use it as wallpaper but maybe one of these days I will. It is a great reminder of the One person who knows exactly what I am going through always.

General Conference

General Conference weekend is always a good weekend. The Saturday Conference sessions felt a little different because of how few of us were watching it at our home. Avynlea was at her cheer clinic, Kenedy was in Rexburg and Ryker was at the farm so that left Me, Rylee and Kefford watching.

While Kefford was watching the Priesthood session it was just me and Rylee hanging out. We played a game of Sorry and then she had fun making bubbles out of the slime she made.

The next morning we went to the Farm to watch the Sunday sessions of Conference and to get Ryker to bring him home.

I caught a picture of Rylee being harassed by Avynlea before we all settled in to watch our Church leaders and take notes. Rylee made a General Conference notebook with our Beehive class and made the goal to watch all of Conference and take notes on each speaker. She was doing this for a ten hour personal progress project and I loved seeing her engaged in the speakers. Avynlea was also taking notes and it warmed my heart to see my girls writing down messages they wanted to remember.

After the first session, Michelle and Trevor came over, Whitney and her family and Jeremy and his family came as well. We ate lunch and then sat around and visited. Avynlea spent some time playing with Sadie and a couple of times I would glance at Avynlea and think she was Whitney, she has a lot of her mannerisms and I think it is cute.

Sadie has been on an Easter Egg hunt kick lately and really wanted to do an Easter Egg hunt, minus the candy. None of the other little kids were interested and I could see she was feeling disappointed so I told her I would hunt for some eggs. Kefford, Avynlea and Michelle all participated as well. Sadie and Bob hid ten eggs in the front yard and then we got to go and find them. It was quick but fun.

After a while everyone left except Whitney's family and we all settled in to watch the last session of General Conference. My girls were a little distracted having their cousins there for this session but they were still able to listen and take notes. It was a good Conference made even better by watching my girls develop good habits for future Conference watchings. 

The end of Middle School Cheer

Avynlea had one last cheer performance in her Middle School Cheer career and it was to perform at the ISAT Testing Pep Rally. I though it was funny that they had a Pep Rally for testing but also thought it was kind of cool to try to pump the kids up to be excited about doing well on their tests.

Avynlea and her squad did a Super Hero Cheer/Dance and she did a great job. I loved watching her! She is the cheerleader on top on the Left. 

After the performances she along with staff and the other cheerleaders threw boxes of Red Hots out into the crowd of Middle Schoolers. It was all good times.

The next day was the cheer and dance clinic put on by the High School Cheer and Dance teams. She said she was pretty nervous stunting with the other girls in the clinic because they had no idea what they were doing. The clinic was held for three hours in the morning and then they performed at the Dance Teams spring show that afternoon. Avynlea said she did terrible but I thought she did a good job considering the amount of time they had to learn their routines. 

She is the top girl on the Right

While they were waiting for their turn to perform, Kara, the cheer coach asked one of the boy cheerleaders to ask Avynlea if she wanted to try a Partner Stunt. Avy was a little hesitant at first but then agreed to it. After a couple of tries she was able to do it and really enjoyed it. Some of the other cheerleaders told Avynlea that it would be a really good thing if she can do partner stunts at the cheer tryouts and to practice with the guys at open gym. 

I think it is cool that she is learning new things but it does make me very nervous for what is to come. 

Shopping with my Sisters!

I found another online /in home boutique that I like and with my sisters in town I took them over to her house to do a little shopping. They all found some really cute things for themselves and Emily got some stuff for Isabelle while Heather grabbed some dresses for Mom and Jaylynn. It was a fun shopping trip and Heidi, the owner, was pretty excited with all of the sales she made. She encouraged my sisters to come back any time, hahaha.

After we treated ourselves to some Waffle Love and Sodalicious. 

Rylee woke up Monday morning complaining that she didn't sleep really well and she did not look good. I asked her if she was sick and she said no she was just really tired so I sent her to school. After my first dance class I got a call from her school nurse saying Rylee was in her office with a headache, a stomachache and a low-grade fever and she needed to be picked up. I had to teach another class and could not get away so I called Kefford and he was able to pick her up. Throughout the day she slept a lot and her fever increased and she was so hot. We gave her Tylenol to help with her aches and her fever and she seemed to do ok. The next day she was still little feverish so she stayed home again but seemed to improve as the day went on and by early evening was back to better. She was well enough to go to the Temple with Avynlea and Isabelle and she was able to get back to school the next day.

We did our shopping trip while Rylee was home sick and while I didn't want a soda from Sodalicious I did get one for Rylee.

April Fools!

Monday was April Fools Day and Heather brought 1000 googly eyes to pull a fun prank on the kids. After they left for school Heather and Isabelle went around the house and put eyes on anything and everything. Kefford was home and was pretty confused about how this was  prank. It's not necessarily a prank, I guess, just a fun trick. I think it is fun to see ordinary household items with eyes, it really gives them personality and makes them so cute.

Later that night Heather, Emily and I went to Wal-Mart to get some much needed bread. While there we took a couple of Wal-Mart selfies for the fun of it!