happenings

In between General Conference sessions on Saturday, April 2nd, my sister Aimee's little girl Allie was blessed.  (Phew, what a sentence!)  Brennen gave a beautiful blessing and Allie was perfect.  She's such a good baby, and adorable to boot.

 Aimee, Brennen, and Allie

 4 Generations: my Mom, Aimee, Grandma Sherratt, and Allie

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Spring Break 2011

April 21-24 was Spring Break for us. We stayed at home, but tried to do something fun every day together. Thursday we painted Easter eggs. In the first few minutes we had managed to dump 3 cups of dye. Lovely. Who needs green and blue anyway?!  Friday we took the kids to eat at Texas Roadhouse.  Yum! 


 

Saturday we hiked to the M.  This is getting to be a fun tradition for this.  For the 10 years we've lived here, I think we've hiked to the M as a family about 7 or 8 times.  We always seem to do it in the spring.  It was a bit cold, but great for hiking.

The kids on the M.

  

 The Easter Bunny found our house again this year and gave the kids a scavenger hunt to find their baskets.  They had a lot of fun running around the house finding the next clue.

 Despite this picture, Tanner was enjoying himself. :)

 That silly Bunny, hiding baskets in Ellie's closet.  The kids thought it was so cool.

 You'd think I could get at least one picture with Tanner and a normal smile.

After church, we went to my sister Callie's house in Woods Cross for dinner.  She cooked a yummy ham and there was lots of great salads and rolls.  And a yummy cheesecake dessert.  I love a good meal!  The kids had fun playing together and the adults had fun sitting around talking and laughing.  Thanks for having us Callie and Brain...and baby Liv!

 And we couldn't leave these pics out.......haircut time!  After Meagan saw the movie Tangled, she wanted to get a haircut like Rapunzel.  I think it turned out adorable!  And she was so excited to go to school this morning.  Linds kept her hair long, but still cut about 3 inches off the bottom.  I love these chicks!

Hope you had a great spring break/Easter!

a little more

Meagan started piano lessons this year and is doing awesome!  I'm so proud of her and what she has accomplished in the last 7 months.  She had her first piano recital last week and did great.  Before we left to go to the recital, I asked her if she was nervous.  She said, "No."...and had a look on her face like, "what would I be nervous for."  Crazy.

 Meagan and her teacher, Amy

 We had a big support group there.  Thanks guys for coming!

Brad is taking the picture.

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L to R: Shaelee Pentz, Chelsey Stegelmeier, AJ Bateman, Rachel Johnson, Ashley (Spud) Garfield, Becca Rees, and Brad.

I still can't look at this picture without getting all choked up.  We love these girls and will miss them immensely!  These girls are Brad's seniors this year.  He became the varsity coach 4 years ago when they were freshman.....and now they're graduating this year.  They are an amazing group of girls.  They are just the kind of girls I want my girls to be like...not just in athletic ability, but all around awesome girls.  

Becca got hurt in December with a complete ACL tear.  She miraculously (and when I say "miraculously" I mean through a lot of prayer and heavenly help) recovered in 4 weeks and was able to finish the season. She is NOT a quitter and amazes us with her dedication to herself and her team.

Spud is going on to BYU with a full-ride scholarship to play basketball.  Truly an amazing young woman.  I can't tell you how much my family loves her and will miss her!  We wish her all the best.....and we'll be there cheering her on!  Go Cougs!

Jr Jazz

Once again, Meagan participated in Jr Jazz.  This is absolutely her favorite sport. (Her Dad is only a little happy about that. lol)  She is amazing.  She really practices a lot, and not just during the season.  She's only 10 years old but can dribble the ball without looking at it while she runs down the court....and she can dribble left-handed or right-handed.  Not an easy thing to do. 

One day Meagan was watching a bball video with Brad (most of you know this but Brad is the varsity girls bball coach at the high school...so he tends to watch bball videos from time to time :)).  Anyway, I walked over to where they were watching and Brad said, "Go ahead Meagan, tell her."  She then proceeded to tell me what offensive play they were running, which player was supposed to get the ball, and what the other players were supposed to do.  My jaw nearly hit the floor!  I couldn't believe she knew all that!  Brad was pretty impressed too.  I love that she is really understanding the game, not just the skills.  (I know I'm bragging, but this is my blog and can do what I want....I'm a proud mama!)





Brad was the coach again this year.

 She played 'defense' really well.

And she's a scrapper.  That's my girl!

Another year over and done with.  Great job girls, you really improved!!!

Happy Birthday Tanner

Clear back in December, the 27th to be exact, Tanner had his 5th Birthday.  ....And I'm just getting around to blogging about it.  Pathetic.  I know.

BUT we love this little boy to pieces and can't imagine our family without him.  He is all boy.

Happy Birthday little man.  We LOVE you!

Wow.  I don't have very many pictures to document Christmas Day....or Christmas vacation for that matter.  Hopefully that means that I was too busy having fun and enjoying the moment to be bothered with my camera.  And really, I think that was just the case.

I did, however, manage to take the annual "what-did-you-get-for-Christmas" picture of the kids next to their stash. 

 Meagan, 10 years

Not sure what her 'favorite' was, but she really did love everything.

 Lindsay, 8 years

The Justin Beiber doll was her favorite...and the Justin Beiber CD.  Heaven.  She was so excited when she opened the gift.  At first, she could tell it was a doll, but didn't realize 'who' it was, but when she did.....squeals of delight and a super huge smile!  The perfect reaction!

 Ellie, 2 1/2 years

 Tanner, 2 days shy of being 5 years old

I thought for sure the Nintendo DS would be his favorite, but he really liked everything.

I have to say Christmas was so much fun and super relaxing.  We (Brad and I) decided to stay at home Christmas Day this year.  We could visit family another day, but we were staying put.  We welcomed anyone who wanted to come our way with open arms.  We stayed in our jammies all day, watched 3 movies (Toy Story 3, Shrek 4, and Despicable Me), ate too much candy and chocolate, napped, played Wii, and spent quality time together.  Awesome.  Brad's parents made their annual trek of visiting their kids' and stayed for a couple hours.  It was nice to visit and spend time with them.  I think we even got Grandpa to play Wii.  My parents were planning on coming up, but my mom got sick.  Like she stayed in bed all day sick.  Not characteristic of my mom, so I knew she was sick.  :(  So we opted for visiting on the phone several times. The day (and morning) was just as magical as I hoped it would be!

Christmas Eve 2010

What a fun day!  It started out with a surprise too!  As we were getting ready for the day I heard a knock at the door and the kids answered it.  The next thing I hear is "HO HO HO, MERRY CHRISTMAS!"  I hurried downstairs to see Santa standing in our front room!  How fun!  Lindsay was just getting out of the shower, but still made it down in time to get a picture with him.  Santa stayed for a few minutes, told my kids that they'd been good this year, and then he gave them a candy cane from his bag.  What a great surprise!  Thanks Santa for taking the time to visit us on Christmas Eve! 

Ellie still tells everyone when asked what Santa gave her for Christmas this year....."a candycane."  Because he did!

 After our visit with Santa, we headed to my parents house for the annual Christmas Eve dinner.  Oh so yummy.  Ham, rolls, baked beans, a bazillion yummy salads, shrimp, oh delicious!  It's always fun to get together with family.  And this year, there were lots of them.  My parents, Callie and Brian and Olivia, Aimee and Brennen and Kaylee, my Grandma and Grandpa, Sherri and Bruce, Justin, Grandma Merrell, Jennifer and Johnny and kids, and Angie and Nate and kids...and us.  Phew! But we still wished a happy Hawaiian family and a few California residents could have been there too.  Next year Cami, Brian, Tyler, Suzanne....and kiddos!

 It's a tradition to get new jammies on Christmas Eve...and then of course you have to get a picture.  Baby Liv was eating at the moment, and missed this photo op, and then we forgot to get another one later.  This picture cracks me up....get a load of Ellie's face! lol.

 Lindsay, Ellie, Meagan, and Tanner.....love these kids!

 After dinner, we put together an impromptu Nativity.  Jennifer supplied the amazing costumes.  Thanks!  Johnny was the Narrator and I played the piano for a couple songs.  I'm not exactly sure who ended up with what parts, but everyone got to dress up.

 Cute Liv...the free range cow! :)  A "must" in every respectable Nativity.

 

The night eventually had to end.....and off we went, back to Morgan, to get ready for Santa!...