Celebration!

The weekend of fun started out early with my great girlfriends taking me out for an early birthday dinnner. We enjoyed a great night out with delicious food, great conversation and some good laughs.

Stac S., Lynds, Stac D.

Mel, Me, Kathryn

And of course we had to have yummy CAKE! I had such a FUN night! Thanks girls! I truly feel so blessed to have such wonderful girlfriends who I feel so close to. You are all Fabulous and I love you!

The next night we headed up to Huntsville for the weekend. My Dad, and his wife, Susan, were so great to invite us to stay with them for the weekend. My Dad and I share a birthday and this year was his 50th! It was fun to celebrtate with my family at a nice dinner out....

Me & Madi with Susan & Pa-Pa

...and of course yummy cake!

Seriously hard to believe that my Dad is 50! And that I am 28!
Happy 50th Dad! We love you!

Celebrating the 4th!

The Parade
My sweet Pierson, an All American Boy!

My good lookin' husband and my good lookin' boy!(Loving showing off that missing tooth)

Mommy & Madi (she is a bit anti-photo op lately)

I love the 4th of July in Huntsville. Partly because it is my hometown and I love seeing old friends, and partly because it is just a GREAT celebration! They have a great parade that never disapoints. Ryan's favorite thing about the 4th in Hutsville- the jets from Hill AFB flying over to kick off the parade! It is pretty darn awesome!

Patriotic Program

My Dad has been announcing the parade for years and it is fun to hear him. This year he was also in charge on the patriotic program.

He had a fantastic program arranged and he did a great job hosting! I was very proud of him! Here he is honoring the Grand Marshall

And here he is with 2 of the great speakers. It was really amazing to hear from these great men who have served our country so dilligently. These 2 gentlmen are both pilots and the gentlemen on the right is the fighter pilot to hold the record of 4,000, 5,000, & 6,000 flying hours! Pretty Incredible!

Fun in the Park

The kids had fun going down the giant inflatable slide and jumping in the boucy house, and of course, enjoying cotton candy!



Cupcakes

Susan took great care of us with yummy food all weekend, and baked yummy cupcakes for the kids to decorate, which they LOVED!
I turned my back for 30 seconds and this is what happened...

Too cute to get mad, and too funny! I had to snap a picture. She was just so excited to have her "favorite color pink!"



Fireworks

Daddy & the kids

Mommy & the kids (seriously what is up with my daughter?!)

I LOVE watching fireworks. They really facinate me, how they work I'll never understand, but amazing little things to me. We had a great time watching fireworks and the kids both did great. (No one cried! YAY! We've overcome.)

We had a wonderful day celebrating our Independence Day. What a fun holiday and a great time to remember to be thankful for all that we are blessed with! We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Huntsville, the weather was perfect, not hot, not cold, and the kids loved running around in Pa-Pa's yard. It was so nice to enjoy being outside, dinner on the patio, breakfast too, and sitting on the front porch swing. Not much in life is better than sitting on a front porch swing in beautiful Huntsville, Utah, watching your beautiful kids play to their heart's content. Thank you Pa-Pa and Susan!

FUN, FUN, FUN!

Boy have the kids been having fun lately! They are loving the many fun activities that summer brings! I didn't have internet to do a post last week and now 2 weeks seems like a lot to catch up on. First of all...

The Tooth Fairy

did come and left Pierson a dollar. He was so thrilled about this! He carried it around the house with him for 2 days until I made him put it away.

Dinosaur Discovery

We have a great group of friends who we have been able to get together with once a week and do a fun summer outing for the kids. We hit the Dinosaur Discovery museum- Pierson thought it was pretty cool and had fun. Madi just wanted to climb under all the ropes and was mad I wouldn't let her. But she had a great time digging with brother.
Pierson & Elle

Pierce & Madi digging for dinosaur bones

Happy Father's Day!


I think Ryan's Father's Day was the lamest one yet. Poor guy. Due to his "special diet" I was unable to make him a yummy breakfast, yummy dinner and yummy dessert. I felt bad, but he got plenty of sweet hugs and kisses! Plus he got to watch me learn how to hula hoop that day! (Story to come in later post) However he is doing awesome with his "special diet" and has lost 25 pounds! I am so proud of him! But it was a great day to let him know how much we love him! I am so lucky to have such an awesome man!

Happy Birthday Dear Daddy!

The day after Father's Day was Ryan's 34th birthday! Talk about making me feel bad! His 2 special days right in a row and me unable to spoil him with yummy food! We had a great day anyway...
The kids were so excited to sing to Daddy in the morning and give him a birthday muffin (the kids certainly enjoyed it)

The kids were super excited to surprise Daddy at work with balloons! (No Pierson does not have glasses, they have discovered it is fun to try on the kid frames at Daddy's work.)

That night we went out for Dad's "party" and went bowling. It was great fun for all of us and after Ryan kicked my trash in bowling I beat him in a heated game of air hockey!
Then we let Pierson have a turn to play Dad in air hockey and he loved it. It was so fun watching him and he thought he was cool stuff "beating" Dad!
Pierce, Madi and "Monk" singing Happy Birthday to Daddy

Blue Bunny

This week we had a very fun filled and yummy outing to Blue Bunny. We made a field trip appointment and they show the kids a video, then let them make their own waffle cone! This was so much fun and so cute! They each got to poor a scoop of batter onto the waffle iron, push the timer button, and roll up their own cone. I loved watching and seeing how they make these yummy things and the kids had a great time! It was a fantastic outing!



Pierce & Grant were so excited to get "Super Scooper" flavor!


Madi wanted "pink - my favorite color" so she got peppermint stick. We all enjoyed our delicious (& huge) ice cream cones and had fun with our friends. Great day!

Big Day for a Super Boy!

Pierson lost his 1st tooth today! (Sniff, sniff.) He was quite excited and I was trying hard not to cry! This just made him officially big!

After 3 weeks of having it lose, I finally convinced him to let me pull it...only by bribing him a little with showing him a few "not scary" parts of Superman and Spiderman. (We have established that he can watch these movies when he is 12, but occasionally we let him watch a few select, cool, not scary scenes.) I turned Superman on, tied the dental floss around the tooth and with one quick tug, it was out. It was so quick and painless, he barley knew it happened. He was so thrilled when I showed it to him. He can't wait for Dad to come home tonight so he can surprise him.


After the excitement of the Super hero movies, he was so good to pose for me, this of course had to include...

Spiderman Pierson (this is a surprisingly big smile for Spiderman mode)

and Wolverine Pierson

I can't believe how big my little boy is! Thankfully he is still super-sweet along with being a super-hero! I love him so much!

SUMMER TIME!

I was seriously dreading summer time and so worried about how in the world I was going to keep Pierson busy with school out! But summer is in full swing and we have been having so much fun that the kids haven't even had time to get bored, exactly the opposite - I haven't had time to clean the house! We have been busy with Pierson's swimming lessons (he is doing awesome!, haven't taken any pics yet), baseball games, playing at the water park, swimming, playing with friends and loving our 5 baby kittens! I am so relieved that I am actually loving summer!

Sweet little Madi girl having a ball at the water park!

Pierson having fun with his best cousin Anya, He is actually not mad, just in character, he is being Mufasa

Fun with cousins at the water park

Pierson & Mittens, cute little tiny thing!


Pierson is doing great in baseball! He is having a lot of fun and really improving. The last few games he has gotten almost all of his hits on the 1st or 2nd pitch. Pretty good for first try at coach pitch! Go Reds!

Great Grandma Johns

My dear Great Grandma passed away on May 17th. (Today would have been her 94th birthday!) As soon as I heard of her passing I was, of course, a bit sad, but more so I was overcome with the feeling of joy, knowing how excited my Mom was to see her again! I can just imagine the reunion she was having with her own parents and siblings, what a joyous time for them! My Mom had a very sweet and close relationship with her Grandma so growing up it was special for us kids to have our Great Grandma so close!

One of my favorite pictures of Grandma Johns, taken at our home Christmas 1988

The funeral was very sweet and peaceful. I had the opportunity to speak and this was such an honor to me. I felt I was representing the great-grandchildren as well as my Mom. I shared some great memories that my sisters and brother and I all had of our Grandma. It was a very sweet and humbling experience for me.


Flowers from Grandma's garden - she had a beautiful garden in her back yard, almost all flowers! Some of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren had picked all her flowers and had them in vases all around the room at the funeral. It was so beautiful and I was so grateful they did this! I took these up so my Mom's grave, I know she would have loved them!!

Grandma Johns house

My brother, Amos, Grandpa Jensen, my sister, Ginger, and me - visiting Grandma's house
I was so glad we got to go see her house one last time, Ryan had never been there before so it was fun to show him

Miss Madi in one of her moments