We've got Cougar Fever around here!

I don't know what it is but my kids have decided they are HUGE Cougar fans. We lived in Wildcat country forever and they didn't catch on but here they are all about BYU. This makes me happy for a few reasons:

1. You can't get a better education for the price than BYU! Jordan and I would be ecstatic to have our kids go here.

2. They are excited about where they live. I was sooo worried when we moved that they would hate it here.

3. Skyler makes the cutest little "football guy". Whenever we watch games he has to pretend to be a player and it's pretty much adorable. I also love it when he yells, " GO B- I (he can't pronounce the Y) U COUGARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Halloween

This year Halloween was a PARTY! The MBA school had a party, our ward had a party and this was a party planned in our neighborhood. It was so cute!

Check out the creative food....

Mummy Pizza

Band-Aid crackers

Spider oreos

Cookie Fingers and mice.

This isn't a very good picture but Thais and Gracie were both cupcakes this year.

I guess while at the party a little girl went up to Thais and said, "Are you a cupcake?" and Thais in her sassy little way said, " Yep, don't eat me!"

Jordan makes a killer pumpkin Chili that tastes mighty fine in a cooked pumpkin!

Here are our little trick or treaters.

Sad Little Blog

My blog is sad! One good reason is that I haven't updated it since May and I feel like everyone is so into FB that no one even checks blogs anymore so I sort of lost interest in blogging. I am going to start again because Jordan made the comment the other day that it is really sad that I have quit blogging because it was a Journal of our lives. Good Point. We need a family Journal and this is my journal of choice. So here it goes...

This story is a little beauty I don't want to forget. My neighbor told me that Thais and her friend Aria (here is their pic)


decided to go around the neighbor hood and sing for money. These crazy girls knocked on our neighbors door and this is how the conversation went:

T&A: Hi we are here to sing for money

neighbor: Okay great

T&A: How much are you going to pay us first?

neighbor: That depends. How good are you?

T&A: Well, we are REALLY good

neighbor: Kindly listened to 'twinkle twinkle little star' and paid them 50 cents each.

I was wondering why Thais came home with a handful of change the other day, but she told me she found it outside. When I confronted her about this she said, "well I did find it outside because when we sing, we sing on the doorstep!"

She's tricky! I so remember selling candy bars and lemonade for money. I never tried singing though. I have to hand it to her, that is pretty darn creative!

Gracie Girl

Easter

Our community has a darlin' little Easter egg hunt every year. Here we are posing with the Easter Bunny.


They had fun games for the kids. I wish I had gotten this on video, but see the boy to the left of Thais? Being much bigger than the other kids he got off to a mad start and was totally winning, but Thais started catching up and the boy tripped when he felt Thais behind him and Thais ended up winning the race. I was so proud :O)

Here she is with her winning Easter Basket as a prize

Later that day we had the Nelsons over and Jenn and I put on a feast!

Here is the kiddie table....

After dinner, we played Jordan's family traditional Easter egg roll.

Here are Thais and Skyler going head to head...

In the finals it was Jenn and Thais.

Jenn ended up taking the win! It was a blast :O)

While we were out there the sprinklers turned on and it turned into a big water fight for the kids.

Easter morning, the kids had fun looking for their Easter Baskets!

Here are their baskets this year.

Some eggs we painted. Thais LOVED this part of Easter!

We also did a lesson with Easter Eggs where I put 12 different items in plastic Easter Eggs that represent Jesus's resurection and the atonement. I think my kids are still at the age where the candy is the most exciting part, but I am excited to make Easter a really meaningful holiday for them!

T-ball

It is t-ball mania around here! This season we signed Thais up to do t-ball with several of the kids in the ward and it has been so much fun! I love this picture of Thais with her best buddy Tyler. Sometimes I can't believe that Thais is friends with the kid of my best friend from high-school! It has been so much fun having this time with the Nelsons...boy are we going to miss them!




Check out these cute Hatch ladies! Hannah is Thaisy's teammate. Go Dodgers!


Team stretching before the big game! I love how Skyler is participating..he can't wait for his turn to play sports!

I couldn't resist this picture of Chase- the Dodgers cutest fan!

Thaisy's friend Marin waiting in the dugout for her turn to bat!

Thais on first base! Love the pink helmet:O)

Just a little video of Thais up at bat..

The goal is not simply to go through motherhood. The goal is to GROW through motherhood!

As our small family approaches a big move to Utah next month, I have been thinking about the many things I am going to miss living here in the desert! One of the things I will miss the very most is the amazing group of moms we have here in Marana. As you might know, I was hooked up with an organization called The Power Of Moms, and for me this connection has been wonderfully life changing! I have discovered an entire network of women who are impressive and committed to motherhood in the most stimulating and thought provoking ways. It's the idea that motherhood isn't something women just endure daily in order to raise some kids; rather it is an exciting and ultra-challenging career in which our ability to be present, intentional, motivated and disciplined shape the lives of our children in such profound ways. I believe that motherhood can be the most powerful tool for good in order to combat a morally decaying society because we are the first voice in the ears of the rising generation. I wonder how many social programs could be eliminated if everyone had a mother loving them and leading through a positive, upstanding and deliberate example!

These ideas and convictions led me to start what The Power Of Moms call a "Learning Circle." It's basically a group of women who get together once a month and discuss an article based on Motherhood, and we talk about how to improve and incorporate some of these ideals into our daily mothering. For me this group has been almost like a support group because I've been able to share some of my deepest feelings about my role as a mother and I have been so uplifted and inspired as I listen to these women talk about how much they love their children and how hard they are working to be all that they can for them. I admire and love them all so much and it makes me sad to no longer be part of their lives on a monthly if not daily/weekly basis.

I wanted to post some older pictures from a workshop that Jamie, Jenn and I put on back in october. We all became trainers through The Power Of Moms and this was our first experience putting on an actual workshop all based around empowering moms! The workshop was a three part series POM's put together based on the Eyre book Three Steps To a Strong Family.
I got to present on how to establish a family legal system i.e. having each member of the family set up laws or rules and consequences in order to establish order in the home. I learned so much!



Jamie and Jenn were awesome presenters!

It was so cool to see all of the moms taking notes and interacting as we would during an important business meeting. Motherhood doesn't come with an instruction manual so I am thrilled to get all of the training I can get!

Here we are at Chili's after our first night of the workshop.

Group picture at the end of the workshop.

I am sure going to miss these girls!