Some Saturday Activities

Here are some of the things we did last Saturday. Preston's Nana is 93 years old and still lives at home. To accomodate so that she can still live at home the family rotates days to take 1-2 meals into her and we run errands, or help around the house or just simply eat and visit with her. Last Saturday was one of our times to spend time with Nana. In her backyard she has a tire swing that the great grandkids love. Preston's 2 uncles that live in Higley have tire swings at their house which Preston and his cousins used to play on. You can say it is a family tradition that is multi generational.

Then Saturday we went to a Drive-In movie with the Larson Family. We saw Monsters vs. Aliens. It was a funny movie and the Drive-In was packed with many other families with the same idea. We had a good time. This is Nathan and Hayden chillin in the back of the car. They had the best seat in the house. They are laying on a foam pad with pillows and a blanket. They were very comfy.

Our Princess in "training"

Taylor started a Princess Ballerina dance class on Wednesday. She is able to dress up in a princess costume during the class. She really enjoyed it. Good thing it will last for 5 more weeks. The class is for girls ages 3-5 but I think Taylor is the only 3 year old in the class. The other girls are much taller than her. Here are some pictures of the special day.

Funny little side note of a conversation I had with Taylor while driving in the car, that wasn't princess like.

Taylor: "Mommy I fart."

Me: "When did you fart? That is gross."

Taylor: "No I fart like, ABCD"

Me: "Oh you are smart."

Taylor: "Yeah and I am yucky too"

Me: "Yes you are lucky" (both Nathan and Taylor have had issues with the word lucky, so I knew what she meant here.)

So Taylor says she is fart and yucky aka smart and lucky.

Glad she has the self esteem of a princess. ;-)

Our Home away from Home

It is hard to believe but today marks the one year anniversary of when we bought the Lock Shop. It has been a stressful year with a lot of hours put in towards running this place (for both Preston and I) There have also been some restless nights filled with worry of how we can make things better. Many board meetings (brainstorming and discussions) have occurred while laying in bed late at night. Overall we are happy that we purchased the shop and feel very blessed during this difficult economic time. It has been an adventure that has challenged us and hopefully will continue to make us stronger.

This is our safe show room and lock shop. We have 2 guys that work the front here but they were too embarrassed to be in the picture. We also have 1 dispatcher, a part time bookkeeper and Preston that work in the back part of the shop We also have 3 on road technician that do the calls.

Here is Preston (and Taylor) working at one of the desks. This is actually our bookkeepers desk but Preston was sitting here when I came to take pictures. His desk is twice as big and is 50 times messier. Poor guy really has a lot of things he juggles being one of the owners, shop manager and marketing manager.

This is Taylor sitting at our desk at home where I do my work. The past 6 months or so Taylor will copy me when I work. She gets a calculator some papers an old keyboard and a phone and tell me she is working. And no I do not sit in that rocking chair when I work at the desk. I actually have an office chair or I sit in the recliner and work on the laptop.

Natalie is 7 months old

Natalie turned 7 months old today. She is still as bald as can be. I took her to the doctor today for a weight check up and she still only weighs 13 pounds 4 ounces. (she has gained a whole 6 ounces in a month) I guess we will take what we can get. She also has another ear infection and has started coughing yesterday. I slept most the night laying on the couch with her last night. So we didn't welcome her 7th month milestone in the best way. She still is a major sweetheart.When you see her smile doesn't it make you smile too. You can't see in these pictures, but in the past few weeks Natalie has grown her first two teeth on the bottom. We love you Natalie

Some Spring Break Activities

Today Nathan went back to school so our Spring Break is now officially over. I thought I would post some pictures of various things we did during our break. It was a great break, we had a couple days when we were in our jammies all day and other days were packed with activities. I posted earlier about Nathan and Preston going snowboarding, well during that weekend Taylor got to help her Nana make cookies. Look closely and you can see Taylor is wearing a little apron. SOO CuteOne day during the break we went to the zoo as part of a midweek activity that I planned for our ward to do. This is Hayden (Nathan's best friend) Nathan and Taylor. The height of all 3 of them is deceiving they are standing on a slope.

Random picture of Natalie hanging out in the stroller. She was such a good sport. She stayed contently in the stroller for almost the whole 6 hours we were there.

Snapshot of Taylor at the zoo. She is such a HAM!!!!

Nathan and Taylor playing at the splash pad at the zoo. It was pretty warm that day upper 80's. I had them wear clothes that were comfortable and they could get wet in. Taylor was disappointed that I didn't bring her swimsuit or towels for them to dry off. She eventually got over it and had fun in the water nonetheless.

We went to Sting Ray bay for the first time. It was pretty cool. I got to feed a fish to one of them. That was really neat and a weird sensation all at the same time. Taylor only wanted to touch the small ones and Nathan only wanted to touch their tails (except when we got home he wanted to touch the body and was disappointed that he didn't)

Nathan on the carousel.

Taylor on the carousel.

I normally don't let my kids do the sting ray bay or the carousel, but we got into the zoo at a huge discount so I figured what the heck let's have the ultimate zoo experience. I did however object to buying any food or drink there.

During the break Nathan played the Wii a lot. We went to the park a few times, celebrated a cousins birthday and Nathan had his cousin spend the night one time and Hayden another night. We also had our trip to Eagar for snowboarding and celebrated Nathan's birthday which I posted about already. We also had a yard sale which I didn't put too much effort into but still spent way more time in preparation then I cared to. All in all it was a good break but glad to be back in the schedule of school.

Happy 7th Birthday Nathan

Nathan turned 7 on Saturday March 21st. I can't believe he is 7 already. We started the celebration on Friday night. Nathan had his best friend Hayden come over and we went to Peter Piper Pizza for dinner and to play. Then Hayden spent the night they played the Wii, made a fort and just played. Saturday morning we ate comboy eggs per Nathan's request in the midst of participating in a community yard sale. Nathan and Hayden played until early afternoon then I took Hayden home. That night we had family over for hamburgers and hot dogs. Another request by Nathan. He received a lot of fun gifts. We finished the night with Ice Cream Sundae Cones, Ice Cream Sandwiches and Ice Cream bars. (Nathan doesn't like cupcakes so we put a candle in the top of the ice cream sundae cone.) In the words of Nathan it was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!! We Love You Nathan Happy Birthday.This is Nathan when he turned 6.

Nathan on his 5th Birthday

Nathan on his 4th Birthday

These are the only pictures I have of Nathan on the computer. Prior to this we used the ancient camera with actual film not digital.

My Boys and their Boards

Last night we came home from Eagar. We were there for the weekend with the main objective of snowboarding. We left Friday afternoon with 15 of the youth from our ward and some of their leaders so that Preston could take them to Sunrise on Saturday for snowboarding or skiing. We had a lot of fun with the youth. Preston's parents hosted dinner at their house Friday night then we went to the intermediate school where we played dodge ball/soccer and scooter races. A little side not PReston and I were on different teams for dodgeball and I got him out twice and he got me out Zero times. Yeah for me. Anyways after playing in the gym we went to a classroom and Preston gave a little devotional. Then we split up the young men and their leaders went to sleep at Preston's parents house and the young women spent the night at Preston's sisters house who also lives in Eagar. They had a fun day of boarding on Saturday and then the youth went home. We stayed until Monday night so that Preston could take Nathan snowboarding.
This is Nathan and Preston on the ski lift. I think Preston is happy and proud to have a son that enjoys snowboarding. Preston spent a lot of time on the slopes since he was Nathan's age. He was a skiier until shortly before his mission when he started snowboarding. He even was a ski instructor during high school to kids ages 3 to 6. Nathan went for the first time last season and loved it. He got a snowboard for Christmas and has been anxious to try it out.

This is Nathan heading down the mountain. His blonde hair reminds me of when I first started dating Preston, it was during snowboarding season so Preston died his hair blonde so it would look cooler on the slopes.

Nathan after one of his falls but he is still smiling. He loves it. Preston says that Nathan never complains of being tired. He is just happy to be there boarding. I have done it a few times. (YEARS ago) and I remember being so sore and tired of falling and pushing myself back up.

This is Preston jumping on Saturday. (One of the other leaders took the picture) The shadow looks pretty cool. I don't have an after picture on this but he crashed hard after this jump. He went farther than he anticipated and landed HARD on a flat spot of the mountain. He has a big scrape on his chin, hurt his hip and tailbone, pulled a groin muscle (sorry if too much info). He also informed that he hit the back of his head on a couple of lands and thinks he blacked out once. So not what a wife wants to hear the father of her 3 children say. Preston is starting to feel his age and that he is getting out of shape and it is severely disheartening to him. I think he will be living vicariously through Nathan in the years to come.

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Last week I bought Taylor her own ballet slippers. She is starting a princess dance class and a gymnastics class later this month. I bought the slippers pretty early to make sure I could find some for her. Soon after we got home from buying the slippers she wanted to put them on along with the whole outfit. (all hand me downs I might add, SCORE for us) It was cute she would twirl around and do various dance moves. She sure didn't like the fact that she has to wait 3 more weeks until her first dance class.

Taylor's First Talk

Taylor is in Sunbeams this year. (Technically she should still be in nursery because her birthday is Jan 12th but the nursery leader and Primary Presidency came to us and asked if we would like to put her in Sunbeams. She was ready to go and really bored in nursery so we said sure. She is doing a great job in there.) Anyways back to the story. Taylor gave a talk in Primary yesterday and she did a fantastic job. She was very excited and she didn't have an ounce of stage fright. I got a little emotional seeing her in the front of the primary room singing the opening song (well trying to) while her little legs dangled from the chair. She is growing up and we were proud of how well she did. A side note, Taylor is a complete HAM. She will give me a cute pose and smile until she sees the light on the camera for the flash and she quickly makes a silly face or pose. Nathan taught her that and it drives me CRAZY! This picture is one exhibit of that.

How we finished February

Our Saturday last week was busy and chaotic and I was exhausted after it was all said and done. It started at 7 am when Preston left to Little Philmont Scout training. At noon I had a Stake RS Conference and since Preston was at Philmont I had to drop my kids off at a sitters. I dropped them off then headed to the church. Preston picked up the kids during his lunch break and I met them at home after the lunch and program for the RS Conference. We then drove separate cars to Nathan's last basketball game of the season that started at 2:00. That is Nathan in the middle with the white jersey on getting ready to pass the maroon and gold ball to #33.

When the game was over we went outside for snacks (which it was our turn to provide) This is Nathan and his team listening to coach while eating snacks.

Then I headed back to the church to try and catch the last class of the conference and Preston headed home with the kids. Then Nathan had his end of the season Pizza Party at 4 and my conference was over at 4. So Preston took the kids to Peter Piper and I met them out there when my conferences was done. As soon as I got there we swapped keys and Preston headed back to his Philmont Training. This is Nathan getting his trophy (unfortunately the only picture I got of this occuring the coaches arm was in front of Nathan's face.We left the pizza party about 5:45 and rushed home. Preston met us there when it was the dinner break at Philmont. We all changed our clothes, I fed Natalie and we picked up Nathan's friend Hayden at 6:30 to go to the Phoenix Road Runners hockey game. Nathan's coach is one of the Team Doctors for the Roadrunners and provided tickets for whoever on the team wanted to go. Two side notes - Nathan lost his top tooth during this 30 minutes at home and Preston was supposed to go back to Philmont but decided to go with me to the game so that I didn't have to have all the kids by myself at the game. (Plus I think he really wanted to go to the game). This is Nathan and his Friend Hayden.
This is a picture of Nathan Hayden and 2 other boys from his team Ethan and Jake. Jake is the one in the black shirt, he is the coaches son. It was a lot of fun for the boys. The coach got them an official hockey puck and his wife bought all of them Cold Stone Ice-Cream. After leaving the game I realized we didn't get any pictures of the rest of us at the game but in reality it was really all for Nathan we were just along for the ride.

Another side note. When I was a young girl my friend Dixie's family had season tickets to the roadrunners when they were at a different arena. The tickets were right by the penalty box and I remember we would say things to the players in the box and they would sometimes squirt there water bottles at us. We would also try to kick the glass as they would skate by. It was fun memories. I also won a broken stick of Wayne Gretsky's at one of the games. I gave it to Dixie, I wonder if she still has it. I told Nathan about my fun memories and I hope he will remember these experiences that he is fortunate to have when he gets older.

Like I say it was a busy day but we had fun and hopefully made some memories.