defending the crown....

congratulations butterfield stage ward! they won first place again! our road show is sooo cute! i don't have a video of it, too busy with the camera, lame i know. i will have to see if i can get a copy and post it. the music and dancing in it are so amazing:) anyway, here is the slideshow i put together. i didn't want to post it until all the youth had a chance to watch it! enjoy!

odyssey of the mind

ian had the opportunity to participate in odyssey of the mind. his problem was "the gift of flight." he started practices in october and competed in march. he spent a lot of hours working on his problem and skit, and practicing for his spontaneous problem. from october -december he spent about 4 hours a week. from january until the competition in march, they worked about 8-9 hours a week. this was an amazing experience, and we are so grateful for this opportunity.

fortunately, ian had his best buddy caden with him through it all. in addition to the pain and suffering they caused their coach, they really did provide their team with excellent ideas! i would definitely say they were an asset to their team:)

road show is now over, and i am so proud of all the youth in our stake! they all worked so hard, and did such a great job:) i am so happy for our ward...they took first place! i will be posting my final slideshow soon!

road show

here's a little sneak peak of the fun the youth in our ward have been having with their road show! the theme we were given is "princess and the pea" and also president hinckley's "be clean." i love the script, i love the music, i love the energy you get when you watch the kids practice. sooo great! so i had to put together just a quick fun slide show. this is just a low res version, since i am not really done yet....i'm having way to much fun with this:)

click here: road show

my favorite peeps:)

ian just had a birthday:) this was his off year for a "friend party."
however, i did take him to the family fun center after school for some fun. and wouldn't you know, i grabbed my camera bag and left the camera at home:( i wished i had some pictures of him on the bumper boats.

this little red head just started his first year of baseball! we have waited forever for this!

this picture proves that alec does occasionally smile for the camera, lol! this was taken at road show practice. i can't wait to post some more pictures from road show!

my sweet princess! she will be in her first gymnastics competition in april. she did gymnastics for years, finally got to competition level, got really sick and switched to dance. after 2.5 years of being out of gymnastics, she decided she wanted to go back and compete. it is absolutely amazing that after just 6 months of training she will be ready to compete! i am so excited for her:) i love her drive and desire to succeed!

a little bit of spring...

it was busy week last week...fortunately i did have the chance to get a few photo shoots in:) this family below is so incredible. i first met amy about 8 yrs. ago. she was one of my young women. now she's married has 1 little boy, and another on the way (how old am i?) she is such a cute mother, she has so much love and patience.

i love this shot!!! i love the one eye open!!


it was also ian's birthday last week...need to get a few pics up of him. i just haven't had a chance to get them all edited yet:)

happy valentines day

happy valentines day to you all! i hope your day was filled with love:)

here's a card (designed by my fabulous sis in law) that we sent to matt. he is currently spending his time in europe. he had a fabulous valentines day gift. he went and saw les miserables in london. i am sooo jealous!!! i am glad that he had a great time, it is miserable (no pun intended, ha ha) to be alone. i will get over there with him one of these days.

notice the lovely scowl upon alec's face, lol! i promise he really is more enjoyable to be around than he looks. he is just a typical teenage boy:) my poor kids have just lost all patience for me when the camera is around....too bad!

playing catch-up

here's a few pics from chase's birthday. i didn't really want to do a big party....so we took chase and three of his friends to chuck e. cheese. i know you are so jealous that you did not get to join us! it really is not my most favorite place, but, he was soooo happy! and if he is sooooo happy then i so am i:)

here's one of the three times chase got to blow out birthday candles. this picture is from his pre-school.

PURE JOY!