MIA'S 6th BIRTHDAY

What better than a pool party with all of your best friends, lots of Pizza, Cheetos and Watermelon and a mound of presents for for your Birthday!

 Our little baby turned six on the 5th on June and lets just say that as the thought of it makes me want to cry.  I truly love our kids and their ages right now, they are so much fun.  But the thought of our last being six makes me sad.  Even though she promised me she would, nothing stays small forever!  She is still small to me and most likely will be forever.  

Mia- We love you so very much! 

 Mia and many of her BFF's.

 Mommy holding her "Baby".

Six years ago she would have fit in her arms, now- Well!?!

 And the Birthday Surprise of the year-

"Bunnies"

The kids all wanted something "alive" for a pet and Daddy finally caved in and decided that Bunnies would be a good outside pet.  Not to big, very cute, and the poo is very small (although very plentiful).  I worked on building a great cage with three cozy compartments, three water bottles and food troughs and it was done.  We all went out the the country and picked them up the day before Mia's Birthday- and they have not put them down since.  They are all Lion heads and very fluffy as you can tell.  Mia named hers frosty (After the Wendy's treat and some coaxing from Daddy), Cayden went with Snuggles (a throw back to Mommy's Bunnie as a kid) and Brenner decided on Bandit, very appropriate for a black Bunnie we thought.

2nd Summer Trip- Tennessee

Summer Trip #2

-Tennessee-

In front of Fall Creek Falls.

The largest falls this side of the Rockies falling 256 feet, they were truly amazing.

Fall Creek Falls

Cane Creek Falls- These falls (actually a cascade) were very beautiful as well.  The kids played, swam, caught tadpoles and had allot of fun at the top of these falls.  There was also a suspension bridge just above the falls that was great fun to bounce on.

Tennessee BBQ- Tangy, Smoky and Sweet- what could be better!

Brenner and His Tadpoles

The Kids on the hike to the bottom of the falls.  We had lunch down at the bottom and a lot of fun swimming and just sitting in the mist of the falls.

Brenner holding a millipede and Mia holding herself.  There are no bathrooms at the bottom!

Cumberland Caverns is a cave that is over 28 miles in length.  We walked through about a mile and a half and it was very cool- literaly, the temperature inside is a cool 56 degrees all the time.

In front of "Mobby Dick", a formation that looked like a whale.

A toad that Cayden found in the back seat of the car after picking up some fire wood- Rib it!

The Kids panning for gems and all sorts of good stuff!

Three Little Spelunkers! Too Cute!

The kids and fire flies in a bottle.  There were hundreds of these little buggers at dusk, very pretty at night.

Cool Treats!

The kids playing (rough housing) in the camper.  Forts and bombs with the pillows and blankets.

The fire at night. Very pretty the second night with the flames in green, blue, pink and purple.  We found a neat new "Magic" fire pouch at the general store, very cool!



We had so much fun in Tennessee!

The kids kept asking if we can come back next year but Daddy has other plans, maybe some time soon.  The Lake House in Georgia is next and then on to the beach in Florida- The Trek moves on!

-The 1st Summer Trip-

Decatur Alabama

 The first trip happened a week early as Daddy was online planning out the summer and found the Alabama Jubilee Hot Air Balloon Festival was over Memorial Day weekend and could not pass up such a great opportunity!  65 Hot Air Balloons in the air all at the same time!  Are you kidding me!

 The Kids in front of Transformers "Bumble Bee" at the antique auto show earlier in the day.

 Inside- yes, inside a balloon laying on the ground filled with cool air from a big fan.  It was very cool and just massive looking from that view!

 The kids, the Balloons and some cool treats.

 The "Balloon Glow" at dusk, very beautiful!  The black one you see in the center is the one we were inside of earlier.

 The next morning and the "Balloon Release".  No matter how hard I tried, I could not ever get them all in the camera shot, far too many balloons over way to much sky. 

Simply amazing!

 Although all the kids thoroughly enjoyed it all, Brenner is a bit older and appreciated the whole thing a bit more.  This was one of his favorites.

A picture of one of Daddy's favorites, and it actually landed about 30 or so feet from where we were standing taking it all in to deflate and roll up.  Fun to watch!

What a fun beginning to hopefully a great summer!

More stuff and Southern States to come so stay posted-

Last Day of School  

Here are the kids on their last morning going to elementary school together.  As Brenner will be in middle school next year, a big 6th grader, they will attend different schools.  Where did the time go?  A Middle Schooler?  Are we talking about our kids???

Alisa will surely love that Brenner is not wearing a T-shirt underneath his top shirt, how did that slip past me?!?  And take a close look at Mia's shirt, yep, it says "love one another" and we bought it at the local Target!  Maybe someone high-up in the Target chain is LDS?!?!

-Summer Trips-

School is out in a week or so for the summer and as we spent our Vacation wad on going to Utah this spring, allot of Camping is ahead of us this summer.  I had the grand idea to visit as many Southern States with our new little camping trailer as possible in 2012 and we are kicking it off with a trip to Tennessee the end of this month.  We will go to a neat cave and do a little spelunking, see some great waterfalls and have some good old camping fun!  Alabama is planned for the second week in June and Florida is planned for the end of the month.  North and South Carolina in July and possibly Kentucky and Virginia by Fall! We will see. Throughout the summer, Nikki has Monday and Tuesday off which gives us a three/four day weekend each and every week until August.  So we my just visit Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana too!

The kids are also all signed up to be manta rays on a local swim team and with scout camps, Mia's Birthday and everything that summer has to offer it looks to be very busy!

BRING IT ON!!!

                                     Lego Land Atlanta

Lego Atlanta! Very Cool!
The Tall Buildings, the Fox, the Aquarium, Turner Field, the Capitol and so much more all built out of Cayden's favorite little bricks.  As you can only imagine, he was in LEGO HEAVEN!

Brenner in front of Lego Turner Field.

Cayden next to the Lego Georgia Dome.

And Mia standing next to "Lego Mia" all built out of Lego bricks!

In the 4D theater. What a fun day!

Les Miserables

We went to Les Miserables with the Carters and it was AMAZING!

The new production of the original was very close to what I remember from before.  The stage did not rotate around and their were several very subtle changes, but for the most part is is the same old show with the same music and truly amazing new staging.  When Javier jumps to his death it is much better than before and everyone loved the Paris sewer scenes.  Exceptional in every way and worth seeing again!

Trip To Utah

-2012-

The trip started with what elts- Pup Pancakes! And lots of good food to come, homemade and from all the great Utah places we miss so much.

The weather could not decide what it whanted to do as we had snow days and beautiful spring days.

Decorating Easter Eggs- so many to decorate!

Bing made Easter Dresses for all the girls and also one that matched perfectly for each of their dolls, so much work, but how cute do they all look!

Laddy and all the boys!

Bing and Laddy- We all love you bolth so much!

The kids after the Easter Egg Hunt.

Marzipan Cake- Yummy!

Jump and Jump!

Out of order but Easter Morning Picture.  Cute but very small baskets, as the usual large ones did not fit in our carry ons.

The Salt Lake Temple Picture.

The flowers were absolutly beautiful and our kids are not to bad either!