No Forks, No Plates, No Problem!

Manners, manners, manners!!!! Sometimes we just need to have fun! Which brings us to our Family Home Evening No Hands dinner. The kids with their cousins had so much fun last time that Amy-Sue and I decided to do it again. There is only 1 rule...No hands!The meal comes in 3 courses; Bread and salad, spaghetti, then ice-cream. There are also no dishes or eating utensils. Water only comes by having it poured in your mouth by a pitcher (like a baby bird). The best part is the clean-up. Just throw away the plastic tablecloth after each course.


Anybody want to come next time?????

Giving time today, to make life better tomorrow

A couple weekends ago our family had the opportunity to give our time, money and physical ability to support two worthy causes.
On Friday we participated in the Mormon Helping Hands Project Pantry. We spent the evening collecting food from the neighborhood to replenish the local food banks. The kids spent about two hours going door to door asking for donations. They really enjoyed seeing their efforts pay off by collecting 14 bags of food. Their efforts along with the entire stake totaled just under 10 tons of food.


On Saturday, we participated as a family

in the

in honor of this beautiful baby girl who would have turned 3 this month

To support this great family. One of the strongest families I know.

Those who can do more...volunteer
Rylee, Jessica and Cortney volunteered from 5:30am to 2:00 pm

During the ceremony they released doves. They were beautiful flying in the blue sky.

Some of Team Katie did the 5K run but most of us did the 1K walk. Here are some pics of the walk and activities that we participated in. This makes a long post but they are memories we don't want to forget.











This event will definatly become an annual tradition for our family.We are gratful to all those who have donated to help save so many lives.

Look Who's Three!

It seems like just yesterday Peyton was born yet at the same time it seems that she has always been with us. In honor of her birthday, here are 3 things we love about her and a few oldie shots.

The day Peyton was born. All 11 pounds 3 ounces of her.

Her Dad LOVES that she LOVES shoes!

We LOVE how silly she gets just to make us laugh.

We LOVE the expressions that come out of her mouth. It makes you stop to think, How old is she again?

Happy Birthday Peyton! We love you!

A Whole New Look

Cassidy has enjoyed having long hair all through middle school.

But now that middle school is coming to an end,she wanted to sass it up a bit.



Thanks Megan for giving her exactly what she was looking for.

Mother is a special word for love

I love this picture because this is Mother's Day to me. The picture of the fairy tale perfect mother's day went out the window years ago. You know the one with breakfast in bed after sleeping in, the perfectly clean house, the kids wearing color coordinated clothes with hair nicely settled on their head, kids playing a board game in the middle of the living room without any discord, the kids serenading you with beautiful harmonizing voices, a beautiful picture taken with your kids Etc. etc. etc. This is not my kind of Mother's Day. Sleeping in doesn't happen with 9:00am church but I do get my husband home in the morning because meetings are cancelled. The perfectly clean house will probably never happen but the dishes were done. The coordinated clothes I like, but I'm really just thrilled when they are all dressed in clean (not the prized shirt that must be worn everyday) clothes that they have picked out and put on themselves. Not a sound of contention, come on , I have 6 kids. And the beautiful harmonizing music is Hannah Montana the movie CD being played in the car while the kids see who can sing the loudest.
No, this is not the picture perfect Mothers day that would be in a fairy tale BUT it is MY Mother's Day and that in itself is perfect. I'm so happy that I have these kids that I love so much. I love that they try really hard to make it a nice day for me. I love that my husband will change the diapers that I don't want to change on this day. I love that he will surprise me with a present that I was not expecting. I especially love that my kids will try to put up with my picture taking even when one is having a meltdown and I still insist on taking them.
Drew and I are so thankful that our moms live so close to us. We are so lucky to have them as examples in our lives.


Here are some of my wonderful gifts

And for those of you that are wondering why Peyton was so upset, It may have had something to do with me making her get off of this

just so I could take some of these. Can we really blame her? I don't think so.


Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women we call family and friends.

Medieval Times

At the end off April we took Cassidy, Camryn, Hudson, and Sabrina to Medieval Times. Rylee was supposed to go but wasn't feeling well. I found a coupon for 1 kid under 18free per paying adult. Thank you Neil and Meleah for joining us so 2 more of our kids could eat for free.

We were seated in the Red Knight section. We ate dinner and cheered our Knight on as he battled the evil Green Knight.




They did cool horse tricks.

The kids loved eating with their hands.


Hudson caught the flower thrown out by the Red Knight and like a gentleman gave it to his cousin Sabrina. Meleah also caught a flower and gave it to Cassidy.

We all had a great time! By the way, our Red Knight won the battle!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

This past weekend our ward combined with the Spanish branch from our building for a Cinco de Mayo fiesta. Everybody had a great time.
The food was muy bueno! Thanks Ximeno branch for the sopas.

There was a fun game of Hot Sombreros.

The YM/YW combined to do a traditional Mexican Polka. I was really proud of how hard they worked.