Saturday Soccer and Birthday Party

Chloe had her weekly Soccer Game on Saturday it was in Cedar City once again. It was at 9:15 in the morning. It was cold and rainy, though it didn't rain during the game, just on the drive up and back. Her team had yet another win of 5-1. I think they might be able to pull off another undefeated season. The team is really growing together-both athletically and as well as their friendships. Last week on Monday Chloe's coach took them all out for milkshakes. The girls had a blast. So glad we were able to find this team for her-it has been great! 

 After her game we went over to have some cake and ice cream for Breckon's second birthday. Of course my sister whipped up this cute Curios George cake. I can't believe all of the babies in our family are turning two this year-it is crazy!!!

Then it was off to the mall with the three kids. Not my favorite thing to do-shopping with a teenager, pre-teen and a baby can be a nightmare, but the kids just won't stop growing-haha and there were a few things we really needed. The trip actually didn't go too badly-we were able to find some great deals and stay pretty much on budget-the only bad part was Bryce decided he wanted to run and hide in the clothes racks-Oh boy!!!

Baseball Update April 20-24 Dixie vs Snow Canyon

Tanner played two games this week both against Snow Canyon. His team lost both games by quite a bit. Tanner played the last three innings of both games at 2nd. Landon and I were both able to see most of the game on Tuesday. Friday I went over to the game, but ended up leaving before he went in, cause of the weather. It was rainy, cold, and miserable and I just couldn't tough it out anymore-I guess I am a fair weather parent. Landon wasn't able to come to that one at all cause we had our ward Spring Party that night and he was busy helping with that. 

Tanner is down to 2 games left for this season-I can't believe how fast the time has flown!!!

Softball Update April 20-24

Chloe had two softball games this week. She missed the first cause she was home super super sick. She was not happy about it! Landon still had to go and coach though :) Chloe's team won that game.

Her second game was on Thursday. It was a rough game-not only was it freezing cold and raining up until a few minutes before the game started, but the team they played was tough. Most of Chloe's team is made up of 10 year olds the team we played was mostly 12 year olds, who a good share of play on a traveling team. No joking half of the girls on the other team were bigger than Tanner-haha! Our team was a just a little bit intimidated-but I am proud of them they all got out there and played despite the tough competition. They didn't win-but they tried their best and that's what matters.

Tanner actually was with us for Chloe's Thursday game-a rare occurrence these days-I feel like we never see the kid anymore. I snapped this cute picture of all three of them in the dugout-no they aren't all smiling and looking at the camera, but I think it pretty well sums them each up. 

Sickies

As I wrote on an earlier post-Bryce was really sick with a stomach bug that has been going around really bad down here. I was hoping the rest of us wouldn't have to get it, but it just wasn't in the cards. I ended up getting sick and was sick for an entire day-I really didn't feel well enough to do much of anything, but I wasn't nearly as sick as Bryce had been-luckily mine only lasted a day and then I was feeling much better.

Unfortunately Chloe caught it too. She started feeling sick Sunday. She went to school Monday thinking she was okay but ended up coming home before the day was over and then was out until Thursday. If you know Chloe you know she hates being sick more than anything. It is hard on her to just lay around and not do anything. I would have to say that with this bug she was sicker than I have ever seen her. She laid around crying most of the day Tuesday cause she was so sick and in so much pain. She was even more upset that Tuesday night she had team pictures and a softball game. I took her over for the pictures, but before they were even over she was laying on the ground because she was so sick. I then took her home and put her back to bed. Poor Girl!

Luckily neither Landon or Tanner got the bug. 

Reading in the Tub

Sunday night I was getting ready to give Bryce a bath. He came walking into the bathroom with his new Ice Age Book that Great-Grandma had given him. (A little note...Bryce has moved onto Ice-Age instead of Farms-he watches the movies, reads the books, and plays with toy dinosaurs and other pre-historic animals ) Anyways he was determined that the book was going in the tub with him-after all he sees Mom and Sis take books in the bath all the time, so why shouldn't he. I was finally able to get it away from him and sat it on the towel rack above the toilet. I then got him settled in the tub. A few minutes later I walked into the living room to grab something and then went back to check on him, when I walked back in the bathroom he told me "no Mom get out". If that isn't a red flag for him doing something he shouldn't I don't know what is. It was then that I realized he was holding his book under the water so I wouldn't see it. Who knows how long it had been under for! He was distraught when I took the book from him to try and salvage. I was able to dry it out after a few days although the front cover is pretty much destroyed as well as several of the pages. So now we are in the market for a new ice age book and I have learned to watch Bryce like a hawk when there is something he is determined to do. 

Weekly Soccer Update

Saturday Chloe had her weekly soccer game. I was unable to attend since I was home with a sick baby. Good thing Landon was able to go, but I forgot to tell him to take pictures-so no pictures this week. Anyways Chloe's team secured another win. Winning 3-2. It should have been 4-2 with the last goal coming from Chloe after she kicked it back in after it bounced off the goalie-however a bad call (according to Chloe's coach, Landon, and Chloe) of off-sides by the referee and her goal didn't count. Sad!!! :( She was so disappointed about it, maybe next time sis.

Teacher Appreciation Week-Space Theme

Last week was Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week at Chloe's school of course I was in charge again-lol. I think it's one of those things I might never get away from until I no longer have kids at that school. This year for the first time in the past several years I had an awesome co-chair, Julianna Meyers. It helped so much just having someone else share part of the load and also was a great blessing when Bryce ended up sick and I wasn't able to finish my obligations during the luncheon which we held for all the teachers/staff on Friday afternoon.

We chose a space theme for this year.

"Our teachers/staff are OUT OF THIS WORLD!"

We had parents bring in goodies and snacks to the teachers lounge every morning. Here are some of the decoration we put up in there...

Here is a picture of the cute bulletin board in the teachers lounge made by one of the parent volunteers.

We made sure all of the doors got decorated-mostly this was done by room parents and volunteers, but there were a few we had to cover that didn't get done.
Landon helped me make a few the night before....

Of course I had lots of good ideas but it was thanks to my sister in law Brenda that we had cute designs for our theme and daily handouts. Here is the note that went out to all the teachers...

Monday's Handout-You're the STAR of our school (with starburst candy of course)

Tuesday's Handout-You are OUT OF THIS WORLD (with Milky Way Bar)

Wednesday's Handout-was an 8x10 print with a quote from YODA.

Thursday's Handout-Give yourself a Cosmic Smile (it had a packet of Orbit gum and a gift card to a local teeth whitening lounge attached)

Disclaimer-Friday I had a sick baby and was running on little sleep since he had been up all night the previous night. I didn't get a picture of the daily handout, the luncheon, or the cute ice cream bar we had put together ;(
Here is the saying for Friday though-"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars". This was attached to a little debbie star crunch as well as a movie ticket and a ticket for a free popcorn.

All in all I think the week went great! The teachers/staff were truly appreciative. It was a lot of work-and I'm super glad it's over, but I really do like being in charge of this for the teachers each year-shhhh let's not let that get out though-haha.

Sick Sick Boy-Stomach Flu

Last week Preslie was sick with the flu bug-and it got passed on to Bryce.

Thursday night Bryce woke up throwing up. He threw up all night long and for the next few day. Along with throwing up he developed a fever. Saturday he started having really bad diarrhea as well, which he continues to have today. Poor little guy-he just can't catch a break. He just barely started regaining strength and some of the lost weight from the Cold Sore virus a few weeks ago and now this hits him!

We can tell it is hitting his system hard, cause pretty much all he has had the energy to do for the past few days is sleep. Hopefully tomorrow will be a turning point and he can get back to normal-and hopefully none of the rest of us get it. 

Softball Update April 13-17 (Big Hit for Little Chlo)

Last week Chloe only had one softball game. The coach of the other team is someone we do not think to highly of (Chloe's all-star coach from last year). It is a long story, but he is part of the reason Landon is coaching this year along with his assistant coach (Swanson) whose daughter was on the all-star team as well. There is also one other girl on Chloe's team who was on the all-star team last year and her parents feel the same way as us and Swanson do. In short-we don't like the guy. So going into this game we were really hoping for the girls to play a great game and show him what they were all about. His team has been creaming most of the competition up until now, but I am happy to say that although they won us it wasn't by much, the final score being 15-11. Chloe caught for two innings and played short stop for the last one. She did amazing at catcher-stopping stuff, running girls back, etc. At short stop she made a great throw (from almost third base right to the glove of the first baseman) everyone in the stands was like whoa when she threw it. (honestly-most of the girls this age just can't make a throw like that). Coach Swanson's daughter also made a great play at first when she caught a hard line drive to get an out. Chloe's really awesome moment came in the bottom of the third inning. We had two outs with runners on 2nd and 3rd. The all-star coach's (Hillyard) daughter was pitching and another of his supposed all star players was on second. Chloe stepped up to the plate and hit a hard ground ball right back up the middle. As it went through the legs of both the pitcher and the 2nd baseman-Chloe's old coach sat on the sideline shaking his head in disgust. While Chloe's teammates cheered on the two runners from second and third as they both made it home to score. Chloe made it safely to first base where we held her up. To say we were just a little bit proud after that hit would be an understatement!!!

Big Bump

The weather this week has been horribly cold and windy. Landon had to be a a meeting for work Tuesday night so I needed to fill in for him in the coaching department. My Grandma and Bryce decided to just stay at her house rather than suffer through an hour and a half of 40 mile an hour winds and dust. I took Bryce over and dropped him off but just before Chloe and I left he tripped and hit is head really hard on the edge of Grandma's coffee table. He got a pretty good goose-egg that looked like it might even split. He cried for awhile, but wouldn't let us put any ice on it. After a bit he was okay and was just as happy as could be to be staying with his best buddy Great Grandma. I didn't get the best picture of how bad it was, but as you can see in the second picture he is none the worse and back to his happy self. 

Baseball Update April 13-17 Dixie vs Pineview

Tanner had two games last week both against Pine-View. We weren't able to make it to the first one at all (which of course was the one he played the whole game at). The second game I was home with sick little Bryce, Landon went to part of it, but didn't stay cause Tanner only hit once and then was out for the rest of the game-he didn't play in the field at all. Dixie lost both games by quite a bit.

I can't believe the season is almost over-4 games left. We are hoping to get to all four of them and also hoping that Tanner will get some good playing time in the last for games of the season. 

New Sunday Outfit

Bryce in his new Easter Clothes-tell me he isn't just the cutest thing ever?!

 An added bonus he didn't scream about these clothes at all like he does any other church clothes I try to put on him. He hates polos, button ups, and especially ties. This outfit consists of just a plain t-shirt with the sweater vest over and of course some shorts, but they are all pretty soft fabric so he is good with it. Thank Heavens! No more fights on Sunday mornings when I get him dressed. Tanner was the same way when he was little-we couldn't get a tie on the kid to save us-especially since there was no way the top button on any shirt was getting done up-I guess it was just too constricting or something ;)

Grandma Came to Town

Last weekend Grandma Tawny came to town. She was able to spend several days before heading back home. My sister Mandy and her kids also came down for a couple days, so we had lots of fun hanging out. Saturday all of the women/girls went yard-selling for a few hours.We had fun and found a few treasures to bring home. Sunday evening we all had dinner and homemade ice-cream out at my Grandma Marshall's house. Bryce hadn't taken a nap all day Sunday so he was getting pretty tired. My mom was holding him and he suddenly just flopped over in mid-sentence dead asleep. She gave him a kiss as he was leaving but he was too asleep to even acknowledge. It's always good when Mom/Grandma gets to come to town-though we talk almost every day those in person visits sure are nice.

Weekly Soccer Update

Last week Chloe had her weekly soccer game. It was in Cedar City so we took a little bit of a road trip. Her team won 2-1. It was a great game!!! Chloe played so hard she is becoming an awesome little forward. Another win for team United-making them undefeated so far this season (Spring 2015). 

Happy Birthday to Landon

Last week was Landon's 37th Birthday. Of course we had softball and baseball games the night of his Birthday so we didn't really plan anything that night. He opened a few presents the night before and on his birthday when we got home the Bishop was waiting with a big cheesecake from Costco for him. We all enjoyed eating it over the next few days. 

Saturday we had to travel to Cedar City for Chloe's soccer game-we took the opportunity to go out to then for his Birthday Lunch. We went to Sizzler, since we don't have one in St. George. Everyone filled up on steak and shrimp; except for Chloe and Bryce I think they mostly filled up on ice cream-haha!

Happy Birthday Landon! We are so lucky to have this guy in our lives.

Bryce and Preslie

These two really are becoming good little friends. They have their moments with their baby fights but overall they love each other. Every morning the first thing Bryce asks me is "Preslie coming today Mom?" He gets really mad if I tell him no. HAHA! One day last week the weather was nice and I took them to the park for awhile. They had so much fun, The only challenge came when it was time to go home and Bryce threw a big fit-it was a little hard getting them both safely to the car and in their seats with him screaming. Of course he started saying his favorite naughty word "ShutUp" which is what he says whenever he gets super mad (the joys of having teenage kids around toddlers). I'm sure all of the parents listening thought I was a great parent for my two year old to be saying that to me. At least this picture reminded me of how much I love the little guy even when he upsets me sometimes. 

Softball Update April 6-10

Chloe had two softball games last week. Her team won both, which means they are now 3-0 (undefeated)! Chloe is really loving to catch and is doing such a good job at it for it being her first year. She got hits in both of her games this week and also pitched for 1 inning where she was able to get 3 strike-outs. 

In Chloe's second game there was a bit of an accident when one of the girls was swinging a bat too close to the dugout and hit Chloe right in the arm. She was hurt pretty badly. Her arm swelled up where the bat hit her and she was in a lot of pain-all this happened before the game started. Chloe being the little fighter she was refused to sit on the bench (injured) and let someone catch for her-she got in there and played even though she was hurt. The worst part was when she had to hit-it really hurt her to swing the bat-she ended up connecting and getting a really small hit, and was able to outrun it to first. Luckily after a few days her arm was back to normal and all of the girls now know not to swing bats close to the dugout.

Bryce is a little trooper through it all. I hope he doesn't get to worn out on sports by the time he is old enough to play. Here are some shots of him-just hanging out at the ball field. Of course it helps that Great-Grandma usually shows up with a bag of treats to share with him.

 I thought I had better put a picture of the awesome batting line up Chloe made for Landon (Coach) for his birthday. She had just a little bit of help from Mom and Aunt Sandi-it turned out great!!! 

Baseball Update April 6-10

Last week the Dixie Sophomore played 3 games.

They played Cedar City twice once at home and once away and they also played the Enterprise JV in Enterprise. So Tanner got to travel quite a bit last week-and was able to get out of school early with the team to go to his games-which is always a bonus for a high-school student.

Tanner played in all three games at 2nd. He played the last 3 or 4 innings against Cedar. In Enterprise he played the first 5. He did a lot of routine stuff, but also made a couple of good plays.

Dixie won Cedar the first time they played them and lost to them the second time around.

They easily won their game against the Enterprise JV 10-2.

We weren't able to be to most of his games last week cause our schedules either didn't work out to travel or we had a conflict with Chloe's game times-hopefully this week we will be able to see more of them.

Easter Fun, Flowell, and General Conference

Our Easter Fun started on Thursday with the cousins.
First up-Easter Sugar Cookies.
Some got a few too many sprinkles and a few of the kids ate them faster than we could frost them-haha. They turned out way cute though and tasted delicious.
This is the best sugar cookie recipe I know.
LaDawna's Sugar Cookies

Next Up-Easter Egg Hunt
The college puts on a big community Easter Egg Hunt. The kids found out about it and wanted to go-mainly because they wanted to find one of the three golden Easter eggs to win a giant stuffed bear. There were some games and stuff before the hunt started. The Easter Bunny was also walking around and you could get your picture taken with him. Taylee and the other kids were happy to comply, but while I was trying to take their picture Bryce was in my arms screaming to get away from the Easter Bunny. He was terrified of him-the whole rest of the time we were there if he even saw him-he would start crying and getting as far away from him as possible.-poor kid.
Apparently this cute little bunny is really terrifying...

 Moving onto Friday and Continuing the Fun with the dying of Easter Eggs

 Bryce and Preslie were pretty excited about the whole thing-they went directly into the tub when it was all over.

 Chloe made the cutest "emoji" eggs

When we go to Flowell for Easter the Easter Bunny comes Saturday morning, so when the kids woke up Saturday morning it was time for the fun continue. Luckily, we have some Easter Bunnies in training who take care of hiding all of the eggs and baskets. (Tanner, Chloe, and Jack)

My kids all got Kendama's (Japanese yo-yo's) in their Easter baskets. They are the newest rage right now. They provided hours of entertainment all weekend long for all of the kids. Bryce even got a mini one-when he first go it he said "look Mom I got a wrecking ball"-haha. He quickly learned the real name and now he calls it his "dama".

Oh yes and the kids did go outside for a little Easter Egg hunt despite the fact that it was only about 19 degrees when they ventured out-haha- the Easter Bunnies hid the real eggs out there.

This year Easter weekend was also General Conference weekend. So after the kids played with their Easter stuff for awhile and got loaded up on sugar-we watched the first session of conference (or a least attempted to). Then it was time to head out to the sand-hills for the annual get together and lunch-for any of Landon's siblings, and cousins who happen to be in town. It started out being nice, but by the time it was over the wind was blowing like crazy. All of the food was being blown of the table and off people's plates and Bryce got taken out by a tumble week. By the time we packed up and got out of there we were all grateful to be headed back to Grandma's house. At least they got a little bit of egg rolling and kite flying in, before the wind got to bad. 

Bryce is obsessed with camels right now-on the way home from the sand-hills he asked Landon if he had seen any camels out there-haha-I guess he figured it was like a desert where the camels live.

That night Landon, his Dad (Dave), and Tanner went to the Priesthood Session of Conference. 

Sunday there were two more sessions of Conference. I made the kids these Conference Easter baskets.They had some activities for them to do during conference, as well as some treats, and their new Easter clothes. The eggs held little pictures of Jesus as well as a treat. 

We had a wonderful few days celebrating Easter. The kids had so much fun with their cousins and we had a great time visiting Landon's family. We also truly enjoyed the wonderful messages we heard during Conference and our so grateful that we understand the true meaning of Easter. We love our Savior Jesus Christ and are happy that by and through him we will not only be able to return to him, but to be together forever as a family.