13 Years Old

Happy Birthday Chloe!!!

Our one and only daughter turned 13. It's hard to believe but it happened. She is growing up so fast. I can't believe she is a teenager now, or that we now have two teenagers. WOW! Chloe is a free spirit. She is adventurous, beautiful, hard-working, determined, strong willed, an extremely talented athlete, and so much more. She is a fun sister and a great daughter. We love her so much and couldn't imagine how boring our lives would be without her. Love you Sis. 

Summer Bucket List

We decided it would be fun to make a summer bucket list of fun things we wanted to do this summer. I don't think we will get everything on the list done, but I think we will be able to do a lot. Everyone in the family contributed to it.
This is the rough draft we made...

And here is the final copy...

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Flowell at Landon's parents house. We had some work we needed to do around the house and yard. One of the big projects was cleaning out the garage. It was a huge undertaking that took 2 days to complete.

This picture is the in between stages after we had removed everything but before we put it back in.

My Mom, Grandma, and Sisters were also in town, so we took a break Saturday morning to have breakfast with them at The Paradise.

 Bryce practiced his driving skills, one of the perks of being in the country.

 He wore himself out so he took a little nap during dinner.

 The kids always have fun on the swings, and this trip we were able to replace one of the ropes on of of the swings that had been needing it for awhile.

 We went on a little ride up the canyon and the girls were able to catch a fish by making a a rod out of a stick and some misc tackle they had found when we cleaned out the garage. True fishermen right there.

Even though we worked hard we had a fun weekend and enjoyed our time with family.

Summer Means...

Summer means....

that Mom has more time to make breakfast and that's a good thing when one of your favorite foods is pancakes. We definitely eat pancakes more during the summertime, sometimes we even have them for dinner. 

Softball Team Party

We decided to have a fun party to end the season. It was originally planned for Wednesday night but the weather did not cooperate so we had move it to Friday night instead. 

 The girls had a blast playing a game of water kickball. They had to jump in a pool at second and then use a slip and slide when they were coming into home. The coaches and parents played long enough to get a little bit wet, but then we worked on cooking the hot dogs and trying to warm back up (the weather was actually quite cold). 

We were finally able to drag the girls away from there game to eat some dinner. One of the girls moms made these awesome cupcakes...they were a hit.

To end the night we handed out an award to each girl. This is the one that Chloe received.

It was a fun way to end the season.

8th Grade Decision

We thought we had it all planned out and Chloe would be transferring to Dixie Middle School for 8th Grade. We had even gotten her registered there and I had told GWA she wasn't coming back. Then on the last day of school she tells me she has decided to stay at GWA for her last year. WHAT?! I did not see that one coming. I thought she was ready to go. I thought she was ready to be done with uniforms, and have a little bit more freedom. But she had a really good year at GWA. She had made really good friends who were staying, and had an awesome homeroom teacher, who made a huge impact on the decision. Plus she had been there since Kindergarten so why not finish her last year there. So she is staying. Never a dull moment. You just never know with Chloe.

Softball Season Review: Goals, Broken Bats, and Home Runs

Another softball Season has come and gone. Landon coached again this year and I was the assistant although I can't say I did a whole lot more than manage girls in the dugout and base coach, but I tried to help him out.

The girls elected Bryce as their team mascot. He would give them all a high five when they came back in the dugout after playing in the field-it was so cute.

Chloe made a goal at the beginning of the season to not strike out once during the season. She was able to accomplish that and more. I was so proud of her. She worked super hard to meet this goal, doing batting practice almost nightly in the garage with Landon. She quickly set herself apart as was of the best hitters in the entire league. Not only did she not want to strike out but she hated to walk, so sometimes if she had 3 balls on her and no strikes she would swing at a bad one on purpose just to get one more pitch thrown her way. Although she didn't ever strike out she did get out 3 times at bat during the entire season; all three times when someone on the other team would make a lucky catch off of a good hit ball. Her stats were amazing. Her batting average was 0.914. She had 12 singles, 2 doubles, 2 triples, and 8 home runs. In the hitting department she was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

On defense Chloe would mostly pitch, or play third base, or catcher. She had her good moments in all positions, and was able to learn them better. She did have a few rough weeks pitching right when we started having her see a pitching coach, but she was able to get back on a roll after that.

Towards the end of the season Chloe broke her bat. Unfortunately, it was a few weeks after the warranty expired on it, so a new bat was in order. It didn't take her long to break the new one in-she hit a home run with it about a week after getting it. She wants to keep the old one and possibly frame it or something-LOL.

It has been a fun year. We have truly enjoyed being part of this great group of girls. I'm sure we will continue to see many of them throughout the upcoming years at softball games.

Although the regular season is officially over-it's not quite for Chloe, because she made the ALL-STAR TEAM!!!

Front Porch Snoozer

For Mothers Day we went to visit my Grandma Angie. Bryce was being a little be moody (it was past nap time) when we first got there and he said he didn't want to come in the house, so we left him on the front porch. When I went out to check on him a little bit later I found him sound asleep. 

He slept this was for quite awhile. It is so funny some of the ways and positions he falls asleep in. #BryceEE

Preschool Graduation

Bryce had his end of year graduation from Montessori. Since Landon wasn't able to make it due to conflicts at work Tanner attended with me.

 Bryce has loved preschool and will attend again next year. He has learned and grown so much this year. His teachers have been awesome, he has four of them, but he has especially taken to Miss Kelly-who is his reading teacher.

The theme for this year was 'Oh the Places You'll Go'. They have learned a lot about US History and land formations. It has been so cool to hear some of the things he tells me about. One of my favorites is the song 'Mount Rushmore Rocks' it is so cute and I love hearing Bryce sing it. They sang it in the program. Bryce had a part and he got up and said it without any problem. This video clip shows his part it was "it took fourteen years to construct Mount Rushmore".

He had another part during one of the songs it was called 'Driving in my Car'. Bryce had to walk around and around pretending he was driving in a car. Here is a video clip of that.

For part of the program they had made a video of the school year. In the video they asked each child what they wanted to be when they grew up-Bryce is still holding onto his dream of becoming a farmer. HAHA! I don't think Tanner was too thrilled with that answer, he told me we needed to get Bryce into a better preschool. LOL. All I can say is it's better than the kid who said 'Batman' and the other one who said 'A Robber'.

 At the very end they had the kids put on caps and gowns and come forward to receive their diplomas. As they came forward they read a little something special about each child. Here is what they said about Bryce "Bryce is so smart! He is such a great asset to our class! He is excelling at Math and is already on Reading boxes and he only just turned 4! He loves to learn and we enjoy his positive attitude."

 Bryce and Miss Kelly

 Bryce and Tanner

 Bryce and Mommy

Good job Buddy. We love you and are so proud of you!

Sunday Morning Meltdowns

On Sundays we have church starting at 9:00 am. This means, especially after a long week of go, go, go, that sometimes it is hard to get up and get going. Most Sundays Bryce cooperates pretty well, but last week for some reason it just wasn't happening. To start with, he wanted Landon to wear his matching tie. Landon was already ready and didn't feel like changing. Bryce started crying and wanted nothing to do with it. Finally, after listening to the crying for about 10 minutes, Landon offered to let Bryce wear one of his ties. Bryce finally accepted, but that took a lot of creativity on Landon's part to get it to fit the little guy. Then right before it was time to go, Bryce decided it was bugging him too much so he took it off. SERIOUSLY!! HAHA! We just wasted 20 minutes on that tantrum. What do you do?!!!

 #Bryce #fournado

Retiring of the Shin Guards

Chloe has been playing soccer since 2010. She has loved it and like pretty much every other sport she has played she was really good at it. It has been a huge part of all of our lives, and we have seen her grow in so many ways as she has played.

A few weeks ago Chloe made a huge choice. She is quitting soccer for at least a year. Things have been crazy playing three sports. She has had to practice almost every day and sometimes twice for two different sports. She has had to choose between two sports which game to attend. And overall it has just been exhausting for us all. She decided to stop soccer for one year and really focus on basketball and softball and see where that takes her. If she want to play again when she is in high school she will try out for the team and shouldn't have a problem making it.

It has been an emotional decision. Chloe played her last game of the season and although Chloe's team didn't win. She did score a goal, which was a great way to end the season.

After the game Chloe gave her coach a thank you card with her decision inside.

This is the text we received back from him.

'I just wanted to say that we will definitely miss Chloe on our team. It was sad to read that she will be taking a break, but I hope it is what is best for her. She has always worked hard and done what I have asked of her without ONE WORD of complaining! She is a great kid, and you should be very proud parents! Happy that she got a goal today, thank you Chloe for being such an amazing teammate and human being.'

WOW! that honestly couldn't have made us prouder of our girl.

Though that was her last official game with the team, she will be guest playing with them in the upcoming summer games.

In the meantime her other sports have become even more time consuming making us realize the wisdom and necessity of this decision. She has pitching lessons once a week for softball, She also made the all-star team, which brings with it two practices a week. ON top of that she will attend three different basketball camps in the next three weeks (one of them on invite to go to a team camp with the freshman team). 

We love you Chloe!!! Remember life decisions can be difficult, but as long as you work hard and bu your heart into it you will succeed in whatever you choose, and don't forget to have fun along the way. 

#lifedecisions #ourgirl #Chloe