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!!!