Fun at Grandma and Grandpa's

Ah, Grandma and Grandpa's house!  There is a never ending list of fun things to do.  Grandpa, Paul, Allen, Porter, and Sidney went on a hiking adventure. They were so excited.  Sidney was excited to be old enough to go with the boys :)

Riding the 4 wheeler!  Always a favorite. 

Safety first! 

So fun. They never want to go home!

Thanks Mom & Dad

Adam and Megans wedding

We went down to Monument to help with Adam & Megan's Wedding reception.  It was a beautiful day and we had fun setting up and decorating. Maxine's back yard was beautiful and everything came together for a great reception.

Congratulations Adam & Megan!!

Rylee is 4!!

My baby girl is 4!! 

She is at such a fun age.  She is a great side kick while the kids are at school.

She was so excited to turn four and so excited for her "Summer Bash" Birthday party.

Popsicle party favors.

Birthday cupcakes.

Everyone came in there swim suits. We ate lunch, played in the blow up pool, jumped on the trampoline with the hose, played with water balloons, opened presents, and had cupcakes.

It was a great party!

Love these sweet girls! So grateful for my kids's great friends.

Lots of help from Porter.  And Aunt Rachel!!  She came and was a huge help with the party, especially filling up ALL those water balloons!  Thanks Rach, I owe you!

I love everything about this girl, here are some of our favorite things about our newly 4 year old.

She loves her brother and sister.

She is always ready to have fun.

She is always excited about something.

She loves "nem nems" (m & m's). I hope she will say it that way forever :)

She loves to go to lunch group with the little old ladies from our ward. And she calls them "her friends".

She loves to go to my Stake Relief Society Presidency meetings and will sit quietly by me and eat snacks and play pet shops the whole time.

She is my little buddy. And while I am so excited for her to turn four I know that is a little closer to going to school. I am not sure I can let her go. She is so excited for preschool. She got her backpack and I cried a little.

Love you, sweet Rylee girl!

Dance class

I had to sneak a picture of Rylee in her summer ballet class :)

Love that girl!

Coming in 2012.....

We are so excited to share this sweet picture of baby Welch due in January.  

I still can't believe it.

The kids are so excited.  They are fun ages to really get it.  

I am so thankful and excited for this next chapter in our family's story.

For now we will pray, enjoy, plan, dream, and count down to January.  

New summer skills!

Vernal trip

Clearly we were too busy having fun to be bothered with taking pictures!

We had so much fun in Vernal, we always do :)

This is a picture of the kids all decked out in their cowboy boots heading off to the Rodeo.

They loved it.  There is something about a small town summer rodeo.  Lots of great memories!

We played with Brook and the kids, Lindsy, Donovan, Braden, Bryan, and Justin.

We helped Grandpa Boom in the garden and feeding the cows.

We went shooting with Aaron.

We enjoyed watching movies and snuggling with Grandma LaRae.

We visited and had lunch with Grandma Lois.

We went to Walmart...multiple times :)

We hit up all of our favorite shops and restaurants.

We went to Randi's pond and threw rocks.

We may or may not have helped with prairie dog population control. (Or "fairy dogs" as Rylee calls them)

We enjoyed slowing down and spending time with family.

And we remembered why Vernal is one of our favorite places to be :)

THE dress

Oh, this dress!  My Great Grandma Oka bought this dress.  My Mom, Aunt, Me, my Sister, my Cousin,  Sidney, and now Rylee all have pictures wearing it.

I love it.

The tradition will go on.  I hope to see many more cute little girls through generations wearing this lacy, ruffly dress!

Uncle Paul to the rescue!

Paul really came through for us!!  Allen is out of town and Porter had cub scout camp today.  He was so excited to show me his fish he caught and brought home!

He really wanted to show Dad and cook it when he gets home.  So we called Uncle Paul (the fisherman) and asked some questions.  We found out that you can not save a whole trout that long, even in the freezer.  And this very nauseous Mom in her 1st trimester could not even think about cleaning the fish without gagging.

But the thought of bursting his bubble of excitement was so sad.  Luckily, Paul shared in his excitement and said he would be right over.  It was 8:00 at night and he hopped in the car and drove straight over and helped Porter clean his fish.  I was SO grateful!  I stayed back and let them get to work :)

The girls were very interested.  But had a lot of questions.  Rylee just kept asking, "Why are him's eyes open".  We taught a few life lessons that night :)

Paul cleaned the fish, packaged it all up, put it in the freezer, and then cleaned the kitchen so there was no fishy smell left.

Thank you Paul!  You saved us!

CA!

We had a great time in California.  We were able to spend time with all of our family there.  Keri was great and let us stay at her house.  She had a special bed set up for the kids with new beach towels laid out for each of them.  They were so excited and are already asking when we can have a sleepover at Aunt Keri's house again!

Allen participated in a triathlon with some of his siblings.  It was cold and it rained the whole time.  They did great and it was fun to be there to cheer them on.

Allen, Leslie, Keri, Lauren, and Steve

Great job Allen!

Then we met more aunts and cousins at Great America.

The kids had so much fun on the rides.  Aunt Keri was awesome and was Rylee's ride buddy!

Raegan and Rylee, these cute girls were best buddies and had so much fun together.  Wish we lived closer so they could get to spend more time together.  I love that they just pick up right where we left off last year.

Porter had a great time with the older cousins.  He decided that he was ready for a few of the big rides!

We love all of our family in California!  I love to see our kids with all of the cousins.  They are so good to them and our kids look up to them so much.

I wish we could push Colorado and California closer together :)

Last day of 1st grade!

I can't believe she is done with 1st grade!  This is Sidney and her teacher Mrs. Chism.  Sidney had a great year.  She loved her teacher, her school, and all of her friends.  She worked hard and has learned so much.

Now bring on summer!!

Sidney's field trip

I have a love/hate relationship with field trips.  I love to go on them with my kids, but if I can't they totally stress me out!  Luckily I was able to tag along on Sidney's trip to the Denver aquarium.  We had a lot of fun.  I love the cute girls in her class.  She is lucky to have such great friends.  And I am lucky that I was able to spend 6 hours with my favorite first grader :)

Zoo day

We are loving the warm weather!  And any excuse to hang out with baby Kaden ;)

So we spent the day at the zoo with my Mom and Dad & Rachel, Paul, and Kaden.

We saw the animals, rode the carousel, had lunch, soaked up the sun, and had slushies.

It was a good day.