Saturdays at the Sports Academy

Every Saturday this year we have gone to our gym with the kids and spent several hours there. It has been a blast and is becoming a great tradition. The first hour Luke and I work out together while the kids spend time playing in the kids club. Then we take the kids swimming, then we play basketball. We end up being at the gym for 3 1/2 hours. It has been great family time and lots of good exercise.

Here's a picture of the kids cheesin' it! They are excited, and in their sports gear for some good exercise!

Luke and Jaylee playing ball!

Oliver has gotten really good at shooting and dribbling lately. I take Oliver and Jaylee to the kids club at the gym everyday. They get to go into the gym and play basketball. You hardly ever see Oliver without a basketball now. He loves it!

Surprisingly enough, Jaylee is a great dribbler. She's pretty coordinated.

Sabree is such a pretty girl. I thought she was cute leaning against the wall.

Here's Sabree swimming. She is on the Sports Academy's swim team. Her technique has really improved. She's a talented swimmer.

Anyone who has taught Oliver swimming lessons has said that they love to teach him because he always has a smile on his face when he's in the water. I love his smile!

Jaylee has always pretty scared of the water. She has been getting a lot more comfortable over the last couple of weeks. She's cute!

Jingle Bells!

So...Jaylee's favorite song since 2 Christmas' ago is Jingle Bells. We have had to sing that song every night for over a year. She loves it! Anyway, tonight Luke was tickling Jaylee's back in bed and singing Jingle Bells for the 3rd time. Jaylee was snoring at this point and he was pretty much whispering the song. He got to the point where he said, "Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh...." Out of no where, our snoring child yelled, "HEY"! It was so funny. She was totally snoring before and totally asleep after but she sure sang out at the right part! I love sleeping kids!!!!This wasn't her tonight but see...they are so cute when they are asleep!!!

Ice Skating Field Trip

Sabree's class went ice skating today and I was one of the lucky parents that got to go along. It was a lot of fun. For the first 30 minutes the kids had a lesson. The last half hour was free skating. Sabree is actually pretty good at ice skating. We've only taken her 1 other time and that was a really long time ago. She had a few good falls but over all it was a blast!

Sabree and her Silly friends just arriving at the ice rink

All laced up and ready to go!

This is right after a really good fall! She actually scared all of us adults. Her skates ran into the wall, then her face hit the wall, then she fell backwards. I thought she'd be really hurt but she was laughing!

Mother, Daughter skating event! Sabree's so cute!

These are some of Sabree's favorite friends at school...Addison, Sabree, Maddi, Mary, Faith and Jesse. She has some great friends here and loves it so much!

11 Years...Happy Anniversary!

It has been a great day! It is our 11 year anniversary. 11 YEARS! That's a long time. We've actually been best friends for 15 years though. I can hardly remember life without Luke. He's such a great husband and I'm so grateful that he is a part of my life. This morning I woke up to beautiful flowers and a poem. He used to write me poems all the time but it had been a while until today...I loved it! The poem was so cute! It pretty much summed up the last 11 years of our life together. It was perfect! He's such a sweetie!

Christmas Events

We had such a fun Christmas and it all started 2 days early! We knew we were leaving Christmas afternoon but we also knew we were getting a Wii. We thought it would be hard to leave it after getting it the same day so we decided to send the kids on a hunt for the present. Luke wrote several clues that sent the kids all over the house. Anyway, in the end they opened the Wii! We set it up immediately and had the best time playing it!

One of our favorite games is a bike race. Oliver was hilarious! When he played the bike game he was running in place and moving his arms! He got so into it! We were laughing so hard!

On Christmas Eve we finally put our gingerbread house together. We had been meaning to for weeks and something always came up...finally the finished product! It may not be beautiful but it was fun to put together!

That evening, Oliver discovered 3 presents on the doorstep! Th Elves had dropped off p.j.'s for the kids! This was a hit! The kids went crazy...we love those elves!

Christmas morning...Sabree got her Littlest Pet Shop house and pets from Santa!

One of Oliver's favorite toys...a remote controlled helicopter...thanks Grandma and Grandpa Oliver!Jaylee got a Cinderella doll!On our way to Orem...it was so sunny so all the kids wanted sun glasses. I thought they looked cute! Plus, Sabree's sporting her new clothes!
We love tired little kids when it works out like this picture! Tired and still awake = disaster...tired and sleeping = heaven!
Grandma and Grandpa Oliver
Jaylee and Tyson's girlfriend, Amelia. Jaylee never lets anyone do her hair, but on Christmas she let Amelia do it! It's crazy but still...it's up!!! It's a Christmas miracle!Grandpa Adams and JayleeAmy and Sabree! It was so fun to see Jake and Amy again! Amy played littlest pet shop with Sabree for a while. Sabree was in heaven!
Mandy, Eli and Sabree! We never get to see them enough...again, so fun to see the aunts and uncles!
The girls spent some time cooking with Grandma. They had a great time. Sabree got a new cupcake cookbook from Grandma and Grandpa so they made some cupcakes. The girls also helped with Chex Mix...building great memories!
This pictures pretty much sums up the Christmas events. It was fun, the kids were cute! We're already counting down for next year!

Oliver's taking a stand!

Yesterday I helped out in Oliver's kindergarten class for a Christmas party. We seperated the kids into groups of 5. Anyway today I was talking to Oliver about his party the day before. One part of the conversation was so cute! It went something like this...

I asked, "Who was that cute girl that was in your group. She had blonde hair with curly piggytails. She was wearing a black shirt."

He paused for a minute..."Mom, she dresses immodest all the time so, NO WAY!"

Luke and I had to turn away and laugh quietly. I wasn't trying to set him up with her! I just wanted to know her name! It was so funny!

Later, I pulled Oliver aside and told him I was so proud of him for recognizing how important it was to dress modest. He is such a good boy!

Snow! Sledding! Chocolate!

It snowed most of the day on Saturday. It was really beautiful. I told the kids to get their friends and we would build a snowman. Unfortunately, it was not good packing snow so we decided to build a little hill in our front yard to sled on. That wasn't going well either so we packed everyone up and went to a real hill. We were sledding for over 2 hours. it was so much fun!

Oliver and Tanner

Our neighbors, "the Lammi's". We have the same age kids. Gwen and Sabree and friends, Oliver and Davin are friends, and Emily and Jaylee are friends.

Julie and Sabree

Hayden, Carter and Erin (Carter is Oliver's friend, I visit teach Erin and we've become really good friends.)

Cute Ollie...I love his smile!

Sabree and Gwen

After Sacrament meeting we went to my Aunt Cathy's house in Tremonton. Every year all of her family gets together and makes candy. They also invite a lot of extended family. This year we got to go! It was awesome. The kids had the best time. It was great to learn how to make the chocolates but it was also great to visit with family.

Now about the chocolates...I can't believe how many we made. Cherry cordials, orange sticks, chocolate dipped caramels, almond joys, peanut butter cups, divinity, whatchamacalits, peanut clusters, fudge, truffles, toffee, and caramel/chocolate dipped pretzels...plus we did all of this in milk and dark chocolate. The kids also dipped all kinds of candy like cinnamon bears, sour patch kids, fruit candies, and put the peanut butter cups together. Cathy also had the kids build their own gingerbread houses. I think we found a new family tradition!

Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures of us "in action". Here are some of the chocolates though. They might not look perfectly pretty but they taste perfect!