Ty's 2nd Campout

I cannot tell you how excited Ty has been to finally be in mutual. Scouts is a whole new ballgame for him. He has been anxious to get to do all the things that the "big boys" do. He was only in mutual three weeks when he went on his first campout. They went up on the rim past Strawberry. It was the weekend in January when we got all the rain in the valley, and snow in the high country. Boy was he not even prepared for that! He came home beyond tired and HATING the snow! He was absolutely miserable and cold up there. He did have a fun time tubing with the boys though. Last night he headed out on his second campout. He was looking forward to this one.......not up in the snow! They were going to Queen Valley, and then head up that road till it ends somewhere in the Superstitions. They were hiking in a few miles, setting up camp, and sleeping under the stars. The next day they were doing some hiking in the Superstition Mountains WITH their packs on. We borrowed Grandpa Driggs's pack (it was one Kris used to use when he was in scouts, hence the bright orange color!) and packed it as light as we could. He had to bring all his own food and water with him. He came home really tired, but had such a good time. He told us that he swore they hiked more than the couple of miles that they did. Kris and I just laughed becuase he had no idea what it would be like with a backpack on. I am so thankful for the experiences that he is having and especially for his leaders who do such a GREAT JOB with the boys they are over. Ty is such a good boy, and I am proud of the young man he is becoming.

Doesn't he look so little with that big pack on? It is STILL hard for me to let go and allow him to grow up.


The smile on his face show how excited he was to be going again. He has such a love of life and all the experiences that he gets to partake of. He puts a smile on my face just seeing him enjoying the journey!

3rd Quarter Honor Roll Assembly

Grant and Laurel both made the honor roll again this quarter. Kris and I are so proud of them and their desire to do good in school. Grant is even in the gifted program and excels at that too. Laurel was tested for it this year, but missed the scores by only 3 percent. Her teacher said that she was really nervous about taking the tests becuase they were timed and she hurried way too fast. She definately thinks she will make it next year. (sorry about the quality of the pics. The lighting in school gyms is horrible, and I was standing way at the back too)

Getting his certificate from Mr. Hamm, the Dean of Students


He just caught saw me out in the audience. Can't you tell by the grin?


Two of Grants friend are on both side of him...Jordan and Natasha


I waved to him and he did the cheesy "okay I will smile for you mom so you can take pictures!"


Cara HAS TO be in all the pictures. Don't ask me what she was doing though


He is such a great kid! We are so proud of him!


Laurel getting her certificate from Mr. Hamm


Don't they look so little? I think they are all so cute!


She gets so embarrassed, but is so proud of herself.


Such a cutie making sure I can see her certificate


My other great kid! We are so proud of you Lolly! Makes me think I am doing something right in this hard job of parenting.

Hairbows!!

Aunt Brookie came over yesterday and had a surprise for Lolly. She had a HUGE laundry basket full of scrapbooking stuff and miscelaneous craft things for her. She was in absolute HEAVEN!! She also brought a big tote of all sorts of hair bows that she had made for a lady when she worked at Micheals, and the lady never came and picked them up. She gave them to my girls. Lolly took every single one of them out and matched them up in pairs and was in awe that they were for her. I thought they were so cute! This morning Lolly woke up and matched her outfit to the hairbow she wanted to wear. I totally remember doing that when I was a little girl. The honors assembly is today and so she wanted to look especially cute for it. She told me exactly how she wanted me to do her hair. It was so funny, yet she was sooo excited. Cara is going to have to wait quite a few years before she ever gets to have these in her hair. That poor girl was blessed with her mothers hair genes.....thin, fine and none of it!! She is three and I have never cut her hair except her bangs....TWICE!! How pathetic huh? All you hair hogs stood in the hair line in Heaven and hogged it all up while I was standing in the white skin line. Man did I pick the wrong line!!

Timewarp back to the 80's huh? She loves them though!


She looks so cute! I love the freckles on her nose and across her cheeks.


She wanted a picture at every angle. Just look at the look on her face, she KNEW she looked "all that".


THIRTY sets of bows!!! The girls are in heaven!

Dr. Suess Week at School

Lolly came home with this adorable hat from school today. Evidentally it was Dr. Suess week at school (I had NO clue). She has an amazing talent at art (thanks Grandpa). All of her things that she does come home from school looking so good. I love looking through each one and have a hard time deciding what to hang on to and what to throw out. This adorable hat was way too big to hang on to, but definately cute enough to take a picture of.

my 1st pedicure

I guess that I just didn't ever think about it. I just always put some sort of polish on during the summer flip flops months. I have never thought that my feet were remotely pretty, but I did like that my toes all went down in shortness order, and didn't have the dreaded "second toe" syndrome. (when you have a long ol' second toe that is longer than your big toe) As a matter of fact, my OB called my toes "little sausages" all the time when I went in for my appts. What a nice compliment huh? NOT!! When we moved out here to good ol' Queen Crick, all the young girls got fancy shmancy thingies on thier toes throughout the summer. All my girlfriends got then too. I was seriously missin' out! So, for this past birthday, my sweet friend Melissa told me she would take me to get my first. All the other girls said they were in to come too. FUN! Well, my birthday is right before Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and then the past months have been crazy to say the least. It worked out today that some of us could go get one. I was in total heaven! I just thought that a pedicure was when they took off your old polish and put new on, and with the cute designs too. I was totally not up with what goes on in the pedi world. The fact that they rub your legs and feet alone was worth every minute of it! I could have ditched the polish for more of the rubbing. That is one of my favorite things.....to have my feet rubbed! This is definately not going to be the last one I ever experience.

Kris, Molly and Me gettin' "the treatment"


Clockwise from the top: Melissa's toes, Molly's toes, Kris's toes, and Cathy's toes.....Identical quadruplets!


my "snausage toes" that Cara keeps telling me "I like your pretty toes mom. Who did that to them?"

Take me out to the balllllllllgame..........

I absolutely LOVE my boys playing baseball! Yesterday the boys started the season again with their first practices. Ty is on the Phillies in the Major league and Grant is on the Tigers in the Minor league. Grant lucked out and got the same coach he had two years ago when he was on the Coach pitch Thunder team. We really like him and look forward to having a great season again with him. When I talked to Tys coach on the phone, I felt like it was going to be a good season for Ty playing on his team. Heres to another fun baseball season!

Ty


Grant

FINALLY...........

I cannot tell you how excited we were today......let alone the ENTIRE neighborhood, that we do not have to leave for church 45 minutes before it starts, and trek the LONG drive down Ironwood (the road of death) to the building north of Broadway. Can I hear a HALALUJAH?! Just having to drive right down the street to go to church was so wonderful! It took us less than a minute!! I just cannot even tell you how marvelous it was this morning. And we all were praising the fact that we were at the 8am time slot! NUTS HUH? Well after going at the 2:30 slot for the last two and a half years, even though we only had two and a half hour church, getting up early was a welcome thing. It was nice to get church over in the morning and then have the day to relax. We were especially excited about looking forward to our old routine of big sunday breakfasts after church. YUMMY!

Long over due

Tonight after the funeral and the luncheon, Aaron and I sort of threw together a little "get-together" for all us Payne cousins who hadn't seen each other in YEARS!! (which, by the way, is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!) We all met at Joe's BBQ and ate dinner and chatted a little. Then we headed over to Moms house cuz the six siblings and their spouses were having their own "get-together" at Orphas with Grandma. We all crammed into Moms family room and just told funny stories about our families, and just got to know one another again. I really do absolutely LOVE my Moms family and wish that we were not so spread across the country so that we could get together more often. It was a fun night of precious memories and lots and lots of laughs.

Doug telling the story of "Big Al" and his gold crown........the funniest story EVER!


Nanci, Kati, Ande, Brooke, Emily, Jayme, Abe, Michelle, Deb


Rob, Cali, Abby, Matt, Stacie, Traci


Stacie, Traci, Kris, Jacob, Cassidy, Deanna, Aaron, Nanci, Kati, Ande


Aaron, Steve, Trevor, (boyfriend), Deanna, (boyfriend), Calvin


listening to Doug tell stories......he seriously needs to be a stand up comedian!


Brooke, Emily, Jayme, Abe, Michelle, Deb, Scott

Right before our eyes, she did it!

I came over to my Mom's house to help out Aunt Jane put together the AMAZING memory books about Grandpa that her and Calvin were giving to the six siblings. We were having a grand ol' time (me, Mom, Jane and Cali) just chattin' away, eatin' Cadbury eggs (thanks Jane, I absolutely LOVE those!) and crankin' out the books. We were sort of in a rush to get them all put together because the viewing was in a couple of hours. Cara was in and out of the room just finding stuff to do. She is totally into the whole "scissor stage" and since we were all using scissors, she wanted to join in on the fun. Jane had her sitting right next to her cutting the scraps into little microscopia pieces. Cara then took a big pile of scraps and headed outside the door into the hallway to do her thing. We were all squished tight into the shoebox size guest room. Next thing you know, someone other than me noticed that Cara was holding clumps of hair in one hand and scissors in the other. I had temporary heart failure (the kid has NO HAIR ALLREADY!) and then we all laughed and laughed as I kept finding more and more clumps in the pile of scraps she was cutting. What do you do but laugh? Aunt Jane helped ease my crying and told me that I had better take lots of pictures and scrap about this incident. That always heals my heart knowing I have memories to laugh about down the road. I KNOW Grandpa was chuckling from above about this one.......he LOVED Cara and her spunky personality. She definately gave him lots to laugh about all the time.

She cut two big clumps on her right side and some random parts towards the bottom of her hair


She is telling me all about how SHE cut her hair, but that Aunt Jessica is the only one that is REALLY supposed to cut her hair.....smart girl!


Little bit of hair on her left........NO HAIR on her right!


Me squaw "scalp my head"


I know she was looking at me saying "what are you going to do about it?" or "hey, maybe the 80's bangs and mullet hair is coming back in style?"


"the mugshot"


"holding the evidence"


the bow your head look of total guilt


If she wasn't so stinkin' cute, and her facial expressions justifying her actions weren't so dang hillarious, she would always be in BIG TROUBLE!!

Cinderellie Cinderellie night and day it's Cinderellie....

I headed over to Grannys house to have lunch with Mom for her birthday. We walked in and Cara runs right over to the twins and gives them big hugs, like always. They were not very responsive because they were otherwise engaged in "Cinderella mode" aka sweeping Grannys floor.

Leah showing me how to work the broom


Leah sweepin' away


Cara coming to try and get in on the action


Leah was so diligent and so determined to get every little crumb


Cara was really trying to help her out and she was not liking that one bit


Cara, Emma, and Leah. Leah is clearly getting ticked that she has helpers, when she was doing a fine job all by her lonesome


I caught their attention with bribery of a cookie so that they would not start to fight over the broom. You know they are all thinking they are going to win and not have to share the ONE broom. Who knew? I am gonna invest in brooms from now on.


Someone was behind me holding up the cookies for them to "see" that they really would be rewarded for not fighting and having to share the broom. They really do play well together and love having each other as little friends. I just think that they are so darn cute!