Happy 9th Birthday Trevor!

Nine years ago today Trevor joined our family!  He brought a whole new dynamic to our family.  Being the only boy of three girls you can be sure he recieves a lot of "flack" from his sisters.  They think he is "gross"!  But he really is just a "boy"...through and through!

As a little boy he loved horses so I thought I would add this one in the mix:

Here he is with his best friend and sister Meredith.  They really are best friends!  When Trevor has an opportunity to use the "dollars" he earns at school to buy something from the treasure box he usually will buy something for Meredith first then something for himself.  He is very thoughtful!

Treovr LOVES celebrating his birthday!!  He gets so excited and counts the days down until his big day.  When someone wishes him "Happy Birthday"  he gets a big smile on his face!

Happy birthday Trevor!!! 

4th of July

While the older girls were at EFY we had a quiet 4th of July at home with the younger two.  It was a super fun day!  I had forgotten how easy having only two kids could be!

Here is Meredith and Ryan making the traditional homemade ice cream!

We set up the slip and slide in the park next to our home.  Afterall we did not want to ruin our own grass :)!  They had a blast sliding on the slide and evenually having a water fight with eachother!

The rest of the day was spent swimming, barbequing and watching our community fireworks.  We are always amazed at the great firework show Ladera puts on.  It was super long and ended with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir...gotta love it!



Especially For Youth 2011

The week of July 4th both girls had the opportunity to attend EFY in Provo, Utah.  They were at Brigham Young University in the Yellow group.  They each brought a friend, but they were in the same company.  Both girls had an amazing time!  They met new friends, got crazy, attended many classes that taught them so much, grew spiritually and gained a stronger testimony of the gospel.

Each company had to come up with their own group name.  Our girls company was "meat house" from the scripture Malachi 3:10.  They had to come up with a name for their group based on that scripture...some of the options were "prove me now" or "windows of heaven"...no their group chose "MEAT HOUSE".  They are soo funny! Crazy teenagers!

Mackenzie in the cirlce of Presidents.  All these kids are President over their church groups.

This is a very unattractive picture of Madalyn and Spencer, but I had to put it in because I did not have the picture of his proposing to her. 

Their cousin Dallin was there the same week so they were able to see him too!

Here is Mackenzie with their EFY counselors Charlie and Ariel.  They absolutely adored their counselors!

Girls Camp 2011

The Young Women had a Ward girls camp this year.  The theme was "An Apple A Day":  Faith, Hope, Endure.  Our Ward chose to go camping at the Kern River.  One day the girls went river rafting on class 4 rapids.  Unfortunately there are no pictures, but from the report I got they had a blast!! 

Here is the group just before they left:

My two beautiful daughters Mackenzie and Madalyn. I feel so blessed to know that they truly love eachother and spending time with eachother!

On their hike day the girls took a few pictures:

They did not get any pictures of them sliding down a natural waterfall.  Apparently the water was freezing (about 40 degrees).  The girls said the coldness took their breath away, yet it was also so much fun!  

Boise State Bronco's 2011

Trevor was on the Boise State Bronco's Single A baseball team this year.  Ryan was his manager with Chad Marquis and Kamryn McCluskey as the coaches.  The trio joined together so they could avoid Sunday practices.  Most of you know that our family does not participate in sporting events (among other things) on the Sabbath.  Starting in Single A batting practice is scheduled on a Sunday.  To avoid this Ryan signed up to manage and provided batting practice on a night other that Sunday.

It was a fun season!  Trevor really has some natural baseball skills.

Trevor loved having his Dad manage the team (even if he had a hard time listening to him sometimes)!

This picture surprised us all!  Trevor has his Dad's form to a T!  We had to take a double take!

Of couse the best part of the season for these boys is getting a trophy!

Madalyn's 14th Birthday Party!!

Madalyn had her first coed birthday party this year.  It was TONS of fun..even the boys had a great time :)!  The evening started off with food from Las Golondrinas...yum!  The girls all congregated to the courtyard leaving the boys to the kitchen table.  A few of the boys decided to move their chairs into the courtyard to join the girls!  We also had yummy, super chocolate cake just for Madalyn!

A few of the brave boys who started the "boys move into the courtyard" trend!

We then moved over to the grass area next door and played some fun games!  The first one was the M&M game.  The kids lined up boy/girl and with a spoon in their mouth had to transfer M&M's.  We kept adding more M&M's to the spoon to make it more difficult!

Next we played big, better, best.  The kids were divided into four groups and given a paperclip.  They were then assigned a street to go door to door and trade items for something that was big, better or best.  Once back they had to "sell" their item and explain why it was so great!  Here's what the teams came back with:

 Pumpkin

 Laundry hamper

 Cookie jar aka Urn

 The winner was this replacement battery for a Mac computer!  We could not believe someone would just give this away!

Lastly we played capture the flag!

Here is the entire gang at the end of the evening (minus Jacob and Sam):

As the evening rolled on the boys got a bit silly...planking on the pool and backyard fence!

The evening ended with feet in the jacuzzi visiting with one another!

Daisy Bridging 2011

Meredith's Daisy troop bridged from Daisy's to Brownie's this past week!  Our troop had their own ceremony instead of joining with all the other troops in the district.  It was nice and personal.  Each girl's name was called and they walked across the bridge, got their brownie sash and a flower.

Here she is as a Daisy:

Meredith and Abigail as new Brownie Girl Scouts!

All the girls in the troop.  They are all such wonderful girls!