Pictures of the Week -- Week 16

I wanted to get Alex a cell phone when he started middle school, but Jeff nixed the idea. He told Alex if he earned all A's and B's, he could get one. After two quarters of being just points away from his goal, he finally earned his cell phone. We upped our family plan to unlimited texting and it was lucky we did... Alex sent almost 900 texts in his first month!


Here is proof of the good grades. Alex made the honor roll!!! We couldn't be more proud!!! This was the best picture I could get with his certificate. (Now you know why you don't see more of Alex on the blog... it's the age.)


Mattea took it upon herself to be the cleanup police. She "cited" us if we did a good job or a bad job cleaning up. I'm glad I was on her good list!




The Spartans Gold baseball team went 2-0 for the weekend against the Falcons and another Spartans team. They are having an awesome season so far!

Pictures of the Week -- Week 15

Jeff made a statement last month claiming that he would like us to hike a LOT this spring/summer... like, every other weekend if we can. I'm totally down with that, but with the baseball and soccer schedule, it will be tough.

On Sunday, we were able to work around the baseball schedule and squeeze in a hike before Josh's game at 4pm. We drove to the west side of Castlewood Canyon State Park since that was near Castle Rock where Josh would be playing his game. We scoured the map for a bit and decided to start on the Creek Bottom Trail and head up to the Rim Rock Trail. It was a great hike. Alex almost cut it short for us when he slipped off a rock, but his agility helped him land somewhat gracefully and we moved on. Whew! Once we got back to the parking lot, we looked back at where we had been. Wow... I was amazed that Mattea's little legs kept up with us for that long of a hike. I only carried her at the tail end. She is such a trooper!

Aunt Julie came for a visit on Wednesday evening. YIPPEE!!! She stayed till Monday morning and we had lots of fun while she was here. Mattea colored in this welcome sign on our driveway. We took a quick picture of it since it started raining and we wanted to make sure she saw Mattea's beautiful art work!



Aunt Julie took Josh on his birthday date. They were nice enough to share the lunch portion of their date with Jeff, Mattea and I. (Poor Alex was in school!!!) They went shopping and saw the movie "Soul Surfer" which they both really liked. It was another successful birthday date!


Mattea had a soccer game this week and she played SOOOOOO aggressively. It was inspiring to watch. Her face showed the effort she was putting forth. She was very involved when she was on the field and I was such a proud Mommy watching her play. Aunt Julie was there for the game, too, which was very cool. Maybe that was the reason for her intensity! Her and Marley tag-teamed for the only goal their team scored. You go, girls!!!


Josh's baseball team suffered a devastating loss on Saturday (their first loss of the season), but came back with a vengeance on Sunday. Josh did a spectacular job catching and was awarded the game ball for his efforts!! It was awesome that Aunt Julie was there when it happened. We are so proud of Josh and how hard he has worked at being an amazing catcher!
Believe it or not, I didn't have my camera with me, so I had to take a picture of Josh, Aunt Julie and the game ball the next day.

Pictures of the Week -- Week 14

Mattea put on a skirt today, but I told her to get some leggings because it was a bit cool. She grabbed some of the ones that Grandma Judie made for her and she looked SO cute! I snapped a few pics while she was visiting with me in my office. She insisted that I send one to Grandma to tell her how much she loves her leggings. Got that, Grandma Judie??? You done good!

Cody & Indy love to wrestle! Cody was laying down in Indy's bed when Indy came over and started messing with Cody. I love that Cody stayed in the submissive position... he knows his place!!!!

I found this pancake batter in a can at Target and had to try it out. Josh was completely amazed! I think the first day we had it, he had pancakes for breakfast AND lunch. He wanted them for dinner, too, but I vetoed that idea!

Mattea & Hanna had a play date and I gave them both a bath and then french braided their hair. With their sparkly vests & shoes, they looked like divas and had no issues posing for a short photo shoot!

Josh & Mattea have been off-track since the end of March. For the most part, they have been getting along pretty well. Today, I went outside to check on them and they were playing catch. Josh was so sweet... throwing the ball underhand to Mattea. Mattea, on the other hand, was zinging the ball back to Josh with all her might!

I'm a big dummy

So, here's the deal. I can be a big dummy sometimes. I was having issues with my laptop, so I threw in my ghost CD and ran the program to pull back a previously ghosted image to see if that would fix the problem. It didn't. Several days later, I realized that when I had pulled back the previously ghosted image (from January), I hadn't moved my pictures to our external hard drive. O.M.G. I freaked out. I lost ALL of our pictures from February and most from March. Luckily, I had posted a few to the blog, had uploaded the cruise pictures to Snapfish and had a few still on my camera, so at least I salvaged some of them. But, I am very sad. And I feel like a big dummy. I will see what I can do to find some pictures for Pics of the Week, but they may be slim pickins. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Pictures of the Week -- Week 13

Mattea attended the wedding of "Q" and "U" in her kindergarten class at Rolling Hills. She was thrilled with the prospect of dressing up in wedding attire to go to school. We picked out the most perfect dress, matching sweater and strappy sandals... with a heel, of course! I curled and braided her hair and we had a mini fashion shoot. She took a "quilt for the queen" as a wedding gift. She had a marvelous time at the wedding!!!

Josh had his first baseball game on Saturday. His team "mercy rolled" (his words) the other team in the 4th inning. We enjoyed absolutely gorgeous weather for the season opener! The neighbors ~ Dan, Gunnar, Anders and Elsa Lamphere ~ came to watch. I think they were good luck charms!

Jeff and Alex enjoyed a game of chess. What actually happened is that Alex and I began the game, but Alex started whooping my butt so bad that Jeff came in to rescue me. My knight in shining armor!