Our family-filled June!

I forgot to put this picture of Memphis graduating preschool in my last post.  DUH!  Memphis finished his first year of all-day preschool.  He went to Lone Peak High School's Camelot Kids Preschool/Day Care.  He LOVED it!  He learned so much and made a lot of new friends.  If you ask him he loves the girls the most and they loved him;)  Next year Kayzee will be joining him and I know they will have fun together!  Memphis is definitely ready for Kindergarten.

In my last post I mentioned we were driving to California for my sister's wedding.  We had so much fun and I loved seeing my family.  We left our house on Thursday at 6am and drove all day.  We got to my sister's apartment at 5pm.  Getting there at 5 made the trip not seem as long.  We went out to dinner that night with everyone.  My parents, my sister Alicia and her fiancé Fausto, my sister (her twin) Annalyn and her husband Curtis, Curtis' parents, my aunts Cherie and Sandra (love them), and my grandparents (my aunts and grandparents drove the same day from Logan so long day for all of us!).  Fun crowd and yummy food.

Friday most of the men went to help my sister Annalyn and Curtis pack their stuff into a moving truck.  They have moved up to Washington to live with my parents.  Us women got some wedding stuff ready and went to the church to help set up.  After, we went back to swim at my sister's apartment with my cousin Glen who took the train up from southern California and then we all headed back to the church for a family dinner.  It was so nice meeting Fausto's family.  He has 5 sisters and 1 brother.  They are so nice and we had a great night with yummy food and sharing memories we have of my sister Alicia and Fausto.  

Saturday we went to IHOP for breakfast and then I went to the church to help my sister do her hair and then we got ready for the wedding.  A little chaotic at first and we started late but it was really nice.  I LOVE my sister Alicia.  We have gotten really close and I am so glad to see her so happy.  Too bad she lives so far away:(  And...Welcome to the family Fausto!  

The wedding reception was beautiful!  Fausto's brother just graduated in ? (I forgot the exact name) but he basically did the whole thing.  He did an amazing job.  We ate yummy catered food and had fun dancing and visiting with everyone.  I loved seeing everyone I grew up with in Antioch.  I miss them all.  We also had fun at the photo booth with all the props.  Congrats Alicia and Fausto!

 Kayzee was the flower girl...she did great at the rehearsal throwing all the flowers along the way but at the actual wedding she accidentally threw them all out right at the beginning so she started crying and sat and picked each petal up...big meltdown caught on tape...sorry Alicia!  I ended up holding her through the whole ceremony.  Memphis sat out in the hall playing the iPad.  But the bishop did give some great advice and it was short and sweet!

 My sister Alicia and I on her wedding day.  Love you Sheesha!

 The wedding party...too big for the camera!

 My dad and his friends from Antioch...his biker buddies Ed and Fred

 Our Grandma Thorpe died on June 8th the same date my sister decided to get married so they had this at the reception.  This is a really old picture though.  That is me she is holding!

 Beautiful center pieces...a small light in the bottom with clear rocks and the rose in water

 The happy couple

 The wedding party (Sadly I don't remember any of their names:(  ...my brother Chris, one of Fausto's sister's boyfriend, Curtis, Fausto's nephew, Fausto's brother, Fausto, Alicia, Annalyn, Me, all 5 of Fausto's sisters and Fausto's niece.

 The parents

 The Growing Thorpe family side...now my sister's just need to start having kids and my brother needs to get married!

 I love this one of Memphis making a silly face

 The CANDY table!  My sister's colors were yellow, navy blue, and silver and one of Fausto's sisters did this candy table to match!  YUMMY

 First dance

 The cake

 My grandparents at the photo booth...too funny

 My kids love dancing!

 Curtis swinging Memphis around

 Danny said I am never in any pictures (because I am always holding the camera) so he took some of me.  Everyone kept saying how good I was looking (I have lost 45 pounds!) but I didn't really notice till I saw these pictures of me...my face is so much skinnier:)

 Me and Danny

 Grandma and Grandpa Astle

 The reception

 Cutting the cake

Sunday we drove home all day.  The kids did amazingly well.  They never cried the whole trip both ways.  So nice.  Kayzee had her little pink potty in the car so that worked great too.  We only stopped in Winnemucca (half way) and ate at the mcdonalds with a play place so they could run around and we filled up gas there and that was the only stop we needed.  So nice!  

We got home and I literally just washed all our clothes and threw them back in our suitcases.  Wednesday we made the drive up to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake for Kayzee's 3 month follow up visit with her GI specialist.  Now she is alternating between constipation and diarrhea.  The specialist just put her on a different schedule with ex-lax and miralax so hopefully we can get her regular but she is still doing great potty-trained so we will go back in 3 months.

We then drove to Blanding that next weekend.  We went there because Danny's brother just got  home from his mission.  We had a fun weekend and my kids had fun playing with everyone.  One thing that was exciting for me...we usually go for a walk along their road by their house and I have always wanted to walk to the stop sign which is a mile away so a 2 mile walk round trip.  I usually die about half way with all the hills so I turn around and only go 1 mile.  This trip after losing 45 pounds I made it to the stop sign and back without breaking sweat!  It felt so good.

Sunday Danny gave a talk in Sacrament meeting about father's since it was father's day.  His sister Nita also gave a talk.  It was really nice being there with Danny's family.  Then I played the piano while 3 of Danny's sisters sang "I Know My Redeemer Lives".  Finally came Benny's talk about his mission.  So fun to see him again after 2 years.  Kayzee doesn't remember him because she was a baby when he left but Memphis remembers.  Danny also opened up his father's day gifts and we made the drive home.

Reading with Uncle Benny

 Being lazy on Sunday...me, Mary, dad, and Emily

The 21st was our wedding anniversary.  We have made it 5 years!!!  Danny got us a babysitter and we went out to eat at Porter's Place...YUMMY SCONES!  After we put the kids to bed we made popcorn and watched a movie.  Not very exciting but we did our big Moab anniversary trip last year so we kept it cheap this year.  Happy Anniversary babe!

On the 24th was Danny's birthday...26!  He has been teasing me that he was 5 years younger then me but now he can't say that anymore.  Danny kept saying he wanted to take work off but he had missed too much this month with all our traveling.  But we had fun when he got home.  I made him homemade lasagna and garlic bread...he loves it, and we had his favorite german chocolate cake.  He also got his trolling motor for his boat he has been wanting.  I thought I would actually surprise him this year but sadly he guessed it.  He got a gift card to Cabelas so he said he was going to go get the motor and I hurried and stopped him.  Oh well maybe next year.  We also played the wii sports resort game as a family.   Memphis is getting really good.  He actually beat us at a lot of the games.

Danny told me to tell everyone that I slaved away all day making this cake.  HA!  He is lucky I made homemade lasagna.  Thanks to Macey's for the cake!  And I only had 8 candles so 2 and 6.  Happy Birthday Danny!

School's Out for Summer!

The last half of May was busy!  I am trying to hurry and get a post in before our busy June.  Right now we are driving to California for my sister’s wedding.  And we will be headed down to Blanding next weekend.  Lots of driving BUT fun times ahead!

May 24

Danny’s brother Teddy got married to Brit!  It was a beautiful day with perfect weather for their outdoor wedding up Millcreek canyon.  And I got to miss a day of work...BONUS.  Yummy food and great people.  We had fun dancing!  Congrats Teddy and Brit:)

Memphis stole the dance floor and danced for 3 hours!  He mimicked all the you tube dance videos he likes to watch of break dancing.  He was so funny and some of the guests tried to copy him.  One song we all made a circle and each person would go in and do some dance moves.  Memphis yelled, “My turn!”  He went in and started spinning on one knee and doing his break dance moves.  Hilarious!  I love my Memphis:)  My one regret is that I did not get it on video:(

Here are some pictures of the wonderful day...

My cute kids:)

 Awww...

 Dancing

 The ceremony

 Cutting the cake

 Kayzee and Grandpa

 Danny and his mom

 Kayzee and Auntie Emily

 Memphis and Emily

 Kayzee and Auntie Mary

 

 This is what happens after dancing for 3 hours!

Danny’s family stayed at our house that weekend and we had fun bowling and shopping.  Here are some pictures from bowling.  

May 30

My last day of school was May 30.  YAY!  I am so glad to be done.  It has been a rough year being so sick but I made it through.  My principal gave me the best compliment at my end of the year interview and it made me feel a lot better as a teacher.  Yes it is hard not being able to stay home with my two adorable children but I really do love my job.  

Here is a picture of my fabulous specialty team at our last day luncheon.  Our computer teacher is staying home now that she has her sweet baby girl so we had to get a picture.  We will miss her! 

Freedom Elementary PE, Music, Art, and Computers

June 1

I am writing about this one day because it was so exciting!  Well, exciting for me at least;)

Last year on June 1 I started potty training Memphis.  Warning: POTTY TALK!  It took him about 4 days to finally get peeing.  Lots of accidents and frustrations.  He was 3 1/2 years old and just not willing.  Lazy boys!  It took him another month to be potty trained at night and for pooping.  I had always heard that girls were easier than boys to potty train and Kayzee definitely showed signs that she was ready but I never expected her to potty train in a day especially at 2 1/2 years old.  

That’s right...A DAY!  Or I could even say 1/2 a day.  Hence the excitement for me:)  Kayzee only peed twice in her underwear and I told her the wet needed to go in the potty.   She looked at me and said, “OOHHH!” like she understood and understood she did.  No more accidents after that and she went to the potty all by herself after that everytime!  Thank you Kayzee for being so easy.  I wanted to potty train a long time ago but I thought she would take 4 days like Memphis did so I kept waiting till I was done with school.  Thanks Kayzee for being so easy!  She is even potty trained at night.  She goes potty every night on her own and wakes up dry.  Go Kayzee!  This has opened up my June:)

Driving to California we decided to just bring her little pink potty (I didn’t want Kayzee squatting on the side of the freeway:) and she has done great.  YAY NO MORE DIAPERS at our house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY SUMMER! 

Feelin' the LOVE

We celebrated Mother's Day for two days and I definitely felt the love from my little family.  First I have to share this post I put on Facebook.  It is for our family journal and for those who don't have facebook.  I LOVE my Memphis and his love for me is so sweet...and slobbery!

My son just licked his finger and then drew a heart on my hand with that slobbery wet finger. He said, "Mommy I love you. You can't see it but now you can feel it." My little Memphis is awesome;)

Memphis didn't really understand what Mother's day meant until Sunday when he had a lesson about it in Sunbeams.  After church he would keep running up to me and saying Happy Mother's Day and give me hugs and kisses.  He even said he was thankful for me in his prayer that night.  Melted my heart.  He gave me so many gifts!  At preschool they had Memphis make the I LOVE YOU sign with his hand and then they spray painted over it so it is a shadow of his handprint in that sign and then there is a cute poem with it and they laminated it.  So sweet.  He also gave me a coupon good for "hugs and kisses" with some hershey hugs and kisses...he knows I love chocolate.  And all the primary kids sang to the moms during Sacrament meeting.  Memphis just stood there smiling at me and blowing me kisses.  Thanks for a sweet Mother's Day Memphis!

Danny spoiled me as usual.  On Saturday he took me to Texas Roadhouse for lunch.  I LOVE their rolls and I was craving a steak.  I am on an annoying diet (more on that in another post) and since I have been struggling with the fact that I can't eat any of my favorite foods anymore Danny knew I needed a yummy meal out.  He also bought me Lost Season 3.  That night we took our little fishing boat out to Utah lake and went fishing.  It was so FUN!  The kids loved it.  Here are some pictures...

 Beard today...gone tomorrow...I like Danny with a little hair on his face but he decided to shave it all off...see below

The next morning, Sunday...Mother's Day, Danny asked me what I wanted for breakfast.  I told him I was craving donuts and that we should have bought some the day before.  Danny surprised me and made donuts with chocolate icing for me!  So yummy for being a random recipe we found online for quick donuts.  I ate way too many.  

At church we got yummy sugar cookies from Smart Cookie.  My favorite!  After church the weather was beautiful again so I told Danny I wanted to go on a walk and go up to Bridal Veil Falls in the Provo Canyon.  We parked far enough away so we had to walk pretty far to get there but the kids loved it.  Walking along the shady canyon trail was so nice even if it was really crowded.  Once we got to the falls Memphis immediately said he wanted to climb up the falls and up he went.  He climbed all the way up to as far up as you can go with Danny right behind him.  Danny was so surprised that he could climb that well to the top by himself.  But not too surprised because he is definitely a ROYER!  Kayzee is definitely more like me.  She just wanted to sit on a rock with her feet in the water enjoying the sunshine.  Except for the fact that I can't be in the sun (more on that in another post) I loved just sitting there with my baby girl enjoying the nice weather.  What a wonderful day!

 I LOVE MY LITTLES!

 And here he is...clean shaven...everyone has been calling him baby face:)  He has not been this shaved  since our wedding almost 5 years ago. 

 There they go starting up the falls

 It is really hard to see them but Danny and Memphis are way up at the top of the climbing rocks (in the middle of the picture where the two sides of green meet in the middle.  

Thanks to my little family for a WONDERFUL Mother's Day.  I love being a mom.  It has really brought purpose to my life and Memphis and Kayzee are my greatest blessings.  I know they love me and I love them so much.  I couldn't imagine life without them.  

To my moms...

Peggy...Thank you!  Thank you for your love, your support, and for all your help.  I really appreciate all that you do for me and I know I can call you for help for anything.  I know you love your grandkids.  I am so glad that you are my mother-in-law.  You are the best.  I love you.

Mom...I love you so much.  I hate that we live so far away but you always find your way and help me through anything and with anything that comes my way.  You spoil your grandkids and I appreciate all you do for them.  I have always admired your testimony and your faithful example as I was growing up.  It always helped strengthen me through my life.  Thanks for the chats, your support, and especially your love.  

Aleena