Mini Vacation

With Sean's new job, his company has something every summer called Summer Regionals. The whole family is invited to come to a resort at a different location each year. This year it was in Tucson. So we packed up and drove down to Tucson for a long weekend. There is a meeting for the employee and spouse, a spouse's meeting, and a awards banquet for employees and spouses. Babysitting is provided for each of these events. The employee then has other meetings to attend for the first half of each day. The rest of the day is free time with family until dinner time that evening where there are activities for the kids. It was so relaxing and so fun! Sean works with his twin brother so I got to hang out with my sister-in-law and her kids at the pool all morning while the husbands were in meetings!

 Sean, Char, and Carter coming down from the water slide.

 My little fish. She loves the water!

 An unsuccessful attempt at trying to take a picture of a butterfly that kept landing on my toe

Carter went on the water slide for 1 hour straight! He would come down and go get back in line again. I couldn't believe how family oriented the whole weekend was. It was so much fun! Next year is in Sedona...can't wait! 

Graduation Fun

When I asked Carter what he wanted to do to celebrate graduation from kindergarten he said two things.
1. Go to the lake with Grandad
2. Get a shake from Lenny's (his favorite ice cream place)

 Going to the lake turned into a fun trip with his two other cousins, Mallory and Tyler, who were also graduating from kindergarten. 

 The graduates :0) They sure got in a lot of tube rides!

 Char and Grandad

 Mason and Char

Mother's Day

Just because she is so cute!!

Here is the poster I found waiting for me when I woke up this morning. I also received a much needed new purse and sunglasses. And a new hat. A delicious breakfast was made for me, church was crazy (we were sent home after Sacrament meeting due to no power in the building), I got to take a nap(!!!), and then my family came over for chips and salsa and homemade ice cream! Yum! Then we gave my mom her mother's day gift which was the jar of spaghetti sauce, shown in the picture. Do you see what it says?

December 3rd is the big day. 

Carter's 6th Birthday

 Welcome to Camp Carter! Carter wanted a camping party for his birthday. We invited some friends over for a campout in our backyard.

 The camp site

 The trail mix bar. Everyone made their own trail mix in their cups for the movie.

 My mom made pillowcases and I embroidered names on each one. I put them in a cup with a flashlight.

 Carter's cousins Caitlyn and Reeslyn came to be Camp Counselors and helped with the activities. Here they are telling the kids what to find on their nature scavenger hunt and helping them with the activity. It was a huge help to have them there!

 Next we had hot dogs and chips for dinner.

 Carter really wanted to play the game where you balance the egg on a spoon so we did that after dinner!

 Next was time for the bug hunt. We put fake bugs and balloons in the tent and they had to go in and get all the bugs out!

 Carter is like me and doesn't care for cake very much. But he loves cake pops, so I made those instead of a cake.

 Next, Sean started a fire and we made smores.

 Last, we settled into our spots and watched a movie outside before lights out!

Apparently, Sean wanted to really go along with the camping theme. He bought Carter a tarantula for his birthday! Disgusting! Carter has been asking for one for about a year now, since he caught one in Sierra Vista and we made him let it go!

In the morning the kids were sent home with one last treat. It was so much fun but we were so tired!! We were happy when it was over, but even more happy to hear Carter say it was his best birthday ever!

Easter Weekend 2012

Look how cute Char is in her Easter dress that Grandma (Sean's Mom made for her)!!!

Easter weekend was super busy for us! Friday night Carter had a sleepover for his birthday. Saturday morning he went to the Primary Easter Party for a little bit, then we had to leave for his soccer game. Next we went to a park for the annual Klippel Easter picnic (I took my camera and totally forgot to take pictures!). There was baseball, an egg hunt, a pinata, and lots of good food! Then on Sunday after church, we had my family over for more good food and an egg hunt.

18 months

can't belive this girl is 18 months old. she is full of life, loves her big brother, loves to get into everything, wants to be involved in everything, and is a girl who knows what she wants and doesn't give in until she gets it!!

what she's talking about these days:

mommy

daddy

book

drink

silky

spoon

bubba (carter)

doggy

duck

swing

bite

uh-oh

wow

carley

mallory

temple

hi

hello

bye bye

nana

steve

keith

amy

baby

ball

shoe

sunbeam

ow

poopy

pee pee

no

me

mine

cheese

chicky

keys

down

Madi

favorite things to eat:

tomatoes

avocados

strawberries

blueberries

eggs

cottage cheese

cheese

favorite songs:

Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam (have got to get this on video ASAP)

Popcorn popping

favorite things to do:

eat anything!

be held by her mommy

gymnastics class with aunt katie

go to nana's house

destroy anything and everything and then run and hide from you!

take something such as your phone and run and hide from you!

be tickled by daddy

read books, but you have to hold her while sitting in the rocking chair in her room. nowhere else will work.

My table

A few weeks ago I was out on my run in the neighborhood. It happened to be the week for uncontained trash pick up, so there were lots of random piles of stuff in front of various houses. One such pile I ran by had this pile of wood, pictured below. I stopped to look at it and saw that it was an old gate that had been taken down. I ran straight home, got in my car and went back to the house and loaded up the wood. I knew just what I was going to do with it. I wanted to make a coffee table for the couch in our bedroom. I sanded it down, put some legs on it, then painted it. Sean had to help me stabilize the top piece a bit, but mostly I made it all by myself! I love the end result. I love the look of the wood. I love that it has holes in it and one side is longer and the ends aren't totally straight. I love all the personality it has. And mostly I love that I made it for less than $20!!

Gates

Since moving into our new home, I have a new love of gates. The pictures are backwards, but you still get the idea. This is what is behind the gate shown in the 2nd picture. It's Carter's secret fort. Countless hours have already been spent in here playing with cousins.

Behind gate number 2 (shown in the 4th picture) is the entrance into our neighbors backyard. Normally, this might be weird but since it's my parents' backyard, we're pretty excited about it. It's like opening the gate into the Secret Garden. There's all kinds of fun in their backyard. We just had this gate put in between our backyards last weekend and I totally love it, maybe even more than the kids!

And last of all, this gate. It might look like a table at first glance, which it is, but we made it out of a gate! I found the gate while out running in the neighborhood last week. It happened to be uncontained trash pick up week so there are random piles of stuff in front of peoples houses that will get picked up and hauled away. One of these random piles happened to have these wooden gates laying there. I loved them immediately. I ran right home, got in my car, drove back to the spot and loaded the gates up. I had a vision of how I would construct these gates into a coffee table for the couch in our bedroom all by myself and how impressed Sean would be with me. Well...apparently I don't cut straight with the chop saw and I don't measure very well either. I think I could have pulled it off in the end, but fortunately, Sean came to my rescue. I mean he came to help finish it with me so we could do it together. I am again loving another gate!

Student of the Month

Congratulations to Carter for being February Student of the Month! He was soooo excited. Both Grandma and Nana were able to go with me to the assembly to see him get his award. We went to his favorite "Lenny's" for ice cream after the assembly. Good work, Carter-Sauce!

Youth Olympics

Each year the Glendale Arizona Stake holds Youth Olympics for 3 weeks in January. It is for ages 14-18 and there are all kinds of events (chess, table tennis, volleyball, cooking, photography, track & field, etc...) I participated as a youth growing up and now I am the Young Women's president so I was very busy the last 3 weeks with all the activities. Not only do I get to work with all the girls at church, one of them happens to be my niece, Carley. It's so much fun. She made a video this year for cinematography and got first place! Here is a link to the video. It is well worth your 4 minutes of time. For more information on our Youth Olympics check out this article in the New Era (our youth church magazine). You might see a quote from a certain 16 year old (me!).

December in review

December flew by with moving in, getting unpacked, school parties, church parties, family parties, christmas cookie decorating, gingerbread house building, and spending time with family. Santa brought Carter a basketball hoop and he was so excited! Charlotte got a shopping cart and pushes it around everywhere.