Taylor Swift Concert!!!

Back in December we found out that Taylor Swift would be coming to SA. We signed up for her fan club so that we could get the super secret code and buy tickets early. That was a good idea. The concert sold out in 12 minutes. We didn't tell L that we got them until March. Telling her was not planned. I kept almost slipping then one afternoon she came to me and sang on of T Swift's songs completely by heart and she was so proud of herself. So I said, "it's going to be so fun when we go to her concert together isn't it?!?" She said: "huh?" When I told her that we got tickets she was so excited! She was running around jumping up and down, singing laughing. I had her call Tim and talk to him to. I felt so bad that I had told her when he wasn't there. But he did get to experience some of the excitement over the phone. So she had to wait from March until May 22nd. It was long and hard but she made it!

Heading out to the show!

Ready with her T Swift gear

So Taylor Swift does not disappoint when she puts on a show. There were ka-billions of costume changes, dancers dancing everywhere, stage changes, stage location changes, she flew through the air at one point.... it was insane but super entertaining!

This girl knew every word to every single song! We had such a blast together and I'm glad that I got to take my first kiddo to her first real concert. What a great night!

Lillie's Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony

L has spent the last two years as a Brownie in Girl Scouts. She will not be moving on to Juniors this year even though she has had a lot of fun. I'll just say this: Girl Scouts would be better if half of the year wasn't wasted on training the girls how to be cookie salesmen. Instead L will be focusing her efforts on learning the piano and starting a girl crafting group in the afternoons at our house.

Girl Scouts: you've been fun!

Grant's End of Year Program at Pre-school

Mr. Grant has completed his first year of pre-school. He attended the same school that L and S did and I am so glad that he was able to go. We love this school! He is currently registered for next year but it will be such a far drive from our new house that we're pretty sure he won't be coming. However, it is such a good school, and super hard to get into that we are holding on to our spot until we can find something that compares. Seriously, people camp outside all night in line for the chance at a spot at this school. The director was just telling me of a couple that was moving in from out of state that paid a college kid to come and camp out and register for their son! Wow. Fortunately since we're already in we don't have to do all of that. Suffice it to say, we don't want to give up our spot quite yet...

Grant with Ms. Kim who was his Orange class teacher until about February when she left to have her baby

Grant with Ms. Jodi who was his teacher for the remainder of the year. 

He loved that both and they were both wonderful teachers!

Grant with Mr. David the children's minister

G with the directors Ms. Jennifer on the L and Ms. Myra on the R

...and here is the school singing the opening song. G is on the 3rd row up in the middle wearing a white shirt. 

Livin' with Grammy and Grandad

Or in other words, we're mooching off my parents. In the space of time between our house selling, April 6th, until we buy a new one and school ends, early June my parents have agreed to let our family of 5 invade their house. They are brave. 

While the change has been hard on the kids they are having a lot of fun here. For the first 2 weeks we had Katie and Allison here and the kids had a blast with that. L especially loved having her aunties around for this reason: 

L: "mom, I know it's right before dinner and you are getting food ready, wrangling all the kids, and yelling at people, and even though I should be doing my homework will you take me to Target instead in all of the super busy traffic?" 

Me: "no" 

Auntie's Katie and Allison: "we'll take you Lillie!" 

They are her favorite people in the world!

Holy cow the Game of Life was played by these three people so much during those first two weeks!

Allison giving L some cake decorating lessons

S reading to G before bed

G's favorite sleeping position. Relax everyone. His hands are outside of his underwear holding onto his tag. I do make him wash his hands before breakfast though ;)

Samuel's 1st Grade Pep Rally

S and his BFF Aidan

S and his teacher Amanda Gonzalez

The Muddy Bear Run!

This year L and S's elementary school did a race called the Muddy Bear Run. There was running. There was mud. Samuel loved it! Lillie said she was glad that she did it but she will never. do it. again. Here are the memories:

L with her BFF Abby

The 3rd Grade Heat on the starting line

There's L waaaay in the distance in the gray shirt in front of the blue truck

Running towards the finish line

She was the least muddy kid I saw there

 S at the starting line with the 1st grade heat. Parents had to run with 1st graders so I put L in charge of G and I got to see what this rockin' course was all about!

 I was so glad that I got to go on the course and capture these pics of S!

He had a total blast and he did a great job!

What a fun morning! Side note - this was also moving day so dad was at home with the guys packing our house up. It was a little more than inconvenient to have a car full of muddy kids and gear and no house to go to. Oh well!

Moving Day!

Above: The day we moved in April 2006

Below: Our last night in the house April 2013

 Thanks to Sherrie Brown our neighbor across the street for taking these pics. What's super cool is that the first time I saw Sherrie was when she was out for a walk and she saw us getting our picture taken in front of the house when we bought it! I remember her looking at us and smiling at what we were doing. Little did I know then that she would be in our ward and would be an awesome neighbor! 

Moving out - looking pretty crappy compared to show quality

Thanks to all the men who helped us move. Especially the YM who will always 

hold a special place in our family's heart. 

My dad was pretty excited that Tim let him drive the U Haul

And dad taking his last nap on the bedroom floor :)

 We made the kids help out by cleaning up all the junk left on the floor. They were less than thrilled. 

They did a great job though!

Gracie. She hates us. 

She is now being watched by our dear friend Marcia Flick whom refers to Gracie as her grandcat. She is staying there until we are settled into our new house and back from our summer trip to UT. As Marcia pointed out we should have moved her to Marcia's house before we moved all of our stuff out of the house. She was more than a little disturbed by it. We owe you some serious cat therapy when this is all over Gracie.  

Here's our family sign that we made. We stuck this in a super secret place in the house. Hopefully it will go undisturbed for years to come!