Cousins

We have had a blast these last two weeks with all my family in town. It is really unusual to have all four of us kids together for such a long period of time. We usually get together every other year for 2 or 3 days at the most. I am so sad to see them go. We have spent HOURS swimming and talking/laughing and playing together. This photo is one of the nights where my kids went and spent the night with Hilary's boys. I am really going to miss them all.

Easy Meals

I have a new favorite EASY and FAST meal. I am always on the hunt for these meals and use them when I am in a pinch....especially on days where we are running late from some kind of practice.

Okay first make some kind of garlic/Parmesan bread in the oven. You can either buy them ready to go in your frozen food section or the bakery or how ever you like to make it.

While that is cooking in the oven I make the meatballs. Once again you can make them from scratch or if you are going for the easy/fast idea just grab a bag of frozen meatballs at the store. I nuke them in the microwave for a minute then throw them in a sauce pan.
Then I pour in some kind of Italian/spaghetti sauce like Prego over them....enough to coat the meatballs well.

Then throw it all together: place the meatballs onto the bottom half of the bread. Then you can sprinkle on some Parmesan cheese or put on a slice of mozzarella cheese. Then put on the top part of the bread.

Everyone in my family loves them and they are super fast and easy.

Lion King!

My mom did a very generous and amazing thing last week. She took Paige and I to see Lion King. It was so GREAT! She really splurged and bought 4th row seat tickets. It was so amazing to be so up close to the stage. We were able to see every cast members facial expressions and even see the sweat beads on their face. What an amazing experience! Paige really loved it and so did I. Thanks mom! (I think she is trying to mold Paige into being a broadway buff like herself!)

Mitchell's Baptism

Well, he finally did it! We decided to push back Mitchell's baptism to when all of my family was going to be in town. I am so glad we did. It was so nice to have so much family around us.

Matt's dad Larry came down and stayed with us for a few days. It was nice to visit with him and let the kids get to know him better.

I was a little nervous about how Mitchell was going to do because he doesn't always like to put his head under the water. But when we were swimming the night before at Papa's house he practiced putting his head all the way under and did just fine.

I gave the talk on baptism which was fun for me to be able to talk to Mitchell directly. When Matt did baptize him it went perfectly and they only had to do it once!
Paige sang a song in between the baptism and confirmation and did a great job....as usual. Then Mimi (my mom) gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. I was really touched when Matt confirmed Mitchell. He did a great job. He spoke about Mitchell having the gift of prayer (which is so true) and how he can use that gift for the rest of his life to help himself and other people.

After the baptism we all went out to dinner to Red Robbin and had a great time.
Thanks everyone for coming! It was so nice to have all our family there.

Family Reunion

What a fun weekend! Travis and his family came to Turlock and Hilary's family (minus Chris) has been here for a while. We had a great time with everyone here.
On Friday we all piled into our cars and went to SF (minus Tony and Traci because Tony had a kidney stone). We went to the exploratorium which is a huge science museum. We had 6 boys in our car on the way up! Papa got a little lost but eventually found it. The kids had a blast being able to run around and try all the different experiments.

We also we went up to the Oakland temple. It was fun to walk around the temple with all of the grandkids together. (I didn't have my camera then...sorry)

Then we went back to Papa and Mimi's for Tommy's birthday party, swimming, ice cream, playing "papa says", wrestling with Uncle Tony and just hanging out with family.









The next day was Saturday. All the boys left and went to go play at Boomers. They did put-put golf, climbed the rock wall, and did the go-carts. They all said they had a lot of fun.









The girls stayed home and got ready for Traci's baby shower. I have to say a HUGE thank you to my mom for all the money/time/effort she put in to make it a nice shower for Traci. Everything looked great if I say so myself. Traci had a good turn-out and got a lot of really nice things. We are all very excited to have a new baby around!

Not much going on.

I haven't blogged in awhile but that is because not much is going on with us. It's summer vacation right now so we are working hard to find ways to fill our days. This means a lot of trips to the park and Dell Taco.

I did take Paige and Mitchell to get their photos done for the year. Although now I am thinking of taking Paige every other year now that she is 10. They both did a great job!

Paige had another swim meet last Saturday. It was an invitational which meant that there were all 8 teams there. So it lasted from 6 in the morning to 6 at night....which made for a long day. But Paige and I sat on the grass and played cards, did a puzzle and just had fun hanging out together. I like the swim meet for that reason alone. It is great to have some one and one time with her.

Grant has been climbing out of his crib every time we wakes up so we need to get a new bed for him. He is good at it. But this now means he won't stay in his bed for a nap...which is NOT good.