Isn't she pretty?
Posing in the tree, again.


Carter helping Dad fix Grandma's sink.

Splash Park

We finally went to our local splash park the other day. We called and had some friends from church meet us there so the kids had someone to play with and mom had someone to talk to. I can't believe this is the first time we went, it is only a couple of miles from our house. Carter and Reagan. Carter was a little freaked out when the water started spraying. He spent most of the time running back and forth from the water to mom.

Carter and the water gun. He couldn't figure out how to get the water to come out.

Muscle Man

Walker, Reagan, and Isabelle. They had so much fun. We are going to have to go more often.

Memorial Day

Thank you to all of our family in Utah that went to the cemetery for us on Memorial Day. It is good to know that you all care. They send us some pictures of Grace's grave so we could see.

I went to a luncheon with some girls in my ward the other day. I received a lot of compliments on my salad (not really my own recipe). I have had a few people ask for the recipe and someone told me to put it on my blog so here you go Tonya:


Chinese Chicken Salad

Combine the following ingredients for the dressing:
4 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp white vinegar
1/3-1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 pkg. Oriental or Chicken top ramen seasoning


Prepare the following salad ingredients in advance, keep in separate bowls until needed:
4 cups cooked, cooled, and chopped chicken
1 large cabbage, thinly sliced ( I actually used a couple of bags of Romaine lettuce last
time I made this and I think I actually like it better)
1 bunch green onions, finely chopped

Prepare "Crunchies":
2 pkg Ramen noodles, uncooked and broken up
4 Tbsp sunflower seeds
4 Tbsp sliced almonds
Mix together and place on cookie sheet and toast @ 425 until golden brown


Just before eating combine everything together.

Sorry I don't have a picture but I am sure most of you have had this salad before.

Moving Gravel

Our backyard was full of gravel when we first moved in. We are in the process of trying to remove a lot of it so that we can redo our backyard. Today that was our project. Hopefully we will be getting the sprinkling system going on Monday so we can start grass soon (or it will be too hot again). Luckily we had a storm blow though the last few days so it wasn't too hot outside.

The Movies

We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie today (so good). The movie theater we went to had a bunch of live size displays of upcoming movies. The kids wanted to pose with some of the displays of the movies they are excited to see this year. Reagan with the cast from High School Musical 3. She is so excited to see this. She was really hoping that her Aunt Janessa would make it as a dancer in the movie, but she never heard back after her audition. Walker trying the Kung Fu Panda moves. Stay out of his way. It took a couple of shots before we could catch the moves before he lost his balance.
Reagan's Kung Fu moves.

Walker with WALL-E and EVE.
Reagan posing with WALL-E and Eve.
Carter hanging with WALL-E and EVE.

Last Day of School

Reagan and her band teacher Mrs. Forest. We will miss her next year, and hope that the band teacher at the new school is even half as good.
Reagan and Mrs. Blair. She is definitely at the top of Reagan's favorite teacher list. It was a really windy day, hence the wind blown hair.
Walker and Mrs. Sheeks. He had a lot of fun this year and learned so much.
This is the end of the school year gift we did for the kids teachers (sorry didn't get a picture of Reagan's, but it pretty much looks the same). After hours of Internet searching for ideas, and asking family and friends that were teachers for ideas, my kids decided that they wanted to do the same thing we did for their teachers last year. We ironed on a class picture to a canvas bag and wrote the teachers name on the front. At the last minute I found some ribbon flowers and sewed one on each. On the back the kids have their hand prints and their name painted on it. Inside they picked out a book for their class and have a giant candy bar for their teacher.


SUMMER HERE WE COME!!!! HEAVEN HELP ME!!!!!!!!

Farm Pictures

Getting water for the chickens. This picture turned out cool with the sunset in the background.
Reagan unwillingly posing for the camera. I thought this could be a cool photo, but she was freaking out that there were bugs and spiders.
Wallker helping Uncle Lomand with the weeds. We need to send him out in our backyard with a shovel and get him to work.
Carter's crazy hair. Right after this picture we went inside and Aunt Cara gave him a hair cut.

Reagan's Band Concert

This is Reagan's second band concert this year. She has improved so much. She really loves it, we rarely have to even ask her to practice. We hope things work out for band next year. Our kids are going to a different school. The area we live in has grown so much over the last few years that they have to rearrange the school boundaries every year. At least they were able to stay at this school for 2 years. So next year new school and all. I hope the band experience is as good there. This year has been great for both Reagan and Walker, we will miss their school.
p.s. the video is kind of long, 8minutes. It also cuts out the last part of the last song because the SD card on the camera ran out of room. Sorry.

I may have messed something up with the video. If you can't get it to play and you want to see it try going to this link http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=681432856279990488&hl=en.

Showcase Night

Last night was Showcase Night at the kids school. We went to check out the kids classes and what they have been up to lately. They had so much fun showing us around their classrooms and how hard they have been working.
Walker's class has been learning about the Polar Region and the environment. This is his Polar Habitat that he made. He has sugar cubes, cotton balls, and wax paper as the snow and ice with a bunch of polar animals. He had a bunch of worksheets and stories, and he read us every single one. He did a report and a poster on scorpions too. His class has been collecting soda cans to recycle, (learning about recycling and taking care of the environment) they are going to use the money to have a pizza party. He has been having a great time in first grade, and is a great reader. It is amazing to sit down with him a have him read to you. He is also very excited that there is only two weeks of school left.
Reagan has been learning about space and the planets. She and a group did a project on Venus. She worked very hard on this. They had to do a written report, a poster, a display, and a cube which had facts about Venus on all six sides. They also had to do a PowerPoint presentation. She is such a great student, and all of her teachers have loved her. She still has a lot of work left the for the last couple of weeks. She is going to start now working on a state project, and she named off quite a few other things they will be doing before the school year is over. Next week is her end of the year band concert. She has been practicing so hard, and is sounding so good.

Saturday

Today we decided to have a busy saturday. We started off in the morning at Home Depot. On the first saturday of the month they have a free kids craft. Our kids really love going to these. We haven't been for a few months, but we usually try to go. The kids decided to paint their craft when we got home so I snapped a couple of pics. What a mess.

Reagan decided to paint her face. She thinks she is funny, we didn't.
Then we decided our backyard needed some work. We decided last spring to expand our grass area in our backyard. We also decided that we didn't like the kind of grass we had growing out there, it was really stiff. So we killed it thinking we would replant. Well fast forward to a year later and it still isn't done. So today we sent the kids out to clean up the dogs messes out there (boy did they complain). Then Steve set to work digging up the old sprinkling system. He can't figure out what the people were thinking when they put it in, it is really crazy. Now maybe next weekend we can work on fixing the sprinkling system (which we don't know how to do yet, help us DIY network) and then start a new lawn. We are so excited that we may get to start spending more time outdoors, we hope.
Steve hard at work.
Our fig tree in our backyard. This picture is for Dave and Jill. Dave dragged this back from Texas to Utah for Steve and then we brought it from Utah back to Arizona. Thanks Dave!