Colin

Colin had his birthday last week. My baby is 6 years old:-( I can't believe it. We went to a movie, the pool and a few friends got to have a sleep over.
He is going into first grade this year...."sigh" I am not okay having my kids grow up so fast.
Anyone who knows Colin knows he is a mini Steve. Although I'm not sure where his hunting fascination and tracking animals comes from, I blame that one on Utah.
He is the funniest kid and he keeps me smiling, just like his Dad. Last week I was baking cookies for our usual Sunday evening cookie fest. Colin saw the cookies come out of the oven and started singing "cookies come to me! My cookies come to me!" Funny, at least to those who were present, he had us all cracking up.
This morning he asked me, "Mom, is there going to be a storm?" I answered yes because of the wind and dark clouds (we had a lot of wind & lightning last night). He said, "Oh, I'm not scared though, it's funny, I was scared when I was five, but now that I'm six, I'm not scared anymore!"
I love this boy.

Summer

No excuses. We all know I'm terrible about updating this thing. I thought I would be better about it this summer, but I have managed to fill my extra time just fine.

Colin graduated from Kindergarten. One downside to me being his teacher is he wanted to hide behind me instead of participating in the program! Oh well. My littlest is going to be in first grade and that completely freaks me out.

We had an awesome vacation to Seattle the beginning of June. We were gone for 9 days. As Colin put it, the best part is "our family is always together."

We have been spending our summer riding bikes, racing 4-wheelers & motorcycles, playing on our friend's boat, going to the pool and playing with friends. Here are a few pictures of our fantastic summer so far.

Colin and his teacher at his Kindergarten graduation

Colby-Utah lake

Marissa & Steve

Air Force Once at the Air & Space museum in Seattle

Colin checking out the otters at the aquarium

This was the trail we took to the beach from our campground.

A tree by the beach

Colby & Marissa with the penguins at the zoo

PAC Science center

Butterfly house at the PAC science center

On top of the Space Needle

We had a ton of rain in June. I can't remember it ever raining this much. I totally loved it. I thought this cloud looked so threatening.

Colin & Steve before Colin's 4 wheeler race

Marissa in her race, can you see her grin? She totally loves the competition. She came in second, yeah, she beat all the boys. The one who got first was her friend Riley (a girl)I raced too (on Colby's motorcycle) in the "hot mama" race. The moms take their kids bikes and race each other. I came in second. In my defense I was riding a XR100 and my friend who won was on a CRF150F, not exactly a even match. It was hilarious and a ton of fun. Steve didn't take any pictures of the race so you'll have to take my word on it.

Hailey's wedding

It has been forever since I've posted anything. After looking through my pictures, I realized I haven't because not much has happened to report until this last weekend. Life has been busy with the usual family, work, school, etc. Here is a picture of Hailey and Skyler's wedding(the one on the top is one of her bridals taken by my friend Rhett Olsen, he does an amazing job. You can see more at his blog http://blog.rhettolsonphotography.com/); I didn't have many chances to take pictures. I got to be her maid of honor, and I loved every minute. They were so happy to get married, and even happier to leave the reception! ;-) I love this girl, and I'm really happy for them.

My Girl

Happy Birthday Marissa! I can't believe she is 8! She has been so excited to hit this number, she can't wait to be baptized. I love her enthusiasm for life and her concern for everyone around her. She has so much compassion for anyone who is picked on or has less than her. She is my girl and a huge help with anything I need. I couldn't have picked out a better girl for our family. I picked these two pictures because they are so "Marissa." The top picture is at her dance recital with her fantastic friend and the one below is at her first 4wheeler race.
I love you kid!!!!

Christmas

These are out of order, but I loved this picture so I had to put it on top. We go to temple square every Christmas eve to look at the lights and nativities. Our kids love this tradition. This was my favorite display. I think it may be new, or I have a terrible memory. I don't know if you can tell from the picture but the nativity scene is on water and there are tons of floating lights around it. It was beautiful.


Our excited children on Christmas morning!



Cute kids, huh??



Look really hard at this picture. You can see the Christus statue in the background, I like the way it looks like He is looking over my kids. It might seem cheesy, but I love this picture for that reason. :)

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that you all have a wonderful new year!

Marissa's dance recital

This is Marissa and her wonderful friend before their performance of one of the Nutcracker ballets. She did a great job and more importantly she had lots of fun. She takes dance at school so I had no idea what her dance was. I was so impressed, her dance teacher did a great job!

Triathlon, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Sushi

I had to make this an all encompassing post, since I haven't updated in way too long.

This is a picture of Me & Steve and our fabulous friends, Rhett & Julie. Julie convinced me to try my first triathlon this year, I then convinced Steve. The biking and running, no worries. Swimming??? Yeah, that was my struggle. I only got in a pool about 6 times before the triathlon, so I have tons of room to improve. It was lots of fun and I'm sure I'll do more next year. Steve is a much better swimmer and biker, but he hates running. The only place I beat him was in the running, he killed my times on the bike and in the water. I'm just really proud of him for doing it.

Yep, he's a boy and my mom made him a tutu. He always stands like this, so the tutu was very fitting.

This is my nephew Soren. He is incredibly cute, and I think I'm the only one who got a decent picture of him.

Colby (Ghost Rider), Marissa (Hannah Montana), and Colin (ironman). We had a great Halloween this year, I believe it should always land on a Friday. Whenever we asked him to, Colin would straighten his arms and legs and pretend he was flying like Ironman. It was hilarious

THANKSGIVING
Yeah, I didn't take any pictures. But we went to Audrey and Paul's house with my parents, sister and her family. It was great, good food, great people and I only had to travel 5 minutes to get there. Hailey and I made 8 pies, so we had tons of leftovers. My favorite this year was the blackberry, mmmmm, I need to make another one soon.



Last weekend we went to our friends house (Julie & Rhett from above mentioned tri). Rhett lured us there with his tempting sushi rolls. Well tempting for Steve. My former sushi roll experience was terrible, not very good fish. My friends from high school are probably thinking "Leah likes sushi??Fish??What?" But I have expanded my eating beyond quesadillas and fries. Anyway, I was excited to have the company so I went along. Turns out Rhett makes a mean sushi roll. I really liked it. He made some tempura fried carrots and shrimp. He used the shrimp in his spicy roll which was awesome. My favorite was the one with cucumber and avocado, it tasted so fresh & yummy. So thanks guys, it was a great night. Oh, and this picture isn't one I took, I just found it online.