Monday, January 27, 2014

Blake's 8th Birthday Party, Nerf Wars!!!

We also had Blake's birthday party and celebrated by having a Nerf Wars Birthday Party. Here are a few of the pictures that I snapped amongst all the chaos.

 We are thankful that Blake has made so many friends already with the our move. Here are two of his buddies from his Sunday School class at church. Jack Karren and Eamon Galloway.


 
 Sorren Harris, another new friend from church.
 Ryland Stephenson - friend from Federal Way. They have been good friends since they were babies and have stayed close.
 No Homework-- one of the Targets!!!
 Eating pizza with friends-- JuJu is one of his friends from school last year at Camelot, the funny thing is they both moved to Kent over the summer and ended up at the same school. They were so excited to find each other the first day of school!

I can't wait.. Until I'm 8!! Blake's Baptism

 
 
 
Blake turned 8 on December 8, 2013. He was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, on January 11, 2014. It was a special day. We had lots of friends and family come and support him on his special day. We love you Blake, and are so proud of your decision to be baptized.
 


Ringing in the new year with these cuties, and meeting our new cousin, Lizzie!

New years Eve was a lot of fun. We got to ring in the new year with these cuties:
 
We had a lot of fun having Ryan, Emily and Allie spend the night New Years Eve, while there baby sister Elizabeth was being born. We played games, watched movies, ate popcorn, and stayed up till midnight to hear the new years eve fireworks. All of us, except Allie. She made it till 11:00pm and was so tired, she went and put herself to sleep.
 
I love this picture of Emily and Diogo. She LOVES diogo. I told her I would trade Diogo for her new baby sister. She said, YES!! I was so excited..... until we got to the hospital to meet Elizabeth. She told me she changed her mind. She wanted to keep her sister.


 
The cute Stringham Family. Elizabeth and her dad, James share a birthday on New Years Eve. December 31st.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

My New Years Goal Starts now.....

Ever since Facebook (which I have a love /hate relationship with) I have abandoned my blog. And because of my phone, I never take pictures with my Camera anymore. So... my new goal for 2014 is to take more pictures and start up my blog again. I want my blog to be a journal/history for my family to be able to look back on.

It looks like I have practically skipped the year or 2013 altogether. And there is no way that I can sit here and catch up... But I would like to do some of 2013 highlights.

So here we go.

In 2013 Tommy graduated from Camelot Elementary where he has gone since Kindergarten and made great friends (known as the Camelot Crew) . I was so proud of him at his graduation assembly.  Tommy was recognized for many things.

1. Tommy was the President of his school
2. Tommy was the highest reader in his class and the second highest reader in the whole school.
3. Tommy was picked to be on Safety Patrol
4. Tommy was in the GATE class for the past two years (stands for gifted class)
5. Tommy was also given the outstanding sportsmanship award for his grade from the PE teacher.





Blake was also recognized at the assembly, for being Student of the month (knighted) , and recognized for Track.




This was both Blake and Tommy's last year at Camelot. After a lot of thought and prayer, we decided to sell our little house of the past 8 years, and move to my parents house for the next two years while they served an LDS mission for our church.

Eric and I had the chance of a lifetime to go to Hawaii. We are so glad we took the time to do this, since our life became a whirlwind after. It was so nice to get away, and spend time relaxing and being with each other.




So we put our house up for sell in August and it closed the beginning of November. That was a crazy summer!!

But we did have some fun Summer memories.

Wild Waves with cousins- Santa brought us season passes to Wild Waves for Christmas and we had a great time going to Wild Waves all summer long.








Cabin trip to escape from summer Chaos and the stress of selling our home!



 






 


At the end of August we moved in with my parents so the kids could start their new school.

Panther Lake Elementary- (Same school that I attended back when I was a kid, except they rebuilt it)

Tommy loved it right away, he was excited to know people at his school from football. Blake couldn't believe it when one of his good friends JuJu from Camelot moved to the same school he did. But Blake did have a harder time adjusting. He missed his old friends, and old school. But it didn't take him long till he adjusted.








Tommy and Blake both did fall sports. Tommy did his first year of tackle football and LOVED it. It was hard for him to walk on the team as a 6th grader when most of these kids have been playing since 1st grade. But he worked hard and did really quite well. I am proud of him for never giving up and for working so hard.



Blake did his 3rd year of soccer. He was on fire at the beginning of the year, but unfortunately broke his arm. He was out for a big part of the season, but was able to finish up with a few games left.  He is so fun to watch play.




Eric started his 2nd year of his Masters program. He truly amazes me. This poor guy had such a huge load with school, 2 jobs, trying to sell our house, which included home repairs such as building a new deck, and other odds and ends, moving out, his new calling as assistant ward mission leader and trying to help me keep up with 3 very busy boys and all their sports. I will be honest and say that this last quarter (fall quarter) was so hard for him and our family. It was hard for me to see him so stressed out, and so tired. On thanksgiving he was up at 6am at his office trying to finish his 12 page final paper, so he could hurry home and have dinner with the family, just to have to rush off again to continue working on his paper.

I too have kept busy. After all the stress of getting the house on the market was done, and we moved to my parents house. I kept busy chasing after the kids and attending practices and games, getting them ready for a new school year,  enjoying time with them in the Summer, and then was immediately called to be Primary President, my first official week in my new ward. I love working with the children and have enjoyed the calling so far, but it is a lot to take in and keeps me very busy.

We were able to enjoy some time with family during the Christmas holiday. Although I wouldn't say it was much of a break, we were busy, busy, busy!! But it was the good, fun kind of busy.

On Christmas Eve we had breakfast with Eric's parents and Brother John and his family. It was a lot of fun!!

Then later on Christmas Eve we got together with my family for our traditional Christmas Eve. We had a lot of fun, eating good food, taking family pictures, and just hanging out. (But it just wasn't quite the same without my parents)


 
 
 
 
 
 



Blake turned 8, on December 28th. His uncle Jason has a tradition of getting all the boys BB guns for there 8 birthday so we went up to the mountains to celebrate. We had a lot of fun!





My parents are not the only ones doing Missionary work. Yesterday our family got to be a part of Devonna and Taujmaree's baptism. They are a neat family that we have got to know. We are so excited for them!!

 

 

 



All in all... 2013 was a great year, with fun memories. We are excited to see what 2014 will bring!