Flag Football

Easton played flag football again this fall. He has played several seasons now. He loves every minute of it! :) Football is definitely by far his favorite sport.

Dave was the assistant coach this year. I think that he loved every minute of it, as well. I am so glad that they were able to do it together.

Here are some pictures from his last game. (Of course, I didn't get any pictures at a day game, I waited for the last game, a night game. So, pictures aren't great!)





My handsome boy!


Grandma Johnson and the girls


Grandpa and Grandma Pendlebury

Grandpa Johnson, Great-grandpa and grandma Johnson, and Easton's cousin, Stockton, were also there that game. But, I didn't get a picture for some reason! He had quite a cheering section that night.

I love watching Easton play football. He has gotten to be a great little player. He made several touch downs this season and had some great plays. I love to see him having so much fun.

Next fall he will be in pads! I can't believe he will be old enough for that! He can not wait!!

A Fun Night

The other night, Easton had been begging Dave to go play catch with him. It is a constant request. So, Dave took Easton and Avery in the front yard to play. I looked out the window and saw that Dave had taught Avery how to hike the football. It was so stink'n cute that I had to take a few pictures. Sorry, the picture quality is not great.




And then Paisley wanted to get in on the fun:



Easton was just in heaven playing catch with his dad!




I just love these kind of nights!

Paisley's PJ Party!

A couple weeks ago, (yes I am a BIT behind in my posts) Paisley had a friend birthday party. She was sooo excited about her party. She decided to have a pajama/movie party. She didn't want to leave anyone out, so I belive we invited almost all the girls in the neighborhood. (Sorry if anyone was left out, it was not intentional!)



So, because she didn't want to leave anyone out, we ended up with 15 little girls at our house, including our 2. Luckily, Easton was able to go spend the night with his boy cousin. :) Let me also add in here that we planned the party for a Friday night. Dave was all for it and ready to go. Until, two days before the party he "remembered" that he had a work activity that night that he had to be at. So, that left little old me and 15 crazy girls! :)

The party was a lot of fun. We played a couple of little games at the beginning. Then we moved the party downstairs for a movie and popcorn.




While the girls ate and watched the movie, I painted each little girl's toes. Yes, that was 150 little toenails that I painted that night! :) They seemed to really enjoy that and they all turned out so cute!



After the movie it was time for presents!



Paisley sure got spoiled by her friends! :) Thanks everyone!!!

And of course we had to have a treat. Paisley picked brownies. After the sugar and all the present excitement, it was pretty crazy in our house. At times the high-pitched screaming was a little deafening. So, I had this inspired idea to play the "telephone game." What a wonderful game! :) I would whisper something birthday related in one girl's ear. She would then whisper it to the next girl and so on. Until, we got to hear what the message ended up being at the end, which was usually quite a bit different than the original.




Do you see the beauty of this game with 15 girls? Yup, they had to whisper and be silent so people could hear the whisper. Awesome! :) But, the girls LOVED it and wanted to play it over and over. It was a lot of fun!

It was definitely a fun night for all! Paisley has such cute little friends and she had sooo much fun!

Vote for Hayden!!

My brother, Andrew, and his wife, Stephanie, have the cutest little 3-month old baby boy named Hayden. Stephanie recently entered Hayden in a photo contest on Parent's Magazine's website. The contest lasts a week and the winner receives $1,000.

Please take a moment to vote for this little guy! He really is the cutest one in the contest! Don't you agree??



Vote here for Hayden!! :) You can vote once a day until October 17th! Thanks a bunch!!!

Happy 7th Birthday, Paisley!!

Dear Paisley,

I CAN NOT believe that you are already 7 years old!! Where have the years gone? It seems like yesterday that you were my beautiful little baby girl. And, you certainly were beautiful!


4 days old

You have the sweetest personality. You are so aware of other people's feelings. You notice before anyone else does when I am sad. And, you take it upon yourself to cheer me up. You are always ready with a smile, a hug, and kind words. You are such a good friend to me, already. I just know that someday you will be one of my absolute best friends.


1st Birthday

You are, and always have been, such an outgoing little girl. You are completely at home with being in a new environment or with people you don't know. Nothing intimidates you. I wish I was more like you. I often tell people that I don't understand you because yours and my personality are SO different. You make friends very easily. You make friends at McDonalds, or the park, or anywhere we go.


1 year old

You are such a fun-loving and talkative girl. Yesterday, you were talking on the phone to your grandma Johnson and it sounded like a teenage girl just chatting and laughing away. Then, you got off the phone and told me how fun it was to talk to her on the phone. I can just see you in 10 years being glued to your phone! :) You love to laugh and have fun. I love, love, love to see you smile.


2nd Birthday

You are extremely smart. You learned to talk early, and talked very well. Then, you basically taught yourself to read at age 4. You are in 1st grade now and read on at least a 3rd grade level. I also appreciate that you don't mind doing your homework. You just come right home and get it done. I love that about you. The reason that you are so smart is because you are so eager to learn.


3rd Birthday

You are an awesome sister. Easton and you have been best buddies since you were born. I will always be thankful that we had you two so close together. You are always there for each other. (Although, you two can argue up a storm, as well!) Easton really relies on you. He is more like me, a bit shy and reserved and not comfortable in new situations. I know that he is so grateful to have you by his side when he is unsure. He is willing to let you lead the way, and you love to lead.

Avery absolutely adores you and wants to be just like you. You are so kind to her and take great joy in teaching her. You are such a good big sister. You often read to her and are willing to let her play with you and your friends. I hope that you two are close forever.


4th Birthday

Paisley, you have such a sweet testimony already. You are truly an example to me. I love walking into your room at night to say goodnight and see you on your knees in prayer. You really love your Savior. I can't imagine how proud your Heavenly Father is of you!


5th Birthday


You are such a beautiful girl. With your big blue eyes, long black eyelashes, beautiful, thick curly hair, cute little nose, and lovely little mouth, you are gorgeous. I certainly worry about keeping you away from the boys in the future! Ever since you were a little baby, people will stop us wherever we go and comment on how beautiful you are, or how much they love your hair. I hope that you always realize how beautiful you are.


6th Birthday


You have such a grateful heart. There isn't a meal that I make you, or rarely something that I do for you that you don't say thank-you for. You are so thankful for everything you get and all that is done for you. It makes it easy to be your mother!


7th Birthday


Paisley, I love you so much more than you will ever, ever know. I am grateful for you each and every day! I am so thankful that Heavenly Father found me worthy to raise such an awesome daughter. I must have done something good in heaven to deserve you, that is for sure. I love you, my little girl. Always remember that!

Happy Birthday, Paisley!

Love,

Mom

My Baby in Preschool?!?!

I can't believe I did it, but I did. I signed my baby girl up for preschool. Easton and Paisley both did 3 and 4 year old preschools. I think it is fun for them to get out of the house a couple days a week and play with kids their own age. I have always had a hard time dropping them off on their first day of preschool. But, Avery was especially hard! She is still my baby, even as big as she has gotten. I was kind of dreading the day, but I knew she would have so much fun.



She was SUPER excited to go to school finally. She has a new Dora the Explorer backpack, which she loves.



Dave was able to come with me to drop her off. I am not sure he has ever gone with me on the first day of preschool, so that was nice.



She was totally fine with the whole situation. She went right downstairs and put her backpack away. Then she sat down next to a couple of other little girls and started playing with pretend make-up and nail polish. Just her style!



We gave her hugs and kisses and told her good bye. She said good bye and then didn't even look back at us. I stood at the top of the stairs waiting to wave one last time, but she never looked. I was actually glad about that. I was happy she felt safe and secure there.

I was conscious of holding in my tears. I felt okay. As we were driving away, I was still fighting back the tears, but I was winning. UNTIL, Dave decides to say, "That is the last first day of 3-year old preschool we will ever do." Then, I. LOST. IT. I mean, 30 seconds of SOBBING. Between me being on the verge of tears and Dave's comments, I sobbed.

And, what did my sweet, understanding, compassionate husband do while I had my mini break down??? He LAUGHED!! He just laughed and kept telling me sorry, that he didn't mean to make me cry.

After a minute I was able to pull it together and by the time we got home I was okay. It just was a reality check for me and not one that I am necessarily ready for. Dave worked from home that day and we did really enjoy the quiet house. But, it seemed a bit TOO quiet.



Today was her second day. She loves school so much. When we dropped her off today, she got clear to the door then turned around and yelled, "I love you, mom!" and ran back to the car blowing kisses the whole way! That sure made my day!!

She was so excited to tell us all that she had done today. She loves telling what she did at school when I ask that question to all the kids over dinner.

I am happy for her. I can't hold her back. I need to let her experience things that I allowed Easton and Paisley to experience. But, it is so hard to let my baby go. So hard.

Lake Tahoe

Here is a travel log of Dave and I's trip to Lake Tahoe last month. You do not have to read through the whole post, it may be boring to you. But, I wanted to always remember what we did that awesome week!


Day #1

We met up as a family at 7 a.m. on Saturday, August 7th. We rode with my cousin, Justin, and his wife, Chelsea. My grandparents drove their car with my Uncle Chad and Aunt Debbie. My dad drove his truck pulling a boat with my brother, Jarom, and his wife, Jackie, and their baby, Sadie. My other brother, Andrew, his wife, Stephanie, and their baby, Hayden, had left the day before.

Not long after we got on the road, we realized that the boat's cover was not going to stay on. One of the clips to keep it on was broken. We stopped about 3 times to try to fix it before we ended up just taking it off.

Then about 45 minutes past Twin Falls, we saw tread just falling off of the boat trailer's right tire. My dad didn't realize the tire had blown, so we had to call him and tell him to pull over. Here is how bad the tire was shredded:



Here we were, 3 car loads of people on the side of the road in the middle of no where.




The guys started to change the tire:




They then realized that the reason the tire blew was because some bolts had come undone from the axle and the trailer had been rubbing on the tire. (Or something like that. I am no mechanic!) One car load of people decided to head back the 45 minutes to Twin Falls to look for a U-bolt that we needed. That proved to be a difficult task and they were gone for quite a while.

In the meantime, some of us went into a nearby tiny town to a little store and bought sandwich stuff. We brought it back and proceeded to eat lunch using the top of my grandparent's car as a table! :)




As we sat there with nothing to do, my dad pulled out his ukalele that he has been learning to play and played us a few tunes! Too funny!



Eventually, through a couple tender mercies, the Twin Falls group came back with the part we needed to fix the trailer.



After nearly 4 hours on the side of the road, we were back on the road again.

We made it to Lake Tahoe about 10:00 that night. The cabin we rented was amazing! It had 7 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a game room, 2 living areas, and a beautiful kitchen. This was our room:



And, here is the view of Lake Tahoe from the cabin's porch:



Here is a view of our cabin from the road:



Day #2

We slept in and took it easy that morning. Then we all headed into the town of South Lake Tahoe for some breakfast. Afterwards, about half of the group went to Wal-mart to buy our food for the week. It was pretty crazy shopping with that many people for that amount of food. I believe we had 4 full carts of food.



That night we ate a yummy dinner and played some games. It was good to just hang out and relax.

Day #3

Dave and I headed into town to look around and shop with Jarom, Jackie, and Chelsea. It is a fun little town, so we had a good time looking around.



That night, my two brothers and their wives, my dad, and Dave and I went to a fun restaurant called Fire and Ice. It was like our mongolian restaurants where you filled up your own bowls and then they would cook it for you on this huge round grill. It was a lot of fun!





Day #4

This day we drove about 1 1/2 hours away to the Donner Pass. This was where the Donner party spent the winter when they got stuck in the mountains. They have a little museum there. It is was interesting to visit despite the tragic story.


This monument honors the people in the Donner Party. The shaft up to the statues represents how deep the snow was the year that they were stranded!

After that we went to a little diner called Burger Me in a tiny town. This diner was shown on the TV show Diners and Dives. It had great food!




That night, Dave took pictures of a beautiful sunset from our cabin.




Day #5

On this day we woke up before the sun and made the 3 1/2 hour journey to San Francisco. Most of us had never been there before. We got there about 9:30 a.m. The first thing I realized when we stepped out of the car was that it was COLD!! We had been warned that it would be chilly, but it was cold! It was cloudy the whole day and misted on us most of the time. I was glad I wore pants and brought a jacket, but I wished I had brought a coat!

Anyway, we parked at Pier 39 and headed over to see the sea lions. That was awesome! It is so weird to me to just see a bunch of sea lions laying around! I am used to our lakes and rivers and SOO not used to the marine life in the ocean.




The only bad thing was that the sea lions STINK! I mean stink bad! So, we didn't stay a real long time. :)

We all really wanted to take a tour of Alcatraz, but it was sold out for 2 weeks! So sad. So, we took a tour of the bay, instead.




The tour took us under the Golden Gate Bridge. That was neat.








It also took us right out to Alcatraz and we got to sail around it. Not quite the same, but still neat.




We got to see some dolphins swimming next to the boat. That was so amazing to me. Like I said, sooo not used to the ocean!

After our tour we went to Fisherman's Warf and ate some of the street sea food. (Okay a couple people had In-N-Out Burger.) :)




We stopped at a little museum that had a bunch of really old arcade games. Here is Dave arm wrestling this machine...and losing! :)





****SIDE NOTE**** I just had to make the comparison between the "man" that Dave arm wrestled and Dave when he is wearing his Nacho Libre mask that he bought in Mexico. Does anyone else see a resemblance??




Anyway...moving on...

That afternoon we took a city tour on a double-decker bus. The tour took us about 4 hours. We listened to ear phones that narrated the tour for us.




It was a neat tour. We got to see a lot of the city. Dave and I were so tired at that point that we both fell asleep during part of it! :( I didn't take any pictures of anything, I am not sure why. But, I stole this picture from my dad of all of us at the Golden Gate Bridge:



After the tour, my dad, Dave, and I broke off from the rest of the group so that we could go to the Giants game. Everyone else headed back to Lake Tahoe. We were able to buy some AWESOME scalped tickets and had a great view of the game. It was a fun time, and the Giants won!






My
My dad, Dave, and I stayed the night in S.F.

Day #6

Dad, Dave, and I got up early to travel back to Lake Tahoe.

When we got back, we finally had time to take the boat out on the Lake.



Steph and Andrew riding the tube together! Pretty funny!

Hayden and Stephanie

My niece, Sadie, and I.

Andrew tubing with "no hands"

I LOVE this picture of Dave and Andrew!



It just shows how much fun they had tubing! This picture doesn't show my dad, but my dad was out on a tube at the same time with them! Pretty fun!

I could not believe how beautiful and blue and clear the water in Lake Tahoe is! It was awesome!




And, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't show the scary sight we saw as we were loading up the boat. I mean, is it man or sea monster???



How long must he have been growing those dreds? I mean, seriously, YEARS!!

We had a great time on the Lake. We drove the boat clear across the width of the lake, 13 miles. Going full speed it took us about 25 minutes to get across. It was huge. Wonderful day!

We got back and played games that night. Always fun.

Day #7

We took the boat out again on this day. Some of the previous pictures are from this day.

That night we ate dinner, cleaned up the cabin, and went to bed early to get ready for the long drive home.

Day #8

We left at 7:00 in the morning. We drove home with Justin and Chelsea and Chad and Debbie. They are so fun to be with. We had a lot of good and um...interesting conversation for the 10 hour trip home.

We made it home safely and without any problems. It was soooo good to get home and see the kids. We had never been away from them for that long.

Thank you TONZ and TONZ to my mom and Dave's parents for taking such good care of our kids. Thanks, also, Drew and Angela, Erin, and Christy for watching our kids at times during the week. You gave the grandparents back some sanity! We love all of you and are so happy we have such good family and friends that we trust with our most precious possessions!

Thanks to all of you who were on the trip with us! We had a BLAST! I love all of you so much and I can't wait to do it again!!