Dallon's First Jr. Olympics

I just found out that Smile Box now works for Macs so I had to try it out. (Can you tell I'm not quite as busy with 2/3 of my kids gone?) These pics are from Dallon's first Jr. Olympics, five years ago in Orlando, FL. Look how cute he is with his little baby face. His buddy is Josh and they are still great friends and both still train together and will compete together on Saturday in Michigan.

In the first picture with me and Dal, I was pregnant w/Reagen. When she saw this picture I told her that she was in my belly. She asked, is Michaela in there with me?

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Just you and me, babe.

Me and this little girl are on our own for the next several days. Mike, Dal, and Kayla headed out yesterday morning to drive to Detroit, MI for the Junior Olympics. They made it to Omaha, NE late last night and are on the road again today for over 10 hours. It is a 24 hour drive one way and I am so proud of them for still wanting to go even though they had to drive. They went out door to door and made over $300 by selling pizzas to help pay for the trip. Their good friends Taylor and Noah went with them on two of the days and the girls had a little competition with the boys. The girls kicked some butt...who can say no to two little blondies. I was impressed with how hard they worked at this and they still want to come home and sell more. 

I knew Reagen wouldn't be able to handle the drive (and honestly, I don't think I could have, either) so we decided to miss this tournament. So what are two girls to do when they have several days alone??? Well, first we cleaned the house big time...well one girl did that and the other one played on the computer, watched a movie, and played with the cat.

After all that boring stuff was done, we went horse back riding...
Yes, Reagen may have been bigger than this poor little horse that she picked to ride.
And then we fed the ducks...
You have to be really sneaky to get close to ducks.
If you are sneaky enough, you may get to pat one on the head.

And then the only way to finish off a big day like that is to eat ice cream.
Today we are going to go swimming and then go to the little Miss Grantsville Pageant. I'm not taking my camera to the pool so you'll just have to imagine what we look like there...wait, on second thought, just imagine what Reagen looks like at the pool.  Leave me out of that imagaination, it's not pretty!

O.P.A.M.???

One project a month??? Tara Whitney has started doing one project a month where she will take something in her house and make it over. So far, she has tranformed a coat closet into an arts and crafts closet and then she enlarged and framed several pictures of her family and hung them on her front room wall. Very cool. As I admired her work, I thought to myself, could I do one project a month? HA!!! How about one project a year or possibly one project a quarter? 

I was inspired, though, so I walked through our little house and I saw many, many things that could use an overhaul, but where to start? Sitting on the toilet shortly after, I stared at our ugly, 13 year old brass bathroom fixtures. It's one of those things you look at so long that you no longer notice them, but this day on the pot, I did notice them and decided to change them without buying new ones. I mentioned it at work and my friend Kass told me that on GTU they did a segment where they spray painted bathroom fixtures. Good thing I tivo GTU. I watched the segment and bought my hammered metal looking spray paint and got right down to business. 

Here is a picture of what they looked like...

And the magic spraypaint...
And waalaaah, the finished product...
It was definitely worth the $5 can of spray paint, the little blister on my finger, and the two days we went without toilet paper holders and towel racks. 

Skip this post if you are sick of hearing about TKD.

We drove to Cedar City last Saturday for the Summer Games. The kids both fought really well and Michaela got to fight the girl that beat her in CA last month. She told us before the fight that she was going to beat the crap out of her. Now, she's normally not allowed to talk like that and she normally isn't that mean, but in this case we let it slide because we wanted Michaela to come out strong and we knew she was fired up when she said that. Michaela beat her in overtime and came out with a big grin on her face. She will be in Michaela's division at the Jr. Olympics in two weeks and so she was so excited to beat her this time around.

This is all the kids from our school that competed that day.

This is Michaela, she has the blue helmet.

Dallon had two fights and beat both kids. After the first fight he really had to go to the bathroom, but he didn't dare leave because he had another fight. We were hoping his black belt wasn't going to become a yellow belt! Dal is in the blue helmet.

Michaela in her new Summer Games t-shirt.

It was a long day and we didn't get a hotel to try and save a few bucks so we headed out for home. We were just about to enter Tooele County and all of a sudden there were these flashing lights coming towards us...no, it wasn't a flying saucer, but we sure would have been happier to see an alien walking towards our car than that dang officer. So much for saving money that day! I couldn't tease Mike too much because I was the one telling him to quit driving so slow...dang.

Have you ever watched a four year old say a prayer?

Reagen is always the first to volunteer whenever I ask who wants to say the prayer. If she doesn't volunteer, Dal or Kayla gladly volunteer her so she says at least 80% of the family prayers in this house. This afternoon she blessed the spaghetti before we ate and I took a quick peek at her. There seemed to be some unseen force trying to pry her little eyes open. Her face was scrunched up trying to keep them shut, but it sure looked like a battle. As she blessed the Primary children to "make them listen to their teachers", she rocked her little body back and forth with her arms wrapped around herself like she was giving herself a hug. She kept her head bowed, but her little eyes were peeking around the table and she had a look of deep concentration on that scrunched up face trying to remember everything and everyone she wanted to bless. I will sure miss these four year old prayers when she gets older. 

A cookie made for a king...or maybe a dad.

Dallon made cookies for Mike on Father's Day. He wanted to make him a steak and mashed potatoes...do guys think alike, or what? But since we were out of boxed potatoes and the only steak we had was a little cheap one that had been out in the freezer for a year, I suggested cookies. He went right to work and wouldn't let anyone have one until Mike had the first. They turned out so good and when he got tired of rolling out the little balls of dough, he decided to make the mother (or father) of all cookies and present it to Mike.  I knew he was proud of it, but didn't realize how proud until I was looking through the pictures on my camera and saw this picture he had taken of it. He even put his hand next to the cookie to show how big it actually was. It made me chuckle and also proud of him for wanting to do this on his own. 

For almost 13 years...

You've been a dad.

You've mourned when the kids went back to school (not).

You've helped them be their best.

You're not a bad looking fellow.

You've helped them when they're sick.

You've taught them about family.

You've been by their side.

You'd travel to the top of the world for them.

You've taught them new skills.

You always make room on the couch for them.

No matter how many there are.

You've always been there on those important days.

Always able to get a smile.

From the very start. Happy Father's Day!

Check out this website...

http://boston.com/bigpicture/

Great pictures of stuff in the headlines. I'm not big into watching the news and keeping up on current events, but this sure makes it a little more interesting..

More Pictures

I'm going to be taking some family pictures for a friend at this location and I'm a little out of practice so I took the only willing participant in my family and we headed off to the farm...not the funny farm although lately I'd qualify for that.

Look who was watching us in the background, just past the fence post.

The cost to me for her cooperation was a picnic 

on the lawn with graham crackers and frosting. 

A small price to pay, I guess.  :)

UT State Qualifier

The Utah State Qualifier was held in our little town at the high school. The kids travel close to an hour for training three or four times a week and almost always have to leave the state for tournaments, so to have one in our little town was awesome. It's usually held in a college gym, but they were having a hard time finding one available and so Mike mentioned that we'd be able to get our school gym. I think around 75 kids competed. Michaela didn't have anyone in her division so she automatically qualified. An exhibition fight was arranged for her with a 14 year old girl just so she could get more experience. Michaela fought really well and beat her. Michaela is in the blue helmet and chest guard. 

She is doing a back kick here.

This is Dallon. He only had one fight and won. He is in the red with the scary face.

Injured...

These are the knees of the fearless one with blond tangled hair and blue eyes. The one that's sporting a chocolate milk mustache right now and a scratch down her cheek from the cat. She runs like the wind, chasing butterflies and dodging the Robin that's protecting it's nest and dive bombing her. She usually has my grace and dexterity (NOT), but she took a spill in the driveway on Sunday night and banged these knobby little knees up pretty good. On Monday, she was having a hard time walking and I thought she was being a little dramatic so I made her try and stand up straight. Her little knees started shaking and then I felt bad for doubting her pain. I'm sure she didn't break anything, but the kneee on the right was a little swollen so I spent the night sitting by her while she watched Charlotte's Web and then we played in Photo Booth and these pictures made her laugh and laugh. Anything for my girl. hee hee