Extreme!

We are a soccer family. Our kids love to play soccer, but none quite as much as our cute K! She is a soccer fanatic! We allowed her to take a step forward in her soccer, and go a bit beyond the good ol' Rec. soccer this past year. She learned a ton, improved a lot, and increased her love for the sport. It was a tough year. As part of a new team, playing for the Extreme Heat, she experienced what it's like to lose for the first time! She came from an undefeated Rec. team, to a competition team that just couldn't seem to pull together a win... until the final game. Kaitlyn is quite a strong player, and LOVES to play midfield. She loves to score! However, this Spring, her coach recognized that she is also a very strong goalie. She was not happy about having to play goalie at first, but got better and better and started to really enjoy it. She ended up playing goalie for the entire final game, and was definitely the MVP of the game. They won!! Following this game, another coach asked her coach if they were going to continue on as a team, and when her coach answered that no, they were dissolving (due to his daughter not wanting to play any more), he asked for Kaitlyn's (and a couple of other girls) information. She has since tried out for the team he will be coaching, and he didn't hesitate to pick her! He had already picked her before the tryouts, apparently. We are very excited to see what a new coach and team will do for her!

Getting to the field: It was a field they hadn't played on before, so we hoped it would bring us a win!

K played goalie and ROCKED IT!!

Look at the excitement on their faces! They finally won! I think Jared (who was their assistant coach) actually jumped around more excited than the girls!

This particular day was a busy soccer day for us. We had two other games after this one... of course they were at the same time, so I had to go back and forth between the two. I'll post their pictures next!

Crazy May and Cookies

Wow! Life is busy! I've decided that May is officially the month when teachers decide to cram and smoosh everything they possibly can into just a few weeks of school. Choir concerts, wax museums, testing, projects, ballroom competitions and performances, dance festivals, field days, reports... you get the idea. THEN on top of that are the sports: tournaments, rescheduled games, REGULAR games, tryouts for competition soccer... THEN on top of that, the weather. Oh, don't even get me started on the weather! My little business has gotten more busy, and while I'm excited about that, and it's tons of fun, it's just made May a tiny bit crazier than it already was. Needless to say, although I've enjoyed the majority of this hectic May (and really I have, other than the February weather that only goes away for about one day each week), I've fallen behind on a few things! I was going through pictures and came across a folder from a day when apparently I was in the mood to do a little "food-tography." It was also apparently done during a time less busy... a time when I actually HAD time to make cookies. These pictures also made me hungry. Oh, how I'm craving one of these homemade chocolate chip cookies (or maybe 5 or 6). And these are THE BEST! I've been making these since I was a kid, only needing help from my mom at the end, when the batter was so thick that it was hard to mix by hand. My Favorites! Heck, I'll even add the recipe at the end. Then I'm going to add chocolate chips to my grocery list for tomorrow! Oh, and I forgot to mention... this recipe makes TONS OF COOKIES! I usually freeze half of them to save, because they won't all fit in my cookie jar! YUMMMMM!

Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups shortening
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbsp HOT water
2 tsp. vanilla
4 cups quick oats
1 package chocolate chips (2 cups)

Cream shortening and sugars. Add eggs and mix. Add flour and salt and mix. Dissolve soda in water and add the mixture with vanilla. Stir in quick oats and chocolate chips. Spoon onto cookie sheet (I use a cookie scoop). Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Easter

I have some really fun memories of my childhood Easters. All of them include coloring eggs. We decided to meet up and my parents' house on Saturday, and get some eggs colored. We missed our "Young" cousins, as they were attending a funeral, but we looked forward to seeing them the next day.

The cousins had lots of fun dipping eggs in dye, swishing eggs around in some shiny, metallic paint stuff that Uncle Brad found, and pretty much making a big old mess.

Hayden wanted to use every single color.

Some of our cute cousins (and Aunt Jo) having a great time

Bryson, Kaitlyn and Eryn... and the eggs "Before!"

 

We made sure there were plenty of eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide.

 

Easter Sunday morning was so beautiful. Eryn had to get up early and go with the youth in our ward to help out at the Developmental Center for their church services. She was excited to go. The morning light was so pretty, that of course I had to make her step out onto the porch for some quick pictures.

 

Once I got the other kiddos ready, we headed outside to take some pics of them all dressed up on Easter, too.

 

The poor boys... they didn't get new Easter Sunday clothes. Bryson had his new suit that he had just gotten for his baptism, and he was happy as could be about that.

Luckily, Hayden just plain doesn't care. He'd rather be wearing anything BUT Sunday clothes, anyway. ;)

After church, and a really wonderful Easter Sacrament Meeting, we went over to Grama Cheryl and PapaBob's for Easter dinner and an Egg Hunt. We had a super fun time!

I love that Eryn helped cute little cousin Harlie. It made the Egg Hunt fun for a 13-yr-old.

This poor egg... it really was a metallic golden color, but you could hardly tell. Oh well, Kaitlyn was proud to find it ;)

All four of my sweet kids... I love the tallest to shortest line-up. It shows how tall Eryn really has gotten over the last year and a half. She's only about an inch shorter than me, almost wears the same size shoe, and towers over the others. We keep having to remind Kaitlyn that she'll have a growth spurt sometime and catch right up ;)

And then, the bravest thing we did all day: A picture of Grandma and Papa with ALL the grandkids (well, except the one that's on the way). It was pretty comical trying to get everyone looking. As you can see, we ALMOST succeeded.

Chop Chop!

Eryn has the best, thickest hair. I'm a little bit jealous, actually. It grows really fast, it looks good even just brushed out with nothing else done, but it's so fun to put in braids, and do fun styles with. I was a little bit surprised when she said she was thinking about cutting it. I knew that whatever she decided to do would be super cute. She showed me where she wanted it cut to, but when we got to our friend's little salon to have it done, she was kinda changing her mind. I told her "You said you wanted it shorter than that!" So she went shorter!

It's hard to tell just how much got cut off, since the "After" part of the picture is zoomed in a little more, but she cut off about 6 inches or so.

She loved it the first day, wasn't quite as happy for a few days after that, but now has gotten used to it. I think she wishes she hadn't cut QUITE so much off, but I think it's adorable :)

Spring Break

Wow. Spring break was kind of a while back, wasn't it? I usually like to be a little more up-to-date on my blogging, but life isn't always as cooperative as we would like it to be! So, Bryson's baptism (one post down) was awesome! It was a great start to Spring Break. We had been counting down - literally - to Spring Break. We didn't have any big plans. I just wanted an actual break. A break from having to get up early, get kids ready early, makes lunches early, do homework... all the school stuff that is starting to get a bit monotonous! It was nice! We slept in every day, and then when Friday rolled around, we were ready to do something fun! Jared had the day off, so we took a family trip up to the Children's Museum at the Gateway in Salt Lake. I have to be honest and say that there is a certain 13 year old, who shall not be named, that did not exactly want to come, but was a trooper and came in the name of "FAMILY!" She had a great attitude, and actually ended up finding a few activities to do as well. There are a lot of pictures below. Really, did you think there wouldn't be? My poor kids. They live with a CRAZY PHOTOGRAPHER!!

Here's Hayden's favorite stop: Anything construction is his FAVE!!

The girls were quite patient while the boys did a bit of construction.

Here's Bryson, building his little heart out! He and a couple of other kids built quite the building!

Random fun...

Then it was off to the grocery store! They had the most fun shopping, stocking, and cashiering. It was fun to just sit back and watch them. Even Kaitlyn got in on the action here:

Next it was upstairs to do a newscast. They did the weather too, but it was nearly impossible to get any type of decent picture. They had a great time working for KSL for a little bit ;) And notice that even Eryn jumped in.

We spent a little bit of time building with bigger versions of building toys. Bryson was pretty proud of large version of his "robot" he makes at home with Hayden's Mega-bloks.

Luckily, we went on one of the nicer days we had for Spring Break. It wasn't too bad standing outside in line to get into the Life Flight helicopter. The boys were in heaven! The right side of this picture is cut off a little bit, but I wanted it to be big enough to atleast SEE it on here.

I was glad Eryn found something to occupy her time for a little bit. She was really sweet to just kinda hang out and watch the other kids. She never complained, although I'm sure I would have at her age. She actually had the opportunity to be at another activity, but we asked her to come with us instead. She's a great kid ;)

We had to make one last stop at what Hayden calls the "work site." I loved watching him so patiently wait his turn and cooperate with other kids. He's growing up a little bit :D

We had a great, relaxing Spring Break. It ended with someone getting a haircut... before and after pics coming next ;) THEN... EASTER! Tons of pictures coming soon!