Open house 2017

Open house went great at Vaughn elementary for both Dilan and Drake! Drew even wanted to come along and see their work. Dilan had just received the happy note from her teacher that day saying how hard of a worker she was and how much she helps her classmates. She was very proud to show off her work and take a picture with her permanent sub, Mrs. DeFrance, who has taken over for Mrs. Wolverton who had her baby. 

Drake was so excited to do the kindergarten scavenger hunt he found in his classroom by showing us his work including his self-portrait and acostic poem, making a video on the ipad for his teacher talking about his favorite thing about open house, reading aloud all of the words on the word wall, and showing us the books he reads. My favorite part of the evening was Mrs. Chamberlain showing me a note Drake wrote her after a particularly bad day with one student in class. Drake told her that she is a great teacher and that he loved her. It made me so proud he was noticing his teacher may have had a bad day and she could use some encouragement. We ended our evening by getting ice cream at Braum's which has become our tradition after school events, yum!!!

Day off

 Our day off from school included making snickerdoodle cookies (the Curtis' recipe), grabbing Chick-fil-A and bringing it to Frontier park for a picnic and hours of fun at the park with our friends.

Then, all four kids went to the dentist and had NO cavities. I celebrated a friend's birthday this week with red velvet cake from Bonnie Ruth's and had a flat tire that needed to be fixed. David was sick all week so Brad came over to help change it with David. :)

Basketball MVP, Carnival, FC Dallas game

Drake is playing basketball for the first time this spring, and he is loving it. Today, he scored 5 baskets and was the MVP of his team. All his practicing outside on our new hoop has really paid off!

 We went to Brian Ellis' fundraiser where he was raising money to train his diabetes dog. Drew bid on a truck and won it and I bid on family photos for this year and won that too! We both got something we wanted and it sure was fun to look around at all the items up for auction. The kids jumped in the bounce house, ate cotton candy, popcorn and a snow cone, and played the fun carnival games outside.

 After Dilan's soccer game, we headed to the FC Dallas soccer game. Our neighbors gave us their tickets and we had an absolute blast cheering them on. Dilan got some cotton candy because she wasn't at the carnival with us and we sat with the Bramlett's because they were there too. We had a lot of fun with taking picutres and posting them to Twitter and then seeing them up on the big screen! Drake would literally watch the big screen waiting to see pictures of himself. And every picture we took and posted made it onto the screen. People were texting me from the game because they were there too and they saw our pictures. Dakota fell asleep in my arms at the game around 8 p.m. because she had such a long day of fun. GO FC Dallas! We won the game 1-0 and we had a great family night!

Lunch and new appliances

 Dakota has been quite my helper (being the only one at home now) this year. She goes shopping with me and she's my little sweetheart during the days. She accompanied me to Home Depot so I could price match a new washer and dryer. I went with the LG brand, while expensive, they are the best and will hopefully last us the next decade. My washer is fine but for the last several months, my dryer only works when it wants to. After having to make a run to the laundry mat to dry some sheets, I finally chose something new!

 Lunch with these cuties on a Friday, they had been begging me to come. We ate with Drake first, then waited for Dilan's lunch and ate dessert with her. :)

Easter 2017

Easter morning was filled with smiles and excitement. The kids were looking through the windows and couldn't wait to see what the Easter bunny brought them. Drew got the Fantastic beasts movie, a new Survivor series book 1, the gorilla beenie boo, Hugo (a new train), and tons of train track he was wanting to enlarge his building capabilities at home. Drake got the movie, Sing, a Thomas on the moon book, the Tiger beenie boo, Phillip (a new train), and more train track too! Dilan found a new series 7 shopkins in each and every one of her eggs, along with the Moana movie, the whatever after book number 8, and the lemur beenie boo. Dakota got the Trolls movie along with 4 new trolls, the bunny beenie boo, and the Peppa pig dance book, 

The egg hunt went great but fast! The kids moved so quickly I barely can capture it in pictures. The little kids go first and then we let the big kids get the rest. MawMille made a prime rib for Easter lunch and we continued to swim and play in the pool. 

Easter eggs 2017

The kids have been swimming all morning, Dilan, Lacey, Aunt Amy and I went to get our nails done. Dilan chose to do purple and turquoise changing colors every other finger. She even got an Easter egg on her big toes. Talk about a fun way to start the Easter weekend! In addition, MawMille gave the kids big stuffed animals. Drew got the polar bear and named him Icebreak, Drake got the Frog and named him Frogus, Dilan got the pink pig and named her Pinky, and Dakota was left with a monkey which later she bonded with and once we got home, she named him Jungle. 

Dakota loved every minute of coloring Easter eggs. She took her time, re-colored some of her eggs, and put Frozen stickers all over them.  

 Drew is methodical about coloring his eggs. He knows exactly the plan and what he will be doing with each egg. He mostly likes to color his eggs a solid bright color and waits patiently for each egg to look the way he wants it.

 Drake found the best shades of blue and turquoise this year. He also sucessfully dyed a RED egg and a few brown eggs to his liking. His colors were bright and fantastic to admire. He's a hard worker and has joy in everything he does, including dying Easter eggs.

This girl colored her eggs with style. She used a neon coloring package, doubled up on the color pellets, used glitter and wrote funny sayings, and decorated each egg differently and in her own way, much like she does life. :)

GiGi's 90th

David's grandmother turned 90! Easter weekend we made the drive down to Houston and on Friday, we had a family lunch at Goode Company BBQ. Amy and Alan flew down from Utah, Lisa and her kids were there, Wendy drove into town with Livi and Eli, and we were there too! It was a great reunion. The kids enjoyed every minute being all together. After lunch, we went to Gigi's senior apartment complex where she had a friend party with balloons, crepe paper, and a huge cake to celebrate. She didn't want all 90 candles on the cake but we got a lot of them on there. ;) 

Easter party

Dakota was so excited about her Easter party at pre-school today. She brought 12 eggs filled with laffy taffy (no chocolate allowed because it melts) and was thrilled to bring home 12 different eggs. She made a bunny bag with her name on it that she kept in her room afterwards too. She received candy, and cheddar bunnies, and her favorite egg was the yellow playdo egg. It was a fun and memorable day! 

Spring Fever

Friday we had our special visitors from California come see us! Mandy and her kids stopped in for a night and it was such a treat. The boys played nerf wars nonstop and the kids watched a bit of Cinderella Friday night too and ate pizza together. Mandy and I stayed up late talking (of course) and we had pancakes and eggs Saturday morning. The kids do so well together! Drake had a play date Saturday morning and when he came back, he asked if "his cousins" were still at our house. He was pretty disappointed that they had left but even more that they weren't his actual cousins!! 

As Drew and I mulched last that afternoon, Drew was feeling worse and worse. He had started to feel bad Thursday night but felt better Friday. I could tell he had a fever. After our last scheduled house and Drew felt bad he couldn't get out of the car to help, I took him over to the urgent care and found out he had strep with a 102.3 fever! He received a steroid treatment, a cough suppressant and an antibiotic. Later he told me the breathing treatment scared him because the nurse told him that it would make him jittery. 

While we were at the urgent care and mulching, David and the rest of the kids went to Academy and bought a basketball hoop. We spent a few hours putting it together and the kids are loving it! While we worked, the younger kids made a fun house out of the box the hoop came in. They rode bikes and enjoyed being outside while we worked on it. We broke in our first games of HORSE already!!

Sharkarosa

Dakota went to Sharkarosa with her preschool for their field trip. They touched a snake, rode a train, fed the horses, zebras and camels, and watched the kangaroos sleep and the wildebeasts jump around. We even saw a sleeping bear. Dakota didn't care to touch the iguana, but she did touch the snake's tail. We loved the trail ride where they had buckets attached to the sides of the vehicle and the animals came up to us and fed. We were having fun until Dakota bumped her chin on the side rail. Luckily, someone had an ice pack in their lunch for us to use. After the trail ride, we ate a picnic lunch with friends and saw the monkeys and lemurs.

Frisco Safety Town 2017

Drake's kindergarten field trip was to Frisco Fire Safety Town. I had Dakota go to a play date so I could chaperone. First, the kids learned a lot about Fire Safety and then they rode the jeeps which of course was the highlight of the trip. Drake's class walked first while the other class drove. Drake led his friends around the town using the signals and cross walks and he was a pro! Then, when it was time to drive, he drove so well! Legoland must have really prepared him :) Other kids were driving on the wrong side of the road and they would drive up on the curbs and into the bushes, but Drake did awesome. No wonder he wants to be a garbage truck driver!!! 

Preschool class picture (age4)

Dakota loves Ms. Elizabeth's class. She's with her friends, Braelyn and Jade, and she goes Tuesday's and Thursday's. She likes a piece of bread, applesauce, goldfish, and a fruit roll up for lunch. 

Data Recovery

Ace Data Recovery is my hero! Right before David  left for China Drew asked me to see some of his childhood videos. I decided that this was a good project to work on while David was gone. So the Wednesday before he left on Thursday I opened up our new hard drive to find that David had not transferred the videos over to it.  Everything else was there including all of our photos. I am mediately got the old hard drive and hooked it up to my laptop and begin copying the videos over to the new hard drive. I closed the top of the laptop and walked out. When I walked back in the hard drive was no longer connected to my laptop. When I asked David what happened he said that I had to keep the screen open in order to continue copying the files. But when he closed the screen, the hard drive fell to the ground and would not turn back on. I was panicked. And we searched our other drives for the videos and they weren't on them. I could barely sleep from the anxious feelings and complete devastation I felt. I couldn't eat, I cried a lot and David was across the world in China. By Monday, I found a place by reading google reviews that I had hope in. Ace Data Recovery was it. I shakinglybput the hard drive in my car and traveled half an hour there. Talked to the man behind the desk and he told me there were Russian engineers that worked there and if they didn't have the code to get the data they could write it. Two agonizing days went by before I got the phone call that they could recover my data. $1300 later and another week gone by and finally had the videos in my hands. I can't even say how upset I was over these videos. I had burned up to 2011amd had the 2016 videos but I was missing 4 years and I just couldn't imagine losing it. Now, onto actually getting those videos into movies so we can have them and enjoy them!!!

End of March

You'd be surprised how many tornados and hail storms we get here in Frisco. Tonight's hail storm was strong and fierce. Lots of damaged cars around town and whole dealerships losing their fleets. But our neighborhood did fairly well but we were all huddled in the hall bathroom when the tornado signs went off.

 David came home from being in China for two weeks and looked like this the next four days...

 Melanie came to visit me Friday night and spent the night at our home. She and I went to Zoe's kitchen for dinner and talked late into the night. It was great catching up on life and I treasure our friendship all these years.

Spring Fishing

  The Bramletts invited us to go fishing because they had live worms left over from fishing over the weekend. David was still recovering from jetlag and Drew stayed home too so it was me and the three younger kids who went fishing. I baited their hoooks, and Dilan caught 5 fish, Drake caught 4, and Dakota caught two. A combo of bass and perch and a whole lot of wind and sun. We had a great time!

Chest X-Ray and Women's Conference

 Today was a very scary day for me. We were having so much fun with the Curtis girls over at our house and taking them to Chick-fil-A for lunch while their parents looked at some houses. After lunch, we headed to the park where the girls enjoy climbing up on top of the yellow spinning wheel and spinning around and around. Each girl was holding on and before I knew it, Dakota let go and fell. She landed on her back, knocking the wind out of her. She cried pretty hard but was trying to catch her breath too. I immediately packed the kids in the van and headed to the Urgent Care. One clean chest x-ray later, and we were discharged! Dakota was fine but I wanted to make sure. She did say her back hurt her for the next week almost but she had no bruises or any broken ribs. I am so grateful she is okay!

Tonight was the first time I took Dilan with me to Women's Conference because she's now 8 years old and can come with me! Danae and Camryn came and picked us up and we went together enjoying cupcakes afterwards. Dilan did very well and made it through all of the talks with me. The most memorable talk was centered around us being certain women as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Second grade performance

Dilan's second grade program was filled with lots of farmers singing about vegetables and produce. She had a speaking part of which she pointed out that she's had a speaking part every year so far. She did a great job and pronounced every word into the microphone clearly. She got into every song and performed her heart out. Love this girl!

Spring Break 2017 - San Diego, California

Tuesday of spring break we traveled to San Diego and checked into our hotel. The kids were so excited to be in a hotel agan and wake up to the hotel breakfast. Wednesday morning we drove north to the San Diego temple to see it with the kids. It is so stunning and breathtaking but the kids were so focused on moving on to Legoland that we didn't stay too long. We walked the grounds, saw a bride taking pictures and waited for an opening to take our family photos at my most favorite temple I've ever been to.  

 Once we moved onto Legoland, we were all very excited! IT WAS AWESOME!!! We had a perfect day filled with so much fun and wonder. We loved everything we saw, we rode, and we ate. We visited Ninjago world and Lego Friends Heartlake City too. Our favorite ride was the Dragon ride and we went back at the end of the day to ride it over and over again, 4x!, before they closed. The kids learned how to drive and got drivers licenses, drove boats on water, rode pretend airplanes and horses, rode the biggest roller coaster they had called Lego Technic Coaster and only Dilan would ride it again, and toured Lego mini-land USA too. We had an absolute blast and ended our night at Chili's for dinner right by the hotel.

 Hotel Swimming is the best. I stayed in the hot tub the whole time while the others swam in the cold pool. Sucess!!

 On Friday, we woke up and went to La Jolla cove or Seal beach to see the seals. There was a definite smell to it but it was fun putting our feet in the Pacific ocean and seeing the seals play and sleep on the rocks. Then, we toured the Mormon Batallic site, ate some mexian food for lunch, toured the largest model train museum in the country, and explored the USS Midway aircraft carrier. It was a busy day but we did so many fun and memorable things on our vacation.

Dad's 68th birthday celebration

We decided to start our spring break off by driving to Houston and surprising most of the family that we were attending my Dad's 68th birthday party at Sam Houston Race Park. We had an absolute blast watching the horses race and the highlight of the races were seeing the Camels and the Ostrichs race. There was only one jockey left on an ostrich by the time they crossed the finish line. For the third race, we were able to head down to the winner's circle and present the winning jockey his trophy. The kids loved every minute being together, watching the animals, and cheering them on. We ate great food in my Dad's suite and watched him open presents and blow out the candles on his cake. It was a definite night to remember and one that was definitely worth driving all the way in for just one night. We spent the night at Colleen's apartment in Conroe, had breakfast with her the next morning and drove home.

Spring sports 2017

Dilan played volleyball for the first time this winter season and she enjoyed it. Their team placed second in the championship series and received medals. Dilan played mostly with her Team USA soccer team from last year and had so much fun with them. She still prefers soccer but she wants to try every sport out there! 

 Dilan was moved up to the 08 team this year and has been playing great. She got a new coach, Coach Ashley, and our experience with FC Dallas has gotten a lot better because of it! Dilan plays defender and continues to impress us with her eagerness to attend two practices a week for 1.5 hours. She loves it!

 Dakota has been learning how to play soccer with Soccer shots this year. She goes once a week and she's gotten the hang of this game quickly! We decided to put her on a team this spring and the first game she scored 7 goals! Dakota is enjoying playing with her friend, Jade, and she gets discouraged at times when she can't get to the ball but loves making things happen on the field when she can.

Grab bags and a lost tooth

 Drake and Dakota love the movie, Trolls, and so we grabbed some grab bags today for them both at the store. They have been watching youtube kids and seeing kids open toys online so they knew what these grab bags were and wanted them. They enjoyed opening them up and Dakota got "Satin," and Drake got. "Creek." And...Drake lost his second tooth!!!!

Tenderfoot

Drew advanced to be a tenderfoot in scouts. Brother Willis and Brother Catmull presented him with his new badge!

End of February 2017

An old friend, Hudson, visited our ward today and Drake couldn't have been happier. Best Sunday ever!

 Drake and Dakota were playing ESPN announcers at Dilan's indoor soccer game with pretend microphones and creative commentary.

 Dilan and Drake registered for swim team this summer and are looking forward to it! Drew is swimming competitively year round and made the bronze team in December and then moved up to the silver team three months later in March.

 We celebrated some friend's February birthdays at wally-ball one night and David and Nate tried their skills at Just Dance and killed it. We were shocked at how well they did! They might not have looked graceful while doing it but they didn't miss many steps. Danae and I tried it next and within 10 seconds, we had failed it! How are these guys better dancers than us?? :)