Oh the places we’ve been and the things we’ve done!

Wow – its been a summer! I can’t believe its been a whole summer since I blogged a darn thing! I’ve dealt with a few frustrations… Micah decided to load all the pictures on his computer because he uses the cameras so much more often. Well that sounded great, but he’s almost always on that computer and I’m still learning how to use it, so I didn’t have access to any of the pictures. I started writing a blog post about Easter and the Mommy makeover and I just kept adding to it – end of school, Father’s day, etc – and I never had a chance to get the pictures in. Soooo…finally we have the picture situation worked out and I can start updating again.
Anyway, We have had a great summer! We started by getting Jackson into swim team. He LOVED it, of course! Give that boy a little competition and he’s happy! I really appreciate how he doesn’t get worked up about winning or losing – he just loves competing. Its always nice to be the winner though ;o) I think this quality will serve him well through life. I always felt way too much pressure in sports or any competition.He really enjoyed having practice with several friends and cousins on his team.


Lacey and Chelle got to do a little dance class where they had an awesome time! They were so cute and so happy coming out of there.


We did some swim lessons, swimming in our pool, a visit to the lake with Papa-dad,  a little school work every day, a “stubz’ sicle stand” once a week and a few other fun crafts and activities I found online that would keep our time filled and productive. I had a lot planned for us for just a short month because we were taking the month of July for a long vacation.

The Thursday before we were to leave on our trip, Micah went to a conference. He came back Saturday morning about 10:00 and we left Saturday by 1:00 PM. There was so much to get ready to go! We cleaned out a lot of things that you just don’t usually think of: refrigerator, cabinets, drawers, every ounce of garbage/ garbage cans, and anything else I could think of that may get stinky in a hot closed up house! Poor Autumn decided to cut her first couple of teeth right before we left. She seemed to handle it well though. After all the preparation, we finally got off! Our first stop we went through Provo to stay the night. It was fun to be back there – it always feels like home. That Sunday we went to church in Highland to visit friends of ours that had just moved there a few weeks before. It was so fun to see the Smiths! Then we drove to Heber to a cabin to have the Stubblefield Family Reunion. We all had a great time and I love watching my kids get to know their cousins better. The kids didn’t want to leave! The boys could go exploring in the woods, the girls could play games and swing on the porch swing, and adults could hang out and chat. It was fun to play games in the evenings with several of the in laws and older nieces and nephews. We had a fun skit night, rocket building and launching, Wii dance, a bouncy water slide and a lot of other fun activities.


July 5th was the last day of the reunion. I had called my room mate from college Hannah to see if we could meet up with her family. It ended up that she was having a family reunion about 2 miles from where ours was, and she was able to come over to the cabin we were staying at just for a few minutes as we were getting ready to leave. It was so fun to see her and a little crazy that our kids are getting so big! It feels like yesterday that we were room mates at DT our first semester out of high school and playing and hanging out with the other girls on the floor. After that we went to Salt Lake. It started raining, but we went to a park where Micah wanted to see a youtube guy named Weezy waiter and his band. We picked up some lunch and went to this park in SLC. It was raining pretty good, so the kids and I waited in the car for a lot of the time. There were some of the most precious duck families there and we couldn’t get enough of them. Next we went to the City Creek mall to visit with some of Micah’s friends. It was nice to walk through the mall and get some ice cream and visit with Micah’s friends from high school that he hadn’t seen since before we were married. Our next destination was Yuba City. I can’t remember how many nights and where we stayed at places from SLC to Yuba City, but I know we had at least one night in a hotel. We stopped off to visit this park we thought would be really fun for the kids – petting zoo, little rides, etc, but none of that was there anymore. There were some nature paths and a little museum where we were the only people, but it gave us a much needed driving break.

The kids did amazingly well on all the driving, and we tried to find some parks at regular intervals so we could all be happy and get some playing time. Alright – that’s it for part one! I’ll have to break this trip into parts over the next few days or so and make sure I cover all of it!

In other news, we went and looked at puppies the other day (we go to the puppy store at San Tan every once in a while) and we’ve all fallen in love with this darling little one! He was precious and sweet tempered – if only he didn’t cost so much!!! We held him and played with him. I’ve been tempted to go back every day since we looked at him.  After we played with him for a few minutes we gave him back to the sales guy and he handed him right to a couple that was waiting to see him and Lacey yelled, “they’re going to steal our puppy!” Ha – I wonder if they did! I think Rachelle’s been dreaming about it, because she’s said to me in the mornings, “that was so fun to pet that cute puppy” and “can we go get that puppy?”

Posted on

All about Lacey

So this year of preschool has been quite interesting! I’ve seen Lacey grow up quite a bit in her communication and her ideas about other people. She loves being at school with the other kids, but she kinda just does her own thing when she wants to. Her teacher thought it was adorable and loved Lacey, but I am a little worried for what her elementary school days will bring! I’m thinking for sure a lot of socializing and we’ll see about the school work! Lacey still has one more year of preschool, so I’m sure she will mature a little more and do just great. Lacey learned to write the L and the Y in her name. She is so proud of the L’s and Y’s she could care less about the rest. She is a funny girl and loves the drama of human interaction! Most days she’ll come home and tell me a story like this: “Kiersten did this and so Riley was sad and then I told Kiersten to not do that and so she was mad at me and that made me feel bad.” and the stories go on and on. Usually they all end up being friends in the end. She is a bit of a public defender. She has a very playful and funny/ outrageous side to her that is hilarious! She says the weirdest and silliest things! She doesn’t really know how to be quiet – she can hardly whisper, it’s pretty funny to think about right now, but in the moment at church when you’ve told her a million times to use a whisper voice and everyone in the rows right around us is hearing her latest made up “knock, knock” joke that usually includes the word toilet it doesn’t feel funny! She doesn’t like to get sweaty, have her hair done, or have sticky/ messy hands. She will hardly eat anything with syrup because she hates being sticky. Miss Heidi would laugh as she told me Lacey would wash her hands a million times during their art projects because she couldn’t stand the mess. We were so grateful that Miss Heidi would teach and love Lacey. Lacey had a great year. Lacey was a key role in their final mommy show: she got to be the fairy in “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” Here’s her performance:

 

Lacey also got her hair cut in the end of April… she LOVES it! I don’t think she will ever go back to long hair. She keeps telling me how cute everything thinks it is. She is so fun!

Lace has been taking a little dance class all semester and they had their recital in the end of April. It was so cute how excited she was about the costume, but she LOVED being up in front of everyone! I wasn’t sure if she knew the dance very well and every time I’d try to work on it with her she told me she already knew it. Well, apparently she knew it! (skip to 3:44 if it doesn’t start there)

I love my spunky and fun little Lacey!

, ,
Posted on

Let’s Play Music

This school year we put Jackson in a music class with a lady in our ward. The program is called Let’s Play Music and is designed to introduce young children to basic music concepts. It is a three year program and by the end they should have a good start on piano and should be able to site read music. This is their end of year performance where they share what they learned.

,
,
Posted on

Jackson’s Birthday

6 yrs old! What? That sounds so old…  Jackson had a lot of things he wanted to do to celebrate his birthday – he couldn’t quite decide what he wanted to do most. Finally we decided we would go bowling as a family and have a little party for him with his cousins. I haven’t decided on our “policy” for birthdays yet… I know some people only do parties for certain birthdays and they go all out on those specific parties, others go all out every year for parties, some do family parties some years and then friend parties the other years – I’m kinda just playing it by year.

Anyway, so our family bowling was really fun/ funny – everyone was happy and it was fun just to be together. The party with cousins was also a blast! We played a few organized games, had pizza, cake and ice cream, and then we just let them play in the backyard.  We played the candy bar game, a funny balloon popping game, simon says, and button button. Jackson’s cake was a lot of fun to make. He wanted a football cake with an AZ Cardinals helmet and a BYU helmet. We came up with just what he wanted – it was fun to create and tasted great, but let’s be honest, if you’re getting detailed at all fondant just takes so long! It was fun to see all the boys reactions to the cake though – they were chanting “BYU” over and over.

Playing Simon Says

The Cake

This is the video Micah made the week of his b-day:

skip to about 4:15 in the video for b-day stuff

Jackson is a fun little guy. He loves any good competition, and I mean any competition. He loves a good game and at this point hasn’t learned to be a bad sport about losing yet. He is very determined when he sets his mind to something. He’s smart, kind, and just has a good nature about him. His teachers all love him and tell me what a polite and thoughtful boy he is. He is such a great little guy!

Phew! We made it through the birthday month again, now on with the rest of the year!

,
, ,
Posted on

How fast is your hot wheels car? Come find out!

Are any of you or your kids hot wheels fans out there? Think you have the fastest car? Well, we’d love to have you at the race to see your car in action! Micah is putting on a race for family and friends from Youtube. People have sent in cars from all over the US, Puerto Rico, and the UK. We have about 65 cars now and expect a few more to roll in in the next few days. If you don’t have a car on hand, don’t want to go out and buy one, or don’t have time to ship a car we’ve got you covered… We went and found some of the fastest looking cars and you can sponsor a car here.

The race will be held this Saturday, 6:30 PM and pizza will be served! Of course besides bragging rights, winners will leave with a prize! Let us know if you’re interested in entering your fastest racer(s) so we can add you to the bracket. Its going to be the race of the year so you won’t want to miss it!

Posted on