Fall Pictures

The family went up to the Alpine Loop (Timpanogos Canyon) to take Fall pictures. Both my sisters families and my Mom and Dad came. The colors were amazing and I am really happy with how the pictures turned out.

It was the perfect weekend to go. Sometimes the colors change so fast that there is only one or two weekends where the colors are this great in the mountains.

I love this idea. My sister is such a great photographer. She had the kids pick up leaves, pose before they threw them and then captured them throwing them.

The girls climbing the tree.

Amy loves to climb trees. I have so many pictures of her in them.

My oldest sister and her family.

My other sister and her family.

Mike wasn't able to come so we got a Mother/Daughter picture.

Grandma and Papa with Amy.

Grandma and Papa with the girls.

My parents like to get a picture with all their grandkids for their Christmas card. All but two of the grandkids were able to come.

3 weeks of Summer and my big 1st grader

So I am having to get used to short Summers because Amy is on a year-round school calendar.

We had 3 weeks to get in as much fun as possible. So I will start with the first trip we took after she got out of school, in fact we left to go camping the day of her Kindergarten presentation (after it was over of course).

We went to a place called 12 mile. It is really beautiful and we had such a great time.

Amy in the tent trailer with her friends.

This little pond was right in our campsite. Amy loved fishing with Daddy.

She had a blast riding her 4-wheeler.

Her friend Ryan kept getting stuck in the ruts. It was so cute she would stop and run over to help push his 4-wheeler out. After a while I think he started to do it on purpose just so she would help him. It was so funny. They have been best friends since they were 18 months.Mike was the chef one night . Great hat and what a goober. He didn't smile for the first picture and I gave him a hard time so this is the smile I got for the next picture.

Amy on Ryan's bike. We forgot to bring hers so he was nice to share.

Buddies forever!

They are eating in the tent trailer because it rained one of the nights we were there.

We took the 4-wheelers up to Skyline. I didn't realize how high we would get. And yes...that is snow behind them. Crazy!

Amy and her Daddy.

We found a little stream that the kids had fun playing in. Amy loves to find walking sticks.

Mommy and Amy.

We had such a great time. I love camping with my family and friends.

One night we went "Color Me Mine" to decorate pottery. We went with a few of Amy's cousins. It was pajama night which means that if you wear your pj's you get a discount. The girls thought it was great fun and they had such fun things to decorate.

The girls with their finished products. We had to leave them there so they could be baked in the pottery ovens. Everyone's turned out so cute.

We also went to Seven Peak water park a couple times with Grandma and her cousins. Amy is a fish and can't get enough of the water.

Amy and Kymi ready to go on one of the scary rides. Amy has no fear and will try almost anything...is that good or bad??

Melissa, Ally and Amy on the tire swing.
Ally underwater

Amy underwater...still smiling

Getting eaten by the crocodile

Amy and Melissa

Ryan, Amy, Melissa and Nathan on the snake.

Amy going down a slide with Ryan.

Ally, Kymi and Amy...nice pose Ally.

The kids drowning Grandma in the wave pool.

Cute girlsOne, two, three...under

Seven Peaks was great. I have never been there before this summer.

Amy also loved playing in the sprinklers. She likes to get out the sidewalk chalk and draw while the water is on. It makes the chalk like paint.

Nice hands. Thankfully it washes right off!

I just took these pictures one day. They are too cute to leave out. This is her favorite pose.
Here she is on her first full day of 1st grade.

Got her backpack and ready to go. I can't believe I have a 1st grader. Where does the time go?

She's not in Kindergarten anymore

Last week was Amy's last day of Kindergarten. They did a little celebration. Here are a few pictures and videos. I can't believe she is going to be in 1st grade. She is growing up so fast.

Amy with her teacher Miss Giesa. This was her first year teaching and she was wonderful.

Amy with a few of her friends.

I love this video. It is a song called "I like being me". So cute. Amy is in the back row next to the boy with the red shirt.

This is a funny song. It is called Vinnie Volcano. Amy's friend was very animated while she sang it. She is the one wearing the white shirt.

Fun at the Ranch

For those of you who don't know, Mike's family lives in Northern Idaho on 54 acres of beautiful land. It is about 30 minutes north of Coeur d'Alene and about an hour and a half south of the Canadian border. It is just gorgeous up there. His Mom and Dad, Aunt and Uncle and Grandma all live on the Ranch (in separate houses of course). They have 6 horses, multiple 4 wheelers and lots of trails to ride or walk through.

Amy and I were lucky enough to go up to the ranch while Amy was off track. We were there for 2 weeks and had so much fun. Here are some pictures of the things we did. Thank you Gary and Cindy, Vicki and Vanny, and O'ma for taking care of us and making us feel at home.

Amy got a pair of Wrangler jeans, John Deer boots, a belt with changable buckle and a cute cowgirl shirt. She said "I am a real cowgirl now".

All saddled up and ready for a ride. I had her pose for some pictures before she put her riding helmet on.

Aunt Vicki, Amy and Grandma out for a ride.

Riding on one of the trails.

Amy just loves her cousin Lexi. She is feeding her some of her yogurt.

Lexi and Amy

O'ma and Amy making a quilt for Amy's dolls. It turned out so cute and they had a great time making it together.

Lexi turned 1 just before she got to the ranch so we had a celebration while we were there. Here she is going for the candle. We all thought she was going for the frosting.

"Ooooh pretty fire".

Cousin Seth loved the cake...now that is concentration.

The barn cat had 5 kittens about a month or so before we got there. Amy named them all and they were pretty tame. She loved playing with them and taking care of them.

Out for another ride on her horse Sunny.

Thank you Sunny...I love you.

Playing in the kiddie pool with Seth
They have a boat so we took it for a ride around Lake Cocolalla which is only about a 10 minute drive from the ranch.

Amy helped Grandpa reload.
Amy just loves gymnastics. Her Uncle Vanny has done gymnastics his whole life, so she spent a lot of time learning tricks with him. She learned to do a hand to hand (handstand on his hands). I was really impressed.

Tada
Goodbye Sunny...until next time.

Here is a couple video clips. One of a little gymnastic routine and another of her riding her horse.

The Zoo...and more

I has been a few weeks since I posted my last update and I also realized that I forgot to post Easter pictures. So this post has multiple parts to it.

THE ZOO

For Amy's Kindergarten field trip they went to Hogle Zoo. She was so excited to take the bus for the first time. I met them there and helped out with the class. The picture below has the new goslings in it.

When we first go there, the parents were given their kids they were supposed to take around the zoo. I had Amy and two girls that she plays with all the time. Here they are when we first go there. From left to right...Paige, Kaylee, and Amy.

Paige and Amy looking at the porcupines.

The girls thought it was hilarious to pretend they were kissing the gorillas. There are multipe pictures like this. The school didn't allow much time to wander the zoo before the bus had to head back to the school so I signed Amy out and we spent the rest of the day there...just the two of us. It was great.

I didn't realize how many pictures I got of the elephants. I guess I really like them and didn't realize it. I won't bore you with all of them but here is a cute one of Amy with them in the background.

They have so many statues around the zoo. Of course she likes to pose for pictures on all of them.

Look at that huge turtle! Isn't it so cute.

What a fun day we had. Hopefully we will be back sometime this summer when more of the exhibits are open again. Some were still closed for winter.

EASTER PICTURES

I can't believe I didn't post any of these.

Amy on Easter morning going through her basket full of goodies. New earrings!

The day before Easter we went to Grandma and Papa's for an Easter egg hunt.

All the grandkids getting ready to go for the eggs. Timmy (my brothers son) was the only one missing in this picture. He must be behind one of them.

She loves crafts and art so decorating Easter eggs were so much fun for her.

MY FRIEND LORI

My friend was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. I am running (or walking) in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on May 9th to show my support for her. A group of friends have been putting together little support gifts for her while she has been in and out of the hospital and going to chemo. One thing we wanted to give her was a blanket to take with her to her chemo treatments because we heard that you get cold during them. I found some really cool fleece fabic at walmart and made her one of those tie blankets. Here is a picture of it.

This is Lori right when I brought her the blanket. We love you Lori. If you would like to support me in the race, every dollar helps. Thank you.

Here is the link. http://race.komenslc.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1000&px=1060646

I COULDN'T RESIST

So the last picture is just funny. Amy loves to dress up our dog Sally...poor thing. She found her old ballet recital outfit and a build a bear hat and put it on her. I was laughing so hard...ENJOY!

That's it. I should be all caught up...I hope.

Thanks but you don't have to lead me

Amy went to a birthday party this weekend and they had a pony there for the kids to ride. Well, if you know Amy...she LOVES horses. All the kids took turns riding while someone lead the pony around the yard. When it was Amy turn, she got on and said "Thanks but you don't have to lead me. I know how to ride. I have big horse in Idaho that I ride all by myself." I was cracking up. She does have a horse at grandmas house in Idaho but I didn't know she would be so confident. Everyone at the party was laughing. She did great though. She wrapped the lead rope around the saddle horn, took the reins and lead the pony around like a champ. Grandma and Aunt Vicki would be so proud.

After her turn, she took it upon herself to lead the pony while the other kids got to ride. Here she is leading around her friend Kira. Amy spent pretty much the whole party with the pony. She only took a break when I made her go eat lunch and when they opened presents.

2 Wheels

Last year we bought Amy a big girl bike (it still had training wheels but it had room to grow). She rode around on it a little and loved it but it was a little too tall for her. So she didn't get a lot of practice and she didn't want to try it without the training wheels. Now that the weather is getting better we decided to pull the bike out and get her riding. Yesterday she rode it around for a couple hours with the training wheels still on and today she decided she wanted to try without them. So, I took them off and took her to the path we have behind our house. I held on for a little bit but the first time I let go she did amazing. I couldn't believe it. She was obviously ready and I didn't even realize it.

Sorry about the shaky camera. I was trying to watch her through the camera and walk at the same time and then I was worried about her falling so I wasn't paying attention to keeping it still.

She wanted to go down the hill so here is the first time down. She did it many times after this.