Volleyball

 Look at that form - knees bent, arms straight, thumbs next to each other, wrist down.

Future olympians, I tell ya.

 I love my kids' imaginations.   They decided to play volleyball in the basement.   They made their own knee pads with blue hospital rags.  They took off the couch cushions to be the net which would make it almost volley-tennis. (Janna and I dominating in VT is for a whole other post).  Anyway, they played for days and days.  Eventually the knee pads got tossed and they just played with the cushions/net.  Then finally one day, the ball popped and it ended. 

 I've never wanted to pressure my girls to be volleyball players, but secretly I would love it so much!

24th in St. Johns

I took the kids up to St. Johns for the Pioneer Days celebration.  Jeremy couldn't get that week off, so I went solo.  I played in the volleyball tournament with the same gals from 2 years ago (Gaylene Williams, and the Burdick Sisters), plus Lanae Wahl (?).  We were awesome if I do say so myself.  We won the CO-ED tournament with our team of only girls.  It was so much fun!
Koe and Jarred came up for the last part of the week and the kids played all day long in the jungle.  They picked berries, created a fortress, cut down trees.  They lived it up.
We had a great campfire circle - though shortened by the rain.  The rain continued with tons of lightening and thunder all night long.  It was so incredible.
 
The weekend was capped off with the best St. Johns parade I've ever been to.  The theme was "Pioneers and Patriots"  The commentators were so funny and kinda politically incorrect.  There were some good floats, but the 2 that got to me were one right after another.  1 - The statue of Joe McCarthy (from SJ) came through the parade.  He was photographed in Iraq giving candy to a child.  That picture soon became famous and now, years after he was killed in combat, a statue was made depicting the picture.  The statue was coming to rest in St. Johns.  2.  The next float was a trailer of flags, simple yet so profound.  Each of the 88 flags on it represented fallen servicemen and women from Apache County since 1900.  Though I'm not from St. Johns, I was so proud of that little patriotic town.    The parade ended in usual fashion with the fire truck soaking all the kids - a tradition lost on most communities now.

The soaked kiddos with their bags of loot- Oliver, Jake, Annie, Simon, Hannah, Abby

Pictures of Bugsy, Gee, Claire

My baby is growing way too fast.  We're all relishing her.  She can now roll over, though I thought she never would because she is never put down.  She is a chatterbox.  Her favorite word was gee (like geese, not gee whiz).  So Abby thought we should change her name to GeeGee.  Well as soon as we started calling her GeeGee, she stopped saying that and now just babbles away non-stop sometimes.  

We still call her Bugsy - like the hamster on Bedtime Stories.  "Those eyes would be big on a cow!" - Skeeter Bronson (Adam Sandler)  

Anyway, I love her guts and here are some pictures from the past few months of my sweet, sweet Claire...

 Hannah with Claire

Hannah and Claire again, in St. Johns

 Cyndi and Claire in St. Johns

big grins 

Meet Bugsy, our newest child.  She's got "bowling balls for eyes"

I love, love, love her 

Claire with her Daddy after his jog.  Nobody else will get near him after he jogs 'cause he's so sweaty 

Hannah again.  She loves her little sister

Jake cuddled Claire to sleep while watching a ball game.  He is the best big brother a baby could get.  He and Hannah fight to hold her the most.

All smiles after church.  

Then she got hungry and decided to eat the newspaper.  Claire is a very oral baby - everything has always gone into her mouth.  Today it was her fist, Hannah's chip, Jake's nose, my church blouse (that word is for you Mom) the newspaper, and rice cereal.

Abby the Missionary

My kids impress me a lot sometimes. I learn a lot from them.
Abby connected right away when we moved here with a girl in her class, Faith.  She invited Faith to her baptism and Faith came.  They have played together every week and get a long pretty well.  Today, Abby went to Faith's house and they did a lemonade stand.  When I went to pick her up, her mom told me that Abby made $6.25.  Then she told me that Abby told her that she first needs to pay her tithing before she can do anything else with her money.  When I asked Abby about it later, she didn't think of it as a very big deal.  She told me, "Faith asked me what my tithing jar was on my shelf once so I told her about tithing,"
She may not think it's a very big deal, but I for one do.  And I'm pretty sure the Lord does too.  Way to go Peanut!

4th of July

This year we headed to St. Johns for the 4th as is our usual tradition.  I did not take one single picture for which I will always be sad.  We had a great day.  It started off with a pancake breakfast at the park, then a patriotic program a little later, followed by the bbq lunch, snow cones, races, then the kids and Jeremy off to the pool for a swim.  It was the best day, overcast all morning, cool.  The program was wonderful.  My favorite speaker was the daughter,wife and mother of military servicemen.  She gave a beautiful talk on the difference between being a patriot and being patriotic.  I  think I'm the latter.  The races were great.  The kids all ran hard.  Jake took home the only loot - winning first place in the 10 year old boys race, getting a gold dollar.  After the pool, the clouds broke open and it rained all afternoon until right before fireworks.  The fireworks were beautiful.  We watched  from the cemetary - kinda weird, but awesome.   

We loved having Justin and Megan and their kids, and Devon to hang out with too.  Claire was never put down.  Between Michelle, Megan and Cyndi, she was always held.

I'm grateful to be an American to live in the land of the free.  I love our blessed nation and I'm so thankful for our founding fathers.  I know they were inspired.  God Bless America.

Surfing in PV AZ

This is how my girls spent their entire Sunday afternoon:

They Soul Surfed in the kitchen on their pillows.  In blue, you'll see Bethany Hamilton (always Hannah), in pink with the light pink surfboard is Alana Blanchard (Abby) and in pink with the purple surfboard  is Sara Bilatin (Annie - they made up a character because it was the sequel).

What better way to spend a Sunday

PV All-Stars

Jake proudly represented Prescott Valley Little League on his 9-10 year old All-Star team.  He played really well.  His team, not so much.  In one inning in the elimination game, they had roughly 8 errors.  It wasn't pretty.  They played Camp Verde on Friday and lost 11-2 and then Chino Valley on Saturday and lost 22-0.  Had they won either of those games, he would have had to play on Sunday, which he did not like (we signed a contract committing to the entire season - games and practices not knowing there would be games on Sundays) I know it's not about individual stats, but in the 2 games he went 2 for 3 with 2 walks.  His one at bat that he didn't get a hit was his hardest hit ball, but it went right to the ss.  He started at third base both games and made some good defensive plays.  He doesn't like losing and  he's been analyzing the tournament and how he thinks things could have gone differently ever since.  Hopefully these boys get some more practice and they come back next season ready and more competitive.

His team- front row: Titus, Aaron, Javier, Cameron    middle row:  Dylan, Danny, Jake, Tryston, Micah   back row:  Coach Mike, Spencer, Paxton and Coach Larry Prentice