July 4th

We decided to take the kids swimming over the Gram and Grandpa's for the 4th of July. They were out of town in Sedona so it was just us and Uncle Ty joined us as well. We picked up some pizzas from Little Caesars and brought along a cooler with sodas and had a great time. It was a nice day, a little over cast and under 100!

I can hardly believe it's July already!!

The kids waiting to go in thru the gate to get into the pool. They were asking all day if it was time yet to go swimming!

Max decided that he wanted to make sure his milk was still in the diaper bag before we left the car. He made sure later on that he put it in the cooler so it would stay cold with the sodas.

Tori and her pepperoni pizza. She is such a little hamball. She has given up all her other flotation devices and swims with just her floaties now. She keeps up with Hudson and Emm and the other big people, jumping off the rocks and the waterfall and zipping down the slide. She is definately our little daredevil.

Max and his pizza and his batman hat. He likes to be like mom, dad and Hudson and likes to wear a ball cap.

Jase and the monkeys. The weather started to change and change fast so we all got out of the pool and got changed. A monsoon was looming on the horizon and even though it was still 95+ degrees the wind felt soooo cold.

The kidlets and I post swim, the wind just kept picking up.

As we were leaving I had to take this photo to show the storm that was coming in. If i had turned around and taken a photo facing the other direction you would have seen bright blue sky. It almost looks like night in this picture. The clouds were just black and moving in super fast. On our way home we didn't hit any rain but the wind was tossing the car around on the freeway. I love monsoons for the way they take the temps down a notch but with the added humidity from the rains it makes it feel hotter than it is. We like Arizona for the dry heat, humidity sucks!!!

Emily and Tori's Dance Recital

Saturday June 21st was Emily and Tori's dance recital. On the Wednesday and Thurday before they had dress rehearsals on the stage and since it was a weekday the whole crew had to go! They both did INCREDIBLE in the recital, I was soooo proud of both of them for the great job that they did.

Tori was in one routine called Lullabye on Broadway and Emily was in two. Pop Music, which is the flashy costume and Newsies(a musical piece). She had to do a costume change and managed to do it all in time and came out with everything in place!!

Hudson ended up coming with me to the show and about ten minutes into it he started complaining that the music was too loud that he had a headache, then he was hungry and then the kicker was when he asked if I could just drive him home and come back(its a 15 min each way trip) -- a BIG no on that one!!!

There was an intermission after 20 routines and then another 19 routines after it. It went almost three hours and to be honest after he got a 'slim jim' from the snack bar he was a different kid.

The theater was sold out with standing room at the back which ticked the theater security off. Jase and i tried to estimate and figured that the theater held around a thousand people. Neither of the girls acted nervous or scared about performing in front of that many people. Emily is in heaven doing this. I truly think she has found her calling. She is so expressive and theatrical when she is doing this. It's great to see since generally she is such a quiet and reserved girl in school and anything else that doesn't involve her family!

The girls and their teacher Miss Tina.

Tina was also in a few routines with the other teachers so she was all done up as well. Hudson and I bought the girls each a rose(pink for Tori, red for Emmy) and a medal with AZ Desert Dance Recital 2008 on the back(purple for Emm, pink for Tori). Tori's group got these really nifty bow ties for their shoes which she thought were really cool. Emily is wearing her Newsies outfit.

Emily in her stage make-up...never thought i'd put make-up on my children at this age!!!

Max had a hard time keeping the chair open at the rehearsal but he thought he was pretty cool being allowed to sit in the chairs like the big kids.

Say cheese!!!

Emily in her "Pop Music" outfit.

Tori in the backstage room waiting for her turn to perform. What a cheese ball.

All in all it went really well. It was a learning experience for all of us. I'm sure next time Hudson won't so eagerly offer to come and watch!!

Father's Day

A few weeks before Father's Day the kids had the idea to get Daddy a Build-A-Bear for Father's Day with a neat outfit. So off we went to the mall and battled the insane store known as Build-A-Bear and the kids picked out a bear for Daddy...and then one each for themselves, and then I saw that they had a turtle(yep i absolutely LOVE turtles). Yes as usual I am a sucker, so we ended up walking out of the store with...

one bear for Daddy with a #1 Dad t-shirt, cargo shorts and sunglasses that the kids thought looked like their Dad's; one turtle for Mom with a USA t-shirt and some cool looking work boots; a soft fluffy bunny for Emily with a High School Musical t-shirt (she loves anything HSM) with a cute jean skirt; a puppy dog for Hudson with a baseball uniform(Hudson's favorite sport); a pink and grey leopard for Tori with a pop star outfit with a microphone(yep our diva) and then a chocolate brown monkey for Max (since he is such a monkey and he laughed when he saw that one) with a pair of camo cargo shorts and jungle t-shirt. When we checked out the lady gave us a birthday bear for the kids to sign for Jase for Father's Day since we bought enough bears to qualify for a party...urgh! The bears ended up being their end of school congratulations gift for a year well done and they all thought that was pretty cool :)

The bear all the kids signed for Jason and made cute little comments on.

The Koala bear the kids chose for his Father's Day gift. They especially wanted the glasses since they said that their Dad's we just like them, he begs to disagree, haha.

Our Croc Kids :)

A new Costco was built close to our house and the kids and I decided to check it out. They had kids Croc sandals for a really great price and we pretty much live in sandals and flip flops all year here in Arizona. The kids convinced me that they "needed" new sandals, even though they had all gotten new flip flops the month before. Being a sucker I said why not, haha. They each chose their own colors. Emily was the first and chose purple in a womens size 5...dang. Then Hudson chose a really cool bluey green(they look less feminine in real life!!) in a womens size 7(yep he's gunna have size 15 when he gets older just like his Uncle Chris!), Max then chose blue in a kids 8 then Tori chose red in a kids 10. Yes, they all have massive feet except for Tori. If she didn't look so much like I did when I was a kid I would say she was swapped at birth!!!

Fun at Gram and Grandpa's!

Great Nanna Layton was down for a visit so we took the kids over to Gram and Grandpa's for a swim, dinner and to socialize. We all had a great time and as usual the kids hated to leave:(

Max in his floatie in the pool. He LOVES the pool, we think he looks upon it as his own giant bathtub!!

Tori and her masses of pool toys!!

Jason, Max, Tori, Gram, Emily, Great Nanna and Hudson

The guys!!

Max loved it when Jason put him under the waterfall :)

Grandpa teaching Max the finer points of how to walk down the stairs without doing a face plant. After Max was done learning, he went up to Grandpa and gave him a huge hug...it was priceless!!

Emily loves to play Gram's piano whenever we visit.

Jason giving Emily some pointers on the piano. The summer that we dated Jason used to play the piano at the condo in Kelowna all the time.

The girls!!

Grandpa's New Truck

Grandpa traded in his BMW M5 and his Nissan Frontier pick-up truck and got a brand spankin' new 2009 Denali truck! The kids thought it was a really neat truck since it has dvd players in the back of both head rests. They informed me that we needed to get a dvd player in our car so that they wouldn't be so bored, haha. Grandpa said that he told the kids that he got them put in so that his dog Murphy could have something to do when she was in the back seat. haha

It is a VERY nice truck and smells like new leather inside. All the bells and whistles on this baby!! It's nice that Grandpa splurged on himself, it's seldom that he does that!

Can't wait to go for a ride :)

Dance Photos!

This week was dance photos for the girls. They have a recital coming up at the end of June and they took photos this past week. I didn't get a chance to take one of Emily since we were in a hurry but the one she had taken on Saturday was one of her Musical Theater class called "Newsies" where they dressed up like paper boys from the 40's( think it was the 40's).

She wore a flat cap, boys dress shirt, boys dress pants(she used a pair of Hudson's church pants that i had cut off to hem and unfortunately cut them too short so i guess it all turned out to okay in the end!!) and then a pair of suspenders and a pair of knee high blue socks. I thought she looked like a cute little guy!! I initially put her hair in two low pig tails but when we got there all the girls had their hair up to look more like boys so i tired to get all of her hair under her hat and that was a no go. Her hair is so thick that it wouldn't fit under her hat so i had to pull it into a single braid down her back which ended up looking pretty good. I'm sad i didn't get a photo of her in the outfit but i'll get her dressed up in it again or just post a photo of her when we get them back. I would do it today but she has "other" make up on at the moment. (see the next post in line!!)

Emily's jazz/tap class had a delay with some of their costumes so their class photos won't be taken until dress rehearsals in two weeks so i'll post her photos then.

Tori's outfit is for Lullabye on Broadway. She let me curl her hair a bit...but not much and she wanted her hair down instead of up in a bun or pony tail because it makes her look more like a princess this way...okay if you say so, haha. I also bought some make up to give the girls a light touch up for the photos. Since i really don't own much make up i had to hit Target to buy some. Yeah i know it's sad, i'm so not a girly girl. The only make up i do use is Bobby Brown and there is no way i'm using that on my kids, haha.

Once we get all of their photos back i'll post them. The people doing them looked like they did a good job.