Personal Progress Award

Lexi worked so hard this year to complete her personal progress and receive her young woman recognition award. She did 8 ten hour projects, lots of service, read the whole Book of Mormon and did a lot of other studying, learning and reading. She almost never asked me for help. I was even surprised when she told me in July that she was almost done!!! She's been working on it for a year and a half since entering young women's but really did a lot of work this summer. 

I'm really proud of her dedication, goal setting and hard work. She's a good example to me. And I have to say she has the absolute best young women leaders right now that have encouraged her, supported her, and motivated her!  I am thankful for them. Dave and I took her on a little date to Cheesecake factory and gave her a cute willow tree statue to put in her room and remind her of this great thing she has achieved and this summer when her faith grew so much.  I hope she continues to grow her faith.  She will now be working to earn her honor bee which involves 40 hours of service and reading the Book of Mormon again.  She got her medallion this past Sunday and both her grandmas were there to cheer her on.  In the photo below she is wearing the medallion and holding a special stool that she got to keep her scriptures on.  

We love you Lexi!

13 Years Old

I sometimes can't believe that I have a 13 year old.  I really wish I was the perfect Mom and was giving her all that she needs and teaching her everything she needs to know.  But I know life doesn't work that way.  She seems to be doing so awesome in spite of all my mistakes.  I am thankful for this beautiful, smart, independent, responsible, kind and spiritual girl!!

A Big Surprise....

Lexi has always been a dog lover.  When she was a little girl we had this book all about dogs and she would literally hide it in her room so no one else could find it and it was all hers and she would lay in her bed and read it.  Then she would come and show me all the dogs she loved best and ask me to pick which one I wanted her to be.  Then I would pick one, we would chose a name and she would be a dog the rest of the day.  It was crazy and so cute but I couldn't relate.  I'm not a dog lover.  I always thought we'd get a dog eventually because I do believe every kid should have a dog.  But as time went on and I was able to put her off I thought maybe we never would.  Plus Dave is allergic so that always helped my case. 

Then one day I just felt like we should get her one.  I mean, she's leaving for college in like 5 years.  Plus my brother has a nice dog, and my sister has 2 easy nice dogs and I started to think it could work.  My kids are at good ages... they could do a lot of the work... and just like that we decided to go for it.

Little did I know how HARD it would be.  I searched and searched and made phone calls, filled out rediculous paperwork, answered so many questions, searched some more and nothing was working out.  Finally we got approved to adopt through this one shelter and there was a dog there that we thought we really liked.  We had seen his picture... but we had to come that day and decide.  It was Lexi's bday adn I had to take her and her friends ice skating so dave went by himself!!!  He took Mack and that particular dog did not work out.  But what we learned from him is that we needed a puppy after all.  So, after we decided we would do a puppy we did a few more hours of searching.  Narrowed it down to two.  Got a call back for one.  Went to see her and she was perfect.

Lexi knew about none of this.  We brought her home and while Dave was getting her out of the car Mack wandered into the house and walked up to Lexi and said, "where's the doggy?"  She knew we had been out buying her one more present so when he said that it clicked and she started screaming.  I went inside and saw her freaking out, Dave then brought the dog into her and well, yeah, that's the end of it. 

She finally had her dream dog and she is loving her so much.  All the kids are.  She's a good puppy so far and surprisinly potty training has been a breeze (we're only on day 3).  Nighttimes have been pretty great too. I'm reading the Dog Whisperer book so maybe that's what's making it easy.  I hope it stays easy!

Here are photos of Lexi meeting Penny for the first time.  So sweet....

She's a maltese/bichon mix, doesn't shed and should be pretty small.  We love her hair color and so far she has a sweet disposition.  She seems to love us so much which is not something we ever experience with our cat Buster!!!  So it's fun.  (Buster we still love you... I guess... I mean, you can stay around... Penny won't replace you but we'll probably love her more because she loves back).

More pics of Penny to come soon.

Another Year Older...

Lexi had another birthday!  An official teenager now.  Of course it started off with breakfast in bed and a really good one I must say- omlet with avacado and brown sugar muffin!  She loved it.

Then some of her good friends came over and we headed out for some ice skating. 

These girls are fun and sweet!  

After ice skating we went to IN N OUT but I don't have even one picture because I was too busy porking out of course.  It's not like we never got there but it's just soooo good and we were all starving.

After In n Out we came home. At the last minute I had arranged for my family to be there to surprise Lexi.  She had asked if we were going to have a family party and I said "probably not, every one is so busy."  I could tell she was disappointed but it made the surprise even better!  

We had ice cream cake and opened presents...

She got Toms wedges that she really wanted (which I found on sale), a body pillow, room lights, more shoes (booties), nail polish, M&M's, clothes (of course), and jewelry.

 Little did she know that her best surprise ever was coming the next day..... more on that later.  I think she had a great day.

I'm thankful for Lexi as my first born child- it must be hard in some ways to be the oldest.  We both know that we both don't know what we're doing.  I'm doing my best but I make a lot of mistakes.  I'm thankful she's patient with me.  I love Lexi's positive outlook on life and her happy personality.  I love that she is motivated and organized and sweet.  I love that she tries her best.  Happy birthday Lexi!

Bollyball

Lexi made the 7th grade competitive volleyball team this year!  It was a super fun sport for her to play and for us to watch!  Her team improved so much in just a couple of months.  They loved their coaches.. probably because they were two high school twins that play on the Northgate Varsity team.  They were good coaches and taught the girls a lot.  Lexi loves Volleyball and we were/are hoping she can continue to play but down here to join a volleyball club is $2000 for a session so yeah, we're not joining for now.  Hoping to find some camps and classes instead and save my money for better things!  Oh and if you think Mindy Kaling is on her team (upper left) don't worry, it's just her identical twin age 12.  They look a lot alike people.  I tried to get a close up for you but didn't manage it.

Go Griffins!

GIRLS CAMP

It was Lexi's first year of girls camp this year!  And just a few weeks before camp Dave got asked to go and stay for the week- he even got assigned to her age group.  They had such a great week!!  I am so happy they both got to go experience girls camp- I just loved it growing up and so many things are still the same!  They were at Rucker Lake and it is beautiful there.  

Here they are heading to get on the buses!

Lexi and her friends before they left:

The rest are random pics that Lexi took of the week:

She had the BEST leaders and even an extra special lady that was once my camp leader!

The theme was "it's better to look up!" taken from this talk here.

And here they are when they arrived home.  We were so happy to see them!  I missed them so much.

It's Been Three Weeks!

Three weeks since I've blogged- that's a long time for me!  We've been busy but I've actually been taking some pictures of it all so let me dump them on you.  This time of year is crazy and I remind myself of that every May but I'm still never prepared for it!  

Landon is a senior so he has lots of stuff going on and one weekend he had some big things and my parents were out of town so I took over.  I'm going to miss you Landon when you leave us!

Here he is with his Senior Ball date the darling Maddie.

And his volleyball team went pretty far this year.  I like this picture.  He's all "come to me ball." 

His cheering section one night.  We went to multiple games but I could only lug my camera there once!

the sisters and I took my mom out for her birthday and that is always fun.

Lexi and I ran a 5k together!  It was awesome - I am proud of Lexi for sticking it out.  She only walked for a minute a couple of times and it was really hot that morning so this was a hard run!

This is the white dresser I have painted at least four times throughout its life with me.  

I painted it again.

Grey... and I love it!  I rubbed a darker grey stain onto it afterward and I really like the finish it made.  I want to paint everything grey now.

Logan's piano recital finally came and is now over.  We are relieved.  He won second place for his video- thank you to all of you who watched and helped him get hits!  Next year he is going for 1st!

I'm proud of Logan for his hard work and dedication to the difficult song he chose.  I think he now hates that song.  Oh well- I'm sure after a few months off he'll start to play it again!

Here he is walking up to accept his second place trophy from Mr. Bill- I do love his piano teacher- Logan is learning a lot from him and enjoys going to his lesson every week.

I think he's the handsomest kid in a collared shirt- he hates them though so will only wear one once a week to church, or to a special occasion when I force him (like the night of his recital).  I try to tell him he's handsome over and over when he wears it so he'll want to wear them more often- but it's not working. I should probably just leave him alone.

Logan turns 11 in just a couple of weeks- I cannot believe it.

Lexi just finished up her volleyball season for the school team.  She loved it and had some good friends on the team with her.  Their name was "danger zone" and a big part of the prepping for games was getting their matching ribbons in their hair and putting makeup under their eyes.  They were big on the cheers too!  12 year old girls are so enthusiastic!  I love it!

Here she is diving in for a ball at the end of the game.  I think she just missed it.

One day when the kids were gone at school and it was just me and Mack he got a shirt of Daddy's out of his drawer and asked me to help him get it on.  Then he found some of Macey's socks and Logan's hat.  He thought he was so funny and stood looking in the mirror for a long time.  I just love this little guy.

That's all for now!  Hopefully I'll be back before three weeks this time....  I hope!