Alex and Big 5

Pool party! We had ice cream and cake at the pool with family and friends.


Cool gifts.

Five years old is significant because it is the beginning of school, Kindergarten. Alexander has grown in leaps and bounds this last year. He started riding a three wheel scooter and now cruises around on his Tonka bicycle like a pro with the help of training wheels. Alex made the deadline for school by only thirteen days. He is developmentally delayed in hand strength which makes writing hard. We have been actively participating in early intervention programs and speech therapy since he was two. We were told that he had apraxia which is a very difficult speech problem that is difficult to overcome. We were relieved to find out that he does not have apraxia but phonological replacement difficulties.
Alex met his most wonderful and loving teacher Melanie McPherson last week, who fell in love with Alexander's quirky little sense of humor and personality. We are thrilled to have him in her small classroom of 9 kids (7 boys and 2 girls) with 2 aids in the special education program at Snow Springs Elementary.
For his birthday Alex wanted a squirt gun and Lightning McQueen. So he got a monster big squirt gun and a birthday card from Grandma Marilyn that plays rock music when opened. He was thrilled. And when he got school clothes from Grandma Sherry he immediately laid them out on the floor in arranged outfits.

My Magic Room

This is where the majic of creativity happens. I love art, be it painting, sculping, scrapbooking, or sewing (which I'm not that skilled at). In general I love to learn and create. I feel very spoiled and blessed today. For an early birthday present I got an expedit with desk at ikea on sale. Then this week Spencer hooked me up with a nice PC and flat screen. He is so sweet to think of me and my scrapbooking needs. Best of all he got it from a co-worker for a total of....Drum role please.....100 bucks! I'm hoping to get some cute canvas buckets for the shelving to make the room feel more uniform. I'll post pictures when that happens just because I'm so excited.



The craft room, my happy space.


I picked out a soothing golden color to paint the basement. Spencer and I busted our backs and painted almost the whole basement in the gold color. I then broke down exhausted crying...."I hate it, I hate it." The gold was more mustard, it looked horrible in the basement. Let me point out that Spencer was so patient with me and my terrible puke mustard color choice. So we went back to the paint store, we copied Paul's (my brother) exact paint color in his house, so as to not make the same mistake again. And the puke mustard turned out to be a great "base coat" for Paul's nicer color, as you can see in the picture.



Under the stair was turned into a play house. As a family we went to Lowes to browse the paint chips and all the kids got to pick out a paint color. We then painted the stripes in the play house with the colors they picked out and a few I threw into the mix. It was fun for the kids to feel a part of the basement project.
Cynthia-Pink
Katrina-Red
Alex-Blue(of course)

On the opposite wall of the stripes I'm thinking about painting a mural. Any ideas?

Christmas in August- La Jolla Beach, San Diego

Last Christmas we decided to give each other the gift of time. Time together. So my Dad hosted the whole freaking big family with a hundred kids at "The Cove Hotel at La Jolla," San Diego. Your the best Dad!

The whole trip I was like 1,2,3,4........1...2..3,4.....1,2,3,4. I was so scared of loosing a kid. Needless to say we were not at the beach for more than 15 minutes before we lost one. Cynthia, three years old, was missing. I was panicked sick, searching through 100,000 bodies trying to find one little girl next to the all engulfing raging ocean waves. I could see it happening "LIFEGUARD/SWIM COACH'S DAUGHTER DROWNS!"....nice. Luckiliy we found her at the Life guard tower where a nice couple had taken the lost little girl.

My brother Chris brought full sized shovels all the way from Utah to make sand castles on the beach. SWEETNESS!


The chunky Monkeys, Richard and David enjoyed the sand. David's thighs got stuck in the blue chair he is sitting in in the picture. Did I just hear some thunder?! Thunder thighs!


Me and my Madre


Shortly after arriving we saw a "pod" of dolphins just a arms toss from our hotel.


On one of the nights there was a Classical concert in the park in front of our hotel. So we played games in our rooms and heard some sweetness to the ears from the balcony.

Thanks Fam for making it real and fun, real fun! We love you.

Sea World Ritual

August 12, 2009
Many old and young alike take the pilgrimage to Sea world which is a Pagan site for worshiper to pay om age to the image of the deceased Shamu God (not to be confused with the Shampoo God).

Worshipers participate in a drum ritual by holding the right hand in the air above their head and then the left. The hands are then brought together raised above the head into the shape of a killer whale tail. The hands are then lifted up and down to the rhythmn of the drums chanting "Shamu, Shamu!"
"Andrew, Andrew!"

Lego Land California

August 8, 2009


Spencer, Cynthia, Alex, Katrina and Richard


Lots of stuff is made out of Legos in Lego Land, even the people. Posing with Lego People.



Richard teething on Legos


Big Legos

Temple Weed

I am glad we had this picture of Katrina with a pamplet so I could figure out how to spell Oquirrh!
We hit the closing day of the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple open house on July 30, 2009.
I enjoyed the Draper temple open house program more than the Oquirhh Mountain open house, perhaps that is because it was less crowded, but they are equally beautiful. I loved the apolstered chairs in waiting room of the Oquirrh Mountain temple. South Jordan is the only city with two LDS temples.

After the open house we went to Daybreak to visit some friends (Brian and Rebecca) in their new house. When we were leaving a storm hit quickly, there were tumbleweeds blowing down the street. We were getting into the car when four year old Alex leaned over, picked up a tumble weed and said in a deep voice, "Mom, can we take this Temple weed home?"
I thought it was cute.


Alexander at the Oquirrh Temple Openhouse