Has it really been that long?

I admit. I'm terrible at blogging lately. It's a good thing I have been keeping a list of everything that has been going on, otherwise I would be so far behind I wouldn't even remember what to blog about. It's ridiculous that I do this. If I would just sit down once a week and blog I wouldn't have to sit here for hours trying to get caught up. Ugh! I need a job so I can keep myself motivated. I promised myself I wouldn't put things off but ALAS, here we are.

A lot has happened in my time away. Chopper turned 14 weeks. He is so gosh darn cute!

 Then he turned 15 weeks.

Then he turned 16 weeks.

Chopper also turned 17 weeks, then he turned 18 weeks but after his 3 month mark I decided to take pictures of him monthly. He is growing so much and has become such a huge part of this family. Even though he can be extremely annoying when he doesn't get enough exercise we love him so much! He makes us all so much more healthy because we walk a lot with him and take him to the park almost daily.  He even runs with Tyler.
This is a hike we went on a couple of weeks ago. Hiking here is so different from Utah and even Arizona. Here it is just dry, dusty and hot. I love hiking in Utah. There is always some kind of waterfall at the end or something beautiful to see. It was really hard for me to hike knowing that there wasn't anything magnificent to see at the end. Hopefully we will find some better hikes.

At least we had a view of the strip........

Chopper was pretty happy to get into the air conditioned car after the hike. So cute!

We have had a lot of visitors too, which we love. My Parents came for Brittons soccer game. They ended up winning 11-1. It always makes me feel bad for the other team when they are getting slaughtered like that. It doesn't make for a very exciting game.  Jordan (Ty's brother) and Kolay came for a visit. Jordan was doing some recruiting here so we finally got to meet little Kolo. I can not begin to express how much I love this little guy. He is absolutely PERFECT!

 We went with Jordan to one of his games that he was doing some recruiting at. He took the kids for a ride in Kolay's sister's convertible. They LOVED it! Every time they see a convertible now they have to say how awesome those cars are and they want that kind of a car when they can drive.

We also had Clint and BobbyJo come stay a night with us. They were heading off on a cruise. So jealous. Anyway, I didn't get to see them. They got here really late and then left for the airport at 4:45 am. I was not about to get up at that God awful hour. Rude, I know.
School has been going really good for the kids. I volunteer at the school often. One day I was walking down the hall and stumbled upon this.....

 Both of my kids are on the reading wall. They have been awarded for excelling in reading. I am so proud of them. Shayna also got recognized during an assembly for being responsible. Each month the Teachers give 4 students an award. Shayna got the Trustworthiness award from her Teacher a couple of months ago and she is being rewarded again for being Responsible. What a good girl. And did you notice...her hair is starting to get some natural curl to it...YAY!

 Last week the school was doing a fun activity where if they called your house and you were reading at the time of the call you got a prize. It just so happened that they called at the right time because both of the kids were reading and got to leave their classroom the next day to pick out their prize! Shayna's classroom has been making posters to try to get votes for President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. Shayna wanted to be Vice President so she made her poster and presented to the class. She got 15 of the 23 votes. She is now class Vice president!! I'm so proud of her, she is so out going this year. This school has really brought the best out in her. I'm so thankful for that. Britton's class does classroom reading all the time. The Teacher picks a book and they all read it together and then they test on it. Britton comes home every day and tells me how awesome these books are and he wants me to read them all the time so we can discuss it. Britton talked to his teacher for me and now she sends the books home to me as well. I love that Britton and I have this in common. I love even more that he wants to involve me. It's been awesome having book discussions with him and I'm thankful that his Teacher will let me be involved. I LOVE my kids Teachers this year, they are awesome! But more importantly,  I have amazing kids!
Now for some incredibly terrible news. The Wii broke. I know, I know. How have the kids survived. Well we bought them an Xbox that's how. I actually love the Xbox. The connect is so much fun! We have some pretty strict rules about playing it though. They can't turn it on until all of their homework is done. We are so busy during the week that they hardly play anyway but on weekends they get their fill.
Speaking of being busy. Soccer and swimming keeps me on my toes. Shayna was in another swim meet and she did AWESOME. She swam the back stroke and the breast stroke. She took first place in both events in her heat. Overall she took second in the back stoke and fourth in the breast stroke.

After the meet her Coach talked to me and said he was going to move her up a level. He said she is too good to be held back and that we should be very proud of her because kids don't move up like that very often. That was only her second swim meet ever. So now she swims EVERY DAY for an hour. Her very first practice with the new team they swam a 500 freestyle. That's 20 laps and if you forgot to do a flip turn you had to start over. Shayna had never done flip turns before but after the first 2 laps she had it figured out, so in all she swam 22 laps in a row. You would have had to drag me off the bottom of the pool. She is doing awesome with this new team. She has a swim meet tomorrow night and then the next swim meet she will be swimming against 9 and 10 year old's. I'm excited to see how well she does with that. Britton's soccer team just played in the Jr. Cup Tournament. We were worried about how Britton would play because he had injured his ankle and had to have it taped for the game. But he got out there and did it, and it didn't seem to bother him to bad. They did not play well at all. Actually it was pretty awful. I have never seen them play that bad. Their coach was not pleased at all. They have been practicing like crazy and doing new drills and have made lot's of changes. Hopefully our next Tournament will be better. Fingers crossed. Tyler plays soccer as well on Tuesday nights. He comes home with beauty marks quite often. OUCH!

 So, Chopper is kind of a spoiled dog. Did you know that there is a Doggy Toothfairy. Well, there is. Chopper lost a baby tooth and Shayna put it under her pillow for him. The Doggy Toothfairy brought Chopper a brand new harness because when he walks on a leash he likes to choke himself. The Doggy Toothfairy knew that Chopper needed a harness and left it under Shay's pillow. Isn't that great!?! My Grandma even crocheted Chopper a brand new blanket. We received it in the mail and Chopper was so excited to open it. Thank you Grandma Donna, he loves it very much!

 My poor little Choppy Bear had to get neutered. This picture cracks me up. I was asking him if he was excited to become less of a man. I think he was getting a little worried.

 Poor guy has to be sedated because he has so much energy. We have enough pills to keep him knocked out for 10 days. We only have to give them to him if he gets really wild. I try not to give it to him too often but sometimes it's for the best. And I'm not gonna lie. It has been kind of nice.

 The clinic sent him home with a new blanket to help him with his recovery.

 Ugh! It's time to knock him out again.

 This is actually the second time I have caught him. I wish I had a picture of the first time. It was a much larger mess. I have a really hard time getting mad at him when he has that ridiculous cone on his head.

I decided to throw in some random pictures that I thought were really cute. Chopper is such a good boy in the car. He lets the kids love on him as much as they want. And they love that!

He's very tricky too. We put the cooler there so he won't go out of that room. He still likes to chew on everything so we have to keep him locked up. He doesn't like to stand on the cooler because it isn't very steady so he figured out how to do this. He gets us laughing quite often.

I took this picture just yesterday. The weather here has been so beautiful. All of the trees are full of blooms and this humming bird whizzed passed my balcony and landed in the tree. So pretty.

Well, that about sums it up. We have a crazy busy weekend coming up as well. Hopefully I blog about it. Guess we'll see.