Sweet Dreams

There is a song by the Dixie Chicks, that I would sing to my babies as I rocked them to sleep at night.  A dear friend, who sadly lost his son to circumstances beyond his control was the one who introduced it to me.  I still hum it to my babies sometimes at night, when they sleep and I look on their beautiful faces. 

Dragon tales and the "water is wide"

Pirate's sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

 The rocket racer's all tuckered out

Superman's in pajamas on the couch

Goodnight moon, will find the mouse

And I love you

Godspeed, little man

Sweet dreams, little man

Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings

Godspeed

Sweet dreams

God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears "Amen," wherever we are
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

Bobcat, Religious Knot and Cubscouts

 I am so blessed to be a den leader in Cub Scouts.  Especially to my own boys.  I have been in scouts for almost three (yes, count them l, l, l) years!  I started out with JD and now I have Tyson.  Last night he got his Bobcat.

 My favorite part of earning a badge.  The huggin' and kissin' your mom part!  So glad my boys aren't afraid to hug and kiss me in front of their friends.

 Shaking hands with dad!

 Awww, that was my original boys.  The ones who watched me struggle and cry for the first year of that calling! And I honestly did cry and whine for the first year.   I can't believe they are going to be Weblos in a few short months.

 JD earned his Religious Knot!  So proud of him and how much he enjoys scouts and how hard he works at it.

 This picture warms my heart.  Avery is such a sweet little guy and JD is his best friend.  Avery has a lot of problems.  He has a rare genetic disorder and was adopted by some of our good friends.  They told them that he would probably never walk or talk or have any kind of a normal life.  Well, miracles do happen!  He is such a sweet kid, but he's a hard kid too.  JD loves him so much and helps him with scouts and at school in every way he can.  JD has an amazing sense of empathy and compassion.  He's an old soul in an 11 year old body. He's an amazing kid, so I can only imagine how amazing he's going to be as a man.

This picture makes me laugh.  Those are my current cutie pies.  They drive me to distraction, but they are so much fun and I love them all!

Tyson loved the Minute to Win It games!  Such a fun night!

Super Star Day

Piper got to be the Super Hero at school today!  It was so much fun to go into the class and share a little bit about Miss Piper.  We had the kids make a snowflake craft and ate a cupcake with them.  It was a lot of fun.  I absolutely love being in the school all of the time, but I LOVE being in my kids classroom!  She's so blessed to have some awesome friends in her class and a fantastic teacher who I love!  The funnest part was when they all broke into an impromptu jam session of Call Me Maybe!  So, so cute!

Celebration of the Arts 2013

 Wow!  Celebration of the Arts has come a long way in the past few years.  It was an amazing year and I am so glad that I got to be a part of helping it all come together.  I do love my volunteer work at the school.  This is Pipers class project.  So very cool!

 Piper submitted a painting/drawing, which didn't really fit in category, but it was entitled friends and you can see it just above her head.  It's her and her girls.

 Tyson submitted a photo of our random Harry Potter memorabilia.  The theme was Magical Moment.  He came up with the idea to take pictures of Harry Potter because of the word magical.  He told me that he though Harry Potter was magical . He took first place in photography for the 1st and 2nd grade!

 JD submitted photo's of horses and a hawk that he had seen in a field.  He really wanted to take pictures of the Ivins Reservoir  but it was to low, so we drove around looking for something to inspire him and the hawk caught his eye at first, but the horses quickly distracted him.  He got first place in the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade category!

 Oh, what an experience this little performance was! We talked about putting the girls in and having them clog and then we decided not to.  Well, the girls had other ideas.  They walked into auditions and performed without practicing and without music.  They did awesome.  Then we practiced their hearts out for the next 10 days and did amazing!  I was so impressed with how well they performed.

 This picture is my favorite.  Look at all that sass!  They finished strong!

 First place for the girls as well!  Adilyn, Addison, Piper, Jordyn, Maizy and Ailey!

 Baylee clogged as well and they got 1st place in their age division!  All the buddies in a row!

Besties!

 This was Tyson's class project.  A monkey with a banana on his head.

JD's class project was of a picture of the famous boxing match of Jack Dempsy versus Furpo.

Here is the photography display. You can see JD's horses kind of in the center on the wall and Tysons picture is the bottom right hand corner!  So proud of my talented kids!

Random Awesomness

 I'm so blessed my kids play well together most of the time!

 Cason's Army Party

 We are obsessed with CSI Miami.  JD got some aviators just like Horacio Caine.

 Working on a belt loop with Tyson and Bentley for cubs.

 Just a random, random picture.  It's pretty cute though!

 7 am, it's snowing, let's put on our cowboy hat and hang out in front of the door picture!

 Ummm, some blue ring pop awesomeness with a little weirdness thrown it.

 Jumping on mom s bed with my arm warmers!

Gangnam Style on the wii.

I love this picture!  He looks so grown up. And someday, I am positive I will see this kid in a uniform for real.

Dixie Rock

 One of the benefits of living in Dixie?  65 degree weather in January!  After a few weeks of freezing temps, we had a 65 degree day and it fell on Martin Luther King day!  Day off and nice weather, calls for a afternoon of fun!  I love this picture of Piper.

 JD and Tyson are much braver than I am.  Braver than I care for them to be, but I guess it's good that they take risks and try things.  I do remember when I used to be that way.

 Andrea and the kids met us there and we spent the afternoon hiking all over those rocks.

 Tyson is a mount goat.  He gets that from his dad.

 The view from the top is breathtaking.

 The little girls even did the Narrows.  Sam was a trooper to help them get to the end.

 Meditation and gang sings from the Doty kids.

 I love all these pictures.

We did lose Tyson for awhile though.  He wouldn't stay with us and ran ahead to the big cave.  We told him to wait there, but it was taking us to long so he came looking for us.  Of course by the time we got there, he had already went all the way back to the Dixie Rock.  I was reaching the moment of panic when I got a phone call from a very nice man, who was there with his children.  When Tyson realized he was lost, he found a family with children and told him that he couldn't find me.  He then had them call me.  I'm so proud of him for remembering that lesson to find a mom with kids and also for having my phone number memorized.  So glad he was safe. Even with that scary few moments, it was a great day.

Out of the Mouth of Piper

My favorite time of day is in the small window of time, just before the sun comes up, when I have always had a child crawl in to my bed and snuggle. It's the best. This morning Piper was laying with me and I said, "Who is my favorite girl?" She replied with, "me." Then she say's "Who's my beautiful girl?" And then she said, "you."

How sweet!! And then she rolled over, put her cute little hand on my face and said. "But you have an old face!" Not so cute! She's honest!

UNO

We got Uno for Christmas and I think we've played it every day since.  My kids love it! I'm so glad, it's something fun that we can all do together!