She 's a talker!

Katelyn has become very vocal lately. It has been a delight to hear her babble and try to communicate. Here she is talking away as she crawls towards Hannah. Wouldn't it be great if someone could translate her message?

Homeschool Choir Concert

Most of our children sing (some reluctantly) in the choir that practices during our homeschool Co-Op. Our group is called Scholars of Light (SOL). The choir has been performing monthly at a nursing home, but at the end of the school year there is a performance for family and friends.

Even Laurel participated with the "junior" choir and she was quite entertaining as you'll see below.


Here is one of the songs the big choir sang. You'll see Hannah, Mackenzie and Adam.

Boy Scout

Here is Adam in his boy scout uniform. So far he is loving his new patrol. Right now he is a Quartermaster; he is assigned to bring treats or assign someone to bring them each week. He also attended his first Court of Honor and enjoyed that.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day this year was simple. Not big dashing presents, or big banners and whatnot. Just simple loving cards. I know this is late, but I would like to share a poem I wrote a couple years ago in a card that I made for Mothers Day. I wouldn't change anything but some words.

MY MOM
by
Your Hannah Banana

My mom is charming.
You are loving.
Sometimes I am troubled,
Pretty soon I'm better.
Especially you teach me,
Can I ever wander.
If you are always by me?
Although we may be parted,
Love never will part us.
Maybe you are busy, or tired.
My love will lift us up.
So, if you are depressed
I will always be there for you.

I LOVE YOU MOM!!

Cuteness

Little ones make life so fun. Here are some of the latest of our littlest ones.

Laurel

Katelyn climbing onto the dollhouse--7 months

Samantha

Katelyn in Sunday dress

Laurel ready for church. She's finally letting us put pony tails in her hair. Today she actually left them in all through church. Yeah!
Katelyn loves to smile

Piano Recital

We attended Hannah's piano recital yesterday. There were almost 30 students of Hannah's piano teacher who were performing. Hannah didn't like that she had to wait until almost the end (no fun being nervous the whole time). She did a great job and you can see her perform the whole song below. She played Waterfall by Jon Schmidt.

Roses

Hi! In our backyard we have a five rose bushes. Here are some beautiful pictures!

Mormon Helping Hands

All across California, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints performed service in their communities. In our area, Derek and Hannah were able to attend the service project of clearing out weeds and non-native plants in an open park space. They worked hard and had a good time.Hannah with some other girls working on removing a plant

Successful removal!

Below is a link of numerous news articles that ran about the state-wide service project.
http://www.mormontimes.com/people_news/church_news/?id=14720&hStack=1

Short trip to Southern California

We took a three day vacation to southern California, mostly to go to Disneyland. We had earned some free tickets through their Give a Day, Get a Day program, so we decided to make the trip during the off season (if there is such a thing at Disneyland).

We spent Monday afternoon/evening getting settled and walking through Downtown Disney. We then spent a wonderful time with Cathy's Great Uncle Eddie and Aunt Liz. We ate dinner at Mimi's Cafe and enjoyed lots of visiting.

Laurel didn't want to be in the picture, but after the trip when she saw this, she said, "Where's me?"

Adam's favorite ride was Indian Jones

We all loved It's A Small World. Here is Derek and Katelyn

Jamie and Mackenzie near Winnie the Pooh. They didn't want to stand in line to get a picture with him so they got as close as they could.

Our whole family. Matching shirts was a great way to keep track of everyone!

On Wednesday, we began our drive back home. But first we stopped at the Los Angeles Temple. The grounds there are beautiful and there is some nice views of Los Angeles downtown in the distance.

In front of a statue of a family

Mackenzie, Hannah and Jamie

All of us

A new look at food

Derek and I watched an interesting movie the other night. It's called Food, Inc. We are already becoming more conscious of what we eat and are heading in a more healthy direction, but this show reminded us of one reason why we are doing that! Enjoy