Memorial Day 2010

May 31, 2010

For Memorial Day, Dave decided to take us fishing! This is an activity our family has not done too often. We had a great time :). We just went up to Vivian Park, it was perfect. We caught 6 fish. I think all the kids caught one, and a couple caught two. Our cousin Aiden came with us, Brayden was so very happy he was visiting! The weather was perfect, except for it was a bit windy. It was very relaxing. I mostly just read, and Dave did all the work of helping 5 kids. What a great Dad :). We fished for about 4 hours.

Dave getting everyone ready to fish!

Daxton was good at helping Dave, good thing he was because I wasn't :)

Brayden was the one most excited to fish!

Daxton says that I take way more pictures of Dawson than anyone else...

... hmmm ...

I don't believe him... do you?

Dax, this is for you, see how many of you there are...

No more whining Dax, I love you just as much :)

What a good Dad!

Brayden catching his first fish for the day...

The fish were not very big, so we just threw them back,
not to mention I don't think anyone would really eat them in our family :(

I was surprised Brayden would hold the fish :/

Our cute Jada Babe!

She was so excited, but takes after her mom and did not want to touch it!

Dawson catching his first fish ever!!

Dawson's fish being reeled in

Dawson also takes after Me and Jada :)

Dawson got brave, and let Dave hold the fish fairly close :)

Dax was really beginning to hate fishing, it took along time for him to catch one :(

Dax just informed me that this is the very first fish he has ever caught. He has been fishing 5 times, and never caught anything till this day. He said that is why he was hating fishing. Good thing he caught one this time. Otherwise he may never have gone fishing again!

Look how happy he was once his patience paid off :)

Aiden was the very last to catch one. He is such a good kid.
He did not complain even once. He caught it in the last 15 min we were there :)

See, I did fish for a second... okay that is long enough!

I think I will go back to my reading :)

Thanks Dave for taking us fishing! It was alot of fun, and very relaxing up in the mountains :).

Then we went to Grandma Hamilton's for a family BBQ. It was great food, and great company. After the BBQ, we went to the cemetery, and visited my Dads grave. I am grateful for Memorial Day to have a day to remember our loved ones who are no longer with us.

Brayden and Aiden had so much fun together. We love when Aiden visits!

It is hard to believe it has almost been 2 years :(

I miss my Dad everyday. I could always talk to my Dad when I had a concern, and he always knew just what I needed to hear. I sure miss not being able to ask for his advice. One of his most famous sayings to his kids was, "This to shall pass". That was frustrating to hear all the time, but the funny thing is eventually all trials pass. It was funny how he was right so much of the time, even though I did not want to admit it. I just want to say I love you Dad, and I miss you so much!!

The Current Happenings of our Sweet Jada Babe!

March 13, 2010

So, I have a night once a month were I get together with some of my friends to visit and hang out. Jada always wants to be with us, but I always tell her that it is my special time with my friends. So she got smart, and decided to have her own girls night with her friends :). Very smart girl! She was so excited. So she had 3 friends over. They each brought a treat to share (this is what my friends and I do). Dave was a very sweet Dad, and made them Strawberry/Banana smoothies at Jada's request. They played games, and visited. Jada had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of their fun night!

March 18, 2010

Jada has an awesome Activity Days Leader who is very creative, and always does great activities. So this activity they got to make bunny cakes. The cakes were so dang cute, and Jada had a blast making it. I had to post just how cute it turned out! I am so grateful for great leaders. Thanks Barbara :).

I can not believe how grown up Jada is. It is so crazy that she will be leaving Activity Days and going into Young Women's soon.

April 1, 2010

Jada has been taking piano lessons for about 4 months now. She had her first piano recital this month. We were so impressed with her. She played so well. She did not make one mistake. I was really surprised by how calm she was. I think that I was more nervous than she was. There were 22 kids playing at the recital. So there were a lot of people attending. Even with that many people in the room, she was so calm. I am so happy that she is enjoying playing, and wish that I had stuck with it. I really think she has a talent with piano playing.

Here is some footage of our talented Jada Babe!



Jada you played so beautifully, we are so proud of you. You are a very special daughter, and we are so blessed that you are in our family :). Keep up the good work with the piano. We love you!

Update of the Life of our Teenage/Rockstar Daxton

February 15, 2010

Wow.... Daxton is now the proud owner of a new, very nice electric guitar! It only took us 3 hours at Guitar Center to get it picked out :\. It was fun to watch Daxton and Brayden get so excited. They both said they had died and gone to Heaven when they walked in.

Trying out different guitars!

Poor Brayden... he was getting very upset that he was not getting a new guitar :(. He was having fun at first, but as time went on he got a little more sad. I felt really bad, but not so bad that I was going to spend a big chunk of change to make him happy. Daxton had been saving his own money for quite a while.

Here is the guitar that he finally settled on :)
It is an Epiphone Les Paul Standard!

Daxton has now been taking lessons for a year and a half, and he is doing awesome. I think he was born to play the guitar. The funny thing is you can always tell when Dax is mad, he goes in his room and turns up his amp really loud, and goes crazy. Good thing Dave and I both like rock music :).

March 3, 2010

Well, Dax is sure growing up. He just got his first paycheck! What in the world.... where has the time gone? One of Daxton's friends got to stuff envelopes for money, so she got some envelopes for Dax to stuff. He earned $20! Unfortunately they had to be stuffed by 7 am the next morning, and at 10 pm he wasn't finished. So Dave and I went to work :(. We all finished about an hour later. I was glad to help Dax earn some money :). He even got them turned in on time.

March 12, 2010

Daxton is now very busy. He is constantly hanging out with his friends. Lucky for us he has a very good group of friends. We decided if we wanted to see him, we would have to invite the whole gang to our house! Yes we had 10 of his friends over to watch a movie. Not only did we have his 10 friends, Jada had 2 friends over, and Brayden had 1 friend. Our house was so filled with kids, that it freaked Dawson out. He would not come in the TV room were all of Dax's friends were :). It was so funny.Well Dave and I had rented Old Dogs, and Dax wanted to watch it with his friends. I said that would be fine.... if we could watch it with them. Daxton actually agreed to this arrangement. It was very fun! Although we learned the hard way that teenage girls do not know how to be quiet during a movie :(. It was still very fun to hang with Dax and his friends! They all said I throw a great party... that must have to do with the $40 of treats that were purchased. Okay, I admit it I was trying to buy my way to being the coolest mom ever :) Ha...Ha.... Thanks for letting us hang with you guys Dax :).

Here is the group crammed into our TV room!

March 20, 2010

Daxton had another guitar concert/recital. It was very fun, and he was so great! Two of his cousins (Sarah and Emily) also take from the same teacher. They are all doing so good. They have such a great teacher.

He is definitely on his way to being a rock star!

His teacher is the one with the red guitar.

Two cousins getting very excited to perform!

Three supportive siblings :)

One awesome Aunt Wendy, and one crazy Dad!

I never got a picture of Grandma H., Aunt Laura or Uncle Matt and Aunt Liz :(

One excellent teacher, and three very happy cousins!

I love my family!!

These are all of Ethan students!

This is Sarah and Emily playing their solos.

They are awesome!

Finally... One handsome, talented son!

Daxton is a great son, we love him very much. He is very talented! I am very proud of all his many accomplishments, and happy that he is growing up. Even if it is hard for me to watch him changing so much. Love ya Dax!

Here is some awesome footage of Daxtons concert:

A Four Year Old's Birthday Party :/

March 6, 2010

Dawson blowing out his candles!

Well, Dawson is now 4 years old. Time is really flying by, he is getting big so fast. He has chosen to go to Chuck E Cheese's for the past two birthdays, and said he wanted to go there again a third year in a row. So I told him that we could go to Chuck E's, or we could have a friend birthday this year. So, he chose to have a friend party :). I thought it was a great idea, but I guess I have never had a party for a four year old before.... It wasn't too bad, but I definitely should have only had the party last for an hour and a half instead of two hours. We had a sports ball theme party, which Dawson was very mad about. After I had bought all the decorations, he decided he wanted a Batman party. He threw a huge fit at Partyland because I was buying orange balloons, and he wanted Batman balloons. He cried the whole way home. I was talking to my sister Julie, and she said "why didn't you just let him have Batman balloons. Not everything has to match." Well, I am just not that smart or bright to think of that. That would have been a good solution.

Anyway, we played Musical Chairs (which was hard to get four year olds to understand), and immediately Dawson started crying. We were just practicing and he did not get a chair, and that was just the beginning of the traumas. He kept crying about everything. We also had them shoot hoops on Dawson's little basketball hoop. Next, it was pin the basketball on the hoop. Daxton made this game for me, and it was awesome. He did a great job! Finally we broke a basketball pinata. So I thought with all of these fun games, it would take up plenty of time. Nope, we had to have some fillers like Duck, Duck, Goose, and a Sponge Bob movie. When we put on the movie one of the boys started to cry and said Sponge Bob scared him. What... who gets scared by Sponge Bob? I was laughing. Lets just say there is never a dull moment with 7 four year olds!

All the little Four's (from right to left): Dawson, Paisley, Easton, Bryce, Ollie & Weston. The seventh little guy hadn't shown up yet. These kids are so fun. Dawson is so lucky, he has so many great friends :).

Everything was ready to go. Even Dawson had forgot all about Batman when he saw everything decorated :) However I will admit that all he talks about now is that he is going to have a Batman party for his 5th birthday.

My sad attempt at a basketball cake. Hey, it's the thought that counts!

Getting ready to shoot hoops!

They each got 10 shots, the kid with the most baskets won a prize :)

Our cute little neighbor Ollie kickin back with Dave watching everyone shooting hoops! He was so funny. He stuck right with Dave, and kept giving him hugs:). He is such an awesome little guy. We sure love Ollie!

We decided to open presents early on, so we could kill time for the seventh kid to get to the party. We didn't want him missing out on all the games.

All the kids could not wait to see what he was getting.
They would all crowd around in anticipation!

Dawson got: Hulk Hands, a Wolverine costume, a WII game, Play Dough (which if you know me I despise the stuff, so it was a great sacrifice on my behalf to purchase this item), Monster Trucks, Motorcycles, a Bubble Gum Machine, a Helicopter, and money. He made out like a bandit!Next up was Pin the Basketball on the Hoop! I can not believe how good Dax made this game. I am very glad I gave this assignment to him and not myself. Thanks Dax!!

Finally it was time for the Pinata! Dawson could not wait. It was funny to watch these little guys taking swings at it.
After a few rounds for each kid, Dax and Brayden worked their strong muscles, and got it open. Let the scrambling begin...

Dawson's loot bag!

Time to blow out candles... Happy Birthday Dawson!!
We love you

Dawson was so excited to pull the candles out of his cake. He was just so darn cute!

Our big 4 year old!

Lessons learned: Don't buy party hats... no one wears them. Paper blowers... break in seconds, little kids very distraught. Don't fill cupcakes to full... if you do, all the tops fall off while the little kids walk home with them :(. Don't put candy in pinatas that can break (suckers, smarties or sixlets), because most of them will. Luckily there was some candy that wasn't breakable.

Here are the unfortunate cupcakes that ended up on my sidewalks :(

Happy Birthday Dawson!! You are such a cute little guy. We love you so much!