Attention: No one has died!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are all still alive at our house. I just keep putting off my blogging duties. It seems that there is always something more pressing that needs to be done. So for posterity sake here is what we have been doing with our Spring, Summer and Fall.

Spring:

We took our annual trip to Red Cliffs with our good friends the Anderson's and Andy & Myrna. While there we celebrated Easter, hiked, and the kids got to rock repel. My friend Cami and her family came and stayed one of the nights with us also.

Coloring eggs.

 

And then of course you have to find the eggs!

And of course who can go camping without eating marshmallows the size of your fist!

 

Good sticky fun!

Then Brad and Braden went to Lake Powell with the Hintze boys.

We went on a couple of trips to the Zoo, always a kid favorite.

Brad and I also went on Braden's school field trip to the Zoo. We love being able to do things like that!

Field day and last day of school:

 

Sami's 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Elmer. Loved her!

 

 

 

 

Sami's best friend Drew. Love her too!

 

Summer:

Family Trip to Carlsbad Beach in California:

Pony Express Days 5k race:

(My first race since my college days)

I ran with my friend Teresa, oh and Spiderman!

4th of July in Oak City:

At the Derby

It had been a long day, Braden  actually fell asleep at the derby!

The parade

1st Annual Hintze Olympics

Jacob's 2nd Birthday:

This is the piñata that my mom and Sami made for his party.

Ethan and Luke

Sami and her cousins Jessica and Bubba

Braden and Ethan's Birthday Parties:

The boys both decided that they wanted summer parties this year, so we did them in July instead of the usual October and December. I did them on the same day, one right after the other. A little crazy, but tons of fun!

Ethan's Party

He wanted a monster cake and Sami helped me make it.

They played "Pin the nose on the Viking", don't ask why it was a Viking. That is what you get when you ask the kids to help you make the games! We also had a ring toss, a monster bean bag game, a fishing pond, face painting and a piñata. The kids loved it!

Then it was time for Braden's Party

He wanted a Castle Crashers cake (it is some computer game). Sami helped me with this one too, she is becoming quite the little cake decorator! At Braden's party they just played water games. Easy Peasy! I would show pictures of the water fight, but my 2yr. old is naked in all of them and this isn't that kind of blog!

Sami's Birthday:

Sami didn't have a big party this year, it was just our little family. I can't believe she is 10 now, where has the time gone!

First Day of School:

Sami started 5th grade and Braden is now in 2nd.

Red Rock Relay:

Brad and I participated in a relay race in September. Our team had 12 runners and we had to run 180 miles between the 12 of us. It took us 27 hrs. and 50 min's. to complete the race. It was so much fun!

This is me at the end of my 3rd and final run, I was so happy to be done!

This is all of our team at the finish line.

California Girls trip:

So every year my friend Shelley and I celebrate our birthdays together since they are only a month apart. This year we decided that we needed to plan a trip to California to celebrate.

So Shelley and I, along with our friends Holly and Hilary and their two babies (both named Olivia), jumped on a plane and flew to CA and played for a couple of days.

It was nice to just get away and lie on the beach and do absolutely nothing!

Miami:

So Brad and I celebrated our 11th anniversary this year and we went to Miami, Florida to celebrate. Talk about Heaven! We stayed for 6 days and it was so nice to just be with him! One day we drove down to Key West and went on a sail boat that took us out so we could go snorkeling and kayaking. It was so amazing!

The Miami Duck Tour that we went on.

We bought "Miami Go Passes" so we did a lot while we were there. Lots of tours, museums, the Zoo and quite a few shows. Seeing the dolphin show was probably my favorite, they are so fun to watch!

We had so much fun and it was very relaxing.

I love this guy!

Fall:

In October we went with Brad's family to St. George and then on to Vegas for the Ute game. As always it was a lot of fun!

Hanging out in St. George

Utah/Vegas Game

Ethan's Actual Birthday:

We took Ethan to "Pirate Island" in Orem to celebrate his 5th birthday. Now all the kids have decided to go there for their birthdays, they loved it and so did Brad and I!

Halloween 2009:

All my kids were sick the week of Halloween so they missed out on most of the celebrations, but luckily when it came to trick or treating Sami and Braden felt well enough to go so they pick up extra candy for the two sickies left at home. Also we had thrown a Halloween party for some of our friends the week before everyone got sick so they didn't miss out on all the fun.

Braden was a Ninja, Sami's a bee, Jacob a cowboy, and Ethan was a vampire (the non-sparkly kind). And Brad and I were characters from the movie Sweeney Todd. I have never seen the movie, but I am up to playing a good psycho any time!

The Duncan's

The Wilkerson's

The Coe's

My Mom

Shelley (I didn't get a picture of her boys)

And here are part of the Robinson Family

(I stole these off of Lyndee's blog, thanks girl!)

And of course we had to have a piñata

Random things:

My artistic children

This what happens when Jacob gets a hold of baby powder. He looked like a ghost, but he sure did smell good!

Ethan's first year of T-ball

He was so excited, he was tired of watching everyone else play and it was finally his turn!

I love this picture because you can see the determination in his eyes as he is running to the next base!

Ethan and Braden also played soccer this fall, but I don't have any pictures cause I was Braden's coach and Ethan's assistant coach. Kind of hard to take pictures when you are busy coaching!

Muddy bike ride

One day while out riding his bike, Ethan found a mud puddle and he thoroughly enjoyed himself!

Family Home Evening

Sami planned a FHE lesson about modesty and the activity for the night was to make some modest clothes out of newspaper and then model the clothes. Here is what we came up with:

Here is the outfit I made for Ethan, complete with baseball hat!

This is the dress Brad made for Sami.

This is part of the outfit my mom made for Braden. He wasn't really cooperating so his fell apart. I guess it wasn't his kind of thing! :)

And so there you have it, that is what we have been up to. It probably took you 6 months to read all this, but I hope it was worth it! I know we had fun living it!

My Favorite Cake Ever!

My mom and I made this cake for Enrichment last night  for the Relief Society birthday party. I have made a lot of cakes and so has my mom, but I think this is by far my favorite! The colors were so happy and fun and I love circles. The green layer was a white cake with butter cream frosting, the pink was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and the yellow was lemon with a lemon filling and lemon frosting. We then covered it all with fondant. By the end of the night it was all gone so it must of tasted good. I am glad I got to work with my mom on this project and that she has taken the time to teach me one of her many talents. Now if I could only find a cleaning fairy to come clean up the mess afterwards!

Super Cute Hats!

My friend, Lyndee, has recently found out that the only way they can  have more children is through in-vetro fertilization. To help with the cost she is making these way cute hats and is selling them for a donation. I am serious when I say the are really cute and she does a really good job making them. Check out her blog and see for yourself. www.wilkersonivffund.blogspot.com/ There is also a button for her blog in my side bar.

She also makes children sizes.

1st Day of Spring!

Okay, okay, I know it is winter outside right now, but on March 20th, the first day of spring, it was beautiful! So the kids and I went into town and met Brad at the park and had a BBQ and played.

 

Brad and Ethan rolling down the hill together.

 

 

 

 

I love those blue eyes and those smiles!

 

 

Jacob enjoying a Hot Tamale popsicle. Yum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had to laugh to myself this week as I was doing laundry, washing shorts and capri's, and then I look out the window and the snow is coming down! Were these pictures really from last week? Oh well, it at least gives us something to look forward to!

Family Fun!

This past weekend we decided to take the kids and stay in a hotel in Provo. I know, you're thinking " why Provo?". Well, we can swim as much as we want and it was free! While we were there we went to the Walter Wick exhibition at BYU's Museum of Art. Walter Wick is the guy who makes the I Spy books. The kids really liked seeing how he made all the models he photographed. There was also an exhibition from an artist named Dan Steinhilber. He is one of those artists who make art out of random things and garbage. The kids really liked that!

This is us in front of a sculpture made out of balloons.

When we got back on Saturday, my mom, Sami and I went out for a "Girls Night". We went to Desert Star Theatre to watch Home School Musical. It was Sami's first time going there and she loved it! Brad and I may have a hard time going there without her now. It is always fun sharing new things with my daughter, I can see our relationship changing and I love it. We are starting to have more things in common and I really enjoy spending time with her.

Ice, Ice, Baby.....Can't Touch This!

Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer came in concert on Friday and my awesome Sister-in-Law, Tosha, won me and Brad tickets. It was such a blast from the past!

 

Here is Vanilla Ice doing his thing.

It was fun being there and seeing everyone dress up like the 80's. The funny thing I noticed is that probably 3/4 of the people who were there either weren't alive or were still in diapers when these artists were famous the first time! Good Times! Also after seeing the styles they were sporting I have to say some of those styles really need to stay dead and buried!

This is the best picture I have of Hammer. He is the one on the left side wearing a red long sleeve shirt, black vest, black pants and black hat. In this picture he had invited up a bunch of people from the crowd to party with him.

He was pretty entertaining too. You could tell he loved being on the stage again and hearing the crowd yell "Go Hammer, Go Hammer, Go!". It was cute because he had his 13 year old son up on stage as one of his dancers, the mom in me wanted to cry cause it was so cute seeing father and son work together!

This was the first time Brad has been down on the floor in a concert so it was quite the experience for him. He loved it! Me, I kind of got tired of the pushing and I was still so sore from working out that the craziness kind of became a little much for me. But it was fun seeing Brad enjoy it.