Spring Soccer Begins!

We have never done spring soccer before. The only difference that I can see is that you freeze your butt off at the beginning of the season instead of the end. We spent over 3 hours out in the freezing rain watching the girls do soccer. Actually I watched. Drew coached. He is coaching both girls soccer teams. He loves when I volunteer him! Both girls are so happy to have him as a coach! They each have a good friend on the team, so it's great. Mackenzie & Emma.

I want to do the throw in, please, please!

Mackenzie only has 8 kids on her team & 6 showed up. So they played the entire game. The other team had 16 kids because they couldn't find a coach for one team so they combined. Not quite fair if you ask me.

Coach Drew.

Kennedy played on a ginormous field. It was HUGE! I couldn't believe it. Those kids got a workout for sure! Kennedy is on the blue team. She has on the blue & white hat.

Mackenzie trying to stay warm while watching Kennedy's game.

See the pretty clouds behind her, yeah, this is right before the downpour.

Just Because

These are some misc pics of the girls & of the tutu I made for Hannah for her birthday. I made Hannah's tutu, a doll tutu & a hairbow. Hope she likes it.

Mackenzie wanted to dress in school colors & this is what we came up with. She is so cute!

We were wearing shorts just a couple of days ago. Then it snowed. So not fair.

Sand Hollow Camping Saga

I can't wait to share our camping "experience" with everyone. Anyone who knows me knows that camping is just not my thing. Not unless there is a Holiday Inn or a Marriott involved. So when Drew & Boyd got talking about this camping trip for Spring Break, I knew I was in for a real treat. Boy, it was even more than we bargained for! We drove down to Southern Utah because everyone knows its always warmer down there (insert snort of disbelief). We drove all the way down to Hurricane to camp. The name should have given us a clue. The 2nd clue that we were nuts was the fact that we were the only ones there with TENTS! Everyone else had campers & such. We scope out our section of rocks & scrub brush & start to set up the tents. The 40-50 mile an hour wind gusts make this difficult. But being stupid, we perservere. We get them up only to find out that the wind flattens them right back to the ground. So we resourcefully decide to take the 4 wheelers out of the enclosed trailer & sleep in there for the night. After all, what's more fun than 12 people on wall to wall air mattresses in a trailer that rocks like a boat in the wind??? Plus, bonus, the wind picks up & we get gusts up to about 70 mph! But hey, it's all good. We get up in the morning & it's a bit nippy outside. Being a "warm" area, I did not pack coats, mittens or hats, so we bundle up in our sweatshirts. The kids take a walk with Boyd & Drew while Alauna & I sit in the trailer & discuss how cold it's getting & how much we love camping!!! I come in from a trip to the ladies & say "Wow, it's cold enough to snow out there". Low & behold, 10 minutes later it starts snowing. We finally throw in the towel, pack it up & head for home. We took the kids swimming the next day & to a movie (Paul Blart, Mall Cop) to make up for cutting our trip short. The kids had an excellent time & it was one of those things that's so ridiculously bad, it's funny. I actually loved it because I could give the boys such a hard time about it! Plus, we got awesome pics as you can see!

I love the red rock. Maybe we will come back sometime when we know there won't be snow flurries.....

It's a good thing the dad's took the kids because there is no way I would have let them go climbing around like this!!!!

The insane older girls actually dipped their feet in the water. As I said, INSANE!

The younger kids had an excellent time digging in the red sand to make little hideaways. I am still cleaning all of the red sand up, but they had fun.

The girls were lucky to each have a friend near their age on this trip. Mackenzie & Marissa were little buds playing in the dirt.

Kennedy & Trevon. He was little enough to not care that he didn't have a friend along. Brannon was a little upset though to have to play with his brother.

Kennedy & Tiana hit it off & had a great time trailing along after the big girls & doing their own thing.

We had Mikayla & Katie in our van & the whole way there we had a running commentary on Twilight. They read the book, watched the movie & dissected everything about it. Plus they were really good at the surly teenager look.

Me & Drew as we are packing up to head home.

Boyd & Alauna. This was Boyd's dream vacation. I asked him if he often had nightmares if this was his dream vacation.

Hanging out, enjoying Spring Break!

Playing cards while staying warm.

A view of our wall to wall blow-up mattresses. It was a huge slumber party with lots of giggling!

Setting up the tents.

Katie & Mikayla trying to catch their tent before it flew away!

What the wind did to the tents. Please note that we had kids pulling on ropes to try & keep it upright!

Easter Goodies

The girls wanted to show Grammy Knivila what they bought with their Easter money. Just cheesin' with the chocolate bunnies.

Mackenzie got ANOTHER Build a Bear. I had $8 in coupons so I figured, why not? She named it Crystal Louise.

Kennedy read about some old fashioned doll in a book recently & became obsessed with getting a doll like it. So we went to one of my favorite places, Nook & Cranny where they have new old stuff all the time. We found these dolls for $3 apiece! She even had money left over! She named them Heidi & Lucille.

Katie blew her money on junk food, but she wanted to show Grammy how much she loved the jacket & shoes that she sent!

The Easter Bunny Strikes Again!

These are the Easter dresses that I made for Kennedy & Mackenzie this year. I felt like making them instead of buying them this time. They turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. We ate dinner with Craig & Karol, Mindy, Mike & their kids. This is Kennedy with Hyrum. He just gets cuter & cuter!

Mackenzie & Hannah are such good buds, they run off & play as soon as we walk in the door! I love it when cousins get to play together.

Mindy, Karol & I made Easter Eggs for everyone this year. I was in charge of the fudge ones. It's good to know ahead of time to use cook & serve pudding & not instant. It's amazing the difference this can make as we found out to our chagrin! The first batch looked like oily poo. NOT yummy. 2nd batch, oh so yummy!

The Easter bunny did not wipe his feet before bringing in our Easter baskets & the girls were so shocked to see that he had been messing around with their chalk!

In fact they went running out the back door to see if they could find tracks leaving the house. Mackenzie thinks she found some.

He even left paw-prints on our Easter eggs that he hid!!!

Katie with her Easter basket. She got the movies "What happens in Vegas" & 13 going on 30, plus some socks & candy.

Kennedy got a video about how to be a pop star with Demi Lovato, a Camp Rock calendar & Camp Rock book plus way too much candy.

Mackenzie's basket had a Roxy Hunter movie, Hannah Montana the concert movie, Madagascar stickers with googly eyes & tons of candy.

At Drew's work they had a easter egg hunt for the kids. The residents filled 500 plastic eggs with goodies & the grandkids & greatgrandkids were invited. It was a madhouse. All the eggs were found in about 15 minutes. If we couldn't hunt for eggs at Great Grandma Behrends house this year, at least we got to do egg hunting somewhere!

I warn Katie all the time what will happen if you don't cooperate when I pull out the camera. You make a face-it goes on the blog. One of these times she will learn......

I made Mackenzie another sundress just because I loved the material so much. I love the yellow polka dots. I am going to have her wear it when it rains to brighten up the house.

Hannah came to the Easter egg hunt too. She & Mackenzie had a great time running around like wild things entertaining the residents.

We got to see the Easter bunny at the mall this year & check this out---------I did not have to pay to take a picture with my own camera. I was shocked (in a good way) Her & the bunny looked good.

Our Easter eggs this year. Katie wrote Twilight on all of hers. Mackenzie made all of hers yellow. And Kennedy tried out the red that ended up speckly for some reason.