4th of July and the Stadium of Fire

For the 4th of July we went to the Stadium of Fire. The show started out with a tribute to the men and women who are serving or have served our country. They broadcast the show overseas to the men and women serving in Iraq. There was a few families that got to talk to their loved ones via satellite during the show. A special time for them. Then the Blue Man Group performed. It was pretty cool. They do a lot of interesting types of music. I have always wanted to see them in concert, now I know I need to go to Vegas and see their full show. After the Blue Man Group came MILEY CYRUS! This is what Mikkele and Alanna had been waiting for. If you can imagine thousands of little girls screaming, that's about what it sounded like in the stadium when she came out. The girls had a great time singing and dancing along to the songs. The only thing that was kinda disappointing is that she sang a lot of songs from her new album that the girls didn't know. But when she sang the songs the girls knew they went wild. After Miley was done singing the Blue Man Group came out again and got the fireworks going. The fireworks were pretty good. The only thing about sitting that close to where they were going off is that we got rained on with ash and cardboard. Overall we had a great time.

Happy Birthday to Our Dad and Papa

I just wanted to wish my dad and my kids' Papa a Happy Birthday!
Dad you're the best! We love you and we miss you!

So I know there are a lot of picture of my dad and Grant together and not a ton of him and Mikkele. Grant and his Papa just have a special bond, so we get a lot of pictures of the two of them together. Dad...thanks for being such a great Papa to my kids. They love you and miss you!

Girls Coah Pitch Softball

Mikkele finished her softball season this week. I can tell a difference in this year as compared to last year. Her arm is definitely stronger so her throwing and hitting has improved. She missed about half of her games because she went to Texas for 2 weeks, but still had a good time. Most of the kids on her team attend the same school that she does so it was nice to know a lot of the kids and parents.

This is a picture of her smacking the ball at her last game. Can you see the ball heading toward 3rd base?

After the game they all got medals. This is something that everyone has started doing around here lately. Medals instead of trophies. It's fine with me. They take up less space than trophies and I think they are more attractive. Some of those trophies are just so tacky. Anyway she had a fun time.Mikkele was in Texas for the real team pictures, so one of the other parents took this one. If I would have known that there was going to be pictures, we probably would have done her hair before the game. Oh well.

Vivian Park

Since we left camping so early we decided that we weren't quite done playing in the mountains. So after we came home and cleaned up we went on a dinner picnic up Provo Canyon to Vivian Park. The Grover's came with us this time. After we had dinner the kids wanted to play in the water a little bit. We are still having some snow runoff from the horrible winter we had, so needless to say the water was FREEZING! After the numbness and frostbite started to set in you really didn't feel how cold it was. The kids loved it though.

Grant thought it was funny. He would put his feet in, then pull them out just as quick as he put them in.

Vivian Park is where the Heber Creeper Train picks up people for rides up the canyon. They have an old boxcar there that you can climb on and take pictures. So we did. Mikkele is reading the Boxcar Children right now so she really thought it was cool to see inside a real boxcar.

I may be a little biased, but aren't my kids the cutest kids in the world! They have so much fun together.

After we were done at the park we went up to Heber and got some yummy shakes at Granny's. It was a perfect end to a fun weekend.

Camping

We went camping last weekend for the first time in 4 years. The last time we went camping, I had just found out that I was pregnant with Grant. Needless to say we haven't been brave enough to take him camping yet...until now. We went up with my friend Jenny and her family for her birthday. We were up a little canyon called Tucker, which is about 25 min up Spanish Fork Canyon. We had a pretty good time in the short amount of time we were there. Next time we go there are definitely a few things we need to remember to bring, like matches, toilet paper, better shoes (I wore flip flops), etc. Good thing we were camping with people that brought those necessities. Thanks Jenny! So here are some pictures of our little camping trip.

Mikkele eating her Hobo/tinfoil dinner. They were pretty tasty if I do say so myself.

Rietta, Tienna, Mikkele, Gunner and Dylan posing in the kids tent.

We have 2 3-man tents. So we had the girls sleep in one tent and we slept in the other one. By morning Mikkele was the only one left in the tent. Rietta and Tienna ended up getting scared throughout different times of the night and moved to their parents tent. Good job Mikkele being brave!

Mikkele and Grant just chillin' waiting for breakfast on Saturday morning. We had Ziploc omelets. They were delicious. Isn't Grant cute in his sunglasses. Tina bought those for him. They have an elastic back so they stay on his head. Pretty cool.

Mikkele got a sliver in the bottom of her foot. She was limping around everywhere. I just happened to have my makeup bag in the car that had tweezers in it. (I did come prepared with that.) She insisted that she could do it herself. So by the time we got home she still hadn't gotten it out, so that's when I stepped in and started to torture her (at least that's what she thinks) trying to get it out.

Aaron brought some of his guns for the boys to shoot into the mountainside. The little boys enjoyed shotting the bee bee gun. Dylan called it the "baby gun" it was very cute.

Grant loved the ride on the bumpy dirt road. Every time we went on a big bump he would giggle. He really is a normal 3 year old little boy in so many ways. Since he was having so much fun we decided to take the scenic route home. We went up Diamond Fork Canyon which merges into Hobble Creek Canyon at the top of the mountain. Mikkele was convinced that we were going to die. Every time there was a pretty view, we would tell her to look out the window and she would say, "No I'm getting car sick. I think I'm gonna puke. We're gonna DIE today." Can you say Drama Queen. Needless to say we made it down the mountain without any incident.

Maturation

Over the last few weeks I have had a few people, after seeing Mikkele for the first time in a while, ask me if she is starting to get little boobies. I have come back with, "NO she's 8!". But after taking some time to evaluate things I was starting to see what other people have been seeing. So I've been debating whether or not I should get her a training bra. I never had a training bra, and I think that it might have been a little easier to get used to the new time in my life easing into it rather than jumping in to the real ones. So anyway today we were at Wal-mart and we found Hannah Montana training bra and panty set on sale for $3 so I decided to get four pairs. She thinks it's pretty cool, but doesn't really understand what they're for and she thinks they feel a little weird. I've tried to tell her it's to get her ready for when she really starts to get bigger little boobies. Maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, but big boobies run in both sides of the family, so ready or not I'm sure she's in for it as well. Hopefully nothing else gets started here really soon.

Mikkele's Baptism

The invitation

Mikkele before the baptism. The dress she is wearing was my baptism dress from a little over 21 years ago. Thanks mom for keeping it all these years. It sure added something special to the day.

Jeremy and Mikkele before the baptism

Family pictures

We had a really nice day yesterday. Mikkele has been so excited and counting down the days until her baptism. We had a nice program. Adam and Aaron gave a missionary style talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost. My mom did a nice musical medley on the piano. Jeremy did a good job on the baptism and the conformation. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room after the conformation. Mikkele is such a special little girl and I am grateful she made the choice to be baptized. After the baptism we had a brunch at our church pavilion. We had some yummy food and we brought some sprinklers for the kids to play in while the adults visited. It was good to have all the family together. We had a lot of people there that we haven't seen in quite a while. My whole family was there which was awesome. We haven't all been together for 2 years since Adam's been gone, and we don't get to see Aaron and his family very often since they live in Germany. I'm glad that we could all be together to help celebrate Mikkele's baptism.
And then today at church she was sustained the newest member of our ward and was able to sit on the stand in between the Bishop and 2nd counselor. Talk about forcing you to be reverent. She also bore her testimony stating how excited she was to get baptized and to receive the Holy Ghost. Congratulations Mikkele, I love you and I am so proud of you!

Adam's Home

Adam got home from his mission on Thursday. Mikkele has been so excited for so long to see her Bubba Adam. She was the first person to get to him and give him a big hug. He looks good. I don't think that his looks have changed too much. But I know he has grown up quite a bit. He was a great missionary and we are all very proud of him and glad to have him home safely. He will give his homecoming talk next Sunday and then will fly back to San Antonio with my parents, Aaron and Brittany and family, and Mikkele. He'll be back up in late summer to get ready to start school. Here are some other pictures from the airport.

A proud Mama Roberts
Cousin Chris and Clay Turnbow sprayed him with silly string.

A proud Papa Roberts

The proud parents

Adam and Grant

Adam and Audrey

Adam and Maddison

Christian, Bubba Adam, and Papa Roberts

Papa Roberts cleaning up the silly string mess.

A radKIDS experience

I wanted to share an experience that we had last night. The kids and I took a walk around the block with a neighbor family. As we came up on our church Mikkele and one of the neighbor's kids were riding around in the parking lot waiting for us to catch up. A truck pulled into the parking lot. The kids saw the truck and moved out the the way so they wouldn't get run over. Then the truck stopped and the man driving talked to Mikkele for a minute. Then all of a sudden she rolled backwards on her bike and yelled "STAY BACK" louder than I have ever heard that kid yell before. The truck then drove off and she came riding over to me as fast as she could bawling. She thought the man was trying to abduct her. I asked her what he said to her and she told me that he said "do you know where Haylee is?". This made her think that he was trying to lure her into his car, so her radKIDS training kicked in and she did exactly what she was supposed to do. We actually know this man, he lives in our neighborhood and he was really looking for his daughter Haylee, but Mikkele doesn't know him very well and him stopping and asking her a question like that really scared her to death. Although it scared her quite a bit, I am glad that I was there to witness that if she was ever in a situation that she was really being abducted she would know exactly what to do to keep from being abducted. I am so proud of her. I am grateful for the radKIDS program that they offer at her school. She took it last year as an after school program and this year it was part of the curriculum for PE, so the whole 2nd graders took the class. At the graduation they show us parents what they have learned by doing a mock kidnapping and the kids show you what self defense moves they have learned, but you don't ever really think that they will ever need to use it. I would recommend that if the program is ever offered to your children that you will take to opportunity to let your kids participate, even if there is a small fee it is definitely worth it.

Graduation Days

Grant had his preschool end of the year performance/graduation on Tuesday. They sang some songs that they had learned throughout the year, then had an award presentation, and then we watched a slide show that had pictures of the kids throughout the year. It was pretty cute. He is out for a few weeks then will start a summer school program that is 2 days a week for 6 weeks. His teacher Miss Rachel and his aid Miss Carrie were so good with him. He loves to go to school.

Grant really does love Miss Rachel. He's just sad that school's out for a little bit.











Grant singing songs with Miss Carrie.
He loves his Miss Carrie.











Mikkele had her 2nd grade end of the year program on Wednesday. Each child was presented with a certificate of achievement in a particular area as well as just a basic certificate of advancement into the 3rd grade. Hers was in Social Studies. This video is her teacher Miss Oberhansley presenting her with her award. (It's kinda quiet so you might have to turn up the volume on your speakers.) Then they also showed a slide show showing the years activities. She has really learned a lot this year and is really excited to go to the 3rd grade.