Great To Be 8!

This was a special year for Morgan.  She not only went into 3rd grade, and had a birthday shortly after, but she turned 8!!!!  Which means she was able to get baptized into the LDS church.  On her birthday, her teacher had her give her family presentation and got to wear the birthday hat and get sung to.  That night Randy had school so we really didn't do a whole lot until the weekend when a ton of family came in for her birthday (which also happened to be my birthday, which subsequently is the same day as my baptism, crazy hu?)

 So Saturday we woke up bright and early and got ready, because her baptism was at 9 AM, argh!  It was tough getting eleventy billion of us ready, but we made it.  There was only 1 from our ward getting baptized and about 6 others from the rest of the stake.  It made for a very crowded chapel.  Here's Randy and Morg beforehand.

 Still a family tradition for the girls to wear the dress my grandma made my oldest sister when she got baptized.  It's been through all of my sisters and now 4 granddaughters with more to go I'm sure.

 Just one quick one outside.

The baptism was great.  The talks were amazing (thanx mom) and she came out of it still alive.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before but these girls are inseparable (lol). Katelin was baptized in May, McKenna in June and Morg in Sept.  We really wanted to take shots of them in their dresses.  They were not very interested in standing still for very long, but we got a few.

 And one for good measure.

And the whole family that was able to make it.  There was a lot more friends who came as well.  It was so great having their support.

We tried really hard to get a family shot.  This was as close as we got.

The grandparents were both there for the event (a first since my parents live far away, but not for long).

We celebrated both Morgan's and my birthday afterwards.  Oh and it was the 1st weekend of college football, so that is what Randy was doing all day, lucky me.  I'm so excited for this season, no really.

Billy got a hold of my camera and kind of went nuts.  This is one made me laugh when I went through the card.  Don't ask me what my mom is doing.

But really this day was about Miss Morgie poo.  She is a special part of our family.  We are so proud of her for making the decision to be baptized.  We love you little girly.

Just Morgan

Before I get into Morgan's baptism I wanted to post a few pics from our photo shoot.  We went out one afternoon to BYU and the temple and just clicked away.  She was a good subject.  I'm still learning about my awesome camera and I probably should have waited a few more hours to do this shoot.  You live and you learn.  This is the invite that sent out.

I took almost 200 shots, it was pretty fun.



First Day of School-or should I say Shool

Craziness is all around, on the house tops on the ground.  (Can you name that primary song?)  Anyway, school started with a bang.  Three kids off to all-day school and one at home waiting to get evaluated for preschool which started the following week.  Mak started 5th grade

 Morg's in 3rd

And Micah's in 1st (his 1st year of all day which is great)

 Do you sense a theme with the plaid?  Apparently it is still in, which makes me laugh cuz I remember when it was in while I was in middle and high school and how quickly it got lame (ya know with the corduroy along with it like on the  collars).  I like this plaid though.

 We got the pics again.  I really need to look back through the years and see how much these girls have really changed.

 This was the next week cuz McKenna was sick the 1st week of school, poor girl. I love that these girls have to bend over for Morg, why didn't she get Randy's genes?

 I'm pretty sure Micah will be taller than Morg soon enough.  Not as tall as KC, but he'll get some height on him.

 This was the 1st day without McKenna, these 2 are such hams.

 The next week, preschool started and as you can see Malia got in.  This is probably the only reason to love August birthday's.  She was sooo excited to go to school.  She got up so early and got herself ready and was ready before 8 AM to go.  Too bad she still had 45 minutes to wait.

 Her and Brooklyn, another one of Michelle's kids that is in kindergarten.  They have fun together though.

 Can you tell that she's excited, or maybe that's a little possessed, either way, she's in school.

 She's soo proud of herself.

Now that my mornings are free, I'm keeping busy with working out and making a monthly (maybe more, we'll see) of going to the temple before Malia gets home.  It's time to work on me now.  SOOOO HAPPY SCHOOL STARTED, WOOT!!!

Malia's 4

Don't worry I'm only 1 month and 3 days late.  Man, I'm awful these days.  Malia did turn 4 last month and we did celebrate her birthday, I promise.  We woke up on her bday and I made "the pancakes"

Then we went to Toys R Us and got her birthday balloon and I let her pick out a toy with her birthday coupon.  She picked this shopping cart since her last one broke (it's been through all of the kids, it was time for a new one).  She had a lot of fun with the cart until Uncle James came over and turned her into a crazy child.  These two are peas in a pod I tell ya.  The faces they come up with.

 We made pizza that night and ate some yummy birthday cake.  She asked for a butterfly cake, which made me happy since that was an easy one to create.  I'm all about simplifying.

 She got some Princess and Rapunzel things that she wears all of the time.

 Then the next week (while the other kids were in school mind you, yet another hallelujah moment for me) she had her first birthday party.  They made crowns, decorated cupcakes, played pinned the bracelet on Dora, opened presents and smacked a pinata.  It was a fun party.

 So grateful this girl is in our family.  Although crazy at times, she brings such a fun, energetic personality to our home.    She's our little princess!!! Love ya Eah!!!

Bear Lake=Stewart Reunion 2011

Since in the past, we have usually not been in the area of wherever the Stewart Reunion is, we haven't been able to attend many of them.  But this year, Randy's parents were in charge and they decided to have it in Utah, so we were excited to finally be able to go to another one.   Randy's parents rented a really nice cabin on a hill with a great view of the lake.  We went tubing and jet skiing, played at the beach, ate lots of yummy food, played games till all hours of the night, and just relaxed.

Grandma and Grandpa Tucker who started these reunions oh so long ago.

Our family shot.  The kids mostly behaved.

A view from the cabin.  It was amazing. 

Michelle and Mike using their youngest brother Nic as an ottoman.  Ya gotta love sibling love.

Andrea really loves food, and really loves to show us also.  Sorry babe, couldn't resist.

PJ, who is Randy's cousin, served his mission in the same place as my brother.  It was pretty funny when they sent home pictures to their families of the 2 of them together.  Small world.  I caught him sleeping like this and had to take a pic, unfortunately he woke up too soon.

Mom taking her shot.  Too bad she has the lens cap still on, lol.

We got to ride around on a jet ski and Randy's mom was brave enough to let her son take her out for her first time.  The lake is really choppy and bounces you all over the place but still a lof of fun.

This is pretty much what the kids did all day.  Played in the sand, built sandcastle after sandcastle. 

Malia posing for her shot.

There were some really great photo ops.  The moon was full and gorgeous our last night their and every time we took a look at it, it looked different.  It was beautiful.  I love the reflection on the lake.

Malia made new friends in Randy's cousins.  They are young, still have energy and just ate Malia up.  She decided she wanted to look like cousin Michael, doesn't she look like him?

Playing chess. . . or not.

When we weren't outside at the beach, this is where you found the kids, the MOVIE THEATER room.  Julie's kids brought their XBox and played till their hearts content.  It was a fun room to be in.

Another cool room, the kids room.  It's 2 trundle bunk beds so it slept 6 kids unless we wanted to squish them.  I thought it was pretty ingenious.

A shot from the upstairs balcony, Randy acting like was going to actually get me or something.

One of my favorite rooms, not that I really had time to use it.  The master bath had this cool tub and a walk in shower (the opening right next to the bath).  It had no doors just a huge room with a shower in it.  It was nice showering all of the kids at the same time trying free them of the sand they had accumulated.

It was a great reunion and a fun vacation.  Thanks mom and dad for putting it together.