memorial day...

"It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all."

~ alfred lord tennyson

seriously cemetery's are so beautiful on memorial day.

 filled with so many flowers and visitors, and plenty of love!

my kids love picking out balloons and flowers for their brother parker. 

 they always like to let them go into heaven. ;)

then love to ask a gazillion questions which cory is so wonderful at answering. 

we love the fact that these kids always include their brother, in prayers in
the question of "how many kids are in your family" and in all things family!
he is never forgotten.

we are so blessed as a family and like always miss our little boy and brother.

field trip.

on the windiest day of the year, the twins had their first ever so exciting field trip!

{at least it didn't rain on us}  

they got to ride the bus to Thanksgiving point's farm country.   

I had a group of kids and they were so awesome, they stayed

right by me the whole time.  they were perfect!

they loved petting all the animals and seeing all the new babies 

that were born.  the little pony kept sucking on their jackets

 and they were laughing so hard.  even ivy loved all the animal attention.

super cute field trip.  

our very windy hay ride! 

 yee haw.

field day!

for my little kindergartners!

boston had his last week and they had to move it indoors. {boo}  

but regardless he still had a great time.  however he does not get along very well with the PE teacher.

 apparently she tells the kids how to play sports wrong. haha 

{gotta love those competitive boys}

at the end of their activities we had a mom bring all the kids cotton candy from her cotton candy maker!  

everyone was loving this!  especially me.

i really need to start my NO sugar diet asap!

'yo ho yo ho'...

...a pirates life for me!

we loved the new 'pirates of the carribean' movie!! so awesome!

Johnny Depp is seriously so amazing! 

we all loved it!!

  

we told ivy she can take a nap because it's kinda scary and she totally 

fell asleep right when it started! 

she slept through the whole movie. ha

hayes asked me to take his picture by the pirates sign.

love this boy!

gno/overnighter!

we spent a gno/sleepover for our janey at "the grand america"!

we did plenty of

laughing/eating/talking/eating & just making memories. 

one of my best girlfriends Jane and her darling family are moving to Boston in a few weeks.  

I've told her a hundred times, who is going to plan my summer volleyball nights,

 holiday parties, new years parties, girls lunches and many many 

more of our many festivities??!! 

i love this family! 

i love the memories & traditions we all share together as neighbors and friends.  

jane has the best heart and if you have the opportunity to be a part of her life, 

she will cherish you! she is a true & very loyal friend!

xxoo

 one of my favorite memories is when kiana {her oldest daughter} would get home from

 school and come and hang out with me and watch

 'the suite life of zach and cody' while my twins were babies. 

 she was like my bff while i had to hang out at home with twin babies! haha

we would make quick runs to nordstroms cafe to get shakes and browse the shoe dept.  

all these kids have been such a fun part of my kids lives too.  i could go on

 about myla & boston making forts everywhere and playing in dumpsters. haha

We have such wonderful memories.

they will all be missed.  {sniff sniff}  

i always say this, but i feel pretty dang lucky to have the bestest friends ever.  

 dinner first at 'faustina'

then a movie 'something borrowed' {perfect girls night movie}

then off to 'juicy berry' at gateway.

our breakfast was fabulous!  look at those buttermilk pancakes, and they were amazing.

definitely worth the calories!

the owlz

as if things couldn't be any cuter around here...

these two are playing t-ball!

they love having games like their brother {that is all we have ever done} and hayes especially loves

 that he is #7 just like his big brother!  boston was so pumped that

 hayes picked that number! haha

they actually have an awesome team.  next year they go straight to machine pitch. 

 i am so glad that they finally have their own games to go to.  even if they are freezing

 cold and windy.  they don't seem to mind.

spring recital

The vibe had their annual 'spring recital' monday night at the covey center for the arts.

It was just a recital to show off all of dances for the vibe and then a few companies performed as well.  olivia's group only performed 'hot hot hot' and then they had another dance that we have never seen called "tangled" and they danced to the song from tangled "when will my life begin" 

it was so darling!

cutest costume that ivy likes to wear now! haha

before the recital Jill and I took our little dancers out to dinner to 

"happy sumo" and then off to dance the night away!

cory & the boys met up with us and we all enjoyed watching our livi and my nieces.

the vibe also performed their 'symphony' piece from 'live to dance'.

livi is right in the middle twirling...

olivia with her bestie/teacher... mrs. alexis.  we adore her!!

cute little cousins after their performance.  charlee & shae just left.

{love liv's toothless smile ;)}

Nationals!

i promise you, i am not one of those crazed dance moms.   i just take a ton of pictures!  

my livi has loved dance this year.  who knows if we will do it forever, but for now she

 is loving it and it's not too much work. 

{besides these dance competitions on saturdays~wink}

she is actually good and i love that she gets to be at all the comps with my sister jill and her cousin camry.  so they have a group of friends who are in camry's dance company and her company that are  sisters.  so it's pretty fun for these cousins.

anyway this past weekend was our National dance competition for the State of Utah.

they did both dances and did awesome.  I am still learning how all the awards work, but they won 

"white diamonds" for "baked a cake"

and "pink diamonds" for "hot hot hot" 

she went home with a diamond and has been sleeping with it ever since. haha

 

 {front row}

brynnley/kate/liv 

liv is the first one in the group walking out!  so cute. 

and camry won for her trio!

birthday lunch...

for my summer lovin! ha

we all love 'malawi's' pizza and enjoyed celebrating with 

this beautiful momma on her special day!

happy birthday summer!

xxoo

Disneyland!

if there ever was a time that i can say i DID all of disneyland... 

the whole park/shows/rides etc. 

it would be this time with my bestie jenn! 

she's a nut!

 i tell you the girl did it all and we closed the park down!

 every night!  haha

she's the best, and i am so glad i got to spend my mothers day weekend 

with her and her momma {grandma gayle} and mc call 

{my other half when cory refuses to come~wink}

we had a Blast! 

 the kids loved literally running to the rides.  I exhausted them nightly even my mc cally.  

 she was a trooper hanging with me and my wild friend Jenn. 

good times!

the only thing we didn't do is wait in a 90 min. line to see rapunzal!  

now i kinda wish i waited.

it was the 'pirates of the caribbean' premiere so the park was packed and ridiculous!  ugh... 

then come to find out a few days later when it was STILL packed, southern california residents

 had a park hopper deal going on and it expired that friday. 

 someone remind me of that next time i take my kids out of school to experience the

 'walk on every ride' time of year! {sigh}

we started out bright and early on our first day!  They handed out complimentary 

flowers to the mom's in honor of 'mothers day' and so we momma's had to get our pictures taken.

first up... mine and my kids favorite ride. "Peter Pan"

jenn and i have always taken our kids picture on dumbo after the ride.  it's now a tradition picture! ha

my kids have never done Autopia, well since they were old enough to drive by themselves.

  I believe it is now the twins favorite ride. who would have guessed?

we headed to downtown disney to do some shopping and eat dinner at "The Rainforest cafe".  

boston has always wanted to be cartooned.  the guy was awesome and so fast!  

It looks just like boston.  he loves this!

day 2

"california adventure"

we rushed straight back to 'screamin' and 'toy story mania' and beat the lines.  

It was a perfect day for the california park.  this park is actually becoming my favorite.  

we can't wait for "Cars Land" to open this next summer.  also we were hoping the little mermaid area would be open but not until july.

boston loves this park too and so we spent the whole day here.  in the animation studios area they have an art class {animation academy} where every half hour you can go and
learn how to draw a disney character.  

Chase and Boston were in heaven, and would rush back to draw another character. 

 they did an awesome job.  we even all went to try it out and my twins even loved it.  

they learned  how to draw dopey. 

my girls love jesse!

cannot wait until cars land opens!!
even our daddy said that is when he will come to disneyland! haha

oh we attacked the characters before they even went to their destination. haha  I love our kids!

cutest picture ever!

i have a similar picture when olivia was 18 mo. old.

 ivy loves pluto.

drum roll please...

guess who did 'tower of terror'?  

olivia, hayes and crew!

they won't do it again, but they were brave! 

boston was so excited that they said they would do it, and kept praising them the whole time. 

it was a proud older brother moment. ~wink

we ate lunch at "ariels grotto" for my girls to experience the princess interaction

 while we ate a surprisingly good meal.  

yes after all the smiles it was worth the money!

cinderella spent a good 10 minutes just talking with olivia and ivy.  

they were just a chatting about stuff.  totally adorable!

my boys picked belle to be the princess to get a picture with... can you see why?  she was gorgeous!

 our dessert was these white chocolate 'con shells' they were fabulous.

we spent a good part in the 'animation academy' and also 'turtle talk with crush'.

my kids all took the quiz to see what character you were most like...

boston~buzz

hayes~timone

olivia~dot

ivy~tinkerbell {of course}

mc call~ nala

moi~tinkerbell

'a bugs life' land

day 3

'disneyland'

 my twins have never done 'thunder mountain railroad' and our last trip olivia did 'space mountain' once.  

so this trip they both did space mountain and thunder mountain plenty of times.  they loved it!! i am so glad too, because i thought i would never get those two to do the good rides. haha

my little ivy {2yrs} rode the 'matterhorn'
 booyah!

boston and chase rode this ride when they were 3! 

 i love that she did it and surprisingly she liked it.

 these three loved playing together and they loved 'thunder mountain'.

they had a petting zoo right behind thunder mountain and these guys loved seeing the animals and petting the goats.  we all got a good laugh when the kids were looking for 

the cow and then when they weren't looking the cow had actually 

come up to them really close and so hayes freaked out!

i got it on video, so it doesn't seem to hilarious right now, but we were laughing so hard!

i love how my haysie bugs asked me to take his picture with the goat. haha he cracks me up.

a while back we were having a conversation and he told me when he grows up he

 wants to be a farmer and take care of all the animals. 

we had so much fun playing in disneyland with our best friends!  thanks to my awesome husband who sent me to play with jenn for my mothers day present and for mc call to help me out, and for my brother for being one of the VP's of disney so i can get some sort of a hook up! haha

i love looking at all these pictures!

can't wait to go back!