A week of fun memories!

"The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn."
- John Muir

(jade and ethan fall 2007)

How did it get to be the first day of Autumn?

The summer just flew on by.
I can't believe it's been a month since we sent the kids back to school.

I wish time would slow down just a bit, but it just keeps marching on!

My kids are getting bigger with each season change.

I was looking at photos of them from last Autumn and can't believe how much they've matured and grown up in just a short year's time.

Even though life is busy

we are doing our best to enjoy each day to the fullest...

because life is all about memories...

you can't take any of your "Stuff" with you...
all you take with you is your memories and experiences.

I was SO excited

a few weeks ago as I was shopping when I came across a childhood favorite candy of mine. Our life has been FULL of enjoying ZOTZ almost daily!!

The fizzy, tart treat

has been a hit with my kiddos.

There is nothing that I enjoy more than sharing things with my kids that I enjoyed when I was a young girl.

PONY PARTY!
We dressed in our jeans, shirts and bandannas

and headed over to Mark and Candace's house (Tracy's neice and hubby) and had the BEST time. Here are some photos from their Pony party.

Mark and Candace

have an amazing yard and many OLD buildings and so we took a few photos in front of one of them.

 
The Smith Family

Adorable Ethan

Handsome Jade

Talented Candace

(who took tomato plants and grew them into trees in her greenhouse).

Her gardening skills are amazing!

Birthday girl Alyssa Joelle

Ethan Kip

getting a little crazy on the pony

Candace's amazing talent

created this Carousel Birthday Cake!!

I wish I had a fraction of the talent that she does.

She is someone

I look up to a lot and is the BEST mom to her kids!

Lots of fun!

Cross Country!

It's that time of the year for weekly Cross Country Meets.

I LOVE going and watching Jade Run.

He is definitely not the fastest runner, (in fact, he usually comes in last...due to a health problem he was born with)
but he finishes every single race and
always has the best attitude and I'm proud of him!

If you were to judge his performance based on the energy of his cheering mother as he crossed the finish line, you would think he is coming in first!

I'm SO grateful that he has this opportunity available to him to be able to participate in such an awesome sport!

This was a photo that I took of him running in the Rigby Meet.

They had to run part of the meet in a wheat field.

I love how this turned out!

ABBA-mania!

A few weeks ago I noticed a quarterly flyer that we get of all of the upcoming events to BYU-I and they had tickets for ABBA-mania for $12.00 each.

That is such a great deal as we spent $48.00 for EACH ticket to take Jade to the KILLERS concert!

They sang some of
ABBA's greatest hits!

--Mamma Mia

--Take a Chance

--Does your mother know?

--I had a dream

--Waterloo

--SOS

--I Do, I Do

--Name of the Game

--The winner takes it all

--Gimmie, Gimmie

--Chiquitita

--Super Trooper

--Summer Night City

--Money Money

--Lay all your Love

--Eagle

--Ring Ring

--Honey Honey

--Knowing Me, Knowing You

--Fernando

--Voulez Vous

--Dancing Queen

Tracy's sister Lisa is one of the biggest fans I know of ABBA and so we went with Lisa and her husband Tom and their kids.
Tracy's parents came with us as well.
Since Jade is such a social bug he sat with Tom and Lisa's family and their boy Bryson sat with our family.
Ethan and Bryson had such a great time sitting by each other!
There is nothing more fun for kids than spending time with cousins.

We were definitely

"having the time of our lives"

They put on an amazing concert and I think they sounded better than the original ABBA group. The kids thought it was so cool when they sang "I had a dream" and everyone was flashing around their cell phone lights. It was gorgeous all those lights shining in the darkened room with the only other light being the disco ball spinning around.

Once again HIGH ENERGY
and my kids saw their mom being CRAZY, especially when they sang the last song

"Dancing Queen".

I ran down to the dance floor and danced the entire song!!

I love having events like this to be able to get a little wild and crazy. Since we have to be serious most of the time, it is SO much fun to be able to let your hair down every now and then.

Life is too short to not have FUN!

I'm SO glad our kids

love music as much as we do!!

Saturday after the concert, we turned up the speakers in our great room and listened to ABBA and watched ABBA videos on You-Tube all morning long and had an absolute ball!

What an amazing journey life is!

SO happy to be able to enjoy each and every season of life with my wonderful family.

Looking forward

to embracing the "Crisp" fall air, shorter days and the stunning beauty that Autumn Time brings with the leaves changing colors on the trees and then falling to the ground
and hoping that my cares will drop away from me like the falling leaves of Autumn.