~Bowling~

For one of Hunter's class fieldtrips they went bowling at Ben Lomond Lanes. I was so excited that I got to go along with them, and would have gotten a lot of cute pictures of him and his classmates, except I forgot to put the camera card back into the camera. No pictures :( Although, we still had a really good time. Hunter had an awesome bowling game. He scored 123. I think he had the highest score of anyone in the 3rd grade. He thought that was great! He was even more excited to find out that we were going bowling later that night for his cousin Jasmin, uncle Jeff, and Grandpa Ropelato's birthday party. He couldn't wait to show everyone his bowling skills:)

Darinda had reserved several lanes for us. They fed us a pizza dinner, gave us tokens for the arcade, and even had a man come make balloon figures for the kids. It was a lot of fun.



Darinda was on fire! She was getting strikes left and right. Dave was doing his best to try and beat her but he didn't. She won the game on our lane. But I do have to throw in that I beat Jerry on one of the games we played, hahaha. But Darinda did kick all of our butts.

I think Hunter got sick of bowling with the kids because he eventually snuck over to the adult game and started sneaking in and playing my turn :) This is him getting ready to hurry and bowl right after Dave, before I realize it was my turn, hahaha. After bowling, we headed over to the bumper cars. The kids had a blast!


Dave played one game in the arcade and won over 100 tickets in that one game. After that, the kids insisted that Dave play the games to win them more tickets. I think at the end, he ended up having more that 600 tickets. The kids were each able to pick them out a nice prize. It was a very fun family night.

~Feeding the Ducks~

I should have posted this a while ago, but hadn't gotten the pics off my phone until now. I figured these pictures were too cute not to put on the blog, so here is my post (a month late). A few days before Christmas, Dave had taken the day off of work. However, Hunter and Mckell still had to go to school. So we got to spend a day just Dave, me, and Lexi. Dave decided that he wanted to take Lexi to feed the ducks. He made a special trip to the store to buy a loaf of bread for Lexi and him to feed the ducks. Lexi was in heaven. The ducks, as you can see, were all surrounding the 2 of them. It was so fun to hear Lexi giggle when one of the ducks would steal bread from her.
Such a fun day!

Hunter's Friend Birthday Party

My kids are allowed to have a big friend birthday party every other year. This year was Hunter's turn to have one, and he couldn't wait. Since his birthday is so close to Christmas, we decided to wait a couple of weeks to let the holidays calm down to have his party. He decided to take his friends to Classic Fun Center to play on the bouncy toys, play in Pirate's Cove, and to play Lazer Tag. They had a blast, and I think were worn out by the end of the night, hahaha. We first had dinner, Hunter's favorite, Little Ceasars pizza. Then we opened presents and then headed out to the Fun Center.


Dave joined the kids in a game of Lazer tag. The girl in charge of Lazer Tag divided the group into 2 teams. The kids verses Dave. Dave was exhausted! He ran up and down stairs and around the room for 15 minutes straight. He sure got his workout, lol, but ended up outscoring the boys anyway. We ended the night with the dimecade.

This was a fun group of boys! Although, I think it's been a while since I've been around a group of boys. Hahaha! I was a little surprised that they were burping and farting while eating dinner, Gross! Then all through the night they were beating up on each other and wrestling. I kept telling them to be nice, but they just looked at me and said were play fighting. :) It looked a little rough to be, but Dave reminded me that is what boys do. While waiting in line for Lazertag they were playing bloody knuckles, and they were really hitting each others knuckles hard, and once again Dave reminded me that that is what boys do. It was funny to hear them talk about all the "HOT" girls at school (which I still think they are too young to be talking about Hot girls), and listen to them talk about sports. It showed me that my baby boy is growing up :( I'm not sure I like that :) I am glad that Hunter had a good birthday, and that he does have this good group of boys to be friends with. They really are good, fun kids.

Mckell's Field Trip

I love that I am able go on fieldtrips with my kids. It is so fun to see how they interact with their classmates :) Mckell had a fieldtrip to the Treehouse Museum which was a lot of fun. For the play, Mckell was chosen to play the part of "Sensible Pig" The smartest of the 3 pigs, who built her house out of bricks. To end Mckell's and my outing, we stopped and got a $5 footlong. Mckell was thrilled! I loved spending one on one time with her. She is such a cutie!

~2011~

So last year, I called 2010 our year of trips. I'm really not sure what to call 2011. I guess I would call it our year of exciting news. I think the most exciting news we got this year was that we were going to add a new member to our family. A baby boy will join our family in May. We are soooo excited! We also bought a new lot to build a new house. It will still be in the same neighborhood, infact it is straight acrossed the church parking lot from our current house. Ya, we are moving far, lol. But we love our neighborhood, we love the ward, and we love the kids' school, so if we were going to move we wouldn't want to move anywhere else. It will be fun to have a new house this coming year :). Some other exciting news was that the kids were able to get into a new school, which we all LOVE. This year we have been truely blessed.

Dave continues to be super busy at work. He pretty much spent a month in New York moving offices and has gone back and forth several times. The kids and I were able to go out and spend time with him, which was fun. He is still on the High Council at church, which I think he enjoys, although he could do without speaking every month :) He did have a successful hunt this year, which was great. He's stocked up our freezer, which was getting kind of low. He is spoiled, and got a brand new truck this year. Around Thanksgiving he hit a deer up in the valley and it totalled the front of his truck. He insisted that even after it was fixed it would never be the same, so he got a new truck, lol. It is a good thing he has connections at John Watsons :)

I was released as a Relief Society instructor and am now a primary teacher at church. I enjoy working with the kids. They are so cute. I pretty much have spent the end of the year, September on, laying on the couch and being sick. Thank goodness a cute baby will come at the end of this, otherwise the sickness wouldn't be worth it. So I feel like I've missed out on a lot that has happened over the past several months. Its a good thing that I have such a wonderful husband, family, and friends that have helped run things while I've been down.

Hunter loves sports and is improving all the time. He also loves that he is in scouts now. He loves his new school and has begun taking piano lessons. Well, both he and I are taking piano lessons, but I've had to take time off because I've been sick. He isn't thrilled about piano, but is a pretty darn good piano player. It is fun to watch him teach me and Mckell things about the piano. Mckell can't wait until she gets to start taking piano lessons.

Mckell took a little break from dance this year and started gymnastics. She loves it, and his having fun learning how to do the splits, the bar, headstands, and cartwheels. She has loved that she can go to school all day instead of half a day. She helped us plant a garden this past summer and was my little gardener, constantly checking the garden to see if anything had grown.

Lexi is getting so big. However, I still consider her my little baby. Although, I know come May she'll seem super grown up :) She loves trying to keep up with Hunter and Mckell, and was so upset that she couldn't stay at school when they went on the first day. Her time will come :) She has been such a good helper to me, and she continues to be Daddy's little girl. One thing that she has been doing lately that is kind of cute, but at the same time drives me crazy, is that when she gets in trouble she will start to cry and say "You don't love me". She is either really tender hearted or pretty smart, because how can you stay mad at her when she is saying you don't love her. She immediately gets a hug from whoever she thinks doesn't love her and told that they do love her. Then she seems not to be in trouble anymore. Also, she is constantly asking if you are mad at her. We really do not get mad at her very often, but she seems to really be concerned that someone is mad at her. She is such a cutie!

We've been really blessed in 2011, and can't wait for 2012.

St. George

A month or so ago, Jerry and Darinda bought a house down in St George. We hadn't been down there yet, so decided to head down after our doctors appointment. Stacey and the girls were already down there, so it was fun for the kids to have cousins to play with. We celebrated Hunters birthday down there with the Ropelato's side of the family. Darinda had made a big turkey dinner and had cake and ice cream for Hunter.

The next day, Dave, Jerry, and some of Jerry's friends went dove hunting for the day. The rest of us just hung out at the house, then went on a four wheeler ride up to a kiln.
Jeff and Becky came down the last day we were there. We all went on a big four wheeler ride, which Hunter loved because there were times he got to ride his own four wheeler :) It was a good way to end our Christmas vacation.