The Ropelato's

~Bowling~

2012-01-21T19:25:00.018-07:00

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~

2012-01-20T17:15:00.006-07:00

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

2012-01-16T10:55:00.019-07:00

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

2012-01-16T10:30:00.016-07:00

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~

2012-01-09T10:31:00.004-07:00

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

2012-01-09T09:49:00.012-07:00

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.

Happy Birthday Hunter!

2012-01-09T08:51:00.012-07:00

I can't believe my baby is now 9 years old. He is getting so grown up. He no longer lets me pick out his clothes for school (which at times has been a fight because he wants to wear shorts everyday), he wants to stay out late playing with his friends on weekends, and he thinks he can babysit instead of running errands with me :) Hunter is such a big helper, he is such a smart kid, and he is kind to everyone, which I LOVE. We love you Hunter!
It really seems just like yesterday that Hunter was only a baby. This is him at 3 months old.
Here are some of Hunter's favorite things at 9 years old:
*His favorite thing to do- play sports. Hunter loves football, basketball, and soccer.
*His favorite food- Little Caesars Pizza (yes it has to be Little Caesars)
*His favorite colors- Red, blue, and green
*His favorite holiday- Christmas
*His favorite football teams- the Ravens, Steelers, and Saints. Hunter has been big into collecting football cards lately.
*His favorite primary song- Book of Mormon Stories.
*His favorite book- The Diary of a Whimpey kid series
*He loves to play video games, play with his friends, and watch movies with the family.

We love having Hunter as part of our family!!!

Since Hunter is so lucky to have his birthday 2 days after Christmas, I really was stumped at what to get him for his birthday. He had gotten everything he asked for for Christmas. So I gave Hunter some money and we went on a shopping spree. I let him buy whatever he wanted. He was in heaven :) He bought an xbox game, a lego set, a Spongebob pillow pet, football cards, 2 football action figures, and an itunes card.
That evening we had a party with the Wangsgard side of the family. We ate pizza, played the candy bar game, and played Just Dance 3 on the Wii (Hunter wasn't super thrilled about this but it was fun :)
Christian and Mckell were really getting into the Just Dance game, lol. They were funny to watch.Hunter got one more present the next morning. Dave and I went into the doctors for my big ultrasound, and found out we are having a boy! Hunter is thrilled!!! He is so excited not to be the only boy on both the Ropelato side of the family (which has 9 granddaughters) and on the Wangsgard side of the family (which has 3 granddaughters) anymore.

Merry Christmas!!!!

2011-12-25T18:45:00.026-07:00

We had an extensive talk with the kids last night about what time it was Ok for them to get up on Christmas morning. We didn't want what happened last year repeating itself. Last year the kids woke up at 1:30 to see what Santa had brought them. Dave and I held them off, in our room, until 3:00. Then we finally gave in and told them to go and look at their gifts, because we figured the sooner they see what they got, the sooner we could go back to bed. Well, this year we told the kids that they were not allowed to come upstairs until 5:00. I am so proud of them because they listened. At 5:00, on the dot, they were waking us up to see what Santa had brought to them.
Mckell and Hunter reading the note Santa left for them.

Lexi was so funny. She was so excited that she got a Belle and Beast Barbie doll that she didn't even realize that Santa had left her a bunch of other things too. It wasn't until after all the presents under the tree were unwrapped, that she noticed she had several other things too. She was soooo excited!

I didn't get any pictures of Hunter opening any of his presents because he had them all opened before I knew what he was doing.
Mckell making cupcakes in her new easy bake oven.Grandma and Grandpa Ropelato came to our house about 7:30 in the morning to bring their gifts. The kids loved seeing what they brought and showing them what Santa had given to us.

Mckell with her new American girl doll. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa. It's just what she wanted.
After Grandma and Grandpa left, the kids decided to make little forts out of all the Christmas boxes we had.
The kids kept insisting that they were planning on sleeping in their forts tonight. I don't think the forts are going to last that long :)
We shortly headed to church, then to Grandma and Grandpa Wangsgards for a Christmas lunch/gift exchange.

Lexi loved playing on Grandma's new rocking horse.
Overall we had a very good Christmas. Dave was sick pretty much the whole holiday weekend, but was feeling a bit better this afternoon so he could join us for Christmas lunch. We were glad he felt better, finally!

~Wangsgard Christmas Party~

2011-12-24T10:06:00.015-07:00

We got together with my dad's side of the family last night for our last Christmas party of the year.

Hunter LOVES football :)
Mckell and Paisley. The kids have LOVED having their cousin Paisley in town :) They maul her everytime they see her :)

Merry Christmas!!!

Mckell's First Grade Christmas Art

2011-12-23T09:42:00.007-07:00

Mckell's cute teacher is constantly taking pictures of the class and putting them in a smilebox video. Here are some of the art projects Mckell has done this holiday season.
Mckell as the Elf on the Shelf.

~Ropelato Christmas Party~

2011-12-23T09:18:00.014-07:00

For the Ropelato extended Chirstmas party this year, we went on a hay ride. It was a lot of fun. We went over a river, through the woods, and saw several elk. Our driver even fed them hay, so they came really close to our wagons. It was neat. Mckell loved singing Christmas Carols, with her cousins, as we rode along. Hunter's favorite part was when the horses ran, and pulled us really fast. Although that was not my favorite part, lol. I was on a tiny corner of hay at the back, and everytime we went fast or went over a bump I practically fell off the wagon. Hahaha. Dave had to hold onto me to keep me on. We ended our hayride with hot chocolate. It was a lot of fun!

After the hay ride, we had a delicious lasagna dinner made by Great Grandpa Ropelato. The kids then put on the nativity play. They loved having a stage to do it on this year :)
Hunter was Joseph, and Mckell and Lexi were angels.

After the play we had a special visit from Santa. He brought everyone a new pair of socks.
Mckell modeling her new Christmas socks.

~Randy the Red Horned Reinmoose~

2011-12-23T09:03:00.005-07:00

Hunter's 3rd grade class did a Christmas play. Hunter was chosen for the part of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. He has been practicing his part for about a month and did a really good job.
In the play Rudolph had a really bad cold, therefore, couldn't lead Santa's sleigh. The elves all tried to make him better, but nothing worked. They soon discovered that Randy the Reinmoose, whose job was to clean up after the elves, had antlers that glowed red just like Rudolph's nose. So Randy ended up saving Christmas.

~Smeding Christmas Party~

2011-12-20T16:50:00.010-07:00

This week is going to be full of family parties. Last night we had the Smeding family Christmas party. My kids were so excited to see Santa (aka Richard), and have him bring presents. But before he came, there was a small program with the kids and my mom leading us in some holiday songs.

Can you guess what song we are singing? Yep, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

~First Party with Presents~

2011-12-20T16:29:00.005-07:00

This year, we had to do things a little different with our immediate Ropelato family Christmas. Normally we all get together on Christmas day and exchange gifts, but this year Jerry and Darinda will be spending Christmas down at their new house in St George, so we got together this past Sunday to have dinner and exchange gifts. My kids were soooo excited to finally be able to start opening some presents :)

Lexi's new pose???? Who knows where she got it from :)
All throughout dinner, Hunter kept asking when we were going to open presents. Finally when grandma said lets all go into the family room to open gifts, Hunter was all too excited to run in and start opening presents. I guess the adults were talking to long, because when we came into the room, Hunter already had his gift opened. I couldn't believe it. He said that Sarah (who is 3) had said everyone could start opening. So both Hunter and Lexi already had their gifts opened :( I guess I'm a mean mom (maybe it's the pregnancy), cause I then took the gifts away and made them both wait until everyone else had opened their gifts, before they could have their gifts back.
The kids loved what they got. Hunter got night vision goggles, Mckell got 2 strawberry shortcake dolls, and lexi got 2 cute little dolls with long hair. It's always fun to get together with family and let the cousins play.

~Piano Recidal~

2011-12-20T16:11:00.008-07:00

Hunter and I started taking piano lessons from the cute lady acrossed the street this past fall. Hunter is really a good little piano player. It was fun to hear him play the 2 songs he's been practicing for the Christmas recidal. Hunter played Jolly Old Saint Nicholas and Jingle Bells. He did a GREAT job! I opted not to be part of the recidal :)

So this whole piano thing is new to us. I've never been to a piano recidal before, so before we were leaving when Dave said that he thought Hunter should be dressed up, I wasn't sure. I told Dave to text our friend Scott and ask him (his son was also participating in the recidal). Well, Scott misunderstood Dave and thought Dave was asking what he should wear. Scott told us casual, so we let Hunter stay in how he was dressed. Hunter was the only one performing that wasn't dressed up :) Whoops! My bad! It's good it didn't seem to phase Hunter at all. However, next time we will be dressed accordingly. I should have listened to Dave. :)
Hunter and Davis enjoying the refreshments.
Grandma came to hear Hunter play. We've been practicing for months at her house on her piano (since we didn't have one of our own). That is one of the presents Hunter and I got for Christmas, a new piano.

Gymnastics

2011-12-12T17:54:00.009-07:00

Mckell's gymnastics class had a meet/performance this evening. It was really fun to see how much Mckell has improved from her very first class. I can see that the lessons are paying off :) She was such a cheeser. Everytime they would walk from event to event, the students were supposed to wave to their parents. Mckell waved and blew kisses :) She cracks me up!

Mckell was so excited to have us all there watching her. Of course our little family was all there, so was my mom and Christian, and Lexi especially LOVED that Cassie and Paisley were there too :)
Our little gymnast!!!!

Santa and his Reindeer

2011-12-12T08:38:00.011-07:00

My kids LOVE going up to Weber State to visit Santa and see his real live reindeer. The Weber State Bookstore does such a cute job of having Santa and his sleigh, having a craft for the kids to make, hot cocoa, and of course the reindeer. Lexi couldn't wait this year to go and visit Santa. All day long she asked if it was time to go and see him, and then when we went and picked the kids up from school to go up she cried because she wanted to go straight to Santa, lol. She has been so fun this year at Christmas. She loves the tree (every morning the first thing she does is turn all the Christmas lights on), she gets so excited when we see houses decorated with lights, and she is so excited about Santa. She's at such a fun age :)

Lexi could hardly contain herself while waiting in line to see Santa. She was so excited. This year she asked Santa for a barbie and some books.
Mckell asked Santa for a guinnea pig. What???? I asked her where that came from and she informed me that my dad suggested that she should want a guinnea pig. Lol. If Santa brings one, it's going to live at Grandma and Grandpa Wangsgards, hahaha, since he's the one who suggested it.
Hunter asked Santa for an xbox, madden football game, an ipod touch, and Super Smash Bros Brawl 4 (which doesn't exist). Yes, he has a very expensive list.
Santa asked Hunter if he's been good. Hunter's reply was, "ya, I think so". Santa asked, "Do you ever talk back to your mom?" Hunter said, "Ya sometimes". Hey, at least he's honest :) Santa made Hunter pinky promise that he would try his hardest not to talk back to me anymore. I hope it works :)
The girls making their ornaments/Christmas picture frames.
The reindeer's names were Blitzen and Snowflake. It was fun seeing them.

Mckell's Lucky Weekend

2011-11-17T08:36:00.011-07:00

This must have been Mckell's lucky weekend. She got one award after another. It started on Friday, with the school awards assembly. Mckell was one of several students who received an award. Her award was for being a wonderful student and for being a classroom friend to all. We are so proud of her!

As part of Mckell's award, she got a certificate, a book, and a fun wristband.

Then on Saturday, Mckell's first grade won first place for the video they made for the Cammi Awards. Their video was called "We've got it covered". It was a drug free video, and she was so excited that they won first place.

But her lucky streak didn't end there. On Monday, the school had their Reflections assembly and Mckell's artwork was chosen out of a big group of kids to move on to council level. In fact, hers was one of two chosen out of 20 or so other entries to move on. She was sooooo excited. Everyone got a fun medal with their names on it for participating in the Reflections contest, as well as a certificate, and a free pass to Kangaroo Zoo. But those lucky few, whose work was chosen to move on to council level, also received a trophy with their names on it.
She was so proud of her trophy! It is sitting on our mantle, and anytime someone comes to our house she takes them over and shows them her trophy :) And I think Hunter was secretly a little jealous that Mckell go t a medal and a trophy. I tried my hardest to get him to do something for the reflections contest, but he just kept saying "Not Interested" lol. But as soon as he got home from school after the awards assembly, he informed me that next year he was going to do somthing really cool for the reflections contest :)

Deer Hunt

2011-11-05T14:08:00.004-06:00

Dave promised he was going to shoot the first little buck he saw so he could try out these "jerky sticks", and boy he wasn't kidding. Check out this monster buck below.

So Dave had a very successful hunting season this year. He even went out this morning with Justin to go pheasant hunting and ended up spraining his ankle pretty good. He's been in bed ever since he's come home. I think his hunts are done for the year (Thank Goodness!!!)

Trick or Treating

2011-11-05T13:26:00.015-06:00

The kids couldn't wait until it was time to go trick or treating. Although about a half and hour before it was time to go, Hunter talked Dave into making him a new costume. A scary costume. They made a hatchet, ripped up a pair of Hunters pants (his good pants I might add) and got him all decked out in a scary costume. It was fun to see them both get so excited as they were putting things together :)

After trick or treating in our neighborhood, Hunter insisted that they drive over to his teacher, Mrs. Wehr's house, because she told the kids she gave full sized candy bars. They also had to stop by Grandma and Grandpa Wangsgard's house to see how they had it all decorated up for Halloween.

While Dave and my Dad were on the elk hunt, my mom had just gotten the mummy out and put it in her living room. The mummy makes grunting noises like he is trying to talk but can't because his mouth is covered. I made the joke to Lexi that the mummy was really Grandpa, and that Grandma had tied him up because he was in trouble. Since then whenever she went over to my parents she would go say Hi to Grandpa (the mummy), give him hugs goodbye, and stuff like that. On Halloween night, my parents had the mummy out on their porch. As we walked by the mummy, he started grunting which made Lexi jump. Lexi turned to the mummy and said, "Grandpa, you scared me!" So we had to get a picture of Lexi with both of her grandpas, lol.

Halloween

2011-11-05T12:56:00.011-06:00

I LOVE that at the kids school they get to dress up for Halloween and have a parade through the school in their costumes (their last school didn't do that). My kids have had their costumes picked out since the beginning of the summer. Hunter was going to be Harry Potter, Mckell was going to be Cruella Deville, and Lexi was going to be whatever I put her in. She is easy. We had all the costumes ready, which was good, because me being sick there was no way I was going to try to put together anything. So I felt pretty good about Halloween. Well, that was until a couple of days before Halloween. Hunter decided he wanted to be something scary, and Mckell decided she wanted to be a vampire. I told them both no, they were going to be what they originally planned. But 2 days before Halloween, I had to go to Walmart and get one thing for Mckell's costume that we'd forgotten, and I caved. I let Mckell get a vampire dress and be a vampire. Hunter thought this was totally unfair, because I was still making him be Harry Potter. And to be honest it was really unfair, but Grandpa Ropelato made a special trip in New York to get Hunter the Harry Potter tie, so I told him that was what he was going to be :) Also, Hunter had a 3rd grade program right after the Halloween parade and he was playing the part of Alford Hitchcock, and I thought the Harry Potter costume went well with what he was suposed to wear for Alford Hitchcock. So for the school parade Hunter was Harry Potter, Mckell was a vampire, and Lexi was Snow White.

Mckell with her first grade class. I LOVE that her teacher is always taking pictures of the kids and sending them to us parents in a slideshow. These are some of those pictures. Such cute backgrounds.

After the Halloween parade, the 3rd grade put on a Halloween program. It was sooo cute. The program was called "Ghostilocks and the 3 Vampires" The kids sang cute Halloween songs, they had fun parts, and they even danced to the music. Hunter had a really long part as Alford Hitchcock, and he did an excellent job. We were all so proud of him.
Hunter had quite the support group there to watch him. Of course, Dave, Lexi, and I were there. But he also had his Grandma and Grandpa Wangsgard and Grandma Ropelato there to see his part. He is so lucky to have such GREAT grandparents who always are there to support him with his activities!!!!

Carving Pumpkins

2011-11-05T12:39:00.010-06:00

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but this year it has kind of come and gone without us really getting into it like we do in other years. I've really felt bad, like my kids are being neglected, but I promise I will make it up to them next year. :) I am lucky to have such good neighbors who have come and gotten my kids and taken them to the several neighborhood Halloween parties. It made me feel better to know that my kids weren't totally being left out of all the fun just because thier mom was sick. The first actual Halloween activity that we have done as a family this year was just 3 days before Halloween. It was pumpkin carving and caramel apple making and Grandma and Grandpa Wangsgards house. We all look forward to this. It is fun to get together as a family and get our pumpkins ready for Halloween.

I don't know how I missed getting pictures of Mitch and Toni, maybe it was because they took too long trying to decide how they wanted to carve their pumpkins, lol. They look through books and on the internet before they decide what to do. They do carve really good looking pumpkins though :)

Hunter's First Haunted House

2011-11-05T12:28:00.003-06:00

I LOVE going to haunted houses and getting scared. I've been looking forward to Hunter getting old enough that I could take him. Well this year he is old enough, but I couldn't take him because I've been soooo sick. He did however go with some of his friends to the Haunted Hollow and had a blast. Although of course he said it wasn't even scary, lol. 8 years old and already trying to act tough.
Davis, Kaden, Hunter, Nate, and Britton
When my dad found out that Hunter had been to a haunted house, he of course had to get in on the action. He took Hunter to Castle of Chaos. They tried to get Mckell to go too, but she was having no part of that. So the 2 of them went. My dad said that Hunter did good until the very end when the chainsaw guy came after them. Hunter let go of grandpas hand and left him in the dust, lol. My dad couldn't believe Hunter would leave him all alone, hahaha. I guess grandpa better be quicker next time :)

The Elk Hunt

2011-11-05T12:17:00.004-06:00

Warning!!!! The pictures in this post may be disturbing and gross you out!
Over the past year, we have run out of elk roasts (which our family loves) so I told Dave his job this hunt season was to get an elk to stock up our freezer again. Well he not only got one, but he got two elk (yes he had 2 tags). So needless to say, our freezer is now busting at the seems and we even gave alot of the meet to others who went on the hunt with him. They had a pretty big group on the elk hunt this year. Dave, Marc, Jeff, my dad, Scott, and Justin. A guy from the ward Dave is over and his son meet up with them, and they also meet up with Dave's hunting buddy Jared and some of his friends and family. They had a good time.Dave thinks he's such a good hunter. This cow elk was shot 150 yards up the mountain, and it slid in the snow, all the way down the mountain right to the four wheeler trail. Dave tried to convince me he planned it that way. Hahaha, he isn't that good :)

It's a good thing Scott, Marc, and Justin were there to help Dave get his elk out. Thank Scott for keeping Dave under control around my Dad, hahaha.

The Pink Unicorns

2011-11-05T11:57:00.009-06:00

Mckell lucked out this year to have her aunt Randee and "aunt Hilary" be her soccer coaches. She had so much fun playing soccer and has gotten her aggressiveness back :).
At one of Mckell's first games, Natalie Redd, a mom from the other team got some really good shots of Mckell playing. I told Natalie that she needs to start coming to all my kids games/activities and take pictures of them. Her pictures turned out way better than mine ever do :)

The Golden Dragons

2011-11-05T11:43:00.004-06:00

Hunter has LOVED playing soccer this season. He has a really good coach, who has taught him a lot. Hunter has really gotten to be quite the soccer player this past year. He runs fast, isn't afraid to get bloody, and isn't afraid to get right in the middle of the action. It was really fun to go and watch him play.

Look Who's 3!

2011-11-05T10:49:00.015-06:00

My baby girl is 3! I felt really bad for Lexi this birthday. As I said in my last post. I've been really sick because of this pregancy and I started throwing up about a week before Lexi's birthday. So I felt bad that I didn't go all out for her birthday, but I'm sure glad both of her grandma's stepped up and made here birthday GREAT! I'm sure they probaby thought I was a slacker, because neither of them knew I was pregnant at the time, or that I was sick. I just said I wasn't feeling so well, so I'm sure they were wondering why I wasn't doing more for her birthday, lol. I had good reasons.
Since Darinda, Jocelyn, and Lexi's birthdays are only a few days apart we did a big birthday party for the 3 of them. We had last swim party of the year, dinner, and roller skating up at Jerry and Darinda's house. Darinda bought all the grandkids rollerskates, so they had fun learning to skate on the basketball court. There were many falls, but it was a good thing grandpa had his high jump mats out, so the kids had something soft to land on when they fell :)A few weeks before Lexi's birthday, Darinda and Lexi were at the grocery store and they went over by the birthday cakes. Lexi saw a cookie monster cake and wanted that for her birthday. Darinda was so sweet and got it for her. Lexi loved it!
The next evening we celebrated Lexi's birthday with the Wangsgards. My mom did the dinner and everything, I provided the game, lol. That was easy. We played the candy bar game, which is one of our families favorites.
Although, after playing I realized that Lexi hasn't played it before because she wasn't very happy when the candybars were no longer on the table. She didn't realize that the game was still going and you got to take candy bars from other people, lol. She had a bit of a melt down :)
Once we got her calmed down, she enjoyed the rest of the game :) Happy Birthday Lexi! I can't believe you are 3 already. Time goes by way to fast!

It's been a while!

2011-11-05T10:28:00.002-06:00

It has been a while since I last blogged. I have been deathly ill, and pretty much have lived on my couch for the last 2 months. But I know it will be worth it in the end. I'm pregnant! Yeah! 13 weeks. Although, I haven't really felt pregnant over the past 8 weeks, I just feel like I've had a REALLY long, bad case of the flu. We are so excited to invite baby #4 into our family. I have been sick with all of my pregnancies, and have decided that it is a good thing the lord makes you forget how sick you really are because if he didn't there would be NO WAY you'd do it again :) However I think I've been sicker with this pregnancy than with my others. I've thrown up all day long, even though I'm taking pills to help with the nausea. I don't know if it is because I'm getting older or what. Some say it is because I'm probably having a boy? We will see, although Hunter would LOVE it is the baby was a boy (he is sick of being the only boy on both the Ropelato and the Wangsgard sides of the family). I will be happy no matter what it is! I am so so so lucky to have such wonderful family, friends, and neighbors. They all have totally stepped in and helped out. From cleaning my house, doing laundry, taking my kids for a few hours, bringing in meals, taking over my carpool, taking over my primary class, and even doing my grocery shopping. I really don't know how we would have survived without all of their help. Dave has been a huge help, but he has been gone alot in the month of October. One week he's been in New York for work, another week he's had the elk hunt, and another week the deer hunt. So the meals and stuff have saved my kids from eating only chips for dinner, lol. I am starting to feel a bit better, although I'm still taking 4 pills a day for the nausea, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that me being sick is soon at an end :)

Monday Night Football

2011-09-14T14:02:00.008-06:00

We planned a quick get away with our friends, the Copes, to go see the Broncos vs Raiders game on Monday night. It was a really quick trip, we flew out Monday morning and returned home Tuesday evening, but we had a lot of fun! It was fun walking around main street, seeing Scott's ice cream shop, eating out, and going to a pro football game.
Our driver to the game was hilarious. He was totally jamming out! We may be getting old cause the super loud music kind of hurt our ears, lol. But it was fun! Scott even started dancing a little to the music too, lol.
The stadium was packed. Over 75,000 people were there. We kind of had nosebleed seats, but it was still fun, even though the Broncos lost. About 30 minutes into the game, it started pouring, but we tuffed it out and stayed the entire game. You can't tell from the picture, but it is raining pretty hard. It eventually stopped and warmed up a bit. Dave was a sweatheart and went and bought me a dry sweatshirt. It was nice to have, because when it started raining again, it repelled the water.It was an eventful game, we saw a few fights (which I was surprised there weren't more because everyone was drunk), and there were even fireworks. Sooo much fun!
After the game, we figured there would be no way to catch a cab, and the train lines were way to long, so after a while of walking, we ended up catch a ride from a guy on a bike. We felt kind of bad for him for having to pull all 4 of us, but he made it back to our hotel in one piece. :) We all wished we would have caught a ride from a biker sooner, cause then we wouldn't have had to walk so far. We all figured we are getting old, because the 1:45 late night killed us. We couldn't get out of bed the next moring for the life of us. So about noon the next day we rolled out of bed, went to lunch then headed home. It was a short but fun get away. Next time will definetly have to be longer.

Smeding/Dutson Family Reunion

2011-09-06T08:49:00.028-06:00

Every year over Labor Day weekend, we go to my side of the family's reunion. They have been doing it for 34 years now. It started off being held in Star Valley, Wyoming (where my Grandma Smeding and her brother Max grew up). Over the years, we have changed venues several times, and over the past 15 or so years we have been going to North Fork, until this year. We decided to try out going over to South Fork. It was so pretty, green , and had a lot of things to do. Like tubing down the river, a basketball hoop, a baseball diamond, and a large field for games. It was a lot of fun. We went tubing down the river, caught fish, played games, and enjoyed visiting with family.
The river ran right alongside our campground, which was a lot of fun. The kids spent hours going down the river. Thanks to Dave and Christian for running the tubes back and forth and for climbing in the river to grab the kids so they didn't go down the river too far. The kids really had a blast!

We had fun playing a game of frisbee,basketball, an egg toss, a bubble blowing contest, rock paper scissors, a kid toss, pass the banana, etc.
You can't have the Smeding/Dutson family reunion without the pinata. :) Sharen and Hillary made it this year.

The fish pond

Lexi wearing her prize from the fish pond.

The kids had fun catching snakes, fish, and any other bugs they could find, lol.

Lexi taking care of the baby fish we caught.
Lexi looking for deer :)

We also enjoyed an outdoor latenight movie (thanks Pat and Dave), scary stories by the fire (by my dad), and a game of capture the flag. Hunter was so proud that he captured the flag twice :)
We had a great turn out this year! It was fun visiting with the family.

First Tooth

2011-08-31T11:00:00.003-06:00

Mckell has been waiting for the longest time to loose a tooth. Her friend Gretchen has lost several teeth, and Mckell is continually commenting that it is not fair because she hasn't lost one tooth yet. Infact, last year in Kindergarten she read a book that said you will start to loose your teeth at the age of 6. So on her 6th birthday, she jumped out of bed and informed me that she would loose a tooth today because she was 6 know, lol. She was very disappointed that that didn't happen. She didn't even have a wiggly tooth :). Well that all changed today, because she lost her first tooth. Yay!!! She has had a wiggly tooth now for about a month. This morning as she was brushing her teeth, she noticed there was something like a rock in her mouth. She reached in and pulled it out, and when she realized it was her tooth she couldn't contain her excitement. She ran all around the house squealing and showing everyone the new hole in her mouth. She couldn't wait to go to school and show her teacher. Infact, she informed me that Mrs. Wadman probably wouldn't even recognized her now that she had a tooth missing, lol. Yay for the first lost tooth!

First Day of School

2011-08-23T14:29:00.014-06:00

My kids were both so excited to start school this year. For Hunter, it was because he was starting a new school. For Mckell, it was just being back to school making friends. We changed schools this year to go to the same school that most of our neighborhood goes too, which made me super nervous for Hunter and Mckell today. All day long, I worried if they had made any friends in their classes, if they found their way around the new school OK, and if they would remember where they were supposed to meet me for pick up after school. I really didn't need to worry because they were fine and absolutely LOVED their first day of school.
The day started off with pictures then a run up to the street for the neighborhood "Back to School Breakfast". The kids loved getting doughnuts and visiting with friends before heading off to school. What a fun tradition!

Mckell really enjoyed her first day in the First grade. She said her teacher is super nice, she made lots of new friends (although she can't remember any of their names, lol), she LOVED school lunch, and she couldn't wait to show me the song she had learned in sign language.

Hunter also had a GREAT first day. He also said he really liked his new teacher, he made some new friends, and he liked playing a fun basketball game called "Revenge"out at recess. He was beaming from ear to ear when he told me that he was doing so good in a shooting contest that another boy came up to him and said,"Hunter you are a really good shooter! Let's be friends" I think that comment made his day :)
So I really didn't need to worry today. The kids did great, and they even remembered where I was picking them up. I think it is going to be a great school year :).

~Cherry Hills~

2011-08-20T12:44:00.008-06:00

We were invited by some friends to join them at Cherry Hills. My kids have never been there before, so we jumped at the chance. Being there brought back a lot of memories for me. Growing up, we went to Cherry Hills every summer for my dad's Hostess Bakery work party. As kids, we really looked forward to this party every year. We had a blast going down the water slides, playing mini golf, and loading up on Twinkies and Pies. It was fun to go back and see all the changes that they have made to the park, and to see my kids get excited about going on the slides like my brothers and I used to.
Lexi loved going down the pirate slide. She even got brave and went down with her hands up in the air :)

Mckell loved the Lazy River and the Dragon waterslides. She wouldn't go down the slides at first (she was a little scared). I told her I would go down with her, and she LOVED it. She went down by herself several times after that :)
Hunter loved all the waterslides :)

We had a lot of fun. As we were leaving Mckell said, "Mom, we need to bring Dad here. He would just LOVE it". I agree, we will have to come back with Dave :). Thanks Mckays for letting us tag along!

~Christian's Home~

2011-08-16T16:35:00.005-06:00

Dave just barely made it home from his all night search for Jared, when we headed out to pick my little brother up from the airport. He was just coming home from his mission to Birmingham, England. My parents went out to pick him up and visit a lot of the families Christian taught, so actually we were picking up both Christian and my parents :) Dave was such a trooper. You could tell he was exhausted but he still made it through the airport and dinner. He didn't however make it to a little get together at my parents house :) He was out cold, hahaha.

We all wondered how Lexi was going to react to Christian. She was just a little baby when he had left. She ran squealing with delight to my mom, and then realized everyone else was running to Christian, so she did too :) I think she was a little unsure why we were hugging this stranger, but that didn't stop her from doing it too, lol.

The kids had fun jumping on the tramp with Christian, and Mckell was very upset when Christian's friends all showed up and he wasn't playing with her anymore, hahaha. It is good to have him home!

~Water Slide Party and Search for Jared~

2011-08-16T16:01:00.007-06:00

Our sweet stake president has the funnest yard! Every year he has a big BBQ/waterslide party for the stake high councilmen and their families. Our kids had been looking forward to this party for weeks. The afternoon of the party, I got a call from Dave to say that he wasn't going to be able to make it to the party, but that he still wanted me to go with the kids. He had just gotten news that our cousin, Jared, was missing up in the Uintah's. He and his brothers, uncles, cousins, and grandpa were heading up to go search for him. I really felt guilty going to a party and having fun while Jared was lost up in the mountains.

Lexi playing on the splash pad.

Hunter didn't eat anything the entire night. He was to busy going down the waterslide :)

While we were playing in the water, Dave and his family were searching the mountains. They ended up forming a search group with family members and searched all throughout the night. It was cold and dark but they kept going. All they could think about was that Jared was out there and they needed to keep looking for him. And they were also determined to finish the grid the sheriff gave them to look over. It was a scary, long night, but Jared was found first thing in the morning. He used his scouting skills to make him a lean-to for shelter through the night, and he also covered himself with dirt to keep himself warm. What a smart kid!!!! We are so glad this situation ended happy. Jared is one tough kid and we are proud to call him family!
Jared and Hunter. Hunter really wanted to go and help Dave look for Jared, and was a little bummed that we didn't let him. After hearing Dave's story about their all nighter, I'm glad we didn't have him go.

~End Of Summer Pool Party~

2011-08-11T23:16:00.011-06:00

My kids have the BEST grandma ever! She let them invite all the nighborhood kids up for an end of summer pool party. The kids had a blast! We got to swim, visit, have yummy snacks, and watch the Top of Utah bike race ride past the house while we were playing in the pool. We had quite the group, I think we had a little over 50 or so kids and adults come. It was fun watching all the kids from ages 15 down, interacting and playing with one another. Thanks Darinda for letting my kids host a neighborhood back to school party.
Lexi was in heaven having her little friend Melyn there to swim at her grandmas. She had to show Melyn everything that her grandma had, from toys to swingsets. She was like a little tour guide showing Melyn around :)

Hunter and Mckell discussing everyone who came to the party :) They thought it was so cool to have all their friends there at the same time, lol.
One little girl refered to Darindas house as the other Hawaii. So cute!

~The Treehouse~

2011-08-08T22:56:00.023-06:00

With summer coming to an end, we decided we need to take these next few weeks and fill them with fun activities. Today the kids and I decided to visit the Treehouse Museum. It was a lot of fun.
This was Lexi's first time to the museum. She didn't want to leave :)

The kids took part in the "Step on Stage" play. All 3 of them were fish. Mckell LOVED being up on stage. She cracks me up.
Hunter is at a funny stage lately. He hates girls! While we were waiting for the play to start some girl (about his age) came and sat next to him on the bench with her family. He scooted over, closer to me, to get away from her a little bit, and what does she do? Move close to him. He kept scooting over and she kept moving closer to him. It got to the point where there was no more room to scoot and he was freaking out, lol. He kept whispering for me to move over, and would squeeze my hand because this girl was basically on his lap. He was totally grossed out! I couldn't help but to laugh. He couldn't get away from this girl, lol. He ended up volunteering to be in the play as an attempt to get away from her, but that didn't work cause she volunteered to be in the play too. :)
Hunter loved playing against me in a game of big chess.
Hunter cracks me up :)

The kids had fun exploring, dressing up, and playing. Like I said before, they didn't want to leave :)

~Mirror Lake~

2011-07-31T17:19:00.053-06:00

Dave was overdue for a much needed vacation, so we decided to spend the week up at Mirror Lake. It was a lot of fun and very relaxing. Mirror Lake is beautiful! We really enjoyed our week out in the great outdoors.

Lexi wasn't interested in fishing, lol, so Hunter and I took her on a hike around the lake. It was beautiful!
The next morning we started the day off with a hike. It was a lot of fun and I was really impressed that Lexi did so well. We went past 4 or 5 little lakes, and the kids loved playing in the water, shooting guns, and collecting flowers, pinecones, and feathers.

Mckell with the feathers she collected. (They are in her hair)

It started raining a bit while we were on our hike, but it didn't last long. That's the Uintahs! On our hike we stopped at one of the lakes and had a little lunch, then headed back to camp to do a little fishing.
We stopped at a river and saw loads of fish. We didn't have the poles with us, so Dave thought he'd catch the fish with his hands. Hunter and Mckell thought this was so cool. He caught 2.

Looking for fish!
Lexi got board again with the fishing, so she and I went for a little walk to pick flowers. She was so proud of herself and kept saying "Mommy, I get married".
The next day, Jeff and Becky and their girls headed up to spend a few days with us. The kids had fun tubing in the lake, playing in the waterfall, and just being together.
Lexi and Jocelyn got a little board playing in the water so Lexi, Jocelyn, and I went on a hike around the lake. Although we only made it halfway because Lexi was being so independent and wanted to walk all by herself, not holding my hand, and she ended up tripping over a rock and skinning up her elbow. She was a tough little cookie though. Even though she was bleeding, she walked all the way back without crying. Way to go Lexi!
Since the kids were already in their wet clothes, we decided to go visit the waterfall. Hunter was in heaven! He LOVED playing in the water.

Everyone had crossed the river/bottom of waterfall. I know if Darinda were here she would have not liked watching the little ones cross the watterfall :) They thought it was great though. :)
Dave, Hunter, and Mckell standing on the edge of the cliff.

Dave talked Hunter into climbing into the waterfall and doing the polar bear. Hunter thought this was great.

The kids and I played a lot of Uno.

I think this trip was just what Dave needed to get recharged for work.

~Hunter in New York~

2011-07-25T13:43:00.018-06:00

So last Wednesday, at about 6:30 in the morning I got a call from Darinda asking if Hunter could go to New York with her in a few hours. Darinda was flying out there to meet up with Jerry and I know she wasn't very excited about going alone. It was probably a good thing she called so short notice because I didn't have a whole lot of time to really think about it. Hunter has NEVER been anywhere far without either me or Dave with him. I told Darinda yes and a few hours later Hunter was off to visit New York. A few hours after he had gone, I was really missing him. I think it was more me who was not ready for Hunter to go on vacation without me, than it was him :). He was so excited to go and to get to spend some time with Dave (who was still out there for work after 3 weeks). Hunter lucked out and got to ride first class to and from New York. He thought that was great!After arriving in New York, they met up with Dave and Jerry for dinner. Hunter's favorite place to eat in New York was the Hot dog stands on every corner :)

Then they headed up to the Toys R Us in Times Square. Hunter was in toy heaven, and Grandma spoiled him with Legos.
The next day Hunter and Darinda headed to the Harry Potter exhibit. Hunter LOVED seeing all of the things that they used in the Harry Potter movies. And Darinda couldn't resist taking a picture of Hunter in a chair in Hagrid's house, even though photography was not aloud, hahaha. She almost got kicked out for doing it :)

After the exhibit and some shopping, they headed back to the hotel to get out of the heat. New York had record breaking heat while they were there. I think it got up to 103 degrees but with the humidity it felt like 116 degrees. Hunter and Darinda said they were melting. That evening they met up with Jerry and Dave for a company party. Hunter didn't think the party was very fun, so he and Dave didn't stay long. They headed back to the hotel for room service and a movie :)The next day they headed up to Central Park to look around. They didn't stay long though because it was so hot. They also went to more toy stores, then that evening hit a Yankee's game. I think Hunter was spoiled on this trip :)
Hunter had a fun time in New York with his Grandma and Grandpa. I think it was good for him to get some one on one time with them. They spoiled him rotten :) He is not going to like coming back to reality where I make him work for the toys he gets, hahaha.

~Saturday Drive~

2011-07-23T21:07:00.017-06:00

After being in New York for 3 weeks straight, Dave needed a break. We decided it was time to plan a camping trip before the summer is over, so we headed up the Mirror Lake Highway to find a spot for next weekend. We had a lot of fun visiting a waterfall and taking a hike around Mirror Lake. It was the perfect Saturday afternoon drive :)

The water was FREEZING!!!!

The girls had a lot of fun playing around the rocks, although we did miss having Hunter with us (he's in New York with Grandma and Grandpa Ropelato).
Once at Mirror Lake, Dave and Mckell couldn't wait to get into the water to attempt to catch a fish :)Mckell caught her fish. (We will not mention that it was already dead, lol)

Lexi loved throwing snowballs into the lake :) Who'd ever think we'd be making snowballs at the end of July?
What a beautiful day and the perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

~New York~

2011-07-19T09:39:00.019-06:00

So Dave has pretty much moved to New York this past month :) His company is moving to a new office so he has been there for 3 weeks straight. He does come home on the week ends though, flies home Saturday afternoon then flies out to New York again on Sunday evenings :). We've really missed him, infact Hunter has commented that he doesn't feel like Dad is part of the family anymore, because he hasn't seen him forever it feels like :). We will all be so glad when this week is over and he doesn't have to make any more trips to New York for a while :). I think Jerry and Darinda felt bad for me for not seeing Dave in so long, because they were taking Jackie to New York and they got me a ticket and let me come too :) They are the best! They even got Jackie and me First Class seats together, which was a lot of fun.

After arriving in New York, we met up with Jerry and Dave for dinner and for a tour of the new office. It is a nice building with a rooftop garden and a great view of the city.
After the tour of the building, we headed up to visit the New York temple.
Dave infront of the New York temple. You can kind of see the Angel Moroni at the top of the picture.

The next morning we got up early and headed for the Today show. We had great spots and lucked out that Harry Potter was there that day. He was like right infront of us, which Hunter thought was really cool. We even made it on TV.

This pic was taken of Marc and Randee's tv :) After the Today show we headed up to Times Square to a Harry Potter exhibit. they had actual stuff that was used n the movies. They had some really cool things there and there would have been a lot of cool pictures I could have taken, but they didn't allow cameras inside the exhibit :(. We saw all kinds of things, from Hagrids hut, to Harry and Ron's beds, all kinds of costumes for the show. You name it we saw it.
Then we headed out to do some shopping. This is pretty much what we did the rest of the time was shop. We did go down to Ground Zero, Grand Central Station, and to Trump Tower, but that was between shopping. We also did go and see the Broadway play Spiderman. Dave had fun feeding the rats skittles in the subway on the way home :) Yuck!!!
We had a good time in New York. It was good to see Dave and I bought a ton of cute stuff :)

~Happy 4th of July~

2011-07-05T10:19:00.026-06:00

We had a fun packed 4th of July this year. It started with the Cherry Days parade, which the kids have been looking forward to since school got out. They LOVE riding in the kids parade and then running for candy in the big parade :) This year in the kids parade it was Mckell who pulled Lexi in the wagon. Normally driving the little 4 wheeler has been Hunters job, but this year we gave it to Mckell. She was so proud of her driving abilities, even though she did get in a little collision when she turned in toward our spot, hahaha. Luckily no one was hurt.
One of Dave's friends, Ryan, brought his kids up to join us in the parade. Mckell and Lexi had so much fun playing with Markessa and Grady.
Hunter was to our spot way before the others, he said there was no way he was going to go that slow :) Ryan had brought a big bag of candy for the kids to throw, they really liked that :)

After the parade, we headed up to Cherry Days. The kids had so much fun playing on the big blow up toys.

Lexi was the first to the top :) She loved the slide and did not want to get off. Hunter loved playing this basketball game. I played against him once and he got wet :) Then he played against Grandpa Wangsgard and won Grandpa.

The highlight of Cherry Days was the Minute to Win It Game. The first time the kids played they had to stack pop cans 1 can plate, 2 cans plate, 3 cans plate and so forth up to 5 cans. Hunter won this game :)

The 2nd game they played was they had to use a flipper on their foot to flip up a tortilla and catch it on a plate on their head. This was funny to watch.
After Cherry Days we headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Ropelato's to swim. Hunter loved having uncle Marc there to play with. All the girls aren't as much fun, lol.

Then later that evening we did fireworks. It was a fun filled day, and boy are we all exhausted!

~Happy Birthday Dave~

2011-07-01T09:07:00.007-06:00

I am married to the Greatest Guy in the world! Happy Birthday Babe!
For Dave's birthday, the kids and I gave him all his favorite treats. Reese's PB cups, jerky, and root beer. We also took him to the movies, gave him a coupon to detail his truck, gave him a coupon for a massage, and a pair of shorts. We love Dave so much and are glad we get to celebrate his birthdays with him. Happy #34!!!

~Team Ropelato Rules!!!~

2011-06-26T12:57:00.032-06:00

Jerry, my father in law, is big into track and field stuff. He has competed in track and field events all over the world, from Australia to Italy to all over the USA. A few months back he told the family that he wanted to take us all down to the Utah Summer Games to compete in some events. He'd already reserved the hotel rooms so we'd better put those dates on our calendar. He even signed us all up for different events. Now me, not being athletic at all, was not at all thrilled about this. But I was a good sport and went anyway :) The Ropelato family did awesome down at the summer games. I think we ended up taking home 32 medals in all. Everyone who competed recieved some medals. Team Ropelato Rules!!!
The whole family sporting our medals.
We had quite the little camp set up. We had everything from chairs, blankets, umbrellas, coolers, toys, treats, etc. The kids had a lot of fun watching everyone compete and playing with their cousins.

So Dave won 4 medals. Gold in the 4by100, silver in the triple jump, and high jump, and bronze in the long jump. Way to go Dave!!!

I won gold in the javelin and in the 4by100. I took silver in the long jump. Yeah me!!!

The Ropelato girls 4by100 team.
Hunter won bronze in the high jump. Whoot! Whoot! Hunter by far had the most competition in his races/sports. In some, he went up against 12-15 kids, so he did extremely well. Also, he was competing against 9 and 10 year olds instead of boys his age.
Hunter warming up for his jump.
All the little girls did really well for spending the entire day at the track field. They practiced different events, played in the long jump pit, warmed up, and had fun running around. Next year we will have to sign the older girls up for some competitions.
Our little family with our medals. We had a really fun time down at the summer games!

~Basketball Camp~

2011-06-23T09:05:00.011-06:00

Hunter and a bunch of the neighbor boys went to Weber States Basketball camp this year. He really enjoyed it. The first day he won the free throw contest in his squad. They had the winners from each squad compete in a contest, to see who the best shooter in the camp was. Hunter took 3rd place. That is really good, considering he was competing against 10, 11, 12, up to 16 year olds. Way to go buddy!!!
The first day of camp I had Hunter wear his BYU, Jimmer jersey. Well the Weber State players kept teasing Hunter that his shirt was ugly, and that he needed to take it off :) He was a little mad at me for having him wear it, lol. Hunter with the winners of each squads free throw contest. He LOVES basketball, and had a really fun week at basketball camp.

~Kick Butt & Chew Gum~

2011-06-16T09:11:00.009-06:00

"Kick Butt & Chew Gum" That is what Hunter's baseball coach said the most important rules of baseball were. Hunter has loved playing baseball this year, and is sad that the season is now over.His team. The Red Sox.
Lexi especially LOVED going to Hunter's games, because she got to play with Melyn. They are so cute together and Lexi absolutely LOVES her!!!!

~The Rockies~

2011-06-15T21:18:00.007-06:00

Mckell's played t-ball this summer and absolutely LOVED it. Her team's name was the Rockies. Mckell was a little go getter. If she was playing 3rd base and the ball was hit to first, she'd run clear acrossed the field to get it, lol. Her coach commented how funny it was that the 2 little girls on her team were better at playing ball than most of the boys, hahaha. Way to go Mckell! She must get her athletic skills from her dad. :)
Lexi wanted to get out there and play too. She was especially upset when she didn't get a treat along with the players, lol. I guess that is something she'll have to get used to until she is older.

~Camp Keisel~

2011-06-15T08:36:00.026-06:00

I lucked out and got to accompany Hunter up to Camp Keisel this year. This was his first time at a Boy Scout camp, and he had a BLAST!!!! They played loads of games, rowed in canoes, shot bb guns, shot bow and arrows, made a craft, went on a nature hike, etc. They were busy having fun the entire day. I am EXHAUSTED!!!

The boys playing Dodgeball. Can you see Rexton hiding behind Hunter? Lol. Hunter with his pack. Davis, Cooper, Hunter, and Rexton. Our trip started off eventful. On our way up to Camp Keisel, Cooper got car sick and threw up. I'm glad he felt better and had a fun day :)

Hunter LOVED shooting the BB gun. I even got to shoot it :)
One of Hunter's favorite things up at Camp Keisel was the Bow and Arrows.

The boys showing off the crafts that they made.
A big Dogpile.

Mindy was nice and let me take Hunter's group out on the canoes. She went with the Bears. We had a race to see who could get to the other side of the little lake first. Our boat won!!! We also won everyone going back to where we started. The boys in my boat were GREAT canoers :)
The boys all bought themselves pocket knifes from the trading post at the end of the day. They had a lot of fun!

~Flooding~

2011-06-13T08:25:00.013-06:00

This year has been a really wet year. Places are flooding everywhere. We have been lucky that our house/area really haven't been affected by all of the water we've recieved, however, the soccer field by the kids school has been. Last night we went over to check out the flooded Orton Park. It looked like a little lake. People said that the water level had actually gone down since the night before, because the goal posts were almost covered with water. It's funny to think that not that long ago, Hunter and Mckell were playing soccer here.

Hunter tripped over the goal post and went right down in the water, lol.
Lexi loved splashing around in the water, that is until she slipped and fell face first into it. Grandpa rushed to pull her out and ended up slipping on wet grass into the water. Dave also rushed to grab Lexi, but ended up slipping in the water too, however he caught himself before he went completely in, so his legs just got wet. My Dad went in completely. It was sooo funny that I almost wet my pants :) Fyi, Lexi was fine.
Grandpa figured since he was already wet, he might as well go play in the water with the kids.
The kids had a ball playing in the "little lake" at Orton Park.

~Grandpa's 80th Birthday~

2011-06-12T21:58:00.022-06:00

Grandpa Ropelato just turned 80!

Dave's aunts and uncles threw a big party for Grandpa. They had refreshments, a video, and tons of pictures. Tons of people came to wish a Happy 80th to Grandpa.
There was a constant line the entire evening of people wanting to wish Grandpa a Happy Birthday.
Mckell and Katelyn dancing to the music.
Lexi enjoying her birthday cake. At one point during the night I caught Lexi, Kaitlyn, and Sarah taste testing the frosting on the big birthday cake, lol. They'd take some frosting off the cake with their fingers, lick it, then stick their fingers in the cake again :) Everyone thought it was funny, and that I should have taken a picture instead of telling them to stop. Looking back, I should have.
The kids with Great Grandma Donna. They are really lucky that they know their Great Grandparents.
Best Buddies! Hunter took this picture of us and Dave and I didn't realize that Hunter was zoomed in so close to us, lol. I can see wrinkles on my eyes :(

~Rainbow Chasers~

2011-06-12T21:33:00.002-06:00

The other night I looked out my back window and this is what I saw:A rainbow. Hunter noticed that one end of the rainbow looked like it ended right over at my mom and dad house, so he and Mckell insisted we jump in the car and drive over so we could find the pot of gold. At first I hestitated, I didn't want to go out in the rain, but Hunter told me that this could be "life changing" and that we had to go. :) Hunter and Mckell kept telling me that I needed to drive faster before someone else caught the lephracuan and found the gold first. But a funny thing happened, as we got closer to my mom and dads the rainbow faded and then disappeared, lol. We drove around their neighborhood to see if we could catch a glimpse of the pot of gold, but we had no luck. So we started driving to where the other end of the rainbow was. But with no luck again, because the rainbow had disappeared before we got to the end, lol. The kids were so disappointed because we were "sooo close" to finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Oh, to be a kids again! Maybe we'll have better luck next time we chase a rainbow, lol.

~Pool Day~

2011-06-08T17:16:00.015-06:00

The kids LOVE pool day at Grandmas!

Hunter jumping in.
Mckell jumping in
These two LOVE swimming with their goggles.
It was such a fun day.

~A Day Of Firsts~

2011-06-05T12:55:00.012-06:00

So yesterday, Dave decided that Hunter might be old enough to learn how to mow the lawn. We let him practice on the backyard. He did a pretty good job for his first time :) When Dave asked him if he'd like to start mowing from now on, he got excited and said, "Yes!!! That was fun!" I just wanted to document it, so one day when he is complaining about having to mow the lawn, I can remind him that he was once excited to do it. :)
Another first for Dave and I are that we planted a garden for the first time. We have been talking about doing it for some time, but neither of us really new where to begin :) We decide to start with a small garden to get the hang of it first. We planted strawberries, pumpkins, grapes, tomatoes, watermelons, canteloupe, peppers, corn, and snap peas. Mckell was in Heaven! She is our little gardener, and can't wait until things start to grow. So we shall see if Dave and I have the "green thumb" or not. :)

~Let the Summer Begin~

2011-05-31T10:56:00.025-06:00

We began our summer vacation this year with a camping trip to Strawberry. When the kids got home from school Friday, we headed out for the weekend with our friends, the Fullmers. It was a little chilly, but we had fun. The kids had fun canoeing, playing horseshoes, riding bikes, playing games, and fishing.

One of the highlights of the trip was fishing for crawfish. Everyone gave it a try, and we ending up catching quite a few.
At first, Mckell wasn't so sure if she liked catching the crawfish. They look like giant bugs, but after awhile she really got the hang of it.
The crawfish were still a little lethargic because of the cold. Dave caught quite a few by just reaching in and pulling them right out of the water.

Dave was the camp chef.
Mckell LOVED eating the crawfish. Lexi and Hunter both tried it, but ended up spitting it out. :) I even tried it, and I hate fish.

When we woke up Monday morning, Memorial Day, we had a surprise outside.
SNOW!!!!!!
This camping trip was a good way to start our summer vacation. Although, we could have done it without the snow, lol.

~Paisley Wangsgard~

2011-05-23T08:40:00.011-06:00

My kids finally have a cousin on the Wangsgard side of the family, Yeah!!! My brother Richard and Cassie had their sweet, little, baby girl on Friday. Welcome to the family Paisley!

The proud Papa.

Paisley is about as big as Grandpa's hand. She is so cute!

~Dancing Queen~

2011-05-19T22:16:00.011-06:00

Mckell absolutely LOVES to dance! Tonight was her dance recidal, and I was so proud of her. She danced with 7 and 8 year old girls, and you never would have guessed that she just turned 6. She kept right up with the older girls.

Mckell posing for the camera, lol.

The Cruela Deville costume
Grandma and Grandpa Wangsgard gave Mckell some beautiful flowers, which she LOVED!!! She is all about flowers.
My little sweatheart.After the recidal, Grandma Ropelato treated us all to ice cream. Mckell had a great day. She not only had so much fun at her recidal, but I got a call from the school today saying that Mckell had gotten 100 percent on a Math test and had been asked to be part of the Grizzlies 200 club. She was so excited! We love you Mckell and are so proud of you!!!!

~Marc and Randee's Wedding~

2011-05-09T09:07:00.026-06:00

Marc and Randee couldn't have asked for a better day to get married. The weather was perfect (which was a little questionable for a while with all the rain we've been getting), Jerry and Darinda's yard was gorgeous, and everyone looked fantastic!
The girls LOVED their dresses.

The ring bearer and the cute flower girls.
Hunter with Randee's niece, Staylee. These two walked down the isle together, which I don't know if Hunter was too thrilled about, lol. He is still at the stage where touching a girl is gross, lol. One day he'll look back and realize how lucky he was, hahaha.
The cutest flower girls ever!
The kids loved playing on the trampoline and on the play toys in the backyard.The wedding line.

The Ropelato Girls
So towards the end of the evening things got pretty exciting. Dave, Brian, and Jeff were going to throw Randee into the swimming pool. They pretty much had her and were going to throw her in but Marc begged them not to, so they were nice and didn't. But Jeff did throw Randee's mom Shelley into the pool. We were all shocked, lol. But she was a good sport about it. Later, Lexi got her head stuck in the deck railing. We were going to go get a drill to unscrew part of the deck, but she somehow got it out herself :) It was a fun evening visiting with friends and family. Welcome to the family Randee!!!!

~Annual Wangsgard Get Together~

2011-05-09T08:33:00.010-06:00

Several times a year, we get together with my Dad's side of the family. It has become a tradition that around Easter time, we head up to my uncle and aunt, Rod and Sherry's house in Malad, Idaho. We visit, see all of the farm animals (which the kids LOVE), and have an Easter Egg hunt.

The kids all lined up for the Egg Hunt. Let the hunts begin!!!!

I think Mckell was most excited about finding a real chicken egg in the egg hunt. She asked my aunt Sherry if she could take it home, and was thrilled that Sherry said yes. She kept it for days waiting for it to hatch. I tried to explain that a baby chicken wouldn't come out of this egg, but she kept insisting that one would. I'm glad that after a week, she forgot about the egg so I could throw it away :) She carried it around with her everywhere, and I was so worried that it would crack and then I'd have egg all over my house.

~Wall Street and Ground Zero~

2011-05-02T12:45:00.011-06:00

Dave had to go into the office this morning and help make sure they had gotten everything out and to clean up a bit. For some reason Mckell really wanted to go and help Dave clean his office. Hunter on the other hand did not, so he and I stayed back and packed up to check out of the hotel later that day. Dave put Mckell right to work at the office.

Later that afternoon, we headed down to Wall Street and then over to see Ground Zero and the Freedom Towers.
It really would have been cool to be here at the Freedom Towers just one day later to see people gather to celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden.
I really wanted to take the kids into Chinatown and Little Italy, but they were not that interested, so instead we headed back to Times Square to do some souvenir shopping. So our trip was officially at an end. We had a lot of fun!!!!

~Central Park, Trump Tower, and The Empire State Building~

2011-05-02T12:11:00.015-06:00

One of Hunter's goals for this trip was to meet Donald Trump and get his autograph. So this morning we headed up to Trump Tower. We didn't expect that we would even see Donald Trump, but Hunter didn't know that.
We went inside Trump Tower and went up as far as they would let the public go. We went up and saw the public gardens (a few trees and benches) that were on the 5th floor of Trump Tower. Hunter just thought it was cool being inside.

We then headed over to Central Park for a carriage ride through the park. It was fun seeing the Ghostbuster building, where they filmed a lot of Home Alone 2, and just people watching. We saw an older man dancing in the middle of the street, which Hunter thought was extremely funny.

Jerry and Darinda flew out in the afternoon, so we headed to see the office Dave's work was moving out of, then on the way back to the hotel we stopped and visited the Empire State Building. Our hotel was a block away from it. It was fun to get the view of the city during the daylight, since we had already seen the view of the city at night.
We were really exhausted from running, running, running the whole trip, and Dave was tired from being at work all day, so we decided to take it easy that evening. We went and picked up some dinner, brought it back to the hotel, then rented a movie, and played games back in our room. I think Dave really appreciated the quiet evening :)

~Statue of Liberty, Toy Store, Subway, and More~

2011-05-01T12:17:00.039-06:00

I think flying yesterday and the late night we had, really wore the kids out. They were dead to the world, and it was all I could do to get them to wake up the next morning, lol. We had a busy day ahead of us planned. We started off the day by heading down to see the Statue of Liberty.
Waiting for the ferry.

The original torch

The city view from the Statue of Liberty After leaving the Statue of Liberty, we stopped to watch some men dancing and putting on a show in Battery Park. They ended up pulling Hunter out of the audience to be part of their show. They had him shaking his booty, they ran and did a flip over his head, and they jumped over a whole line of people. It was really fun to watch. At the end of the street show, the rain came rumbling in. It started pouring. It was kind of funny to watch everyone run to the subways to get out of the rain. We had had plans to head up to Central Park and walk around, but with the rain we decided to hit the toy store instead. The kids were very happy about that :)
Hunter was in heaven in the Lego section.

Riding the subway
Later that night, we went on a cruise around the city. This is us waiting for our City Cruise to begin.

The scenery was beautiful! After our city cruise, Grandpa splurged and got us a limo to take us to Rockefellar Center. The kids thought this was GREAT!

Mckell kept saying that when she grew up, she wanted one of these cars. Dave made Mckell a pinky promise that he would buy her a limo one day. I don't know why he would make her that pinky promise :)On the Top of the Rock. Looking at the view of the city lights was so relaxing.
So this ended our day. Yes, we did all of this in one day. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were exhausted :) But it was a fun day! The kids said that they LOVE New York City.

~New York Baby!~

2011-05-01T10:47:00.017-06:00

This is what Mckell said the morning we were leaving on a trip to New York City. "New York Baby!" Dave goes to New York all the time for work. Hunter has been asking to go with Dave for over a year now, so we told him for his baptism Dave and I would take him. Well, things at work for Dave have been super crazy, so needless to say we never got around to taking Hunter anywhere. Well, Dave's New York office is moving to a new building, so this was the perfect opportunity to go. We also decided to take Mckell, because we knew Hunter would have more fun if he had a playmate :). We told Mckell it was part of her birthday present. And we lucked out because Jerry and Darinda were going at the same time we planned to go, so Darinda and I took the kids around while Dave and Jerry worked. We had so much fun!!! Darinda sure does know her way around New York City :) She was a pro on the subways.
All packed up and ready to go! So our flight ended up being delayed 2 hours :( Thankfully we were flying out with Jerry and Darinda, and they got us into the Sky club with them. The chairs we comfy and they fed us. It made the long wait not so bad.

Once in New York, we jumped on the subway and headed into Times Square. Hunter commented on how it looked like daytime outside because of all the lights.
The kids first time on the subways.

Times Square
We decided to eat at Planet Hollywood. The kids loved seeing all of the neat movie memoribilia.

~Happy Easter~

2011-04-25T08:21:00.007-06:00

Easter morning is a lot of fun at our house. The Easter bunny hides the kids Easter baskets and they need to follow clues to get to them. I think Hunter had a total of 22 clues, Mckell had 17, and Lexi had 10. They had a blast running all around the house, then outside to find the next clue.
The kids had written a little note to the Easter bunny, so he left a few things out for the kids, to get the basket hunt started. Their first clues are in their shoes.
Yes, it is still pitch black outside. The kids were up at 6:00 on the dot. We tried waking Lexi up to start the hunt with the other two, but she wasn't having any part of that. She climbed back in bed with Dave.
The Easter Bunny hid Hunter's basket down in the basement, and Mckell found hers in our food storage room.After about an hour, Lexi finally climbed out of bed. Hunter and Mckell were all to happy to help her read the clues to find her basket :)
Lexi's basket was hidden under Dave's computer desk.The Easter bunny brought the kids all kids of things. They each got a new swimsuit, a spring outfit, new shoes, new flip flops, crayons, a magic trick, the new Harry Potter movie, and TONS of candy.

The girls in their new Easter Sunday clothes.
Later that evening, we went to my mom and dad's for Easter dinner. The Easter bunny had hidden the kids baskets there as well. They had fun looking for another basket. The kids got more candy :) and flying moneys.
We had a very Happy Easter!!!!!

~Saturday Easter Egg Hunt~

2011-04-24T12:47:00.022-06:00

On Saturday afternoon, we had our annual Ropelato Easter Egg hunt. The kids (including Dave) absolutely LOVE this Easter Egg hunt, because a lot of the eggs have BIG money in them. This year it was a little different than normal because Jeff's family all came down with the stomache flu, so they had their egg hunt earlier that morning, so that they would not get us all sick. I'm thankful for that, but we sure did miss them :) Also, Stacey and Nate didn't make it up until later that afternoon, so for our egg hunt it was just our family and Marc and Randee. I guess Marc didn't explain how the egg hunt worked well enough, because Randee was so confused as to why Marc, Dave, and Hunter kept running past groups of eggs. Later she found out it was because they were just looking for the gold and silver eggs (those ones were the ones with money in them, lol). Darinda had it set up so that the kids were in the front yard and the adults, and older kids, were in the back. So it was basically just Lexi and me in the front (Mckell was there for a little bit, but then she wanted to go out back with the others). We missed most of the action in the back. Dave kept running right infront of Randee to get a silver egg before she did, lol. Next year she'll know not to let that happen, lol. We had a lot of fun! Mckell waiting out front for the cousins to come:) She couldn't wait to start the egg hunt.

Hunter decided to join her.
Let the hunt begin!!!! Lexi was in heaven!

Dave found most of the gold and silver eggs, lol. He was the big winner this year :)

After our egg hunt, Darinda had made a yummy lasagna lunch for us. The kids had fun playing with their cousins when they came, and they LOVED watching Katelyn, Sarah, and Abbie hunt for their Easter Eggs. We must have worn the kids out, they all ended up curling up on Gandma's and Grandpa's bed to watch a movie. :)

~Let the Easter Festivities Begin!~

2011-04-23T08:08:00.018-06:00

Friday night, my side of the family had our Easter egg hunt/ Easter dinner. It was a lot of fun. We had a delicious turkey dinner, found Easter eggs filled with money, played games, watched movies, and just visited. Lexi couldn't wait to start finding her Easter Eggs.

Richard helping Lexi get to some Easter eggs.

Mitch found all of his eggs first, so he jumped while the rest of us searched for ours :)Mckell and Richard going through their eggs.

Lexi was sooo excited to find $ in her eggs, lol. She would open her egg and squeal with delight and shout "I've got money", lol. She must have learned that from Hunter and Mckell, hahaha
Lexi ended up finding the most money out of every one :) She got a little over $18.
Hunter LOVED playing the games. He even won a few times :)

We had a fun night! Let the Easter Weekend begin!

~Mckell's Final Birthday Party~

2011-04-17T19:01:00.008-06:00

Mckell's birthday lasted the entire weekend. Tonight we had her final party with my side of the family. Mckell was thrilled that she was going to get even more presents :) It was a very layed back party, we had dinner and watched a movie. Mckell LOVED the unicorn pillow pet she got, as well as, the art set. She also got clothes and several bedazzling your picture sets. She was in heaven :)

So Mckell's week long :)birthday is officially over. She said it was the best birthday ever!

~I've got to be Crazy!~

2011-04-16T18:33:00.004-06:00

My kids are allowed to have a friend birthday party every other year. This year was Mckell's on year, and she knew it :) For the longest time, she has known exactly who she wanted to have at her birthday party. She had big plans for it. She wanted to invite all of her neighborhood friends, as well as, all the kids in her class. I tried to talk her out of that several times, but she insisted. She wanted everyone there. I told her with a group like that, the party would have to be at our house, as opposed to a fun center. So we invited a total of 30 kids to her birthday party. I know, I'm CRAZY! However, only 19 ended up coming. We had a lot of fun.We started the party by playing some fun games. Since Mckell's birthday is so close to Easter this year, we decided to go with an Easter theme. We played the "Bunny hop race" (sack race), "Crack the egg"(a pop the balloon relay), made Bunny ears, made an Easter basket, had an Easter egg hunt, and ate cake and ice cream while watching an Easter movie. It was a little chaotic, but a lot of fun. The time flew by, I had other games planned, but by the time the Easter egg hunt got over, it was already time for the kids to leave, so we bagged the rest of the games I had planned.

The kids had a blast jumping while we waited for everyone to show up.The sack race. This is some of the girls getting ready.

This was the "Crack the egg" game. The kids had to run down and pop the balloon any way they'd like. Some sat on it, some stomped it, Hunter even popped it on his face, lol. Mckell got all kinds of neat stuff. From barbies, to jewelry making sets, from giant frisbees, to dolls and pillow pets, from bags, to jump ropes, from moon dough, to lip gloss. She got loads of neat things!!! The kids enjoying their cupcakes and ice cream while watching an Easter show. I'm glad I had Dave, my mom, and Darinda there to help. Let the Easter Egg Hunt begin! The kids had candy filled eggs, capri suns, pencils, and tracer bookmarks to find. It was a fun party, but boy am I exhausted!!!:)

~Mckell's Birthday~

2011-04-16T17:25:00.025-06:00

It's Mckell's 6th Birthday! She has been counting down the days until her birthday for weeks now. She is glad it is finally here.I made her the breakfast of her choice (stacked pancakes), and we sang to her. While getting her classroom treat at the local grocery store, they found out that it was here birthday. They sang "Happy Birthday" to her over the PA system and gave her a balloon. That made her day. She also loved the attention the kids in her class gave her while she was passing out treats, and that a neighbor family brought her a bag of suckers. To make her birthday even better, that evening, we headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Ropelato's house for a combined birthday party for Mckell (6), Jackie (15), Katelyn (5), and Abbie (1). Grandma Ropelato had gotten each of the girls a princess cake. They all turned out so cute. Mckell making a mess with her cake, eating with no hands :) Although, she wasn't as messy as Abbie, lol. Mckell got all kinds of wonderful things for her birthday. She got a swingset for the backyard, Tangled, a pillow pet, beauty stuff, games, money, clothes, Barbies, and a trip to New York with Dave and me. She hit the pay dirt, lol. One thing that really made her excited about turning 6 was a few months back she was really bummed that everyone was loosing teeth, except for her. We read a book that said that kids usually start loosing teeth at 6 years old. So this morning when she woke up, she informed me that she is now 6 so she bets she'd loose a tooth today. It didn't happen, but I guess that is something she can look forward to this year :)

~Mckell's Kindergarten Spring Party~

2011-04-06T14:10:00.019-06:00

Today, Mckell's Kindergarten class had a spring party/Easter egg hunt. Mckell insisted on wearing her bunny ears to the party :) Although, she wanted to wear her new Easter dress too. I'm glad she settled on just the bunny ears. The kids getting ready for the Easter egg hunt.

The hunt begins.

Mckell is such a good sister to Lexi. She even shared her candy with her :)

Mckell's Kindergarten class.

After the Easter egg hunt, the kids played several fun games. We had a sack race, an easter egg relay races, and a Pin the Egg in the Easter Basket game. The kids had a lot of fun.

"You Might Be A Red Neck If. . . . ."

2011-04-03T19:48:00.008-06:00

You can't afford the whole slide, so you improvise by using you husband as the ladder. LOL.For Mckell's birthday, she is getting a swingset for the backyard. The kids can't wait until the builders finish it, so today during conference Dave used his muscles to let the kids slide. They had a blast!!!

Mckell even used the slide as a bed. I was shocked that she spent an entire night sleeping in it, I didn't think it looked that comfortable.LOL

~Randee~

2011-03-28T08:01:00.018-06:00

My brother-in-law Marc is marrying a cute girl named Randee in May. Stacey, Darinda, Becky, Jackie, and I threw her a shower over the weekend with the Ropelato/Coker sides of the family. Randee got lots of fun gifts.We had lots of yummy food. Mckell LOVED the chocolate fountain.

We had a really good turn out and it was fun to visit with the family.

Darinda with her sisters: Dawna, Darene, Daralynn, and Diane.

The Ropelato girls. Welcome to the family Randee!

~Happy St. Patrick's Day~

2011-03-18T14:55:00.010-06:00

The night before St. Patricks Day, I was putting the kids to bed, when Mckell commented that she couldn't wait until the morning so she could see what the leprachaun was going to leave. Last year, the leprachaun left shamrocks hanging from the kid's bedroom ceiling and starbursts all over their bedroom floor. Whoops, I think the leprachaun had almost forgotten all about it this year. It is a good thing Mckell reminded him, lol.
The next morning the kids found a note upstairs in the kitchen from the leprachaun. He told them to be good at school, and when they got home he'd have clues for them to find his pot of treasure. They couldn't wait until school got out, so they could see what the leprachaun had hid for them. The clues led them from under Mckell's bed to inside one of Dave's shoes. They ended with finding their stash in the hall closet. The leprachaun had left them a bucket full of treats: Lucky Charms, bottles of sprite, starbursts, and rainbow cookies. They were so excited.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!!

~What Mother's Won't Do For Their Kids~

2011-03-18T14:44:00.003-06:00

Even though basketball is over for the season, Hunter begs to go play at the church everyday. Well since Dave was out of town, I thought I'd be a nice mother and take him over to shoot baskets. He asked if a friend could come along, so we called Ethan. Well the boys were shooting hoops for a while, then decided they wanted to play lightning. Well you can't play lightning with only 2 people, so they asked if I'd play with them. Being the nice mother that I am :), I joined in not even thinking about the fact that I was in heels. Well, it didn't take long for me to realize that me playing in heels wasn't a good idea. The first ball that I went to run after, I ended up buckling my ankle and going down hard. I wanted to cry, but didn't because Ethan was there. I wanted to swear, but didn't because I was in the church. I couldn't move, it hurt so bad. Me falling didn't even phase Hunter. He just kept on playing, dribbling around me. After a few minutes I heard Ethan ask him, "Hunter, is your mom Ok?" At least someone was concerned about me, lol. I got up and hopped over to the stage where I sat for an hour. I really wanted to go home and take some Advil and put ice on my ankle, but I felt bad because we had just gotten there and I knew how bad the boys wanted to play. Also, I really didn't know how I was going to make it to the car. After I could take all the pain I could handle, I told the boys it was time to leave. I hopped and slid down the stairs to the car. The next day I went to the doctor to see if it was broken, because I still couldn't walk on it. They said I'd just sprained it really bad, and told me to NEVER again play basketball in high heels. Ya, I think I've learned that lesson :).

~Moab 2011~

2011-03-18T14:34:00.008-06:00

Dave has been super stressed at work for quite a while, so a weekend out with the boys was just what he needed. They headed down to Moab to do some riding. He had a lot of fun, and said it did get his mind off of work (which was what I was counting on).

This short getaway was just what he needed :)

~Junior Jazz~

2011-03-18T14:18:00.009-06:00

Hunter just completed his season in Jr Jazz basketball. He absolutely LOVED playing basketball. His team was made up of his friends from the neighborhood which was a lot of fun. At the beginning of the season, we were a little woried, because the boys were playing up a grade level. We weren't sure how this was going to turn out, but we were pleasantly surprised that our little team did really well. They won several games, and the ones that they lost were only lost by one or two points. The season ended with a tournament. We won our first game but lost our second game. It was a pretty intense game. We were tied the entire game up until the last 2 minutes of the game, when the other team pulled ahead. The boys were sad to see the season end, but they had a lot of fun :)
For the last month, Hunter has been driving me crazy with playing bssketball in the house. He is constantly dribbling in the kitchen, on our coffee table, against the walls, etc. I'm glad that he is keeping active and practicing basketball, but I will be glad when it gets warmer outside so he can take his practicing out there. Right now I feel like a broken record reminding him we don't play with balls in the house :)

The boys warming up.

Jr Jazz gave the boys free tickets to a Jazz game. This is a picture of some of the boys, plus older brothers, at the game. They had a lot of fun, even though we were sitting in the nose bleed section.

~Family Literacy Night~

2011-03-18T12:46:00.007-06:00

Hunter and Mckell's school just had a Family Literacy Night, which I was kind of over. I have basically lived at the school for the last 2 weeks, getting things ready for it. We sold Dr Seuss hats, planned literacy week activities, laminated and bound children's books for a Jr Authors Fair that night, had a magician come to do a magic show about the importance of reading, and sold concessions for the magic show. The night turned out to be a success. The children's books were darling, the magic show was great, and we earned quite a bit of money for the school.

Hunter in his classroom looking at their books.
Getting ready for the magic show.
Lexi kept climbing up on the stage, to sneak a peek at the rabbit in the cage. :)

For one of the activities during literacy week, the kids were supposed to dress up as their favorite storybook character. Mckell dressed up as Silvermist, a fairy from Tinkerbell and friends. Hunter was Harry Potter, but I wasn't able to snag a picture of him before he left for school. The kids had a lot of fun this week.

~Happy 32nd!~

2011-03-18T12:35:00.003-06:00

Wow, I'm getting old!!! Hahaha. I had a really good 32nd birthday. Dave surprised me the weekend before, by having the kids stay the night at his mom and dads and taking me to dinner and then a double header at the movie theater. It has been a long time since we have gone to more than one movie at a time, usually we are always heading back to relieve our sitter. So it was nice not to have to hurry back, and just enjoy the night. Then on my actual birthday, he took the day off work and took me to lunch and then shopping. Yes, you read right. Dave took me shopping. That is huge, because Dave HATES to shop. We went to lunch, and were planning on going out to dinner as a family, but I was still full from lunch so we just went out for milkshakes instead. I love spending time with my family, and wouldn't have wanted to spend my birthday any other way. I also have the greatest friends who brought several yummy treats and gifts by, which just made my day even better. Turning 32 was GREAT!