Good Luck Levi!!

My little brother Levi flew out with my parents early this morning for the MTC. He will report tomorrow and will be in the MTC for only 3 weeks. He then goes straight to Melbourne, Austrailia. I am so excited for him and so grateful for the example he is setting for all of us. This is on Sunday right before his farewell. He did amazing and it was so fun to have all 10 kids there. We got family pictures and I will post those a little later!

First Day Of School

I can't believe that JoAnn is in school. I feel like I lost my best friend from 8-3:00. She is so excited about it and is having a blast so far. This is her on the first day. Her school has uniforms so there isn't much to do except try to have fun with her hair. She had a little bit of a meltdown at first, but by the time she got home she was ready to go right back.


Posing for the camera!

Like I said...I love to go crazy with the hair! girlydos.blogspot.com has some awesome ideas.

Doesn't she look so small with that huge backpack :)

Daddy left before she woke up, so he called to tell her good luck! She was so excited that he would remember.

Jay started to cry when she left and then said, "Now I have no one to play with." I think he forgot he has another sister. :)

For the first day of school, Mary Ann showed me how to make these really cute clip boards for the teacher. JoAnn was so excited to give it to her teacher!

Right after this picture I tried to walk out and JoAnn came running after me. I think she suddenly understood that I wasn't going to be staying at school with her. My friend Amber was so good to go and check on her a little while later and she said that she looked nervous, but had stopped crying.

The 24th in St. Johns

Okay! I am back again...but who nows for how long :) This is going to be a long post so bear with me. I love our tradition of going to St. Johns for the 24th celebration. It is always so much fun and we love getting out of the heat. This year was also alot of fun because my brother Levi did quite a bit events in the Rodeo. It is just a blast to be with family and let the kids experience a little bit of country life :)

This is Levi doing the Cowhide Race. That is my little nephew holding on for dear life behind him...but he won!

This is called the KEG RACE. It is kind of like musical chairs. You start sitting on the crate, then when they say go you have to jump up onto your horse, race to the other side and come back and sit down. Of course they take away one crate every time. Levi came in first on this one also!!

This is all the cousins at the parade. The older boys and all the men went fishing so it was just us girls.

JoAnn and Savanna in their matching outfits. (I love OLD NAVY clearance)

The kids always look forward to the parade...just to see how much candy they get!

The last thing in the parade is the fire truck. It hoses down all the kids and they have a blast:)

This is my brother Steven and JoAnn. Him and his wife came all that way to support Levi! I have an amazing family.

Levi with the two girls. I can't believe he leaves in 3 weeks. It is coming way too fast, but he is going to be an amazing missionary.

Jay with my nephew Blake. Can you tell they were enjoying their candy?

Kaylee and JoAnn at the rodeo.

What an awesome family we have that we try to support eachother in everything. Everyone here came over just to watch Levi in the rodeo...can you tell who the favorite is? j/k it is just his "last" before his mission and we are realizing how much we are going to miss him.

JoAnn, Jay, and Blake at the rodeo.

I love this picture. It is so much fun to be able to go home and let my kids get to do the same things I was doing at their age in the same town too.

Every year there is a free ice cream social. It is so nice outside always and the ice cream is so good! This is right after I cleaned them up, but I should have gotten one of them covered in ice cream.