Happy 13th Birthday Sydney!

I really try not to sound like a broken record, but seriously! Stop growing up!!!

Sydney turned 13 on September 23rd!

This girl has been 13 since she was 2 years old.

Always been a little boy crazy with her first crush being Sean Jones who lived in our circle.  She would call out to him as a 2 year old.

Well, our fears from when she was 2 have come true.  Sydney is still boy crazy and the boys are crazy about Sydney.  She is LOVING 7th grade!  Her phone is constantly going off with texts.

She was so happy that I bought her cheese puffs for her bday. Those are not usually allowed in this house. Yuck!

Balloons for the lamp post...a new tradition.  I tied them on the stair railing so when she came up for school, she would see them. Then, I put them out on the lamp post for the day.

The sibling candy poster....

Sydney has broken tradition as far as our Backer's cakes.  She offered to get one this year and just have ice cream and I said no way, it's your birthday get what you want. So, Cold Stone ice cream cake!

Many poses with the cake....

We love you so much Sydney! You make us laugh everyday.  We love your fiery spirit and know that you are an amazing influence for good to those around you!  You are a loving sister (as long as Amanda doesn't want to borrow your shoes) to both Amanda and Brandon.  Dad and I love you and are looking forward to the amazing things you will do with your life! xoxo

Football 2014

 What a whirlwind October was with Football!  Playoffs started the first Saturday and we kept winning and winning!  Painting cars before we headed to our last away game in Weber County and it was fun to caravan!  Brandon even got to touch the ball in this game because we were winning by so much. The coaches started letting every kid touch the ball that could.  Too bad it was a bad pass and he ended up fumbling....but he still got to touch it! Yay!

We went all the way to the Mini-Bowl....the Super Bowl of Pee-Wee football and the team we were against was another Kaysville team. An all city bowl! We were not excited to play this team. Brandon has one of their 'stars' in his school class and he talked smack all week long. We just told Brandon to be nice and tell him we'll see on the field.  Well, we lost in the last 5 seconds as that kid ran for a touchdown!

This is super controversial because there was a flag and then after being by the opposing team's bench and hearing their coaches, the ref picked it up and waved it off.  That set a couple of our coaches off and a huge fight started. Although no punches were thrown at all, a league official raced his wheelchair onto the field and rammed our coach who was the most upset.  Then, cops were called. It was a mess.

Here's the thing....the boys played hard.  We are so proud of them!  We love the coach that got in the most trouble (banned for life by the league and 5 years by the city from coaching). We would trust him with Brandon again in a heartbeat.  I am upset that the boys were shown by both teams the wrong way to win and to lose.  But, kids are resilient and most of the boys had gotten over it by Monday.

Mike & Sydney and I left the next morning for Florida and the Allied Convention. I was worried about Brandon and this kid that is in his class, so I emailed his teacher. She was awesome and during her morning talk with them, wrote Champion on the board and had the kids define it. Then, she talked about being a good winner and a good loser. 

Since we know many of the moms on the other team, I did put out some 'congratulations' over Insta and text, but I wasn't really feeling happy about it :)

Anyway, the day Mike, Sydney and I got home from Florida (literally an hour and a half after we got home), we went to the football end of the year party.  I did the video and it was awesome! Mike even said so! And all the coaches and parents want a copy.  So, that's where my memories of this football season will be recorded.  Hope next year is even more fun! 

We are proud of you Brandon!

A couple of Amanda pix

You don't always get a picture of your kid's friends.  Amanda downloaded some pix to the computer, so I am grabbing them to document them.  This is Corey Crockett. She asked him to the Halloween dance!  They were bf and gf in 8th grade and then broke up. They are to a point where they are good friends now.  She was going to ask another boy, McKay, and texted Corey for McKay's address.  Sunday came and went and she didn't ask.  Monday came and went and because she was waiting on Chezney, she didn't ask.  Tuesday came and she went to Young Women's and then came home with Maddy and started homework.  I told them I would help them ask, but we needed to get going so it wouldn't be 11pm by the time we were done.  So, they made a poster  and forgot to put McKay's name on it.  So, Amanda made a paper with his name on it and they stuck it on the poster.  We went to WalMart and got a pumpkin and candy, they wrote each letter of her name on the milk duds and went to deliver to McKay.

As Sydney and I were parking the car so we could see the house, she said, 'What if he got asked 30 minutes ago?'  Amanda and Maddy were sneaking up to the door just as they turned off all their lights.  They froze....and then dumped the stuff on the doorstep, rang the doorbell and ran across his driveway to hide.

When we got home, Amanda got a text that McKay had been asked 20 minutes earlier!  He said he really wanted to go with her, but needed to go with the first girl.  So, he offered to give the stuff back and Amanda said don't worry about it.  When she told me about it, I said get the stuff back and we'll go ask someone else!  So, she chose Corey!  We picked up the stuff from McKay and as I was parked in the driveway I looked down at his driveway and could see how the other girl asked him. She did a body outline and put a poster on it saying I'd die to go with you.  Amanda and Maddy ran right over it when they were running from his doorstep! Ha ha ha!  I showed Amanda and we had a good laugh.

Turns out McKay ate half the candy before we got it back!  She took his name off the poster and put Corey's name on it.  She said not to worry about the candy as long as her name was in there.  We dropped it on Corey's doorstep at 11pm....and she texted him to go look outside. He was so excited and texted right back! He said I though you were going to ask McKay because you asked for his address!  I told her she better come clean with him because he and McKay are friends. So she told him McKay had already been asked, but she was really excited to go with him (Corey).  So, it all worked out great!  She, Maddy, Liz, Susie are in a group with Olivia Nielsen and friends.  Olivia's mom and I are good football friends.  We worked together in jr high PTSA and then our boys ended up on the same football team for 2 years so far.  Love that family and so excited they are going together!

Below is Corey's answer to Amanda. The pumpkin has a note inside saying YES!  I took this from her vsco account and didn't edit, that's why her name is on here!!

They do day dates and then the dance another day with an after party. So for their day date, they are going to pick pumpkins, go to Liz's to decorate them and then back to the corn maze.  The dance dinner will be at the Pirate ship at Cherry Hill thanks to Maddy's connections! So fun! They will be pirates!  Then, the after party is at a rented out Classic Skating.  Sounds like a blast!

Sorry about the sideways picture, I should have edited before uploading it! This is Amanda's high school carpool minus Maddy.  Austin Keeler takes Liz and Amanda and brings them home everyday for $5 a week! Total bargain! Plus, he's a junior and cute, so they really like going with him!!

Orange Saturday!

The day we played Syracuse was our last really big game. They were undefeated just like we were.  The coaches made the whole week orange week!  They mixed up their drills and we ended the week with pizza and orange drinks complete with orange balloons. Coach Jeff wanted us to wear as much orange as possible and his wife, Jana, brought orange balloons to the game.

 Then, Coach Scott's little boy dressed up as our Tiger mascot! He was so cute! He lead the run through the banner....

 And Coach Drew was on the other side ready to save his life!

 The boys were excited and ready to play!

 Mike took his spot on the chains.  He has enough orange because that is Allied's color!

 And, we crushed them!  The boys played awesome!

 At the end of game talk, the coaches and parents couldn't be happier!

 And Mike did the gatorade dump on them....it was only water, but same effect!

 So fun!

 Grandma & Papa Arvy were tending Doug & Cath's kids and brought them up to cheer Brandon on.  Luckily, the field we played on had a playground nearby so they spent some time there.

 Then, we went to Maddox for lunch!  Good times and a great Saturday!

Football pics

Football makes life a little crazy.  It's 4 days a week practice right at dinnertime and then games on Saturdays.  The practice time changes as soon as the sun starts setting earlier making scheduling piano around it harder.  Next year, Amanda can drive him to practice, but this year I'm scrambling most nights.  Luckily, practice is at Barnes Park and round trip it's 8 minutes.  Unless of course the construction and city start work on 200 North, Flint Street and Angel Street all at the same time.  It's driving all us westsiders crazy!!

So, let's talk about this cute boy instead!  We love taking pictures of his games.  We may be in charge of the end of year video since I'm team mom, but that's yet to be determined. So, in the meantime, Amanda, Jen Nielsen and I are all taking a ton of pictures so that we have some of every boy for the show!

Coming back from halftime and running through the banner...

Brandon loves having a cheering section! Thanks to the grandparents for coming!!

Brandon in action!!! Bear River (in red) was supposed to be a hard team, but we shut them down!

During Brandon's game, the girls got to go to the Utah game thanks to Uncle Rog & Aunt Cozette!

They were so excited! Thanks to Uncle D and Kat and Zach for taking care of our girls!

After Brandon's game, the whole team did the ice bucket challenge. They were so cold!!

Love these days!!

Random and Temple Open House

Amanda got together with soccer friends, Savannah and Sierra and went to the RSL game. She really misses these girls! They are so sweet to keep in touch with her. They also have come to one of her dance performances!

 While working on their summer bucket list, Brooks (I think it's Brooks) came to help blow up balloons. He knows where the cute girls are!!  I took this picture and sent it to his mom!

 Our last boating trip!  Took Chezney and Katie Walters.  So sad that our boating trips are so limited now!  When football starts the last week in July, it really shuts it down!

 Brandon finally  used some of his money and bought a Kendama....

 He was so excited!

 Um, ya...Max is spoiled. Sorry Grandma that you made this pillow for Sydney and now Max uses it!

 We toured the new Ogden Temple. It's so beautiful!! Probably one of my favorite celestial rooms!

 It was fun to be there with our own eternal family and teach the kids what each area was used for...

 Then, we went across the street to Farr's and had ice cream.....see Brandon's face? He really liked his :) That or he likes to make us laugh!