Spring 2016

Here are a few random pictures from all of the spring activities.

My mother-in-law celebrated her 60th birthday this spring.  She hasn't wanted to celebrate her birthday with a big party the last few years since it reminds her of when Vance passed away.  We figured we needed to do something to celebrate the milestone birthday though so we threw a surprise birthday party at our house after the kid's piano recital.  Everyone came and set up while we were at the recital.  We actually pulled it off and completely surprised her! This cake Tiffany's mom made for her was perfect!

Andrew on the  podium at the region meet!

Andrew had another successful track season.  Here he is pictured at the region track meet.  He placed 6th in the 3200.  He ran a 4:41 1600 at the BYU invitational and 10:00 in the 3200 in St. George.

Andrew at accolade with Teal Christensen

Andrew had a great time at prom and accolade!  His dates were beautiful!  We had fun hosting his prom group for dinner at our house.

Skyler had his preschool graduation at the end of the year in Miss Erica's class.  He loved Miss Erica but he hated being in front of everyone at the program!  He sat in his chair and stubbornly refused to participate!  He wanted nothing to do with singing songs, saying his part or even wearing the graduation cap.  You can tell he didn't mind the treats though.

I helped coach the youth track club again and Kaitlyn enjoyed running.  She's gotten to be quite competitive and you can really see in this picture how hard she is trying.  She made it to district in a couple events and her relay team even made it to state!

This was just too cute of these three cousins.  We were at the Noble family reunion on Memorial Day.  The food had all been cleaned up and it was about time to go. This watermelon had been brought by someone but no one had cut  it up. Skyler was determined to get some to eat even though we kept telling him no one had a knife.  Well, you can see these cousins found a way to open it and enjoy it!

Jason spoiled me one evening with dinner at La Calille.  It was my first time there and I loved it!  It was like stepping inside a French Chateau.  It was a beautiful spring evening.  The food was amazing and the atmosphere was incredible.  We loved wandering around the beautiful grounds.  This has been one of our busiest years ever and it seems like there is never time to spend together anymore so this evening was wonderful.

Running, Football, Dancing and More...

This weekend was one of those crazy weekends with so much going on all we did was run from one event to another.  I'm finally feeling like I have a minute to sit down and breath today.  Friday was Andrew's district cross country meet.  I thought this might be kind of a let down for him after such a big win at Bob Firman.  Even though this was a much smaller race Andrew still has some amazing teammates to push him.  It was a cool, rainy afternoon.  Andrew finished 4th with the top 5 runners all coming from Mt. Ogden, sweeping the district championship. He finished the two mile course in 12:33, (6:16 mile pace.)  It's been fun to see all these boys on the team improve so much this year.  They have one more race this week to finish off their season.

The boys celebrating their win.

Both the girls and boys from Mt. Ogden were district champions!

Saturday started early with Jason headed to the bus for the Huntsville marathon.  It was a chilly morning with frost on the ground at home and he was heading up to Monte Cristo at 8,000 ft for the start of the race where there was snow on the ground.  While he was on his way to the start the rest of us were out the door early for Jared's last football game of the season.

I told Jared to smile for this picture and he said he did!

After game treats are still the best part for this kid.

The sun was finally up halfway through Jared's game and it started to warm up a bit.  We caught the first half of Kaitlyn's soccer game and then headed up to Huntsville to cheer Jason on at the end of his race.  We were watching the half marathon runners coming by and I was starting to get really worried when Jason still hadn't come several minutes after I was expecting him.  What I didn't know is that the full marathon had started late so he wasn't as far back as I thought.  He looked good with a mile and a half left but I could tell he was hurting.  The race has a super steep downhill first half and flattens out later in the race.  A lot of the full marathoners looked like they were really feeling terrible towards the end.  This isn't the greatest picture since I got him opening the water bottle but it's the only one I got.

We had to really hurry to make it to the finish but got there just in time.  He finished in 2:52:51 in 9th place overall and 1st in his age division.  He would have liked to have been a couple minutes faster.  He said that second half was pretty tough and 10 minutes slower than the first half but it was a great race on a tough course.

When we got home Saturday afternoon I had just enough time to squeeze in one of my last training runs before St. George and then we were off to the Weber State homecoming game.  Jason was working at the game which meant I got to take all four kids myself.  It brought back memories of all those time he was in fellowship and I took the kids alone to games while he worked.  Luckily Andrew and Jared are old enough to take care of themselves now as long as I buy them plenty of treats.  Kaitlyn got to perform at halftime with the Jr. Wildcat Spirit Squad.  Her dance teacher is one of the Weber State dancers and she loved getting out there and dancing with the cheerleaders and dancers.

Spring

Spring is a busy time of year when it seems there is barely time to catch our breath between activities.  Add to that, being in my last trimester of pregnancy and there hasn't been any time or energy to keep up on things like blogging.  So here's an attempt to cover a few highlights of the last couple months.

The kids always love the school 5K fundraiser.  Andrew was determined to beat all his classmates in his age group this year.  He trained hard and even though he moved up to a harder age group this year he still placed 3rd only getting beaten by a couple of older Jr. High kids.  Jared decided to give the 5K a try for the first time this year.  Jason ran with him and he loved out sprinting dad at the end!  Kaitlyn was supposed to walk/jog the mile with me but as soon as she got to the downhill in the second half she took off.  I couldn't catch up to her until the end!

Kaitlyn had her spring dance recital.  Here's a picture of her with her teacher Brynn, who she adores!  She was super cute and wasn't a bit shy about being on stage in front of everyone!

Jason ran the Ogden Marathon this year.  He spent all winter training hard with our coach and was in great shape.  We went up to Ogden Valley to watch him on the first half of the course.

We got stuck in traffic on the way back from Huntsville and just missed him at the finish.  The kids were really disappointed not to see him finish.  He was 17th place and ran 2:54:02!  The kids were amazed though when we got to the point we had to turn around in Huntsville and they saw the thousands of runners that stretched for miles behind him.  It really put it into perspective how fast that really is!

The boys had their spring piano recital.  It was fun to see how far they have both come in almost a year since they started!  They both received awards from their piano teacher for their performances at federation and gold medals for the Olympics program she has been doing.

Kaitlyn finished up her year of kindergarten.  It is such a fun age that I am always sad to see it end.  They had a cute graduation party for her class.

 Here she is with her teacher Mr. Miehlke.

Spring is super busy with sports...soccer, baseball, and track.  Unfortunately I've been terrible at bringing the camera but here's a picture of Kaitlyn in one of her t-ball games.

Busy Time of Year

It's that busy time of year when it seems like almost every day there is a fun party or activity to go to. We've enjoyed spending lots of time with friends and family the last couple weeks. Here are some random pictures to catch up on what's been going on.

Kaitlyn's Christmas dress. She wasn't very cooperative about posing but she really did look adorable! I love shopping for a little girl!

Jared just finished his Jr. Jazz season. His team came so close to being undefeated! They lost their last game by just a couple points! He loves playing basketball and still spends a lot of time outside in the cold shooting hoops in our little basketball stand in the driveway. He can't wait until his dad gets around to putting a real one in the backyard.

Kaitlyn's preschool field trip to the Christmas Village. She kept getting behind the group because she could have spent hours looking in the windows!

Kaitlyn's first dance recital! She was so cute and she wasn't nervous at all to be up on stage in front of everyone. Here she is with her dance teacher, Brynn.

Breakfast with Santa at Grandma's house Saturday. It's nice that all my kids are old enough that no one is scared of Santa. Several of their younger cousins were crying!

Last week I was grocery shopping and Kaitlyn was begging me to buy pistachios! I didn't get any because last year Jason was given a huge bag from the hospital. Jason came home for lunch that day and guess what he had! Kaitlyn couldn't wait and found some scissors to open the bag while Jason and I were unloading the groceries from the car!

Arrow of Light

This week Andrew received his Arrow of Light award in cub scouting. In another week he'll move on to boy scouts! I'm wondering where the last three years have gone because it seems like he just started cub scouts! I remember how cute and excited he was when he was just turning 8. I thought the boy scouts were so big. He has loved cub scouts but is excited to join the 11 year old scouts, especially since they get to go on overnight camping trips. He's done a great job and I hope he keeps working this hard in scouting!
Kaitlyn started a dance class a few weeks ago. She loves dressing up in her dance clothes!