Happy Birthday Ryan

For Ryan's birthday this year, he took us all hiking.  We had so much fun.  The kids are great little hikers.  Even Seth hiked for a while.  When he got tired Ryan carried him in the baby back pack.  It was so nice to get away and enjoy the outdoors for the morning.

The kids at the start of the hike

Ryan's birthday breakfast

Cracking up over a few of his presents...egg nog (he loves it) and the current jar of peanut butter (you never know what the kiddos will find around the house to wrap up.)

In honor of Ryan's 34th birthday, here are 34 fun facts about Ryan...

1.  He sets goals, and works really hard to accomplish them.
2.  He is very patient.
3.  He loves canyoneering.
4.  He invented one of the parts in the guitar for guitar hero.
5.  For the past 12+ years, Monday thru Friday, he eats peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.
6.  He has camped overnight on the top of Weaver's needle.
7.  He likes to run...(well, I don't know if he really likes running or not, but he runs so he is in good enough shape for hikes etc)
8.  He is an excellent story teller.
9.  He likes the show The Office.
10.  At one time he was extremely OCD about germs and washing hands etc, but has worked really hard to relax about all that.
11.  He speaks Spanish.
12.  He loves milk shakes.
13.  He loves going on vacations.
14.  He climbed to the top of Half dome this year.
15.  He has been to Kuala Lumpur more times than I can remember.
16.  He likes Star Wars.
17.  He is a super husband.
18.  His favorite food is soft shell crab.
19.  His ankles crack when he walks up and down the stairs.
20.  He is an awesome dad.
21.  He likes to read.
22.  He fixes dinner for the family every Sunday.
23.  He is into saving money.
24.  He is into NOT  wasting money...(hee hee...this one is for the kids because we frequently talk about how to not waste money as part of FHE.)  :)
25.  He can do all sorts of weird hand tricks that keep the kiddos entertained during church.
26.  He is really really really strong.
27.  He can do back flips on the trampoline.
28.  He takes care of his family.
29.  He can sing really well--just doesn't do it that often.
30.  He is does not like shopping.
31.  He is good at hunting scorpions with his trusty black light and "death stick" (aka the old broom handle)
32.  He is compassionate
33.  He is happy
34.  He is HANDSOME!!!

Love you husband!  Happy Birthday.  :)

Happy Halloween

Well, better late than never...

We had a great Halloween.  We carved pumpkins Thursday evening before we took the kids to gymnastics and karate.  Lots of fun.  And the best part was that Olivia, Grant, and Isaac carved their pumpkins themselves!!!  Seth and I shared, and Ryan had his own.  Nice.  :) 

 Grantman the Cowboy

 The boys

 Grandma Hooper let Grant borrow his sweet cow hide coat to complete his cowboy look.  :)

 Isaac aka Indiana Jones

 I love it!!!

 Olivia is the queen bee

 Very very sparkly queen bee

 Seth was Dash from the incredibles

 He really got into character...he was so fast I couldn't get a good picture of him.  :-[

 The group of us...I was glad Grant let me borrow his karate gui to wear, however I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about the fact that it fit...(At least it was really short on me;) )

We had lots of fun at our ward trunk or treat.  The best was when we got home and the kids had their "semi-annual candy exchange" where they trade each other for their favorite candies.  (They said the "annual candy exchange" was at Easter)  Then they figured out they could give Seth all the gross candy and he would happily give them the good stuff.  He was just happy to be included.  I let them eat candy 'til bed time and the next day too, then we cleaned up all the wrappers and brushed teeth and were finished with it.  :)  It is nice to have it gone!!!

First Meet

Olivia had her first gymnastics meet of the season.  She did great and had lots of fun.  You can't use the flash during competitions, so we don't have a lot of pictures of her competing, but here she is in an arabesque with her medal.  She placed 2nd on each event for her level, and 5th over all for her level.  Great job Livvi!

Happy Birthday Olivia

Our sweet daughter Olivia turned 10!!!!  Yikes!  We had a fun weekend celebrating her birthday.  She requested breakfast sandwiches for breakfast, I took panda express to her at school for lunch, and tacos with extra olives for dinner.  This year we let her have a "friend" party.  I'm not a big party planner, usually we just invite cousins over or something, but she was really excited for one, so I was really brave and we did it.  In honor of Olivia turning 10, here are 10 fun facts about her...

1.  Olivia loves to read, and she is really really good at it.

2.  Olivia is an excellent student.  I NEVER have to ask her if her homework is done.  Its always done.

3.  Olivia is a good friend.

4.  Olivia is a missionary.  :)

5.  Olivia is already an excellent babysitter. 

6.  Olivia is enthusiastic.  I love being around her because it makes me more excited about things too.

7.  Olivia loves gymnastics.  Her strength is her flexibility.  Not many people can do the stretches she can do.

8.  Olivia wants to be an author BEFORE she grows up.  Why not start sooner (her words)

9.  Olivia is selfless.  So many times I see her being a peace maker rather than take what is rightfully hers.

10.  Olivia loves trying new things.  We are in the middle of our first musical TOGETHER and she is doing wonderful!  She helps me with my lines because hers were learned months ago...She also started the violin--SO CUTE!!!

We love you Olivia and we love how blessed our family is because of you! 

Here are a few pics of the fun events...Her party was a watch-a-movie-in-p.j.s party--very fun.

New Belts

Someday I will be caught up, but until then, here is more old news...

Shortly after school started Grant and Isaac earned their Blue with Purple stripe belts, and two more kata patches each.  We are so proud of them.  They are in the advanced class (blue belts and above) and their class was so late in the evening.  They were so tired when they finished, but they stuck it out and did great.  They started the summer as solid blue belts and ended with skipping two stripes to move to their blue with purple stripe belts.  We are so happy for them.  Now they are working a lot with their nun chucks.  (SO CUTE!!!)  And the best part is now the advanced class is on a different day so they don't have to stay up so late.  Good times.

Isaac with a guarding block and Grant sporting a knife hand block.  (I think)  :)

First day of School

Still playing catch-up with the ol' blog. Didn't want to miss this very important day.
The first day of school was great. So far so good. The kiddos love there teachers and are happy to be back in the school routine.

Grantman, the mighty third grader.
Isaac, first grader MVP (at least to this MOM)

Olivia, my darling fifth grader.

It is truly scary how quickly the kids are growing up. It doesn't feel all that long ago that I dropped Olivia off for her first day of young learners kindergarten. I couldn't go home without her, so I took my baby boys (at the time) to walmart and we walked around for hours and ate a LOT of donuts. Since then I've learned not to drown my "I am going to miss my sweet kids" feelings in donuts and although its still a sad day for me, I am super happy that they love school and are excited to go.

Grand kids

We were in Snowflake for the Pioneer days celebration. We had a wonderful time as always. The kiddos got to be in the parade again riding in Uncle Nolan's trash cans. (made their summer). We took some family pictures while we were there. We had to photo shop a few in, so I can't post those yet, but here is one Ryan took of all the Larson grand kids. Sweet group!

Here is part of the trash can train...there are more on my facebook, I just don't know how to put them on here. :) In my atempt to win the mother-of-the-year award I took a ride in them too because Seth wanted a turn and he was a little too small, so I held him inside the trash can. -Pretty fun
All but one of the Larson grand kids with my mom and dad. (my little nephew Dax was napping, but we will put him in there)

Seth and I at the parade.

I just put this pic in because I love it. I came home from a rehearsal one night and found these too little buddies all snuggled up together. :)

Happy Birthday Isaac

While I have been on a blog vacation, my sweet Isaac turned six. He had a pirate themed birthday with krispy kremes for breakfast. In honor of Isaac turning six, here are six fun facts about Isaac...

1. Isaac is super scrappy--we love that about him.
2. Isaac has his own pronunciation for many words i.e. BAZOMBIES (zombies) RENUKE (nuke) CURRICULUM (kryptonite) KABOOZLE (kazoo)...I could go on :)
3. Isaac is very responsible with his glasses. He puts them away at night, and likes to wash them.
4. Isaac is a snuggle bug--LOVE IT!!!
5. Isaac is excited almost all the time.
6. Isaac is fearless. :)
Not the best quality on the pictures I know, but you have to have the age on the fingers shot.

We love our Isaac man. You are growing up SO FAST!

Dear Blog,

I have neglected you for far too long. I'm sorry. I've been too occupied with other fun things to update you. I will try and do better...

Hugs,
Me

Utah Vacation

We had a wonderful vacation to Utah this year. We were so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa Hooper with us, and Julee and Danny and kids for part of it too. We went to Navajo Bridge, Zion National Park, Provo, Temple Square, the Great Salt Lake, went to our adorable new nephew Wyatt's baby blessing, Drove the strip in Vegas, and took a few pictures at the Hoover dam. We survived and loved it all. The kids did great. They hiked so much, and didn't complain once. :) Our biggest disappointment was the lack of Carl's Jr restaurants along the way. (They are the ONLY fast food chain in our opinion). It was fun to get away and enjoy being together. Good times. Julee and Danny, Thanks so much for letting us hang out with you. You guys are so much fun. :)

Here is a few of our pictures from the trip. I was having difficulties loading the pictures, so we don't have it all. But that might get boring anyway...

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day to my sweet hubby! Here are a few thoughts about Ryan...

H-Helpful
A-Attitude, He has a great one
P-Patience, its a prerequisite at our house. :)
P-Phoenix Suns fan
Y-Yes, I'm super glad I married him!

F-Faithful
A-Active, always up for adventure
T-Tall, he reaches high things for me and never complains about it
H-HANDSOME
E-Eternity, that's how long he's ours
R-Reverent
S-Star Wars toys, he has some awesome ones, and he lets the kids play with them all. :)

D-Devoted
A-Attentive
Y-You are awesome, and we love you!!!!!

Thanks for being the best hubby and daddy!

Happy Birthday Seth

Our baby Seth is now two! I can't believe it. I didn't give him permission, but he is growing up anyways. We had a fun day with Seth for his birthday. Seth LOVES trains, so I made him a train birthday cake.
Here he is for his birthday breakfast...pop tarts.

Seth got a little train for his birthday. He loves it and carries it around with him EVERYWHERE we go. When we go swimming he leaves it in the car and brings a hot wheels car with him. Those trains are pricey...no taking them in the store, pool, or church...they'll just get lost. We had tons of hot wheels though, so that I don't mind. As soon as we get back in the car though he switches back to his train.

His birthday dinner was hot dogs. Here is his big ketchup grin.

The kiddos.

Since Seth is now the big 0-2, here are 2 fun facts about Seth...

1. Seth doesn't like it when someone is sleeping and he is awake. He will come up to you and tell you "wate-up!" if he sees you with eyes closed. Ryan learned this the hard way...He had dosed off in sacrament meeting, and when Seth noticed he said in a NOT reverent voice "Wate-up Dadda! until dadda woke up. Hee hee.

2. Seth LOVES planes and trains. Any sound we hear he will stop and make sure its not a train or and airplane before we can move on.

We love our little Seth. We didn't realize how big he was getting 'til we watched my little nephew Dax. Then he looked like a giant. Ryan and I both were shocked by how grown up he looked compared to an actual baby. That's ok though. We are thrilled he is doing well, and love having him in our family.

Back to Blogging

I took a little Blog Vacation, but hopefully I'm back on track for a while. (Well, if I can ever catch up). I'm just going to try to get us current again, so no fancy stuff and out of order pictures. Its faster that way. So here's what we've been up to...



Ryan has been super busy with work, but still finds time to be the best husband and dad ever. He has been on some exciting hikes and canyons lately. He has a huge one coming up next week. For pics and info on all of Ryan's canyoneering adventures see his fb photos. He keeps better track of them than I could.



I am still just very thankful to have survived May. That was one crazy month with Grantman's baptism, all the end of the year school stuff, and sharing times etc. It was awesome, but very busy. Summer is going well. It is fun to have the kids around. Its nice to know that my taxi services are still required several times a day. One of the highlights of Motherhood came a few weeks ago. It was the first time I took the kids swimming for the summer. As we were driving over to the pool, the kids were being over the top thankful and complimentary of me for taking them swimming. (We really like to build stuff up sometimes) :) Anyway, as we were getting out of the car and walking to the pool, Isaac and Grant started fighting about if I was young or beautiful. HA! I just let them fight, and enjoyed the moment. It may never happen again, but I won't forget it. Good times.



Olivia is doing great. She was invited to be a candidate for the team in gymnastics. She is now practicing with the team girls for over the summer, and they will test her at the end of the summer to see if she is ready to stay on the team. I'm super proud of her. It was a big adjustment to go to the long team workouts compared to her regular classes. She loves it though and is doing really well. I love that she has something that she has to really work HARD for. She has improved so much already. We are happy that she gets to be in the Honor Society and that she received so many academic awards for school. She is loving activity days, reading and swimming. Plus she helps me SO MUCH.



Grant is doing awesome as well. He loves his new set of scriptures he got for his eighth birthday. He has been busy marking them all up. :) Grant also did awesome in school. Now that he is a blue belt, his karate classes are getting so exciting. They are learning a new bow staff kata. It looks super cool. I will try and post a video when they learn it all. Grant is LOVING being in cub scouts. He has his book out all the time and is always working on something. He is determined to beat me in arm wrestling. I can still take him, but I will break a sweat doing it now. It won't be very long. YIKES!



Isaac is having a great summer so far. We went to his kindergarten graduation in May. He is a great student and we are super happy that he works hard in school. He is LOVING karate now too. (who knew little boys would love learning weapon katas??? hee hee) He is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his NUN CHUCKS. :) Last week he asked me if we could not be too busy that day because he needed to make time for his "Jedi training." I love how this little guy's mind works. Makes me happy. (yes, we had plenty of time for his Jedi training).



Seth is now two. I will post more on that later. Seth is in his first session of swimming lessons. So far he just screams the whole time. However when we are just playing at the pool I can do all the stuff with him from swimming lessons and he only freaks out over the back float. I can even dunk him and he doesn't get mad. So I know he is learning a little, I just feel bad for all the other parents and kids in our class. Sorry--maybe you should bring ear plugs. :) Seth is a talker. He surprises us all the time with the stuff he says. One of my favorites is that he rarely just says no. It is always no thank you. So sweet. We also love how he says strawberries. This is his favorite food, and he says it different every time. It usually has 5-7 syllables in it something like stradabedididies. The more excited he is about them, there is usually more syllables in it. He will also walk into a room and say hey, whats doe-ing on in here? When he is playing by himself, we will hear him pretend fighting with his toys: dive it back! no you dive it back! Oh sorry. Over and over. It makes us sad that he plays fighting. I guess we need to work on being a little nicer so Seth can hear more pleasant things to play about.



So far it has been a great summer. Nothing better than having extra time with the kiddos! These little ones are so much fun. I'm a super lucky mama!



Here are a few pics of the kids end of year things.

Isaac's kindergarten graduation

Olivia's recorder concert

Livvi and Grant after their Honor Choir Concert (Grant is catching up in height...zoinks!)

I missed getting to post on Mother's and Father's day. We just wanted to tell our moms and dads again how grateful we are to have you guys. We are so lucky to have awesome parents, and awesome grandparents for our kiddos. Thanks for always being there with advice, help, love, and patience. Love you!