Tori's Amazingness

Let me take a moment and brag about my incredible daughter:

Tori had an awards assembly today and received three awards!!!  The first was for straight A's all year long.  The second was from her English teacher, Mrs. Marshall.  Each teacher chooses one or two 7th graders from all of their classes to recieve this award and Tori was Mrs. Marshall's pick.  Coincidentally, Mrs. Marshall is Tori's favorite teacher so that worked out well. 



The third award was the Presidential Excellence Award and as you can see in the picture below, only five 7th graders received this award.  It is a combination of straight A's throughout the year and exceptional scores on her national tests (the CRT's).  Of course after the assembly I was beaming with pride and couldn't wait to share Tor's amazingness!  We are so super proud of her hard work!



Baseball

Jacob played baseball this spring for the first time.  He had a lot of fun playing and was amazing for a rookie!  He hit a grand slam, a home run (unfortunately no one was on base), a double with three RBI's, two triples, and many more amazing hits that I can't remember.  He steadily worked his way to the top of the batting order through the season and finished as the clean up batter.  We were so proud of him!  We still need to keep working and practicing, but we can't wait for August when fall ball begins!

My Baby

My baby is not so much of a baby anymore.  Here are a couple of Jaxon's recent accomplishments:

Jaxon's hasn't had too much interest in riding his bike without training wheels, but we've been pushing him a little more lately and he is doing awesome.  I have a great video but it wouldn't upload.  Oh, well.  Matt said when he was helping him yesterday, Jaxon kept repeating to himself, "Face your fears, face your fears!"

 

Jaxon graduating from preschool was a huge accomplishment for him this year!  I've never really been "proud" of any of my kids for graduating preschool; it's usually just a cute milestone to remind me they are growing up.  But for Jaxon, it was a much bigger deal because he hated preschool all year.  He really struggled with peer relationships and for a while there he was getting into trouble often because of his behavior.  But his patient teachers and I worked together to come up with some solutions for him and he made it!  The latter end of the year he did so well getting along with his friends and staying out of trouble.  And I was truly proud of him on graduation day and so relieved that that chapter is OVER!!! Woohoo!

Along with his diploma, Jaxon received the "Class Joker" award.  His teachers said it was because he was always telling jokes and playing jokes on his friends.  The funny part was that right after he got his award and the next kid stood up, Jaxon moved the kid's chair behind him and scooted over so when the kid went to sit down, his chair was gone.  Jaxon does have a great sense of humor and keeps us laughing at home as well!

Oregon

This is why I miss home:

I took these pictures a few weeks ago while I was in Oregon driving through the Columbia River Gorge. Those Oregonians sure take beauty for granted!  These were taken at a rest stop and I couldn't get over how breathtaking it was.  I didn't want to get back in the car and keep driving and would have loved to take a few hours to hike around.  I need to get back there soon!!!

Animal Shelter

I am determined to make a comeback into the blogging world.  I have so many pictures and fun things to share and not enough time to blog them all.  So here goes.......

For the past several months Tori has been volunteering at our local animal shelter.  Matt and I take turns volunteering with her for a couple of hours almost every Saturday and we have a blast!  It is so much fun to see so many different types of dogs wth so many personalities and love to give.  They usually get adopted pretty quickly so we don't have the opportunty to get too attached and want to bring them home.  But we have had our favorites and are happy to see them find forever homes.  Anyway, here are some pictures of Tori and a few of the dogs she has loved.

This is "Dude."  He was there for several weeks and was just the sweetest thing.  Tori made it a point to walk him each week until he was adopted.

This is my all-time favorite....Mojave. I loved his long, scruffy hair! And he had the sweetest temperament and was a perfect gentleman on a leash. We saw him a few weeks later and he was totally shaved. Definitely not as cute. He was there for long enough that I started getting tempted to bring him home. But someone else came and snatched him up before I got serious about it. Phew!

Tourists

With so many friends and family coming and going over the past couple of months, we were able to enjoy the tourist attractions of Las Vegas.

Tori in front of The Bellagio. I don't think I'll ever get sick of seeing the fountains, but my kids mainly want to go for the gelato. YUM!

I had fun that night taking pictures of Tori in front of the Bellagio, but here you can see Bally's and the Eiffel Tower at Paris behind her.

In front of New York, New York after going to the M&M factory and the MGM Grand (with my nieces).

Inside the Venetian/Palazzo (with nieces again)

The Cactus Gardens at Ethel M. lit up for the holidays.

The new Hoover Dam bridge and of course we took the tour (we had never done the tour before!).

It's been a crazy month, but we had so much fun with everyone who came! It's nice every once in a while to be reminded that we live in a fun city full of things to see and do!

(Notice Jaxon in each picture striking his pose!)

Kids Photoshoot December 2011

My amazing and talented friend, Amanda, came for a visit at the beginning of December to run the Las Vegas Rock n Roll Marathon. Of course I had to take advantage of her being here and had her take some pictures of the kiddos. Unfortunately Cole wasn't here so we didn't take any group shots, but the kids' pictures are incredible as usual. Enjoy!