Michael & J.J. wrestling

Michael and Josh love to wrestle. Michael is such a good big brother to J.J.

A Visit to Draper Park - What a Windy Day!

Coco and Brookie are such good friends.

Josh in the baby swing.

Ash insisted on bringing one of our pugs, Zoe and she had a lot of fun with her.

Joshua, Tommy, and Courtney

All tuckered out after a windy day at the park. Michael fell down and cut open his elbow.

Natural Beauty

Courtney went to her cousin Brooklyn's birthday party at Sweet and Sassy. She was dolled up so cute that I had to pull over and take these pictures of her. We think she is beautiful!

Heartbreaker!

Birthday Celebration at Nana's

Sophie worried because her mommy left her sight. She's such a cute mama's girl!

John playing with the boys.

Pose!

J.J. hiding so he doesn't have to eat (his normal routine).

Best buddies.

Tractors right across the street - A boys dream!

Josh loves to follow the stepping stones through the flowers.

Jake's Mission Homecoming

Jake and Jon enjoying food and family. It was so fun to sit and talk to Jake and hear about his great experiences!

Courtney ate about 10 cookies and desserts.

Enjoying the sunshine, the food and the company.

Cute brothers! Josh and Michael love to play together.

Ashley and Whitney are great friends.

Beautiful "Princess Courtney" as Josh calls all girls in dresses!

Jenny and Haylee talking to Jake.

Meghan, McKenzie and Jordan relaxing and enjoying the family.

Jake and Jason, so happy to see Jake!

Grandma Anne and Jon enjoying the sunshine.

Cole telling everyone about breaking his hand while snowboarding. 

Wendy, ugh!

Dawn and Gayle

Jon and Whitney enjoying the moment. She's growing up too fast!

Ron and Jared.

Courtney's 6th Birthday!

Coco on her 6th birthday. Isn't she adorable!

Brookie, Courtney, and Cherish

Coco's Birthday Friends:

Back: Sophie, Cherish, Miranda, Ellie, Karstina, Summer F.

Front: Cami, Macy, Courtney, Brooklyn, Summer M.

Jump On It

Our family went to "Jump On It" to celebrate Courtney's birthday. It's a place that has wall to wall trampolines. It was so much fun!

Weeeeeee!

Whitney's Orchestra Concert

Whitney is in her second year playing the viola and is really improving. It is so fun to listen to her play.

Whitney's SSA Group

Whitney is in Timberline's SSA singing group with about 70 other girls. She loves it! She recently tried out for two other elite singing groups at Timberline for next year and made both. She had to decide which one to do because her schedule wouldn't allow her to do both.

Grandpa Grant, Grandma Anne and Grandpa Rob came to hear Whitney sing. Nana got sick and felt so back she couldn't make it. It's ok Nana!

Michael's Mad Science

Michael and his friends Josh and Spencer at Mad Science.

Mad Science is an after school program where the kids get to do science experiments with a "Mad Scientist". Michael has enjoyed it.

Courtney and her "Little Sister" Sophie

Courtney loves her little cousin Sophie. Since Courtney doesn't have a little sister and Sophie doesn't have a sister I call them "sisses"

Courtney wanted to change Sophie. She did a great job!

Caleb and Josh - best buddies!

Peterson Birthday Party at Hasleton's

Cute Grandma Mary feeding Sophie her dinner.

Grandma Mary, Nana, Grandma Bette and Sophie. What beautiful girls!

Birthday kids blowing out their candles.

What a group we are now!

Michael without his front Teeth

Michael Lost his two front teeth within two days.

Les Miserables at American Fork High School

Jon, Whitney, Ashley and I really enjoyed Les Miserables at American Fork High School. They put on a great production. It was very professional for a high school musical. We really enjoyed it! It brought tears to our eyes (at least Ashley and me).

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

It was Ashley's first time trying out for a play. She got the part of a narrator and she did a great job! She had quite a few lines and remembered them all! She really enjoyed t and I think she may do it again some time.

Nana, Grandpa Rob and Ashley after her play. We are so proud of Ashley!

Easter

Kids posing in their new Easter clothes. it was s such beautiful day on Easter we enjoyed being outside in the sunshine.

Michael blowing bubbles for Josh and Courtney to pop.

Pop 'em Josh and Courtney!

Coco blowing bubbles.

Family dodge ball! Look out!

Soccer Season

Michael dribbling the ball. He is really getting coordinated with kicking that ball! This was a freezing, cold day so he wore his parka.

It was so cold that day!!! Go Ashley get the ball! She's really getting fast!

I told Courtney that if she scored a goal, I'd pay her a dollar. Guess what she did? She scored and I had to pay up! Great Job Coco!

February 2008

6th Grade Valentine's Dance

Ashley wore her favorite brown and pink dress. She looked so cute!

She wanted her hair up in a french twist, so we did our best.

Grandpa Rob's Birthday Party!

Courtney loves parties!

Ash & Jonny loving the silliness.

John and Steph.

Holly enjoying the crazy charades game.

We played charades and it was so funny to see people acting out things. Steph acting out something. She is so fun and silly!

Cute Grandma Buddy!

Brian and Tyson talking.

Hanging out and talking.

Jonny & Courtney relaxing. Jon hadn't slept for 3 days straight. He looks exhausted!

Tommy

Logan and John (are they twins or what?)

Lukers!

Uncle Brian

Jon and Ashley's California Adventure

They had so much fun together on their Daddy Daughter date!

It was a great experience that I'm sure they'll always remember!

Ashley loved the orange convertible car they rented and zoomed around in!

They went down to see some flooring at the Nordstrom in California because Jon was bidding a Nordstrom here in Utah. It was a spontaneous trip. He told me and within about three hours they were on their flight to Cali.

Michael's 9th Birthday!

We can't believe Michael is 9 years old already! Look how cute he is! He is such a great boy and we love him so much!




Whitney made him breakfast in bed (notice the blue milk).


Look how excited he is to open his gifts.




Michael built a helicopter out of a lego kit he got for his birthday. It took him about an hour and stayed focused on it the entire time until it was finished. He has great concentration!



Whitney baked the cake and Ashley used their new cake decorating kit to decorate this cake for Michael. Courtney even helped mix the frosting! They did it all by themselves and I didn't even touch it. It turned out great!

Michael's birthday party was a blast! The boys were so much fun!

Michael's friends: Tommy Doman, Cade Macdonald, Jimmy McKeon, Michael, Chase Battaglia, Anders Sorensen, Brandon Moe, Parker Hannemann and Joshua Christofferson

Treasure hunt!

Musical chairs! (A traditional party game in our family).

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We are so very blessed to have such a great family!

This is our annual tradition of decorating a gingerbread house. We have a cute neighbor who is amazing at homemaking skills and does the whole gingerbread house from scratch and they turn out exquisite. I attempted to bake one but I realized it was too much work, so I bought one at Costco and we decorated it. It was much simpler and the kids enjoyed it just the same!

Michael trying to decide which candy to "snitch".

Cute Whitney being silly, as usual.

Beautiful Ashley in her fashion glasses.

Mommy "directing" the gingerbread project (My face looks like its a very serious project).

"I think that should go there", says Daddy.

We visited Temple Square. It was FREEZING but BEAUTIFUL! We enjoyed it very much. Afterwards we went to Denny's because Courtney was STARVING. We all ended up eating dinner at ten o'clock at night. The cold made us all hungry and it sure tasted good!

We got to go to the north visitor's center and look at the paintings and the Christus. It was special!

Bundled up and waiting for the Trax train.

Awesome sight, our eternal family (except me) standing in front of the temple!

We Love Christmas Morning...

The kids on Christmas morning...Josh wasn't very happy! Poor Josh! The kids opened all their presents and we could tell they were trying to be grateful, but they were not completely satisfied with the gifts that they were given. We were so proud of them trying to be grateful! Then Whitney noticed that there was a note left under the cookie plate from Santa. He said that as they were landing on the roof, Rudolph got the hiccups and some of the gifts fell out of the sleigh. He tried and tried to find them but had to keep on schedule and get to the next home to deliver gifts. He left clues around the house for the kids to find their gifts. After they found each clue, they had to sing a Christmas carol on the way to the next clue. After about 13 clues (up and down the stairs - we were all out of breath) they finally found their gifts hidden under their beds. They then had to bring them into the family room and open them for all to see. They were so excited to open that last gift because it was the gift they wanted most of all. It was a Christmas morning I'm sure they'll always remember. It was very fun! Santa is very Silly!

Josh and Courtney enjoying the Christmas Moment of decorating.

INTRODUCING...ZIGGI!

Jon decided that we needed another addition to the family. He brought home a 5 month old pug puppy (I think he wants a baby or something). It wasn't very fair that he brought the puppy home to the kids because once they fell in love with it I would have been the "bad guy" if I'd have returned it (and I was going to). At first I was so mad. He said he'd never gotten such a "talking to". I hope he learned his lesson and he won't ever bring home a puppy without talking to me first. Now I think I'm okay with her. I have to admit that she's very cute! This is Ziggi!

Ziggi is Zoe's new "personal trainer"!

She'll keep her in shape! They spend most of the day chasing and biting each other. Zoe has gotten a lot more energetic since Ziggi arrived at the scene (out of sheer desperacy). They are so funny. We are always tripping over them because they wrestle under our feet. I can't wait for spring to send them outside to play!

November, a Time to be Thankful

We are so very grateful for our wonderful children! They each add a different dimension and we learn something from them every day. Life is definitely more exciting with them in our lives. I thank my Heavenly Father for our family every day and pray that we can be the kind of parents that they need in their lives to help them to be the best people that they can.

Fun in the Fall
A fun fall tradition that we're starting to enjoy is crunching and jumping in leaves. Our home that we now live in is about 15 years old and so are the trees, which means lots of LEAVES to rake up. But that also means lots to JUMP into. The kids, especially Josh and Courtney have loved jumping into the leaves we raked up.

J.J., Coco & I went on a little "hike" by our house. We had a lot of fun and the weather was beautiful. Josh loves to play with Courtney. They are cute friends. Courtney loves her little brother and is a good little second mommy to him.

Michael & Josh are such good buddies.















Michael loves having a younger brother and takes such good care of him. They don't pound on each other yet, but they sure do love to wrestle.

Sleepy boy

He fought me so bad one day to take his nap. He was determined that he was not tired. I let him play by himself for a while and finally he fell asleep by the front door on this rug. He's so cute.

Ashley lost another tooth

This month Ashley lost a tooth. Here she is bravely waiting for Daddy to pull it for her. She is so brave because her Daddy gets the needle-nose pliers and pulls the teeth out with them. I wouldn't trust anyone with pliers by my teeth.

Michael wanted to play in the leaves (or did he?)

As we cleaned up leaves, Jon threw Michael into the leaves. Michael was itchy but laughing really hard afterwards.

Whitney's 14th Birthday Celebrations... Whitney and her friends Caitlin, Natalie, Izzy and Kiera. They saw the movie "Stardust" for her birthday and then "hung out" at the University Mall. Whitney loves a little more freedom to be able to go with her friends and by themselves to the mall to just hang out.








Whit's friends Izzy and Caitlin came over on the morning of her birthday to wish her happy birthday. They ended up spending all day together. They had a blast, as you can see. They are great friends together.

We told Whitney to smile and so she made Josh smile big too. She's so funny.

We sang "Happy Birthday" to Whitney and celebrated it with Nana, Papa and Grandma Mary. It was a fun occasion for all of us. We enjoyed having them in our home.