end-of-school year

There were so many things happening at the end of the school year, I decided to lump them all together in one post--lots of pictures (of course!), but I'll try to keep the writing to a minimum. *ya, sure!*

the living planet aquarium

It took me until the end of the school year, but I finally got to go on a school field trip--this time with Jake's class. The aquarium is just in Sandy, so it wasn't far. Jake was willing to wait in a LONG line to take his turn at "driving" the boat in the Great Salt Lake, in search of brine shrimp. We didn't find any...and then it was on to the South American exhibit. There were so many great things to see there, but my personal fave was all the different colored frogs, esp. the electric blue frog! Jake had fun with his friends there, including (friend) Will and Neve.

We did a terrible job of marking off our list of things we saw, probably because we were having too much fun!

spring concert, classes I and II

I love these choral concerts put on by the kids. A few weeks ago I was putting Jake to bed and he wanted me to tickle his back, so I told him I would if he would sing me a song. He asked me to sing first, so I started singing, "You Are My Sunshine." Ben came running in the room, "How do you know that song?!!" Turns out they were singing it for their spring concert...who knew?! The second graders are on the right hand side in photo 1, and Ben is in the middle of the top row in photo 2. His favorite song they sang was, "Button You Must Wander," and he's even learned to play it on the piano.

Not a great photo of Mr. Beck, but he's been Ben's music teacher ever since Nursery 3's, and he is absolutely incredible with the kids!! Now that Ben will be moving on to the third grade, they will get a new music teacher, but I'm glad Jake will still have Mr. Beck.

nursery 4's family math day

For the end of the school year the Nursery 4 class has the parents come and they do lots of fun math activities.

I was one of the parent reps for Jake's class this year, and even though I didn't get to do as many activities as I wanted, I at least accomplished getting to know the kids his age better than I did last year. Jake had two great teachers this year and I wanted to do something special for them. I like to find any excuse to make these flannel blankets, so I put these together for them with the help of the children. We traced their hands onto flannel and they wrote their names by their hands, and then I put the rest of them together. They turned out so cute, if I do say so myself!! Of course, I was up until 3am the night before getting them done, but I did get caught up on the final episodes of "24" so it was all good!!

Miss Ann and Miss Suzanne were great teachers and the kids sure love them!

a double-header

Ben had a double-header the last Saturday before school got out. It was a nice day and they had fun, but it sure wore him out. Ben is #13 in photo 1, and photo 2 is a fun picture of River that I got as he ran by me. Way to hustle boys!!

Diesel couldn't wait until the end of the second game so he could spray off Ben with his little water mister pack. You can see the look of exhaustion on Ben's face at that point, but Diesel was so cute about it!

lacrosse practice/party

Monday's practice was the final practice before school got out and that's when they decided to have their end-of-the-season party. After practicing for a bit they played some games. Ben and Reggie were paired up for the balloon toss.

Tami was a great team coordinator/mom and she put this whole party together.

The awards: everyone pitched in money to get "thank you" gifts for the awesome coaches--Mary, Russ, and Don. Then each of the kids got their trophies while the coaches said positive things about each boy. It was a great season, and thanks to these coaches who put in so much time and effort.

After Ben got his award he ran over to me and asked me to take his picture with his award. After I did he said, "Cool, are you going to put this on the blog?" But of course!!

And what's a team party without pizza?! I picked up the pizzas, 10 of them from Costco, on my way up to practice and you should have seen the looks I got carrying out so many pizzas!! After the kids got their pizza they all huddled around the lacrosse goal posts. Cute!

Have you ever seen the size of the cupcakes from Costco?!?! The are gi-normous!!

One last cheer: RAH--RAH--RAH--RAVENS!!!!!

Towards the end of the party we spotted these f-16's flying in circles around Sandy. One of the dad's at practice works for the military and he told us they were preparing for a fly-over at the Salt Lake Bees game that night (celebrating Air Force Week). They kept flying around and around, getting lower and lower. We were in a perfect place to see them and the "air show" lasted for at least 45 minutes. It was so cool to see!

last day of school

Tuesday, June 2, was Ben's last day of school. In his class the parent reps had the kids write cards to Mrs. Duke and put them all together in this beautiful shaker box, held proudly by Caroline, one of Ben's many friends.

Ben and Mrs. Duke. He really loved her and loved being in her class. Here is the class getting ready for their ice cream sundae treats.

Ben got a hold of my camera and took tons of pictures, including some of his friends in his class: Jack, Sophia, Hughie, and Travis. I'm sparing you all the pictures of the walls, and every single kids cubbie! Bless his heart! I love seeing what kids take pictures of, though, because it's things that are important to them, and he got some pictures of things that I never would have even thought to have taken.

nursery 4's party

One of the girls in Jake's class, Adela, hosted an end-of-year party at her house. Her mom, Rebecca, bought this waterslide from Costco for the party and it was a blast for the kids!!

My contribution to the party was, of course, swedish fish!! I have really turned my boys into junkies for them because that's about all they ate. *sigh* What do you do?! Buy more when the bag is empty!!

Diesel was at the party too, and all the boys really got into these water guns!! Diesel was so cute running around with his water gun (I got some other good pictures that I'll get to you Alisha!). Second photo is Jake and Bridger--you can't even tell how much ketchup Bridger had on his hot dog, but you can see that Jake had loaded up on the swedish fish...again!

class II party

We had to leave the nursery 4's party early to go to Ben's party at Jack's house and pick him up. I got totally lost, yes even with a GPS, but finally found the house. By that time we had missed everyone and the party was over, but I got a picture of the sign and Ben jumping on the trampoline.

We were so close to Daren's fire station that the boys were dying to go see him, so we did for a few minutes. Then we had to go back to Jack's house to get Jake's crocs, and it wasn't until we were on our way home that I realized Ben forgot his towel there too. I felt too stupid calling back a third time to check on his school shirt that he left. What a crazy day!! By the time we got home I was too tired to do anything else, so we went to the golden arches in celebration of the end of school.

Of course that day brought back memories that it was a year ago I started this blog on our first day of our month-long Route 66 trip. We picked up Ben from school and headed straight for California, or Las Vegas as it turned out. Alot has happened in this past year, and I love that I have this blog to look back on. Ben loves it too--in fact, he has figured out how to make comments on this blog, so look out for those!! He asks me all the time if I have a new blog yet! Maybe I'll get him started with his own sometime...

final lacrosse game of spring 2009

The last game of the season was last Saturday. How fitting that it was at 9am...in Park City!! That meant an early morning for us, including my mom and dad who were here for Ben's baptism later that day. It was chilly up there, but not as cold as I thought it would be. It was beautiful up there and the boys had fun. Ben in his final face-off.

Photo 1 is Ben's buddy Quentin. He is an amazing athlete--he won this face off and took it all the way to the goal and scored, all in about 10 or 15 seconds. He's a natural in whatever sport he plays and is just incredible for as young as he is. (He used to race in downhill snow skiing when he was only 4 years old!) He and Ben have been friends ever since nursery 3's.

We led most of the game, but it ended in a tie, 4-4. The boys did great, and now all the second graders move up to the next level in third grade. It's fun to watch these boys grow up and play together.

Quentin and Ben

And so that's a wrap on the end-of-the-year stuff!! Where is Will in all this? With year-round school he's still in school until July 2, but it's all working out well so far. Hello summer!! But that's another post...

p.s. Happy 45th Anniversary to my parents today!!

bens baptism day

What an amazing day it was today, because today Ben was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!! Time seems to fly by most of the time, but still, it always seemed as though this day was forever away, and now here it was. Because Ben had his last lacrosse game this morning (coming in another post), we scheduled his baptism for this afternoon. His baptism was combined with another boy, Peyton, in his primary class who just moved into our ward.

I put together a program for the baptism, but by the time the meeting started, it had almost completely changed. (Thanks so much to Mom for the time she spent helping me put these together, along with so many other things she helped me with over the weekend!!) Of course, that's a whole other story in and of itself--the doors to the dressing rooms were locked, the curtains to the font were locked, and a bad traffic accident delayed everyone who was coming from north of Salt Lake, but in the end we got started and it was a great meeting. Many thanks to all the family and friends who came out to support Ben today, and for all those who wanted to be there and couldn't.

By the time the boys finally got their baptismal clothes and got them on, we had very little time for pictures, but I did get this cute one of Daren and Ben.

Ben and Peyton were still a bit wet after the meeting was over. It was a great meeting, including the talk Ciera gave on the Holy Ghost for Brenda, who had surgery yesterday and couldn't make it. When I asked Ben tonight what he would remember the most about his baptism, he immediately said, "Ciera's talk." Brenda gave the best talk on this for Ciera's baptism a few months ago, and Ben wanted Brenda to do the same talk today, and although she couldn't come, Ciera filled in and did a great job.

Most of the Mortenson family, and a few Peel's, just after the baptism.

What a nice, helpful, loving, and sweet boy Ben is!! He has had to endure a lot as an oldest child while we, as parents, try to figure out this parenting thing, but he is so good-natured and loving...thank goodness! And even though he loves to tease his brothers, he would do anything for them at any time. Thank you, Ben, for being you, and for being the good example you are to us, your brothers, your friends, and to everyone else--we love you!!! (This is his first tie! Ben changed his clothes so fast when we got home this is about all the pictures I got.)

The party back at our house after the baptism was filled with good family, good food, and fun! (Seriously, if you haven't ever tried Pat's BBQ in Salt Lake, look it up and get there--the best bbq EVER!!) The weather mostly cooperated with only a few sprinkles toward the end of the party.

Ben was thrilled about his new scripture quad. Of course, he did pick it out so he knew it was coming, but when he finally had it in his hands, with his name on it, he was so excited. It was a great day all the way around!

Today was also cousin Garrett's birthday, so they brought a cake along and we all sang happy birthday to him. Isn't he cute in his new glasses?! We topped the day off with Ciera and Garrett sleeping over before we go up to JD and Brenda's ward tomorrow morning where JD will be blessing Sydney Sue. (They are all sleeping downstairs in the movie room! Ben made cute little signs to put at everyone's little beds, "reserving" their spot.) What a great day it has been.

memorial day/weekend...and then some

Memorial Day turned into Memorial Weekend this year. We had lots of family time together, which was great. It started the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day--we went to Morgan and met Daren's family there to visit the graveyards.

I have gone to Morgan with Daren's family every year to visit the graves ever since Daren and I have been married. Daren's grandpa died over 20 years ago, and his grandma died over 10 years ago, so it's nice to go visit their graves. Daren's dad grew up in Morgan and there is still a lot of extended family there, so it's a fun place to visit. Plus, this time of year it's so green and beautiful.

Most of the family attended, and somewhere in there is Gpa and Gma Mortenson's gravestone.

Saturday afternoon we made the trek to Manti to visit Gpa Cox's grave. It was sunny and warm when we left Riverton, but cloudy and quite chilly when we got to Manti--we were completely underdressed, but survived. I love this thumbs-up picture of Jake and Chad...Jake is always calling Chad his "little buddy."

I love that the cemetery is right next to the temple--when the flags are up it makes for a beautiful picture. Grandma, the oldest of the Cox's, and Elyse, one of the youngest of the family. Will was begging for a Dr. Pepper the whole time at the cemetery, and he finally found a willing sucker, I mean dad, to give him one! But remember: what goes in, must come out...

...and so Will took off to the port-a-potty, which I have decided there are an abundance of at cemeteries on Memorial Weekend and Will managed to find every one of them! Daren was in high pursuit after Will. And this little Nathan was just the cutest thing all day. He was decked out in his camo in honor of his dad who was away working for the army. He was so cute at the park we went to after--he wanted to play football all day with the guys!

All the cousins who came that day: Jake, Paige, Will, Ben, Elyse, and Nathan.

This is the park in Manti we went to after leaving the cemetery. The sand volleyball court was a kid's sandbox paradise!! And this time we remembered to bring our yellow Tonka trucks!

Will just parked himself in front of the food and didn't move for a VERY long time!!

It was seriously chilly that day, and I was not prepared for it, but fortunately Daren was. He found the electric blanket that is stored in our car, plugged it in, and Will and I cuddled in it for the longest time (Will slept most of that time).


On Monday morning, you know, the actual Memorial Day day, we went to see the new movie, Night at the Museum--Battle at the Smithsonian, and we all LOVED it!! We watched the first one last week just to get prepped for this one. Ya, we're a little psycho ;) The rest of the day we played around in the yard, mowed the lawn, and did a lot of "underdogs" on the swingset!!

Jake was so tired that night, but he didn't want to leave the dinosaurs out, so he put them to bed too. It was so cute.

**WARNING** the following pictures are kinda bloody and gross!!!!

For the past 11+ years we have lived here, it was nice and peaceful when there weren't any ice cream trucks allowed into the city limits. I don't know who had the hairbrained idea to change that, but someone did and now I hear that music all the time and it drives me CRAZY! All the kids, who had just eaten pizza at our house, ran after said annoying truck, got it to stop, and then ran back to ask for money for the ice cream. During the run back to the house, Will tripped over himself and did a face plant on to the road. It seemed kinda bad at first, but not too bad; at least not at the time. Daren, being the softie that he is, gave in to getting all of the kids an ice cream. Will was happy to finally get his Sonic ice cream!!

Like I said above, Will's face didn't seem so bad...until he woke up Sunday morning with this puss all over his face, and the beginnings of a good scab. When we were at church, Will pointed to his owie and asked me if he had peanut butter on his face!! Poor kid! (It's looking SO much better now!)

This is how these boys got to and from church on Sunday. I don't know if they will ever walk to church again! You gotta love the goggles on Jake!

And for my final random picture, I took this of Ben in the tub the other morning. He has gotten into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series lately and just likes to read it everywhere!!