first half

New Year's Resolutions--we all have 'em, and most of them usually don't stick.  At the rate I'm going, neither will mine, but I'm giving it a go.  One of my resolutions is to keep up with the blog better.  I know I fell off the face of the earth in the second half of the year, but I'm trying to redeem myself by posting a re-cap of the whole year.  I ended up with way more pictures than I thought for the first half of the year, so I'm going to do this in two different posts.  This post is as far as I'll get tonight.  I still have to get up to run at 6am tomorrow, so I have to keep it reasonable.  

January

* Jake played his first season of basketball with school friends in jr. jazz

*Grandma (Waterwheel) Cottrell turned 90

*I went to San Clemente/Carlsbad with the Running Girls...to take pictures (Debbie ran her 200th marathon!)

(Deb on the left, with Kelly)

February
*Ben had his "funnest night ever" at a late night science lollapallooza at school
*Daren and Jake at school
*a perfect Valentine's Day for the boys--sugar cookies and Lego minifigures
*Daren turned the big 4-0!!
*Jake as a townsperson in Aesop's Fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf in first grade assembly
*Ben as the only boy representing Costa Rica in fifth grade's World Fair

March
*road trip to California included a trip to Disneyland w/ Gpa and Gma Airplane and a final visit with Grandma Waterwheel before she passed away
*the boys picked boxes of California oranges and brought them home to sell for their first jobs
*Will and Jake turned 7 and had a party w friends at Daren's fire station
*Ben's painted his pinewood derby car as a Delorean (huge BTTF fan!)

April
*Easter celebrations with lots of cousins
*Ben dressed as King Arthur (from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) for 5th grade's Medieval Day, where they went to LaCaille for lunch
*Ben built his medieval castle out of...Legos, what else?!

May
*Ben turned 10, and had a backyard party with his school friends
*Will and his first grade teacher, Mrs. Payne, at the 1st grade field trip to Red Butte Gardens
*our Young Women's walk of 22 miles to the LDS temple in Salt Lake City
*Jake's spring singing concert was all about birds, with pictures drawn by all the students
*Jake and classmates put together emergency kits for the Red Cross--it was a year long service project
*Ben's art project showing his personality (likes books, Angry Birds, the Millennium Falcon, Legos, Hershey's, and Little Big Planet 2)
*Memorial Day in Morgan
*field day and Jake with his teacher, Ms. Neal
*Ben's painting that was auctioned off at the school's Country Fair, and bought by his teacher, Mrs. Johnsen

June
*Ben's spring piano recital
*Daren representing SLCFD (he was the Relief Association's President this past year) and threw out the first pitch at one of the Bee's baseball games
*Lake Powell with friends for a week

 Honestly, this is one of my favorite pictures EVER!   

This couple was engaged to be married a couple months later, and one night they let me take some fun pictures of them.

 Gross!  But the beautiful hike after was worth it!!

 These four boys let me come along for the ride to take pictures--what a riot!

Early morning departure, with some still asleep

And so concludes the first half of this whirlwind trip down memory lane...stay tuned, but don't hold your breath too long waiting for the second half!

holy grail halloween

This was the first Halloween the boys didn't have their costumes planned out months ago, but they still turned out fabulous.  Ben wanted to wear his "King Arthur" costume (which he actually wore for his 4th grade class Medieval Day, and yes, I have not made a post of that yet but I need to.  It was so cute!), and he wanted Jake to be Patsy, King Arthur's squire from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  

King Arthur

Patsy

If you aren't familiar with this movie, which the boys were obsessed with earlier this year, check out this clip I found on You Tube about the coconuts.  Just remember, it's British humor!

Now, for the video of our Holy Grail Halloween, as Ben's friend Reggie announces Ben and Jake when they made their entrance at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The fact that Reggie is a banana fits in perfectly with a Monty Python theme. :)

Ben was so excited about Halloween with his brothers that he drew a picture 

of them arriving at Gma and Gpa's house.  

Will held his own with being a ghostbuster once again this year.  I'm pretty sure he will be able to fit into this costume for at least the next two or three years.  Here is the group photo, including the firefighter as the trick-or-treating chaperone, and cousins Sydney and Elyse.  

19 corn chips

Last Sunday I was sitting in class at church when the door opened up and in came one of my neighbors, carrying a piece of paper.  He handed it to me with a smile on his face...read on and you'll see why.  

Will had been having a hard time in primary (as usual) and another friend of mine, Keri, asked Will if he wanted to write me a note, and that is what he came up with.  19 corn chips.  What the??  He sat outside my classroom in the hall with the note, waiting for class to get over, and he even tried to put it under the door, but finally Leon came along to hand deliver it to me.   It was an extra hard day for him because his usual teachers were gone, and he ended up running out on his sub teacher a few times so I finally brought him to class with me.  When I showed the girls in class what he wrote they all asked, "Why not 20?"  Who knows, but in the end, he got his 19 chips, and counted every one of them out.