School Days!

Matthew started school this week! The 2nd grade! He was excited but nervous. I'm sad to have him gone. But there is far less fighting to deal with between him and Maren. :-) Although now it seems like we are a lot more bored! Matthew really likes his teacher Mrs. Lewis and we were excited to get her. He has 2 of his good friends Nathan A. and Nathan S. in his class. Yay!

Having Fun

We had so much fun this past weekend and did tons together as a family, I thought I would share some pictures. Dave took off Pioneer Day (the 24th) and then the day after which was a Friday. Then we had Saturday and Sunday! It was tons of fun to be together. We celebrated the 24th with lots of fireworks at our house and pizza with Opa, Mimi and Kim and Rob. Dave had a camp out in the back yard with the kids that night. They totally love that! We also got to have breakfast at Mcdonald's one day (which the kids love, but really so does Dave!) and pancakes on another day! Then on Friday we went bowling as a family, went to Toys R Us and lunch. On Saturday we also spent the day together just hanging out and went to the Bees Game and watched fireworks. We got a babysitter for Will and Dave and I took Matthew and Maren. It was SO much fun! We just really enjoyed each other. The house shows it, but it was worth it! Here's some pics!


Will's new obsession, basketball, or playing with any type of ball!
Dave and I hanging out the grass. Maren took this lovely photo.
Dave's new cowboy hat/I mean work hat! :-) Mimi, Kim, Rob and Maren
The boys always get to be the pyros!
This was a pic of my good friend Rach who lives across the street. Her family was also helping to put on the firework show that night. She is the best!

Pancakes! YAY!


Poor Will, he is confined to a stroller, but if he wasn't, we wouldn't be bowling, we would be running around trying to catch him!

Stone Reunion

We had a fun weekend with all of Dave's family for a Stone Reunion. It has been several years since we were all together. Dave's sister Amy lives in TX, and his sister Holly lives in Vegas. So it's not very often we are all in one place at one time. We had a great time with seeing each other again, and the kids spending fun times with their cousins. On Friday we went to the zoo and then had an AWESOME adult dinner at Little America. On Saturday we took some great family pictures with a photographer, then went swimming up at my dad's and then later did Opa's favorite past time of getting a fire going and cooking hot dogs and SMORES! Opa is ALWAYS a scout! On Sunday we had another family get together with steak and corn on the cob. On Sunday night we also got to have Holly's kids Dean and Jill sleep over with Matthew and Maren. They have SO much fun together! And on Monday they all went and saw Walle. Later that night the men all went to the Bee's Game together. It is so aweseome to be a part of their wonderful family! I really love them! I'm very lucky to have met Dave and to get to enjoy the benefits of the awesome Stone family and be accepted and loved by them! Thanks for the great times!

Dave and his sister Kim
Julie (Dave's sister) and Maren
Me and Mr. Willis
Dave and his Mom.
Kids getting freaked out at the zoo by the elephant that sprays water.
Maren and Mimi on the carousal
Opa and Matthew
At dinner at Little America. Dave's sister Julie is by Dave and then his sister Kim and her husband Rob by me.
Mimi and Opa.
Mr. Willis
Kim, Amy, Holly, Opa and Dave having fun!
Mimi eating pizza. I had to get a pic of this cause she is so proper that it's an unusual site!

Bill and Will! Matthew getting wrestled by Dean and Josh his cousins!
Will hugging cousin Kara! Maybe I should give this a parental advisory due to the cuteness and the fatness of Will without clothes! lol
The scouts!
Jill, Josh and maren hanging out on the porch swing

Maren eating a smore! Matthew and Dean enjoying the corn!
Maren and Jill
Matthew and Dean
Maren and Jill
We did a pinata on Sunday night. We were totally shocked when we gave Will the bat and he knew what to do with it!! He was the first one up so it was especially awesome! I had to record it, cause he is the bomb!

Mr. Willis

Will is our family "jokester" as the kids like to say. He is always running around and doing funny things. He just loves life! So we tried to get him dancing cause it is classic. We caught this little ditty the other day. Although, it isn't his best. He also loves to do what we refer to as the "Haka" ( a tongan tribal dance they do before some football games) because he totally does it like he is one of these tongan tribal people. And he pretty much is the size of one. We love this kid! Ejoy!

4th of July

We had a fun holiday this weekend and really enjoyed being all together. It was fun for Dave to have work off and to just enjoy each other. Although, the kids kept asking him when he was supposed to go back to work. :-) I guess 3 day weekends seem long to them! We spent Friday at my Dad's house swimming and unfortunately we all got a bit fried. That's what you get when every one of us has borderline albino skin. And then we had pizza and did some of our own fireworks with a couple of my sisters and their kids. Then we got to go to bed early! It was really nice. And Saturday we enjoyed just hanging out for the day with not much to do. I love that! Anyway, thought I would share some pics from the weekend.

Matthew does this great dive where he has to run all the back on the grass and jump off the diving board. I'm not sure it makes a difference in his speed, but he loves doing it, so hey!

My sister Catherine being nice enough to swim with my kids!

Catherine and my sister-in-law Marianne (Adam's wife).
Alec my brother-in-law (Annie's husband) poor guy had stomach surgery and can only drink Gatorade and stuff like that, thus the blue tongue.
My sisters Amy and Catherine.
My brother Adam doing some cool moves!

My nephew Owen was ticked cause he got his hand "stuck" in this mug! hilarious!

My sister Annie and Owen doing fireworks. Note Owen's enthusiasm.