Sabrina's Promotion

This past week was my oldest daughter Sabrina's promotion to 9th grade. She was really nervous about the event, but was excited to shop for her dress and shoes. The school she attended was Wigwam Middle School and they gave each student only 4 tickets to give out to whoever. I am just happy to have her experience this step in her life and hope that her high school years will be just as memorable. The ceremony lasted for about two hours, which was rather long for me. After the ceremony she was invited to ride with some friends of hers in a hummer limo to the Az Mills mall to celebrate. She came home in a rather good mood, but was exhausted for wearing her high heels for the last 9 nine hours walking around the mall(crazy if you ask me)!Anyways she is done with elementary school for now, and is headed for the unknown of high school. I think all of you know what our high school days were like, so you can relate to the sarcasm here. RIGHT???

Sabrina with a few of her friends

Can you believe they actually fit all those kids in that limo?

A Year Older....

The month of May is all of my kids birthdays, so it is a fun time for us all. I decided to get their pictures done at JcPenneys this year. I usually get their pictures done every two years to see their growth. I was really happy with the way these photo shots turned out. It just makes me realize how grown-up they are getting, and that they are not babies anymore. My oldest daughter Sabrina is a whopping 15 years....I can't believe a teenager already...YIKES!!! My next is my son Frankie who turned 11 years this week. He was so excited to celebrate his birthday at Gameworks to play his games. My youngest daughter is Ariana who will turn 10 years now. I can't believe how tall she is getting, but she wants to be a teenager already. She loves make-up, and being the center of attention. I just wanted to let you all know that I love my kids and that they are such a blessing in my life, and how grateful I am to be given the opportunity to be a part of their lives. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUYS...

Broken Nose

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I were at a friends house visiting. Just happens on this particular night that we were rough housing with one another for the fun of it. As we were wrestling around with each other somehow my youngest daughter's foot hit my face. At first after the incident happened I wasn't sure my nose was broken cause there was minimal swelling and no bleeding whatsoever. So as a few days pass I decide to go get an x-ray done to make sure whether it was broken or not. Sure enough the x-ray showed a significant break of my nose. So last Friday I was scheduled to have surgery done to fix it. One thing I learned throughout this painful ordeal is that there will be no more rough housing for awhile. The picture on the right is showing how my nose looks after surgery, and as you can see the surgeon did an awesome job of minimizing the scars. So this is my adventures for the last couple of weeks, and let me tell you it has been a lifelong lesson to not rough house with the kids for awhile......

Air Show

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At Luke Air Force Base there was an air show for all the community to see and hear. Since we live like five minutes from the base we decided to go see these spectacular jets flying everywhere. As you can see it had several other events set up for the kids to see and do. The day was long and hot, but we had such fun seeing the different aircrafts around the base.

Frankie and Ana shooting guns..

More jets to see....

Such beautiful Clydesdale horses trottin around for all to see. I love to hear their hooves while they walk. They are amazing....

Utah adventures

For spring break we decided to take a trip to Utah to see the SLC temple. The kids and I have never seen it, so we decided this was a good time as any to finally see this beautiful place. As we arrived on temple square we were amazed at how many people were already there. We toured the Joseph Smith memorial bldg and rode the elevators to the very top to see the view of Salt Lake City itself. I couldn't believe the several mountains peaks around this area that were covered in snow still. We also were able to tour the actual conference center so my kids could see where they broadcast it on tv. They were excited to see the place where our prophet Monson will be speaking to us next month. The tour of this bldg is rather long but we learned alot of history about it. We also saw inside the tabernacle bldg too, and was surprised how the acoustics are inside. We had a great time, but our feet were sure tired by the time we left around 9 pm that night. I can't wait until we can go back, because there is so much more to see and do there that I didn't realize until darkness was upon us.

Visiting Family

Oh we had so much fun going to visit our Aunt Nomi who was down from Pennsylvania to see us. While we were there we were delighted to be able to see our other aunts (Sally&Sandra) too. My grandma Louise was happy to see us and to show us her new place that she is living in now. Many things have changed since we have seen these relatives, but we had a good time chatting and catching up on our different lives. It was a quick trip, so we are quite exhausted now. It was just such a great opportunity to get out of the Phx area for a few days to go visit our old stomping grounds where we grew up in York Valley. I like taking my kids to see where I grew up and know that its a special place to me. We were sad to have to leave and not be able to visit more, but had a wonderful time seeing everyone. My kids were glad to see their cousins again and even camped in the backyard of my moms house.

(above):

Aunt Sandra, Sally, and Gramma Louise

My newest Niece....

Kleeopatra Ezabella Whipple was born on Feb 24, 2009 @ 4 am to my youngest brother David and Autumn. They are stationed in Ft. Carson, Co right now, and sadly we rarely see them. These are just some of the photos of my newest niece that arrived this week. I love all my nieces and nephews, but I wished they lived closer so we could see them more often. We are so blessed.......

My Neices: Vanessa and Alex

These are my neices Vanessa(11yrs) and Alex(7yrs) who belong to my older sister Priscilla. I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with these neices of mine the past couple of days. We decided to head to the Cave Creek area to go exploring and these are some photos of our adventures throughout our day. We did some hiking and found a stream to wade their feet in. They loved getting their feet all muddy and collecting pretty rocks along the way. I love spending time with my neices and being able to make some crazy memories with them.

Heard Museum

This past weekend on Saturday the Phoenix Heard Museum was having a hoop festival. We like going to these Native American events so we went as a family. We were able to visit the grounds of the museum and thats is where these photos were taken. In the first photo Frankie is happily sitting on a piece of petrified wood being displayed. He liked the softness of this rock and just had to sit on it for fun. The next photo is Sabrina also sitting on a piece of petrified wood, but is not to thrilled to have her picture taken on it. In the last photo is Ana using a grinder the Native Americans used to make cornbread and she is holding a big rock to crush the corn with. I like to take my kids to experience their culture every now and then to enhance their knowledge of Native American artifacts. Despite the heat, we all had alot of fun seeing the hoop dancers perform amazing tricks and make interesting hoop designs.

He's off to Iraq now

This is our good family friend Sgt Brinkerhoff who is currently serving in the Air Forces at Luke. He is being deployed to Iraq this week and we were invited to see him off at the airport this week. Along with being sad, but grateful for his service, we were able to join his family to say goodbye... Many of us have family members who serve in the military and we are so thankful for their time they give to our country.

Snowflake, Az trip

This past weekend my kids had a four day weekend break from school, so we decided to take a trip up north to Snowflake. We traveled with our good friend Becky who luckily enough has her parents who live up there so we could stay with them. While on our way up we decided to play in the snow on the side of the road, but the snow was not soft at all. Despite the hard snow we managed to throw a few snowballs at each other and get cold enough to call it quits for the day. Becky's son Daniel loved the snow and followed Frankie everywhere he went. We were able to visit the LDS temple up on the hill too, and it is a magnificent sight to see. We had a such a good time up there that by the time we had to leave we were so sad to say goodbye to her parents who are like grandparents to my kiddos. Snowflake didn't even have that much snow either, which was a surprise to all of us. Anyway we had a great time together and can't wait to go back to visit when there is more snow on the ground to play in.

Sweet Memories

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Our Christmas week in Safford

This year for our Christmas we decided to head to Safford, which is where my mom lives. My younger brother David was able to be there to visit too, so all the more fun with them. Christmas morning was filled with excitement of opening gifts and having David over for most of the morning. Later on in the day I took all seven children to Mt. Graham to play in the snow. Crazy? probably but we had a blast until they were so cold that they wanted to leave. The wind was blowing fierce, so that caused us to only stay for about an hour and half before we left down the mountain. For the rest of the afternoon they just jumped on the trampoline and watched movies while I rested and recooperated from our adventures. Least of all to say we enjoyed visiting with David's two young children Malaysia & David Jr. who we rarely see anyways and they had fun seeing all of us too. My kids were sad to say goodbye to their cousins by the end of the week, but had a great time together while it lasted. By the time we ended up leaving Safford it was snowing outside and it was a beautiful sight to see all the snow falling as we drove back to Phx.

Just us.....X-mas fun

Today we finally put up our tree and had fun together on a Sunday afternoon. Decided to get the camera out to take some silly pics of us while we were in the mood. Not the best ones, but thought we would share what we have so far. Now that Christmas is getting nearer my kids are getting into the spirit and love putting up their art projects made at school on the tree. So to all who have their trees up, well don't you just love all the homemade ornaments from your loved ones. I know I do when I see how proud they are of their creativity just hanging there for all to see. Merry Christmas and Happy New Years.....

APS Light Parade

The annual Phx downtown APS light parade was a spectacular sight to see. We enjoy going to this festive event where there are literally thousands of lights to lite up the cool night skies. The kids loved all the entries that were displayed for the hour and half that it lasted. I liked the float of the soilders myself and below it is shown to honor our servicemen. The train float reminded me of my mom who just loves trains, and it was very beautiful as it past by us as you can see. There were so many floats that were amazing, but I posted just a few to give you an idea of what we were able to see last night. Happy Holidays.......