Count my many blessings. Name them one by one.

Today was a bit stressful so I'm going to follow some good advice and start listing things I am grateful for today....
I am grateful for our second car that we just got today. My sister-in-law sold it to us. This car is going to make it possible for me to get to work in the fall and I will be the master of my time. :)

I am grateful for businesses like Barnes & Noble who recognize that teachers use a lot of their own money to buy supplies for their classrooms and so they offer a discount for us. With my gift-card I was able to buy a few new books for my classroom!
I am grateful for a wonderful daughter who loves to help out around the house. She is going to be a wonderful mommy someday.

Monkey's Native American project

 I am grateful for this guy who is willing to take time out of his long day to register the car, let me go for a long walk and scrub my floor. I'm so lucky he is mine.

Us at the Cheesecake factory at City Creek

 I am grateful for that spunky, artistic 6 year old who marches to the beat of her own drum. Sometimes her quiet stubbornness drives me crazy, but I love that she is her own individual.

Girls at the zoo

I am also grateful for my sweet, silly, tender 3 year old. I love that she loves to cuddle and give me kisses. She is learning so much so quickly. I am grateful that she is doing really well with her potty training. Just in time for daycare to start. Hooray!
I am also grateful for a good job as much as I am stressing out about it right now and a good support system.
I am grateful for family that is close by and the opportunity I have to spend time with them.

Bryan as the evil Chauvelin and Kelsey as the beautiful Marguerite in the Scarlet Pimpernel

I really am blessed.

Summary of our summer

An overview of our summer so far.

Monkey got her PhD at the end of her 3rd grade year!

Bug did a great job and looked beautiful at her Kindergarten Program. We loved her teacher!

Monkey made a fire for their indoor campout.

Sleeping in their "tent".

Selling Lemonade!

Wishing Andrea Farewell for 18 months.

Meeting up with far-away friends.

Free concerts in the park.

Celebrated our Nation's holiday with a children's parade, good food, movies and fireworks

At the zoo we found a monkey...

And a Boo!

We had a Thacker Reunion where we went to Welfare Square....

And a local splash pad. We love being with cousins.

We went camping with my family.

And we hiked to Donut Falls. My girls are still talking about the trip!

We have had a great summer! It's so nice to have a long break to spend with my family.

Happy Anniversary!

11 years today!

3 kids 3 states 

8 moves  6 cars 3 degrees 

met lots of great people and seen some wonderful places on this earth.

Life has been an adventure!

I love him more now than I ever could have imagined back then. 

Mike's birthday

January included Michelangelo's birthday. My brother and our brother-in-law have birthdays really close to his, so I decided to have our own celebration at our house the day of his birthday. Monkey decorated with crepe paper and we invited some family to come over. It was small and simple but I think Michelangelo really enjoyed it. We had a great time.

I was working at my first long-term substitute job at the time, so poor Michelangelo had to go grab his birthday cake. He ran into one of our high school kids from our Sunday School class working at the bakery and decided to not tell her that the cake was for him. He picked up some icing instead. I loved it because I could put whatever I wanted. Captain Awesome is a character on a TV show we used to enjoy watching. ;) Michelangelo is my Captain Awesome.

Boo tried to blow out the candles. This is when we lighted them again and told her to let Daddy do it. She's having a bit of a hard time with that. Needless to say Michelangelo let her help blow out the candles with him.

 Our favorite things to do with Daddy:

• Monkey: Practice soccer with him. He is the best soccer player in the world!
• Bug: Go to Daddy's studio to draw and eat
• Boo: "Daddy my best friend."
  
• Vee: Dancing, teaching the 16 and 17 year olds with you at church, watching Downton Abby and Psych together, going to the theater and going to the park with you and the girls.

In other news. Bug lost her first tooth that day. Sorry you can't see it the tooth behind it was practically already grown in. I was also growing out her bangs before a miscommunication happened and they got chopped. So we will try again.

Happy Father's day!

I am surrounded by shining examples of great fathers. Men who work every day of their lives to be honorable, kind, loving, and true to who they are. They are great husbands, fathers, and grandfathers. I am so blessed to be able to learn from them. They have influenced my life for the good.

I am ever so grateful for the wonderful man I married, who is such a great father to my girls and works so hard to be the best person he can be. He brings smiles to our faces and we love him so much.We can't get enough of him.

I am one lucky girl!

Happy Father's Day!

The weekend festivities

This weekend was so fun. I got to go with Monkey's class to Red Butte Gardens. That was a fun trip. I haven't been there since I was little. It was beautiful. Monkey's teacher brought a container of ladybugs and the kids had a blast letting them go. I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with my oldest.

Michelangelo had a lot going on this weekend. He was in charge of curating an exhibit at our local art center. He did life drawing sketches collected from art professors he has come in contact including Dean Keller who passed away in 2006. It was to educate the community about the importance of learning to draw the figure in order to create quality art. There were sketches from professors from BYU, U of U, BYU-I, SLCC, Lyme Academy of Fine Art and some of his own to show the progression of what an art education can produce. There were a lot of late nights, but it was beautifully done.

For the past 7 or 8 years our city has done a Chalk Art Festival. It such a great community event to see all kinds of artists come out and create such beautiful pieces of work.

The weather was great and didn't rain on the finished paintings.
Michelangelo did a quick drawing of Boo's pouty face taken from this picture. I think it turned out awesome. Boo loved seeing the "baby".

They also have a spot for the kids to create their own artwork. It's Monkey's and Bug's favorite. They had been talking about going to draw with chalk all week.

Monkey drew a blue bird with a girl and a sunset. All my pictures of the finished product have my shadow covering it so your just going to have to believe me.

This is Bug's drawing of a girl with a butterfly net on a hill and a bird flying above.
Boo wanted to get right in there but it was causing problems. Here she is on her side of the sidewalk with Daddy. She is definitely his daughter. Look at those faces. I love those faces!

Hoping for spring

I need to just admit January and February were rough to get through. The cold seemed to last forever and I have been swamped with school. But there were some things that I kept looking forward too that made the winter seem not so bad.
For example..
For Valentines we got to go to the opening of the new community theater. Mike got invited with his work and so we got to dress up and get free food and a free musical. My kind of date! I have a lot more to say about this, but I need to save it for a later post. It was quite a week.

 This photo was really dark. This is the best I could do with it. But I love this picture.

And the big event of the year, drumroll please.........

 

This beautiful couple is getting married in a couple of weeks!!! I am so freakin' excited!! I love this girl who is soon to be a sister of mine. She has one of the biggest hearts I know of. My girls have been calling her aunt for months, way before there was a ring. I am just so glad she gets to be part of our family. My brother is so happy and they are both such amazing people.  I can't wait!

Hooray for spring!