Volleyballer

Aubrey decided she wanted to try volleyball out this year and I'm so glad she did! She loooooves it and is improving every day. She has told me with excitement last week, "I've finally found my "thing" mom!" So I'm happy she is happy. She comes home from practice wanting to practice more:) And with that kind of an attitude, I think she can go far! I take her to the church gym some evenings just to bump around. Its been fun. I played volleyball in Jr. High(an awesome "B" teamer:) so I sorta know how to play. Its been awhile...so I stink. But its been fun to get to relearn the game. The rules have actually changed a lot since I played(and I'm not that old)! Crazy. Its so fun to be parents of team player again, watch the games, and cheer her on! Our girls have usually only been in personal type of sports, non-competitive like gymnastics, dance or tennis. Once when Aubrey was 3 or 4, she played soccer-thats it(it wasn't her thing:). So its fun to be those crazy parents in the stands again!

This is her team this year: THE TITANS! Its a group of great girls and she is having fun with them. She has a good friend from school on her team, Brylee(holding the sign), and we are happy they get to play together! She also has a wonderful coach, Julia. She is great with the kids and goes above and beyond. We also found out after signing Aubrey up that Julia is also LDS, just in a different ward, kinda rad! Small world.

Here she is ready for her very first game...

And here are a few action shots during the last couple of games...

Aubrey & Brylee after their first game. Volleybuds.

Walk around Town Lake

Here are pictures from a beautiful day at Town Lake. Family, friends & fun. . .

Oh, and a little romance... :)

It was a tiring afternoon :)

Best friends and babies

My very best friend, Laura, came to visit with her youngest daughter, Vivian, last week. I was so excited when I found out she was coming! She is the one that was pregnant with me last year and we took those cute prego pics. It was super fun to be pregnant together with our number four kiddos. So, she had her baby girl in August last year and then not even a month later, I had Ammon. So, they are super close in age! And I believe they are kinda bethrothed :) Okay, well, if they don't work out, her #2(Brig) and my #3(Cali) could still have a chance... :) I was thrilled these little ones would finally get to meet! And I was excited to meet beautiful Vivian for the first time. She is so cute(And so feisty! Like her Mama:) Ammon could barely keep up with her, lol. She is walking all over the place, but Ammon is still taking his time! We did lots of fun stuff together(next post)!

We decided one evening to take pics at the same place we took pics last year. We thought it'd be fun to compare where we were last year with this year. We got a few great shots and a few hilarious shots I thought I'd share with you....Vivian wanted nothing to do with pics that night but I think that makes for some of the BEST pics of the bunch! :) And I love Ammon's reactions-he just looks over, yawns, no big deal :) You can't have Holly & Laura pics without some laughs! Thanks Joey for being our awesome photographer. And thanks Susan for watching my girls so we could do this more easily!

BFFS

Moms & babies

Head shots of the cute kids..they both have the most beautiful big dark brown eyes!

More of us smiling and being all best friendy :)

More funny...uh oh Vivians gonna blow!

That looks painful...for mother and child! lol

Here is our "crazy" picture..Vivian smiles while Laura and I look nutso and Ammon looks up like, what the heck is going on?

And this sequence is a crack up.

"I'm outta here."

And I love how Ammon is still posed and smiling :)

As you can see nothing is dull when we are together......

Cutest Kid of the Week: Ella!

I submitted this photo to the Dallas based parent website, Metroplex Baby & Kids, several months ago(maybe even a year ago!) and it finally made it to the "Cutest Kid of the Week" contest a few days ago:) I facebooked about it several times and got lots of family and friends votes. And ta-da... she won! :) I mean, c'mon, she is seriously adorable. Of course she should win! Go Ella! Click here and scroll down to see her featured on their main page. Thanks to everyone who voted!

Aubrey's Cupcake Party

We celebrated Aubrey's 10th birthday with a fabulous cupcake decorating party last Saturday. Since Aubrey has taken a couple of classes from our friend and amazing cake decorator/baker Jamie Wing, she has become slightly obsessed with cupcake decorating:) So, I asked Jamie if she would be willing to do a class as a birthday party at our home and she agreed(Aubrey was so so so excited!) We invited 8 of her favorite friends to spend the afternoon with us decorating "summer fun" cupcakes. The cupcakes were the coolest I've ever seen. Jamie had sent us an email with cupcake choices and Aubrey hand selected the cupcake designs, cake flavors, icing flavors and fillings. She had so much fun doing that! And the cupcakes Jamie showed up with were ten times cooler than the ones in the email-she added her own special flare to them. They were wow. I really appreciated the time she put into making these seriously amazing!

The party was great-I didn't have to do a whole lot to prepare other than buy some decor/partyware and decorate(with Aubrey) the actual cupcakes the kids would get to eat(since they would be taking their creations home as favors:) It was a breeze! I was even able to have Ammon napping for half the party and Cali played at a friends house(which maybe sounds mean...but she is too young to do this stuff and would've been crying because hers didn't look as good as the older kids and stuff like that. Not having her there made it much less stressful for all of us and she had more fun I'm sure playing with her buddy, Paisley-Thanks again Nicole!) At the end of the party, Aubrey said it was the best birthday ever. So that meant success. Yea!

One of my best friends, Susan, surprised us with this beautiful hand made banner for the party. She put so much time and work and thought into this-it meant the world to me and Aubrey! She is a wonderful friend and a talented crafter.

Here is Jamie with the girls huddled around during the class.

The girls busy working on their creations.

Pausing to giggle.

And pausing for some sugar...lol

A very happy birthday girl.

This is one of the cupcakes Aubrey and I made together before the party(the ones we sang her happy birthday to and the kids got to eat). I found this really cute idea here.

Time to sing the birthday song. We took off half the umbrellas so as not to catch them on fire and burn the house down.

Time for presents-she received so many cool things! She has some pretty awesome friends & family. She got everything she wanted this year.


Group pics...such cute girls.

Such CRAZY girls :)
Aubrey's finished creations at the end of the party. Aren't they adorable? And yes, the "snocone" is a cupcake inside!