Taylor the UMPIRE!

Taylor has been working on he Citizenship in the Community Merit Badge. He selected Gilbert American Little League for the community non profit organization to learn about and to give service to. He helped with opening day and then is volunteering his baseball knowledge by umpiring the little guys playing in the Rookie league. Thanks to my friend Cheryl for taking these pictures for me. This is Taylor umping his 1st game! So fun --

Haleigh's Honors

Haleigh with friends from EVYS also selected for the Honor Orchestra

Haleigh has had quite a month. It started out with an invitation to participate in the Gilbert Public Schools Honor's orchestra. Wow -- she isn't even in the schools orchestra yet! Orchestra begins in 5th grade here but one day she brought her violin in to play for her music teacher and the orchestra teacher heard her playing and immediately went about finding a way to have Haleigh play with her 5th graders. She spoke with her teacher, her ALP teacher (she has to leave math 5 min early) and the okay'd it all with the principal. Haleigh felt very special to be able to participate after all of that. Through that came her invitation to audition for the District Honor's Orchestra. She made it and although it made her schedule very full those two weeks, it was a very fun experience for her. We are very proud of the musician she is growing to be. We love you Haleigh and we are especially proud that you are developing the special talent your Heavenly Father has blessed you with!

Haleigh came straight from her softball game!

Haleigh and her classmate Zion

Haleigh's metal turtle. So cool!

The next opportunity Haleigh was honored with was her Gifted Artist Award. Haleigh had 3 pieces of her Art selected to display at the districts Art Show this year. Each class in the school has 2 children's art selected for the show. This is Haleigh's 4th year in a row being in the Art show. Let me just tell you this comes NOT from her mother. Thank goodness she has talented Grandmas and Grandpas. My stick figures just wouldn't cut it!



PICTURES TO COME :)

The last but not least honor Haleigh will receive this week is making Academic Night. In our school district if you get all A's (you can get 1 B) you qualify for a special award presented by the School Board. This begins in 4th grade and Haleigh made a goal to earn this award. She worked hard and accomplished it! Congratulations Haleigh. We are very proud of you. It is very rewarding to watch hard work and diligence pay off.

Our visit to Southern California

The first weekend in March we went to our nephew Caden's baptism in Riverside, California. It was a special day the kids enjoyed spending time with their cousins and getting to share that day with Caden. Before we flew home on Sunday we stopped for a traditional visit to the tidepools. I think Troy has as much fun as the kids when we do this. He is the best at finding all sorts of creatures to view and hold -- oops just admitted to a crime there :) It was a beautiful day at the beach and we even got a decent family picture out of it!

Sping Break 2009

Taylor & Ashlyn and her friend Dallin at the Californa Academy of Sciences Museum

Dallin & Haleigh

Camden & Sadie

Sadie & Alexa

Sadie in the tidepools

In San Francisco the California Academy of Sciences Museum at Golden Gate Park is free the third Wednesday of every month. In March that happened to fall on our Spring Break. We decided to join the Bruschke clan and visit this newly renovated museum. We got in early but still had to wait in line for over an hour before we got in -- but once we did the kids had a blast. They enjoyed the tidepools, the aquarium, the natural history portion of the museum and the Rain Forest wuth amazingly beautiful butterflies. Our trip was quick but fun. The kids enjoyed meeting up with their good friends. We miss the good ole days of bike riding, ball throwing and trampoline jumping of the old cul-de-sac. It was crazy to watch the two oldest of these two families head off to Mutual together later that night? Sad but fun to watch them grow up!

Taylor Turns 12

Taylor had very specific birthday plans. Football & video games. He got what he wanted. Taylor and 12 boys played football for close to 2 hours. After football they came back to the house for pizza and 4 gaming stations set up for their gaming extravaganza. Playstation 2, X-box, WII. Guitars played, cars raced and boys ate. It was a fun night for all, especially Taylor.

The Suns Game!

Troy & I

Julie & I

Right before both Julie Martinez and I celebrated our birthdays (they are only 2 days apart) Julie's husband Matt got tickets to the Suns game in his firms suite. Gotta love cushy seats, private bathroom and a catered meal! It was a fun night! This was my first time seeing the Suns live in action. The boys kept laughing at my apparent appall at what the cheerleader were wearing and of course their dance moves - gross! Gosh does that make me sound OLD! Luckily the Suns performance completely outshined the "dancers". They won by 40 + points! Thanks Matt for a good time - let's do it again soon!!!

Lion King

For Della's Christmas and Birthday we got her and the rest of the family tickets to the Lion King. It was such a great night. We were lucky enough to get tickets on the aisle so we could see the animals parade right past us and we got an eagles eye view of the amazing costumes and choreography since we were on the third row!! The best part was attending a cultural experience that everyone enjoyed. There isn't much these days that my almost 12 year old and my 4 year old both enjoy equally!

Haleigh as Pocahontes Wins 2nd Place!!!

Haleigh with two friends and neighbors. Kine Miltun and Cassie Bump.

Haleigh as Pocohontes

Haleigh is always ready for a fun project or activity. This past two months it has been the speech club preparing for the schools oratorical contest. She picked her character, researched and wrote her speech and proceeded to memorize her 5 minute prepared report on Pocahontes. I did nothing but proofread her final draft. I was so impressed with her. She honestly did this all on her own with no encouragement or even support. Should I be admitting that? I think she had to ask us 500 thousand times to buy her a costume. She even got on the internet and told us which stores carried it and how much it costs. What an amazing girl we have. Am I bragging? Well she deserves it. Go Haleigh we love you and are so proud of your effort. It paid off when she recieved 2nd place out of 20 students. She qualified for the district contest next week. She has a good chance since there you have to have your speech completely memorized and she was the only one at her school that did! You go girl!

UTAH FUN

After Christmas we went to spend a few days with family in the snow of Utah. The first day Troy took Taylor, Haleigh and Camden to Sundance for a day of skiing with Aunt Cherrie and Max. Sarah stayed at home with Sadie and Sophie. They spent the morning at the Kangaroo Zoo - a warehouse full of bouncies and blow up slides etc. After lunch we went up to see our skiing kids. They all had a fun day. Another day we went up to Heber and went tubing with the whole Lassiter family. Thanks Nana Pat for such a fun activity. It was pretty cold but managed to hold out for the 2 hour session. The sun was shining -it was a beautiful day in the snow. Both cameras that made it to the fun had dead batteries :( so we only got a few pictures but at least we got a few!

Sadie & Sophie

Camden skiing at Sundance

Taylor, Troy before they tackled the black diamond run with Aunt Cherrie!

Haleigh skiing at Sundance

Andrew & Haleigh posing with Sophie

The non skiiers

Sadie and Troy tubing at Soldiars Hollow

Sadie ready to go on the tow rope

Yep even Nana Pat tubed!!! Can you believe it?

Haleigh & Bella

Sophie and Cherrie

Christmas 2008

Christmas was fun and relaxing. We started off Christmas Eve with our traditional tortilla soup and drinking our rootbeer reindeers. The kids each got to pick ONE present to open and after reading the Christmas story from the scriptures it was off to bed. Christmas morning came with the excitement of presents. Mom and Dad especially enjoyed making Haleigh wait till the last present to get her "helmet" & scavenger hunt for her motor scooter. It was especially enjoyable knowing that she probably peeked and knew all the rest of her presents. Thats a whole other story probably not blog appropriate :) We love Haleigh but man oh man that girl.....

Here is Sadie proudly displaying her own bling. She kept wanting to wear Haleigh's. Now she has her own. Your so cute my sweet Sadie! You can't really tell in the picture but now our little princess has her own little crown!





The boys were very excited to get the wii set up and start rocking out with the rock band and baseball games. The girls got a turn eventually!




There she is....the screaming was deafening. She loved her only present from mom & dad and I think has forgiven our torture since she has ridden the battery dead so many times over the holiday we lost track. Thank goodness she has friends to cruise the neighborhood with!

The crazy Plewe Crew with beautiful Christmas smiles. It was a great morning.

Shortly after the present frenzy we all gathered in the kitchen to help cook and scarf down our big Christmas breakfast. Bacon, sausage, OJ, Hash brown, and pancakes. Yumm. It was a very Merry Christmas. After a big breakfast and a morning of the wii and scooter riding, we met our friends for another of our traditions...a movie. We saw Marley and Me and well let's just say it was rated PG but if Taylor didn't already know about procreation -- he does now. It was a good movie it just discussed how you start a family many times as well as supported by visually hints. Oh goodness. I was embarassed for my almost 12 year old. I ended my fabulous day by going to bed at 8:30 pm. Now thats a MERRY CHRiSTMAS!