Story about these pictures below is in the month of Feb, click on I was at Madelyns gymnastics to read. I published it after I posted the pics, but I guess it posted in order of when I typed the draft.

Riley turned 9, February 24th. He is having his party on March 7, though. He got to open his present from mom and dad. Also thank you to grandmas and grandpas sending birthday cards.

Riley had his blue and gold banquet on Saturday. He received his wolf badge and a few other awards. They had a dad and son cake auction to earn money for day camp this summer. Logan will be 8 when camp is here so he also got to make a cake to earn money so he can go to camp. We had fun, but unfortunately did not win any cake. Mark was unable to get a non blurry picture of Riley getting his badge, but I got one of each of the boys with their cakes.

Ok, so i am sitting at Madelyn's gymnastics yesterday.. and i get a phone call. I had left Alyssa and the two boys at home, and gave them a job to clean up the back yard and weed the front. Mark was on his way home from work when i left. When he got home, Riley had taken off to who knows where, so he tasked Logan with the back yard and Alyssa with the front. He then went in the house to take a shower. A few minutes later Logan comes running into the house screaming there is a fire!! Mark is thinking at a neighbors??, down the street?? He opens up the windowto look and our backyard is on fire!! He luckily was able to get it out with the hose and some stomping, and some buckets of water. Logan had gotten a hold of the lighter we used to light the bbq last week, so riley could do his outdoor cooking to earn his wolf badge. He says he was lighting a piece of grass on the patio and it spread to the rest of the grass. It was very windy yesterday. I am very grateful Logan did not get caught in the middle of the fire. He is unscathed. Unfortunately our trampoline has a hole in it. We are also lucky it didnt spread to the neighbors or to a house.

Riley had his second Pinewood Derby. His car didnt do so hot, but he had fun making it. They also had a family race, so Logan and Maddy got to make a car also. Maddy didnt want to be in the picture.

We have been busy, busy, go, go, go!! I love to keep the kids active in activities. Alyssa has been keeping busy dancing, getting ready for a recital in May. She dances Mon, Tues, and Sat. Madelyn is doing gymnastics on Tues and Thurs. Both boys are doing basketball. Their Geronimo team is done, but they are still going with Fort Sill and yesterday soccer started. I wish the girls wanted to play soccer, but then that would be more places to run to. I love to watch them practice and play games. I wish I had a better action camera.

Meet the newest member of our family!! This is Sawyer. Over Christmas break Riley and Logan and some friends found some kittens up at there school abandoned. They decided they would bring two home. I told them no way are we keeping them, we already have 2 cats. We fixed up a box outside for them to sleep in and gave them a little food. I was planning on emailing members of our ward to see if anyone wanted any kittens. The next day when we went to the boys basketball practice we brought the kittens with us. A friend of Riley's parents decided they wanted to take one home with them.. Wow that was easy!! Except even after a day it was sad to see them take him. I am a sucker for kittens, can you tell!! Anyway, the kids were begging me to keep the other one. I told the kids I would talk to their dad. He of course said it was my decision. And what do you think it was?? We kept him. It took us a week to decide on his name. He is so sweet and cuddly, but sometimes he is a crazy wild kitten!! We are having fun with him. Well us humans. Star and Stripes are not so happy about a new cat in the house.

Ok, I am a little slow at getting things posted on my blog. Hopefully as time passes I will get better. We had some fun weather last week. The kids missed 2 days of school. It was very cold and icy Monday Jan26 and then Tuesday Jan 27 morning we got snow, or was it ice? Do you call it frozen snow? I could here it coming down in the morning, and when the kids woke up they were excited saying it snowed it snowed!! I told them no, it was ice, but they wanted to go out and play in it anyway. They got out the sleds and were sledding down our driveway, which isnt very long, but they would shoot out all the way across the street on the ice. It countinued to come down throughout the day. We got about 4-5 inches, I didnt actually go out and measure it. School was cancelled on Wednesday Jan 28 as well. Alyssa went with some friends to go sledding at a pond down the street and got sunburned!! She forgot that even though it is cold you can still get burned, not to mention the reflection from the snow. We had two nice relaxing days, as all their other activities were cancelled as well. I didnt get around to getting pictures til Thursday after some of it had melted. But it was the most white we have seen in a long time. Our back patio turned into a giant thick sheet of us and because it is shaded for a lot of the day is still icy. We couldnt even get the back screen door open for a few days. The kids were sad they had to go back to school on Thursday.