Easter 2012

 Easter 2012 has come and gone. With it is the boy's belief in the Easter bunny and letting me dress them up for egg hunting pics.  Thankfully I still have one little girl who thinks the Easter bunny is pretty amazing for bringing her candy and is all to happy to let me dress her up in any bright, frilly outfit I choose.

 We of course went to our ward Easter hunt.  Bailey was at cheer tryouts and the boys wouldn't stop from being boys for long enough for me to take a picture but we sure had fun watching Peyton get after those eggs. The boys commented that she should no longer receive a head start in our backyard egg hunt because she was just as fast as they are now.

 We made our way to the Vernon Worthern egg hunt as well.  Every year we wonder why we such to get  down there by 10:00 for 3 eggs.  I suppose tradition keeps us going.

 This was the first year Bailey was to old for any public egg hunts but I believe she had just as fun watching the little kids as we do.

 That old Easter bunny did in fact litter our backyard with eggs and toys and since my kids decided that they needed to get up at 6:00am to find their hidden baskets and hunt I opted to stay in bed while Mat played cameraman.

 In retrospect I've decided it's ok that Peyton had many Easter outfits as well as a fancy new dress for church. By the time we pulled into the driveway from church the boys were stripped down to their undies and Bailey was headed up the stairs faster than I could get to her. So I got a few lonely shots of Peyton on her Easter Sunday dress while the kids I imagine ate salsa or something. It's quite sad for me to have one last believer...

Zion

 Thankfully our family has been blessed with plenty of work for Mat over the years.  It does hinder family time here and there. Of course sometimes we can benefit by tagging along on jobs.  Mat remodeled his mom's kitchen this past spring and he used a day of delivering a few items as an excuse to take the kids hiking in Zion. Zion happens to be one of my favorite places and sadly we haven't been in years.  I was far too excited to see what the kids thought and I should had remembered that they were kids.  Not just any kids even.  Kids who have zip lined through canyons and parasailed over the ocean.  They thought Zion was cool, that was about it.

 We hiked quickly up to weeping rock and they weren't impressed. Really? A crying rock? How could they not think it was cool??? We gained some interest on a hike to see court of the patriarchs only to hear halfway into it "what day is it?" Seriously, we were walking for about 20 minutes.

All I can say is they better get used to it! The Holt's have a year pass for 2012 and I plan on taking full advantage of it!

2012 Cheer Season

 Bailey's cheer team had an amazing season! While we weren't able to attend their first competition in December we had heard they did awesome and should have won first place.  They certainly proved that since they took first at every competition following including NATIONALS!

 They were up against some pretty tough competition this year.  After watching her teams performance at nationals I knew it would be close. Last year we thought her team had first place in the bag to end up taking second. This year all the teams in her category were within a point of another and despite the fact that her team had zero deductions (which was great) and the other teams took deductions, they were still ahead! They worked incredibly hard and earned their title as national champions!

 We've enjoyed Bailey's years of cheer more than we would have thought. It's incredible to see her progress and the friendships she has formed are priceless.  Bailey was able to make not only the level three team this year (up until know it was the highest level available to compete on in Southern Utah) but she also made her gym's new level four team! Unfortunately, at her second practice for the level four team she was dropped doing a stunt and fell on her arm breaking her humerus bone as well as her shoulder blade. Truthfully, we think with cheer there's bound to be injuries and we knew it was a matter of time. We're so very grateful that it happened when it did and that it was fairly minor considering what it could have been.  She has been wearing a sling for the past few weeks and will return to cheer (to stunt only) in June.  Luckily her team takes the month of July off anyhow so she will be good to go for tumbling again in August.  It's been a challenge for her to pace herself and take it easy but she can't wait to get back up in a stunt.