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Kai was falling asleep in between bites.   Guess he was all tired out and food just didn’t help matters.      The kids enjoy wrestling with Daddy when he gets home.    He was proud he pinned all three kids.   And then there is Dante,  I thought his hair was cute so I was trying to take a picture and he kept doing all the superhero poses.        Then here’s me… I chopped off 11-12 inches of my hair.    I donated it to locks of love in honor of my aunts and my mother-in-law,  all who have been great examples to me and I love them so much.   This was the first time I have done this.   I love my long hair,  and I think Bryan shed a few tears before I left,  but I love this haircut too. It’s fun! I think Bryan is even learning to like it…  a little.    j/k,  he likes it too,  I think he was worried that he wouldn’t like it.    I’m still me. I’m also starting my own personal blog,  Lamp,  check it out.    Have a great week everyone!

Hello All!  Well we had a crazy weekend. The weatherman said that it was going to be hot, sunny, and beautiful this weekend at the coast.  As you know the weatherman is always right.   So we packed up the kids and the van and headed down to Lincoln City to go to the skate park and the beach there. We were going to go to the skate park first and then go to the beach after it warmed up a bit. But when we got to the skate park the part where Bryan wanted to skate was all closed off for a class and wouldn’t be re-opened until 2 p.m.  So we went to the beach and it was very cold, very overcast, and very windy.   It would have been fine if it wasn’t so windy, but oh well.No one went in the water, we just played in the sand. Before we left, Bryan walked out to the water and so I snapped a few shots.    Couldn’t tell what it looked like cuz he was far away and Kai was squirming all around but when we got home we thought this shot was very interesting and we like it.   “Reflections” - Click it for Larger PhotoSarya woke up from her nap to come snuggle with me. Kai has been crawling around like crazy. But if he just wants to hang out and see what’s going on he rolls on his side and rests his hand on his leg then looks around at everything.    It’s kinda cute.   Then he rolls back on his tummy and away he goes.Thanks for stopping by.   Please leave me a comment so I know you came and visited and enjoyed (I hope) our pictures.  Also, I just wanted to give a shout-out to my cuz, Angel!    She just graduated with her masters and had her graduation ceremony and party this weekend.   Congratulations Angel and sorry I missed the celebration, I hope you had a wonderful time and good luck with the new teaching job.   Teachers rock!

Well we had a nice 3 day weekend. We went to the Beaverton skate park Saturday morning. Nice to go to skate parks in the morning when there’s just young kids and families there. In the afternoon the older kids come and bring their potty mouths. Drives me crazy how disrespectful most of them are and have no consideration for little kids.

Sarya looks so cute in her hat and outfit she got from her jamma. Kai is already 5 months old!

At the skate park Beau and Dante love to ride their bikes. I enjoyed watching the baseball game going on, and Bryan of course enjoyed skateboarding. Kai just chilled on the blanket. He was excited about the grass, likes to touch it. Sarya just ran around mostly.

Later in the day we went down the street to a nearby park. There’s a dirt bike course and Beau enjoyed riding his bike over the hills. Dante just spun around on the merry-go-round thing pretty much the whole time we were there. You remember those park things you spin around and around and around on till you are sick when you are younger, and when you’re older you just watch it go around and around and around and you get sick. You probably have the sick-dizzy feeling just thinking about it! Bryan really wanted to do a standing back flip while we were there. It’s been a few years since he’s tried one. Watching the gymnastics during the Olympics really got him itching to do some flips. But the body just isn’t as young as it used to be, or the mind isn’t as wreckless as those carefree days. He tried for awhile but couldn’t get his feet to go over his head, maybe next time.

We had a nice Sunday. We actually had extra time to take some pictures before we had to leave for church. Kai fell asleep on the floor after his bath. Hard work getting all beautifide. Later in the afternoon we went to Oma’s and Opa’s for dinner. My mom made a lovely meal. We ate too much like always. It’s nice to be spoiled every now and then.

Last but not least, here is a picture of Bry on his mini skateboarding trip today. He went with one of his skate buddies to a few parks this morning. He was trying something new and got wacked in between the eyes with his skateboard and gave him a good gash. No, that did not stop him from finishing his skateboarding tour. He finally made it home a few hours later. He called me before he got home to warn me that his face had been disfigured and he didn’t want to freak me out by the grotesque monster he had become. So, I’m sure you can imagine how badly I was expecting him to look… yep! Pretty scary! Don’t know if I could ever look upon him again.

Well, now we can be twins, I already have a scar in between my eyes. Did you read his shirt? That was his birthday present from Jeremy and Jennie (my bro and sis-in-law). Glad someone is looking out for his well being in the event he gets hurt, someone will know what to do. He proudly wears his shirt of course. He wasn’t hurt enough to keep him away from a good BBQ. We went to Oma’s and Opa’s again for our Labor Day BBQ. It’s not Labor Day without one.

Hope you all had a nice weekend with your friends and family too. Well got to get to bed so I can get up and send Beau of to school tomorrow. Yea!!!

A couple of weeks ago, Joseph came to Portland to visit with us. We had a wonderful time with him. Joe and I had fun cooking and baking too. He helped make my job a little easier. Bryan and Joe did some recording of their music while he was here and we hope to be able to share that with you sometime soon too. Amazing stuff. I haven’t heard the likes of it before.

I think just about every day Joe was here, he would wrestle with the kids or play a game with them or something. They sure love uncle JoeJoe.

Bryan and Joe would take the kids to the park and play tag on the play structure. It gets to be very fast moving and tricky with all the climbing and stuff. Lots of fun too. You can’t touch the ground either. Here’s some pictures from the chase…

One of Bryan’s less famous talents is that he can sing the Alphabet backwards (starting with Z and singing down to A). Every family home evening we sing songs with the kids. One of Rya’s favorite songs is the ABC’s. She sings it several times a day. When we asked her what song she wanted to sing that evening, she picked the “ABC’s.” We sang the song and then when we were done Bryan said, “Now let’s sing it backwards.” And Sarya promptly turned around with her hands behind her back and stuck her butt towards us and said, “Like this, Daddy?” Unbelievable!!! It was the cutest and funniest thing! She’s only two and she know what backwards means! We were so not expecting that and had a good long laugh. Wish you all could have been there to enjoy the moment with us.

Thanks so much Joe for coming and visiting with us. We had a great time and miss you already. Thanks for your great help too! We love you!

Here’s some more pics of the kids. Kai is growing so much and I couldn’t wait till he was 4 months old so I could give him baby cereal. Poor “Kai-Guy” would druel while the rest of us sat at the table eating a yummy meal. Of course Beau wanted to help. Kai looks a little worried, but no worries, he’s a pro at baby cereal now! I didn’t get Dante in the whole picture, but he had me pin a “cape” around him so he could be “word boy.” He has to be some sort of super hero everyday. My favorite is “the hulk.” He has these small blue shorts he wears under his other clothes and then he’ll come up to me and say, “I’m getting ANGGRRYYY!” Makes a real scary/angry face and strips down to his blue shorts to become “The Hulk.” It actually kind of scared me the first time he did it, I really thought he was getting angry. :O

Here is Sarya, she fell asleep after buckling herself into the babies swing. Looks pretty uncomfortable hanging over the side like that. We tried to get a video of her last night at dinner, when she was falling asleep while eating. She would open her eyes for a second to stuff food in her mouth and then nod off to sleep and chewing at the same time. That’s multitasking 101.
Then there is her on her 2nd Birthday. We didn’t do much for her birthday, but we still had fun!

Summer has brought several gigs for the V-Chords, and it’s been so fun to see them perform and to see how far they have come as a group. If you get the chance to see one of their shows, do it. They are very good, I haven’t got bored yet!

We started off at the end of July with a Coats concert here in Hillsboro. The V-Chords opened the show for them with a few songs. It’s fun cuz the kids all come up to the front of the stage and dance. Our kids where dancing up there when The Coats were performing, but they aren’t in the pictures. I have them on video if Bryan can put them up for me sometime. It was a fun show. The Coats are awesome, and if you don’t know who they are, then you need to become an a cappella fan! This ain’t no boring barbershop!

Next, V-Chords did their own concert with another group, Rezonate, from Eugene. It was a 2 hour show, and it was fantastic. Maybe the best part was I got to go without the kids . Well I did have the baby, but he’s pretty easy. I was blown away with how well V-Chords has developed into such an entertaining group. They’ve been together a year now, and I’m hoping great things from them. I think Bryan posted some video from the show, you can check that out at http://vchords.com of course.

V-Chords was invited by the city of Hillsboro to come and do street singing during “Celebrate Hillsboro” day. The streets of Hillsboro were packed! So many people. I’m not big on big crowds, easy to loose a kid for sure, but still fun. Thankfully it wasn’t hot at all. Another beautiful day in Oregon.

After singing outside a restaurant downtown, the waitresses invited the group in to sing to their diners and then allowed V-Chords to sing over the street from their balcony. Pretty cool. Later in the day they had 2 more shows at the Chataqua festival in Gladstone. Sorry, no pics there, I had to stay home and read my book, “Breaking Dawn” of the Twilight saga. Darn! Sad I have to suffer so. Thanks to my mom for helping out with me and the kids so we can hang with V-Chords. Great job guys too!

I’ll be posting some family pics in the next few days hopefully. So check back soon. Love ya!

Today is July 11, 2008, a decade ago on this day, Bryan and I met for the first time.  Ever since then we’ve been together.  Each year our love grows stronger.  It’s hard to imagine it’s already been 10 years.  Seems like we just blinked and here we are.  At the same time it seems like we’ve always been together.  Today I searched through pictures to post and read some of the things I wrote about when I met him and it was fun to remember the start to us.  I remember the first time I saw him and the feeling I had that I knew him or had seen him before.

We met at the Oakland Temple during the 1998 Temple pageant. Bryan was playing young Joseph Smith and I was assigned to do his stage makeup. On our wedding day in 2001 we went back to the same exact spot where we met for the first time when Bryan’s mom said, “Bryan, this is your make up girl, Leslie.” Thanks mom for those most beautiful words. The picture of the temple is one that I took, right about that time that we met too.

These pictures above were also taken that summer shortly after we met. I just wanted to share them with everyone too. There was another one I wanted to post, but I couldn’t find. I hope that you hold the one you love a little closer today too. Time is precious and it goes by so quickly.

Bryan, the man that I love, thank you for this wonderful journey. You are my everything and have been now for 10 years and I’m glad to say that it will be that way for eternity. Thank you for making my dreams come true cuz my dreams have always been about you and our family. Thank you for all the hard work you do for our family and the things you have sacrificed for us. I love you!

Love,
your LL

We spent the day at the Newberg skate park. Beau likes to ride his bike on the BMX dirt course. Where in the world is Bry? He’s also in the skate park pictures, can you find him? Hint: He has a green helmet, and a grey shirt on. Also, if you notice Rya’s forehead she tried to escape our house by pushing the screen to our front room window out and diving for it. She wasn’t very graceful about it. You would think her middle name was clutzy and not Anne (full of grace! ha!). Atleast she likes her hello kitty bandaid.
Later we spent the evening at Oma’s and Opa’s house for yummy BBQ and fireworks. Everyone had fun. Kai was even enjoying the sparkles.

Bryan had fun skate boarding with the fireworks while the kids wrote on the street with their sparklers. So artistic!

On Sunday, we took some pics with the kids. I’m always taking the pictures, so this time I’d thought it would be nice to have a picture with the kids. We also got callings at church, and I’ll have to tell you them later. Should be fun. As you can see Kai fell asleep snuggling with his pacifier.

More pics with me and the kids. I guess Dante was too busy doing other things to be in our pictures. Dante saw my superman shirt and said, “You’re superman mommie.” He likes my shirt, superman is his favorite and we borrowed the original superman movies over the weekend from uncle Jon. Dante’s favorite part was when superman was a baby. He had to rush down stairs just to tell me.

Today Kai is 3 months old. I thought everyone would like an update and we finally got recent pictures of him. We couldn’t find the plug for our camera and it had died. Eventually we found it and revived the camera. I’m going to try and post pictures but it’s a little tricky and I forgot how Bryan showed me, it’s been several months. I’m not sure how much he weighs now, at 2 months he was 13 pounds. And he’s been needing to move to the next size of clothing for awhile now and I finally got that done. And we got Dante potty trained, our garage cleaned out, so we are getting some things done. Kai is awake a lot now and so it’s taking me longer to get stuff done; he requires more entertaining. It’s also gotten hot here and I don’t like the heat much anymore. Back to Kai, he went through the hand faze, where he realized he has hands, he scratched up his face pretty good, now he’s looking better. The last two weeks he’s been rolling over, smiling and laughing, and has joined the other podlings in never ending talking. Well he’s not that bad yet. Sarya is the eternal talker, not sure when she started or if she’s going to end. Kai has deep blue eyes like his brothers. Sarya changes her eye color like she changes her clothes, a few times a day when she keeps them on. She’s our little princess, she sings and dances and sometimes even beat boxes. Her favorite dance is ring around the rosie. But she calls it, “ashies.” She’ll be 2 in two weeks and she says parts of the alphabet and her numbers. She is a big trouble maker though, she’s the messiest thing too, she’s worse then the boys combined when they were her age. It’s amazing what that little thing can do. We are still working on potty training with her, but I think it will be much sooner than it took for the boys. It’s certainly the thing I hate most about being a parent and it’s the last challenge to over come kind of to their being a big kid and not a baby. It is a feeling of achievment when they get it though and will feel good to have 3 out of 4 done. Beau graduated from Kindergarten, kind of silly that they have a party for it too, but the kids sure enjoy it and it is very funny. We had to make a big poster of pictures of Beau for the star of the week, and I was going through pictures in my picture box that I mean to turn into scrap books at some time, and I found a picture of a baby and thought it was weird that there was a picture of Kai in there, and that it couldn’t be Kai, of course not, it’s Dante. Wow, they look soooooo much a like, they could be twins if they were the same age. Beau and Dante have been having a lot of fun with all of our neighbor friends. There is always a party happening on our street, we love our neighborhood. Bryan even has a lot of skateboarding buddies here, so that keeps him fit and happy. He’s busy with work and singing and hanging out with us. Beau and Dante have become avid colorers, Dante’s only 3 and he’s does a real good job, trying to keep the crayons from Sarya is the challange though, she likes to eat them. Dante is my little superhero too, he’s usually superman. As for me, I feel strong and healthy and tyring to work hard to get back into my regular clothes, I’m almost there. I’m trying to watch out on chocolate, but sometimes my day just gets a little crazy with 4 kids and I needs some sweetness. I’m real glad I’ve been working out and trying to get my spiritual time in too to help me be a good mommie and person through out the day. It’s helped me to be happy, and have the energy and strength in keeping up with the family and house. I enjoy getting emails and pics from all of you. See ya later.

Click any image for a higher resolution version.

Since moving into the new house with a 10 ft 8 in ceiling in the garage, I’ve been slowly building skateboard ramps with the help of some neighborhood kids. Check out the above photo of the current setup. In the background, behind the recycle bins, you can see a 8 ft yellow kinked rail. The large ramp on the left is a 4 ft by 4 ft quarter pipe with a 4ft by 4 ft bank on the other side. Just in front of that is the 2 ft micro pipe. It has 2 ft of platform on each side and is 4 ft wide by 20 ft long. In the bottom left of the photo you can see the edge of a fun box, 3 ft wide, 6.5 ft long and 13 inches tall with coping on one of the 6.5 ft sides. There’s also a small bank that is also 13 inches tall in the background behind the upright 2×4’s. That’s it for now. At some point this Summer, we plan to build a 4 ft mini ramp similar to the micro pipe. The photo was taken from on top of the shelves in the corner of the garage with my head against the wall and ceiling.