On The Way

 Last October, one of our really good friends moved to Washington and when they left we vowed to come and visit them. We kept our promise and on May 30th, we packed a van full of all 8 of us and hit the road!

 Wesley, Colby, Liam, Eliza and Wyatt, Lily

 Our first very long day of traveling lead us to Sacramento for the night. Eliza especially loved the beds!

 Our second day of traveling lead us from Sacramento to Olympia, WA. This was a rest stop near Shasta Lake in Northern California.

 That's a pretty stellar, Stellar's Jay, huh?

Mt. Shasta was amazing! It was quite a view as we wound around the mountain roads to different views of the mountain. The clouds above the volcano were just amazing!

 We finally made it to the same state as Sara! We were so excited!

Liam's Kinder Graduation

 My baby boy graduated from kindergarten today! How has this year flown by so fast!? He has grown so much and is so smart! He was given the mathlete award because he is just a math wizz!

 Getting his promotion certificate

 The 3 boys! These are the boys from our ward that are Liam's friends that we requested be in the same class. They've had a great year and are "mates" til the end. The boy in the middle Jonah is from Australia.

Miss Anderson, who, I am sure, is the best kindergarten teacher of all time! She does SOOOO much for her class and the school. She is just flat out amazing! We sure are going to miss her!

I'm punching myself for not getting a family picture with our graduate, dang!

May 2015

 This little girl has become quite the busy body. She is 15 months old now and into everything. If she can, she will climb onto whatever; our bus activity center, stool, hamper, you name it.

 Tony took a picture of this pretty bird that was in our backyard the other day. Yes that is a weed it is standing on, hey give me a break at least the garden looks good. The rest of the yard doesn't get much attention.

 Last week was spirit week at school. Liam somehow got the idea that he wanted a car in his hair for crazy hair day. So we made a flat road with a car hair clip and spiky grass on the sides.

 She is constantly in cabinets now too!

 Decade Day! Here is "The Fonz!" He's even got the tough guy face down pat.

 We got to celebrate Liam's birthday on his actual birthday, the 15th. With the craziness of the talents show which his teacher was in charge of, the kids were split up doing activities with the other kindergarten classes and somehow Liam got left behind in another teacher's class and was crying when he finally got back to us when I got there. But he was happy I was there and calmed down. I made Baymax cupcakes which all the boys thought were really cool! (Baymax from Big Hero 6)

He got pretty spoiled on the morning of his birthday. I woke up a little early to make him waffles and Daddy even stayed up so he could eat with us before he went to school. He gets breakfast at school, so we never eat breakfast together on school days. And it was pajama day at school on his birthday so he didn't even have to change!

Our dear Braden graduated high school yesterday and we went to see him. Braden has been our buddy and neighbor since a few months before Liam was born. He has been our babysitter forever and a GREAT example to our family. We are so proud of him and are sooo excited for the things happening for him. His mission call should be here any day and we are so excited for him to serve. We have made our guesses as to where we think he will be called. Whoever guessed the closest gets a candy bar.

Yellow Belt

 Liam went through testing the other day and was awarded his yellow belt in karate! (white then orange then yellow) He was tested on what he learned in sparring, jahng bahng, and his leadership training. He did so well and was obviously the youngest in his group and was so funny and cute.

 Getting his new belt put on by Mr. Sauve`

Liam was chosen to do his leadership final to the whole class. (They usually do it in small groups of 2 or 3) He did so well and it was one of those parenting moments when you are just so overwhelmed by the pure amazingness of your kid. I was soooo proud of him! The big group and all of the attention on him didn't seem to phase him at all.

No longer and orange belt. YELLOW!

Liam's 6th Birthday Party

 This year, Liam wanted a ninja party so we decided to do it at his karate place and we got a good discount. It was great! All of the kids had a great time! Liam was made a black belt for the day.

 The kids learned some new kicks and punches and got to practice them a lot!

 He was so excited for a real football! He actually got 2! A regular one and a glow in the dark one!

 Grandma and Papa Mills knew just what he wanted! He's been eyeing that helmet for months!

 This picture cracks me up! Trying to break boards was the highlight I think!

 All the party gang!

 Kylee, Ainzlee, Jonah, Saige, Allie, John, Jonah, Jacob, Carson, Ethan, Gordon, Logan, Liam, Eliza, Wynston and Maysa

Here's Liam in his new sparring gear from us!

Kinder Field Day

 I volunteered to help out at Liam's field day at school this year. When I got to school, Liam's teacher saw me come in and said did you get my email this morning? I hadn't and she explained the situation to me. There was a pollution advisory and since Liam has asthma, he wasn't going to be able to participate in field day. I was furious! He was sent to the gym to watch a movie while the rest of the kids were going to have the time of their lives. Mama Grizz came out! I went over to the gym and had a few words with the principal about it and we went to the nurse together to talk it over. Since Liam only really has problems when he has a cold and I was going to be staying with him to whole time, we was released to go play. Phew! He was already upset and I knew it would've been the end of the world for him. I'm glad he was able to go play. They did all sorts of fun water activities and had blow up slide and everything! It would've been quite the ordeal to miss out on! 

They had a dunk tank that Liam's teacher sat in. Each kid had two chances to throw and try to dunk her. LIAM DUNKED HER BOTH TIMES!

 She was soaked!

Walk to Cure Arthritis May 2, 2015

 I decided to take a leap and get myself involved. I've felt pretty lonely dealing with my kids arthritis since I don't know another single soul whose kids have arthritis. I found the Arthritis Foundation on Facebook and have kind of been following them. That is where I heard about the Walk to Cure Arthritis. I decided to take a leap and create my own team. In total we were able to raise over $700 dollars to go towards research and juvenile arthritis programs. Up until the last week, it was only going to be my little family of 4 going then my sister decided she would come and support us and then my parents joined us and Tony's dad came too! It was not what I thought, but it was fun. It was more of just a free zoo day. They had a start and finish line but it wasn't a race at all. We just walked through and enjoyed the zoo! I was ok with that too! A free zoo day with my family, sure! My friend, Tammy helped me make these shirts! I love how they turned out! Since Liam is super into ninjas right now, our team was the Arthritis Ninjas and our motto was KARATE CHOPPING ARTHRITIS! Our picture even made it on the JA page!

 When we were screening the shirts we used a scrap piece of fabric to test out before we put it on shirts so I sewed it into a flag.

 Papa Mills loved the elephant! That's the main thing he wanted to see! After the walk was over we stayed and finished seeing the zoo with Papa Mills. It was really nice to enjoy it with just him.

We were blessed by a good citizen who had an extra ticket to the carousel and gave it to us!