In honor of Bernice!

Since today is Bernice's birthday I thought I would post these pictures on her special day! I recently did the Breast Cancer walk in celebration of my sweet, funny, friend Bernice. She's been fighting breast cancer since around March and has finished her chemo treatments and has a couple more surgery's and then she can put this all behind her. Watching her go through this has been hard but it's also made me very proud to have her as my friend. She's been extremely brave and continued being her witty self!

Here's some pictures of me with Bernice's family and friends at the Breast Cancer walk. I just have to say that we all had so much fun! Of course we wished Bernice was there with us but she was on our mind the whole time! One of the local radio stations even gave a shout out to her while we were walking...it was very cool!

Just getting started...


The whole gang! Cousins, siblings, & friends...


B's cousin Amber, Krissy & me...


B's nephew Blayde...


B's cousins Amiee & Amber & Krissy...


Me & Karen...


Krissy, Amiee, & Karen with their B's on their back...


Blayde & B's sister Charlotte...


Me & Karen being...well, me & Karen...:)




Phew, we made it to the finish line, most of us anyhow....

Homework in the rain!

Clainey came home from school one rainy afternoon and wanted to do her homework outside so she could enjoy it! She came in pretty quickly when she started hearing the thunder though!

Brown belt, baby!

Our little karate girl is movin' on up through the belts! She recently tested for her brown belt and passed. This is when it starts getting a little harder, the Kata's get longer, the techniques get a little more intense, and they expect a lot more from the students. We're so proud of our girl and absolutely thrilled that she's still enjoying karate! I think it's been fabulous for her confidence! We were watching the new Karate Kid movie the other night and Maclaine proceeded to say, "I just want to kick those bad kids in the cubes." "Um, what did she just say?" I think she's definitely learning how to defend herself in karate and totally "gets" that that is where you want to kick boys, BUT, I think her momma and daddy need to watch our mouths around her...I mean, CUBES, seriously? That totally sounds like a TYism :)

Here she is getting ready to head in to her belt graduation...


She just received her belt...


"Look mom and dad!"


"CONGRATULATIONS!"


"I'm so proud of you, "Boog"...



Getting the new belt on, so exciting....!



Mr. Russell and Clainey girl....

Ellie and Clainey!

We were wanting some "Ellie time" so since the kiddos had Labor day off we decided to invite her to spend the night with us that Sunday.

Here's a few pictures of the girlies...

They had fun accessorizing & posing at Walmart...


Little cuties...


This is all the kiddos favorite tree...


We love you Ellie girl! Come stay again soon!

Jessie's visit!

One of my Gilbert high school peeps, Jessica, was in town with her cute little baby girl Jordi. We decided to eat lunch at Liberty Market in Gilbert which actually used to be a Market when we were in High School. Now, they've made it into this really cool restaurant.

I always enjoy chit-chatting with the girls...I just wish Jessie hadn't gotten so rattled when Jordi started getting a little fussy, we didn't even notice :) We had to give her a hard time about it because we are all past the baby faze and it's been so long since we've had are little babes on our hips so we probably just don't remember getting stressed back in those days.

Love ya, Jessie & Jordi! It was so good to see you! Tell Jay hi from us!



Nicole, Jessie, Me, Kelli, Mary and Jordi...


Mary and Jordi...I love this picture!


Cutie pie!

Spirit Week at Noah Webster!

This is a LONG over due blog post!

Here's Maclaine all decked out for spirit week a couple weeks ago!

Crazy sock day....


Crazy hair day, Maclaine's favorite...


Mix-n-match day, she didn't go too crazy with this day....


Crazy hat day....


School pride day...

Grandparents Breakfast

Here's a couple pictures of Maclaine with her G (my momma) at the Grandparents breakfast at her school. Clainey was very excited to have her G spend the night and get up with her to eat donuts at the school.



"Thanks for coming G, and thanks for buying me a book at the book fair!"