Lil' Dean Fam

One of my very best friends is dealing with one of the hardest things life can throw at you.  Her baby girl has cancer.  Aubree was diagnosed with Leukemia just before she was 5 months old.  She has been going through chemotherapy treatments and has had a bone marrow transplant too.  This is a video Autumn made of Aubree before her transplant, and this is a link to her on-going story, her blog .  She is past the 100 days post transplant mark and now they just have to wait and see if all of her bone marrow belongs to her older brother, two year old Nelson.  Aubree just turned one and unfortunately had to spend her birthday in the hospital.  I cannot imagine the months and months of worry, heartache, and trial her family has been through this past year, but I do know that helping them out in whatever way I can, makes me feel like I've contributed in some small way.  Autumn, you are stronger than I ever knew you could be!  You've been ...

My Mom started these quilts for my boys a couple of years ago.  And then she decided to get her bachelors degree and these quilts never really got finished.  They were twin-sized though, and my boys didn't own Twin beds, so, we all sort of forgot about them.  And then I got bored and decided I'd like to rekindle my quilting craft.  I've been quilting for a few months now and wanted to finish most of my projects for other people first before I did these.  Finally, I finished the sewing and with the help of Grandma, Mom, and my sister Jess, we tied both quilts.  I sewed them closed, Colin built the beds, and we were in business!  I love the look of the new beds, and the quilts are awesome, if I do say so myself.  Ha ha!  Anyway, here are the photos.

So Colin and I signed up to run the Dirty Dash with a team from his work.  The race was held on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.  That's right near the Deer Creek Reservoir just west of Park City.  I wasn't sure what to think of a mud run but it was definitely A LOT OF FUN!  Colin and I had a lot of fun running together.  The race was for sure more hard than I was expecting.  There were tons of uphill parts which I find just take the wind right out of me.  The course was really varied.  There were hills, lots of obstacles like hay bales, wooden walls, cargo nets, tires, tunnels, and lots and lots of MUD!  They even had sprinklers on the mud to make it even more muddy.  Our team was "The Muddy Buddies" and most of them dressed in togas.  There were many teams dressed in costume.  We saw tu-tus, suits, super heroes, butterfly wings, and others.  Our start time was 1:40pm and there were waves of runne...

 Ryan finished Kindergarten on Tuesday, June 7, 2011.  He and his classmates performed a program at their school on the last day; complete with speaking parts and musical numbers.  They all did a wonderful job, it was a really cute program.  I really cannot believe that this year is over.  It made me tear up a few times.  We are so proud of him and all of his accomplishments and growth throughout the year.  Mrs. Graham couldn't be a better teacher!  We love her and will really miss her too.  Ryan had two speaking parts.  "G is for the good times we had throughout the year". and "Q is for quilt, we made one for our class."  Easton doing his part  Easton and Ryan enjoying some refreshments after their program.  Their visors say 2023.  That's the year they'll graduate from High School!  Ryan's last visit to his classroom. Mrs. Graham and Ryan At the end of the program they gave out two Founder's Day aw...

This year Sprucewood students performed in their fist annual Dance Festival.  Parents were invited to bring lawn chairs and come watch their kids dance.  Each grade level did one dance, many of them came from the programs they perform throughout the school year.  It was a lot of fun for us to watch and the kids all did a really great job.  A spokesperson from each group told a little bit about the history of each dance or why the number was chosen.  So fun, so cute! I took video on our video camera and I'm hoping to figure out how to load it into my computer and blog. Ryan is in the middle with his Kindergarten class, waiting to go on and perform.  Ryan walking out to perform.  5th Grade performing their dance.  5th Grade Students in the staging area 6th graders doing the swing dance

Ryan is wrapping up his last days of Kindergarten and today was his very first Field Trip!  We went to the Hogle Zoo with all of the Sprucewood Kindergartners.  Evan and I got to tag along so that made it lots of fun for both of my boys.  We spent the day walking around with his best buddy Easton and his mom and little sister then later we met up with Reese and her family as well.  We saw pretty much everything there was to see there, all of their favorite animals.  They also have these life-size dinosaurs this year and the theme for the summer is Zoorasic Park.  The boys really loved looking that the dinos and getting sprayed by the raptor.    Baby Elephant who was born last year.  This leopard really came alive for us, pacing back and forth running inside and out.  The kids were ecstatic!  I loved the giraffes, especially because we got to see them so close up!  Ryan, Mrs. Graham, Easton, and Ree...