9 YEARS!

today we are celebrating the best 9 years of our life...thats right, we have been married for almost a decade! sometimes we can't believe that time goes by so quickly, but i am so glad that we have been able to do everything together! (i just want to tell the #1 man in my life that you are the most incredible husband and father and i am grateful for you everyday!)

our life is filled with giggles, smiles, snowboards, golf clubs, dogs, putting greens, family, and a

whole lot of craziness and love! i wouldn't have it any other way!

I love you armando and look forward to the rest of our wonderful life together!

catching up again!

it seems that i am always playing catch-up these days! here are my excuses for being a blog-slacker: 1) our computer crashed and we had to get a new operating system after trying everything else for a couple of weeks. this is a problem because i generally take a little longer than the average bear to figure out something new! 2) i spend my free time finding a way to take everyone skiing; 3) my house always needs to be cleaned--especially after easter--the easter bunny will not be allowed to bring easter grass into my house next year! 4) you get the point--it hasn't been a high priority.
here are a few pics of the lastest happenings. there was an easter egg hunt at our pool, featuring the easter bunny. cassie had seen the advertisement poster for weeks and couldn't wait to go"baby-swimming with bunny!" so we braved the throngs of screaming children pushing through the water for eggs and met the bunny.

jax was the only one to officially "meet" the easter bunny, but cassie pointed, smiled, and hid from him a lot.

this is jax and his best friend jayce. jayce happens to live across the street--a very convenient thing if you ask me! they had to do a biography book report and then displayed their character in a wax museum. it was really fun, and worked out great for me since we had a wild west sheriff costume! (did you know that wyatt earp was one of six boys? all of them actually worked together at one time or another...and the term "riding shotgun" comes from the guard sitting with the satgecoach driver for the pony express? i read the book after jax.)

life is going on at the kennon household...jackson will get baptized next week, scotty loves to do art and craft projects and is loved by his school teacher who tells me every time she sees me how much she enjoys him; and cassie loves her brothers and her friend nate. her favorite sayings right now are "what the heck" and "nasty". we are so proud.

There She Goes!

Cassie is officially skiing! a lot of my free time in the last couple of weeks has been sent teaching "pow-pow" how to ski! the verdict is...she absolutely loves it! the weather at snowbird has been gorgeous, so there was no better time to get her going. sunny days+big brothers that rip=a little girl with a smile on her face on the hill. she has awesome balance and and even better attitude.

the first couple of times i took all the kids. the boys put on their snowboards and just worked on their turns on the beginner hill with us. it was super fun because we could all be together but they didn't have to wait for us. i have also taken her up a couple of times when the boys were both at school. those are the best "girls outings" ever. she tries to talk to me on the chairlift and snuggles up close...i love it! we eat tic-tacs on the lift and then she hold them in her hand as she skis down--so cute! the only bad attitude was toward her jacket (and helmet the first day) so...

we got her this. now that everything is pink, she is very happy to wear it. she is fast on her way to being the prettiest little ripper on the hill!

ah, the long over-due post...everyone wants Christmas all year round, right? so this is the first of the updates. we had a wonderful holiday season! Christmas eve was spent with my brother and sister and their families. It was one of my first time hosting such a large gathering at my house and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did make armando prepare the turkey for me before he left for work, since i am a little afraid of whatever remains are always stuck inside.

Scotty performed in the kindergarten program...a lot more participation than we got from jackson...scotty actually sang and did the hand actions. I was then told by another mother that her daughter said that scotty is "the one". She of course is the cutest girl in the class. Now I am wondering about the question out of scotty's mouth--"mom, which do you think is better, Jared's or the Shane Company?" I guess he is thinking ahead too!

We made a ginergbread house that was auctioned off for sub-for-santa, which my kids thought was pretty cool. I thought it was an excellent idea and a great fundraiser!

The majority of the time was spent hanging out with each other and armando working hard! On a sadder note, we also lost armando's grandmother over the holidays. we will miss nana and all the love and wonderful tacos she gave us over the years! we are extremely grateful that cassie got to meet her when we were in tucson this spring.

Opening Day!

It's here! Snowbird opened early this year! So what do we do? We go to parent/teacher conferences, wait for the teacher to say that our children are extremely bright, and then say "good, because we need to pull them out of class to go skiing on powder days!" ok, not every powder day because there are too many in Utah! Yeah! So, we did pack up the gear and head up the canyon for a good family morning of skiing.

The boys were so excited that they woke up at 6 am...it was like it was Christmas morning to them! Jax was especially excited since he hadn't been up since his broken leg. The snow was perfect, and the little guys are hard for me to keep up with.

Here's Scotty catching his first air for the season. He just picked up right where he left off last year!

And here is Jax, ready to launch. I was a little afraid that he might be timid after the leg, but that was not the case! I guess that is one of the perks of being a kid--they don't seem to be scared of things! I can't wait for the season to really get going--the boys are awesome ski partners and as soon as chickadee (the beginner lift) is open, Cassie gets to learn!

Around the House

There have been some exciting happenings around the house the last couple of weeks, and I'm just now getting caught up! The tooth fairy had another visit to our house--this time for Scotty! He actually lost his tooth at school--which I hear was very cool and now Scotty is a member of the "lost tooth" club. This is definately the club all the kindergartens want to be in! Congrats Scotty!

The majority of our outside time as of late has been spent raking and playing in the leaves. I absolutely love the fall colors and the trees that we have in our yard--but what a clean-up job! There are about 15 trees at our house and they all have beautiful leaves and fantastic shade in the summer!

I love this picture of Cassie. You can see how beautiful the fall is in Utah! The evening that we were raking was one of those times when the entire sky and mountains were just golden and warm. Those are the best days ever!

And the only thing that makes it even better is watching all your kids laugh and play together enjoying their childhood!

Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year that was enjoyed by all...this is the first year that everyone has enjoyed the festivities. It started out with the parade at Canyonview--this seems to be one of the best attended school activities of the year and it was fun to see all the kids show off their costumes. Jax was the "crypt keeper" and scotty was a ninja, and cassie went in plain clothes, because even getting those on was a battle!

We also got the cutest cookies that I have ever seen. (thanks meagan!) they were gone in about two seconds because they were also very tasty.

Armando got really creative this year and set up our front porch like a spooky cave. It was awesome! I love that he gets into the spirit of a holiday (he always does the Christmas lights etc.) because I don't think I would ever get around to it even though I think that it is so fun. So our front cave was complete with orange lights, a skeleton, cobwebs, and a jack-o-lantern. Cassie was excited to learn about trick-or-treating. The first house we went to she just walked right on in. Then she figured out that all she had to do was stick out her hand and they would give her candy--a dream come true for her! She tried her hardest to run between houses and keep up with the boys. After all the candy we headed over to our neighbor Dave's house ( Jackson's opinion is "Dave is practically my favorite old guy.") for a Halloween feast. All in all it was a great night!