ORIOLES!!!

While Victoria was playing in Florida with the neighbors, Gene and I decided to take the other kids and do a few fun things! On Friday, June 12th it was Mormon night at Camden yards, home of the Orioles. Mormon night means all Mormons get into the game for just $6.00. So we packed some treats got dressed in our Orioles wear and headed to the game. Of coarse we were all excited, but we have also been spoiled by some great seats Gene can get through one of his work contacts and we knew with these tickets we would not be so close. It was Isaac's first time going to MLB game and I was hoping he would do good, and he did! Unfortunately it wasn't the best game for the O's, but still worth going to the game. It was perfect weather which always makes it nicer. I also got to see my boyfriends Nick and Brian, Nick plays right field, and Brian is the O's second baseman! LOL Anyway it was a fun night at the ball field, everyone had a good time, and it was floppy hat night, so we got a few free Orioles floppy hats.



Here is a picture of one of my boyfriends Nick Markakis! I tried to get Gene to name Isaac Nick, but he refused to name our child after an athlete that I thought was cute! :)




This picture here is Brian Roberts, he is only a year younger than me so there is always hope with him! ;) He is Brenden's favorite baseball player! I couldn't find a really go picture of him, so this one will have to do!


How could you not love this crew here. Aren't they the cutest O's fans you have ever seen!!

Brenden taking care of Isaac. He is such a good big brother and he can't wait until Isaac is big enough to play sports!!


Isaac at his first O's game sporting one of our free floppy hats!! :) He is also sporting something orange that he ate for dinner on the corner of his mouth, at least he stayed with the color scheme! LOL

Victoria turns 12!!! WOW

I can hardly believe that Tori turned 12 this year. She has finished her first year of middle school and now she is going to be going to Young Womens! I am soo young I just don't see how it is possible that I have a 12 year old! :) We do have a theme going on this year with the kids birthdays, and the theme is........ see how sick you can get on your birthday. Victoria did a good job at carrying on this tradition that Isabelle started and was throwing up, coughing and sneezing on her birthday! NO FUN poor girl. We did a family birthday get together the day before her birthday, and then we had to wait until the day after her birthday to do cake and ice cream with friends! Victoria had a fun surprise for her birthday that she didn't get to find out until two days after. Our neighbor surprised Victoris and took her and Alexis (her daughter) to Florida to visit Disney world, Universal studios etc. They left on June 10th and won't be back until June 20th. I have gotten a lot of pictures from them and Tori is good to call every morning and sometimes at night depending on how tired she is. Isabelle and Brenden have been very good not to be jealous of her. They have even admitted to missing her, and I think Victoria is a little homesick. Victoria will return from Florida and be home two days and then she will leave to Young Women's camp and on a trek. I am a leader in Young Women's but b/c Isaac is so young, I am not going to camp this year. After Tori gets home from camp she will have two days and the we are packing up and going to Utah for 3 weeks. It will be a crazy busy summer for her!! I am so proud of Victoria and her accomplishments! She is wonderful big sister, and a great example to her siblings. She does well in school, and gets excellent grades (she doesn't get that from me)! I am proud of the young women she has grown into, and the values she has. She is a good example to her friends and is good to stand for what she believes! She has always been strong willed, but I now believe b/c of this she is going to go far in life!! We love you Victoria!! And remember just b/c you will be a teenager next year, it doesn't mean you have to act like one!!! :)



Alexis (this is who tori went to Florida with), Brenden, Tori, and Isabelle!!
We decided she didn't need a character cake this year, so we just let her pick out the flavor and we wrote her name on it! :)

So we could keep the sickness from spreading we cut a big piece of cake for Victoria and put candles on it, so when she blew out the candles it didn't get her sickness on the whole cake!! :D

She still wasn't feeling a 100% good this day, but by the next day she was feeling much better!

Memorial Day!!

Sorry there are a lot of pictures, but I took a lot that day and I had a hard time not posting most of them! :) Memorial day weekend was filled with nice weather, no baseball games, and lots of family time. Saturday we did a lot of cleaning and playing at home. Monday we packed a picnic lunch and headed to one of our favorite parks that has a lot of play equipment, a baseball field, a soccer field and a basketball hoop. It hardly ever has any people there so you pretty much get the park to yourself most of the time. We had a great time and had great weather to go with it!!



Here's Brenden playing ball, that is his life! He walks around with his mitt on and a ball most of the time, even when he is in the house. Check out those muscles in his arms!! :)
I told Gene to make sure to get a picture of Victoria so I could have one to post on the web page, so he got this one with her posing, I meant for him to get an action shot! LOL

Isaac swinging in the baby swing for his first time! Isabelle couldn't wait to put him in!

Isabelle taking Isaac down the slide for his first time!! She is such a good helper with him.

Isabelle up to bat. She loves baseball ALMOST as much as Brenden. I love having a little tom boy, I am hoping with her being a tom boy that will eliminate some of the drama. I am keeping my fingers crossed!!

Isaac got tired enough that he took a little nap cuddled up with me, under the trees!!

This is Tori's favorite thing to do at the park, swing!! She does it pretty much the whole time she is at the park! That is why this park is her favorite b/c it has the "big" swings!

Isabelle loves these things, not me it almost makes me sick just looking at them going around!

Me and Isaac swinging, this is his first time on the swings and he loved it, he was laughing the whole time. Gene took a video of it, but it could make you sick watching it, so I decided not to post it!!

Isaac with big smiles while he is in his stroller. He is such a happy baby!

Brenden being goofy up on the monkey bars. The kid is such a ham!! He gets it from his dad!!

Let's play ball!!

The ball field has been our lives for the past 3 months, but I have been slow on doing a post about it! Isabelle and Brenden are both playing. This is Isabelle's second year in tee ball, and Brenden just moved up to kid pitch. We spend most of our nights and Saturdays at the fields, but it is fun to see the kids doing something they love. In tee ball the kids have 5 chances to hit off a coach pitching to them, and if they don't hit then they have to use the tee to hit. Isabelle will proudly tell you that she has only had to use the tee once this season! :) Brenden was picked to be one of the pitchers this year. At first I wasn't sure I was happy about it, but he has ended up being one of the better pitchers on the team. Brenden is a lot of fun to watch play ball, it reminds me of when we used to go watch my brother play. Brenden has had some great diving catches, and has done a good job pitching. He struggled at first with hitting off a kid pitching, mostly because he was scared they were going to hit him with the ball!!! LOL I told him I would pitch to him for practice and he would get used to getting hit with the ball. He has overcome his fear now and is back to being a good hitter, and he is loving the fact that they can steel bases this year.




Here is Isabelle suited up to play catcher. I love it when she plays catcher, the equipment is bigger than her!! :)
A closeup of Isabelle in the catchers gear.

Here is Isaac watching one of the games. I think he thinks this is his second home. I am soo glad he hasn't started crawling yet, it makes ballgames much easier.

Isaac and I go and cause problems in the dugout every once in awhile. The girls love to hold him. Isabelle plays basketball and soccer with a lot of the same kids, so they have known Isaac since he was born.

Here's Brenden getting ready to pitch! His team is the Florida Marlins. Each year the kids get to be a major league baseball team. Last year Brenden was the Yankees and it about killed us to wear Yankee colors.

I didn't have many pictures of Brenden so I decided to put in another pitching picture!

Here's Isabelle getting ready to bat, and yes she has a pink batting helmet and a pink glove, thanks to her Nanny. Her dad wasn't going to invest in pink stuff!! LOL

Kids pictures 2009

So we finally did it, we went to JC penney and got the kids pictures taken!!! It is always an experience, especially now that we have four kids. We did luck out this time and instead of getting some high school student for the "photographer" we did get a guy who seemed to have little more experience. I probably shouldn't complain b/c you get what you pay for! We never buy school pictures, we prefer to go and get them done where I can pick the pose that I want to buy! :) However when Victoria brought her school pictures home they were really good, so we decided to break down and buy them. SO I don't have an individual of her b/c my scanner isn't working and I couldn't scan in her picture, that is why I posted the group picture of the kids. I actually don't like that picture of them so I didn't buy any of them. The "professional photographer" only took two pictures of the kids, and neither of them turned out. I really don't know how anyone could expect to take two shots of 4 kids and expect to have a good one!! Besides it's digital, take all you want, there's nothing to lose! LOL Anyway here are a few of what we got!



All the kids, notice Tori's nice look, she begged us not to buy this pose, and of course we didn't!! Middle school is such a fun age ;) bring on the hormones!!!!

Isaac 7 months old, this is an odd age to get pictures done but I have been really bad about getting him in to do professional pictures so I guess 7 months is better than nothing!! :)

Brenden 9 1/2 years old!! Isn't he sooo cool!! LOL His friends are currently trying to pay him $10 if he will kiss his girlfriend! LOL

Isabelle 6 years old, and full of spice. She kicked a kid b/c he tried to kiss her! :) Her dad is very proud of her!

Easter morn/day and spring break downtown DC!!

Easter was just Easter this year, nothing too exciting! Although the Easter bunny did bring lots of candy to our house, and if you know us, we LOVE candy! We had a fun Easter egg hunt in the morning, luckily church isn't until 1:00. That evening we had Gene's parents over for Easter dinner. I miss the Munns Easter celebration, they never did the "nice" Easter dinner, we went up on the "hill" and rolled eggs down the mountain and roasted hot dogs over the fire for dinner. I prefer that over the ham, and rolls and all the dishes that come with a nice dinner.

Isabelle Easter morning, checking out all of her loot!! :)

Brenden stops checking out his stuff to give the camera half of a smile!

Tori is only half awake in this picture and would probably kill me if she knew I posted it on the blog! Good thing her "boyfriend" doesn't know our blog address!! :D

Isaac had to wait until after church to see what the Easter bunny brought him, b/c he slept through most of Easter morning!

Here they all are ready for church, the picture didn't turn out too good b/c I was doing it on my own, Gene had already left to go sing at another church before our church, and Isaac loves shadows, so he wouldn't look at me, just my shadow!

Easter weekend was also our spring break. We didn't have a lot planned, but the Monday after Easter we went into Washington DC in hopes of seeing some cherry blossoms. Unfortunately it was a very windy and rainy spring so most of the cherry blossoms had been blown off the trees. We did however luck out and get some nice weather which makes it nicer to walk around and see the sites, and play some frisbee. We even sat on a blanket and had hot dogs and pretzels.

Coloring Easter Eggs!!

Like most families at this time of year, we colored Easter eggs the day before Easter. It is getting easier with the kids getting older. Of coarse Brenden did manage to spill a whole cup of dye all over the table, chair, and floor. Luckily everyone else was done and so it was a little easier to clean up. Isabelle didn't like to use the dipper that they give you to dip your egg into the dye. She said "my egg will fall off and I don't want all of my eggs to be one color, I want them to have different colors on them!" Wait until you see the pictures of her fingers. They were BLACK by the time we finished. Gene was worried about how we were going to get them clean for Easter Sunday. I did manage to get most of it off, with a little fingernail polish remover, rubbing alcohol, and sanitizer. Sadly enough, the sanitizer was what got most of it off!! A little scary, but it worked!!! :)

Man can you see the excitement in Tori's face?!?! This is how exciting it is when you become a tween! :) Really she had fun doing it, she just takes it a little more serious now. She was happy that I didn't make them dye eggs in their underwear this year, instead I let them wear old tee shirts! Dang I am a nice mom!!

This is Isabelle's fingers after dying a couple eggs

We had our neighbor Brianna come over and dye eggs with us. Brenden is always cool in everything he does, even if it is just dying eggs!!

This is how Isabelle dyed all the eggs!! See her fingers bathing in the dye! She can be so bullheaded sometimes. I even tried letting her use a spoon, but that didn't do what she wanted it to do! BTW Nate that is me in the background making a Denver Broncos egg!! :)

Here are her fingers closer to the end of dying eggs. She still managed to get them darker than that......................................amazing!