Beautiful Day

We had a fun double birthday celebration at Mom and Dad and Tam's house today. We had a yummy lunch and all you could eat vanilla soft serve, mango soft serve, and plain tart frozen yogurt. The sun was shining the whole day and the kids even went swimming! Thanks to everyone for making the day so fun.

Happy Happy Birthday Eli Dear....

Our sweet Elijah is 6!!! Our first Washington baby after we moved from Utah. Elijah is always so delightful and willing to make people happy. He is our little peacemaker and loves to make others feel good about themselves. Everyday Elijah likes to tell me how beautiful I am and how pretty:) I just love my little Elijah. A few of Elijah's highlights while he was 5: Elijah started kindergarten, several trips to the dentist, makes lots of friends everywhere he goes, still loves to wear costumes and pretend to be superheros, loves to draw people pictures, loves to play with his brother-Brandon, uses his imagination to no end, is terrified of flies and mosquitoes (I don't think he's ever even seen a mosquito;) can almost count to 100, is learning to read, had his first sleepover at a friends house, and learned how to play games on the computer.

8 Week Challenge

I have accepted the challenge! The 8 week challenge to be exact- (along with a few other friends and family members.) We are challenging each other to see who can lose the most weight, earn the most points and be declared the winner! The idea is to earn points by doing things you normally should-there are points for eating 3 servings of veggies/day, fruit, drinking water, exercising, encouraging teammates, keeping a food journal, and then extra points if you can abstain from sugar for 6 out of 7 days during the week, etc. At the end of the week you report your points and weight loss to one person who then will email it out to the other members participating so they can see how everyone is doing. There are 15 of us accepting the challenge. Here's to a healthier me in 8 weeks.
(I've also included a little ticker under my profie for even more motivation for me to stay on track as now anyone who looks at my blog can see how much weight I've lost)

Busy Days Ahead...

Back to my old antics again of waiting till a ton of things have happened before I finally get around to blogging about them. So here we go...Cody finished his soccer season-way to go Cody!! His last game he scored 2 goals!

Easter came and went-we took the boys to Sumner to the easter egg hunt there and the boys had fun getting the candy and little toys scattered around the field.



Brandon needed a little more encouragment to get out there but by our afternoon egg hunt at Grandpa and Grandma Stones he was a professional running around with the best of them searching for eggs and tearing open the delicious goodies inside.
We also got the headstone we ordered for Willie in the mail and made a little garden in the corner of the yard where he is buried so we could put the headstone on it and think of our Willie. The marker is granite and etched with Willie's picture on it. (Sorry my camera washed it out but it's very beautiful)



Mike also put on his country concert that he's been preparing for- he played a lot of songs from the 80's and a few from the 90's. He did awesome like usual.


Lastly I don't have pictures of it, but we got our playground delivered today in boxes. Now just to have the time to put it together:)

Faithful Companion

We lost an important family member tonight. Our dog, Willie, passed away this evening. We have lost a wonderful, unconditionally loving, best friend. Willie joined our family shortly after we moved into 192 E. 850 South in Orem, UT. We knew our little Dakota needed a playmate after Mike's parents moved to Washington, taking with them their dogs-Duke, Panda and Suzy. Mike, Dallas, and I went to the local animal shelter and looked at lots of different dogs. But then we saw the most sad looking dog curled up in one of the cages. WE knew that this was our dog and we would love him so much. The first couple of days he was so quiet but after that he quickly made himself at home chewing up multiple garden hoses, digging holes, stealing Dallas' snacks and quickly won our hearts over.


Willie loved to love more than anything. He wouldn't really ever jump on you, but would want to lay on you and just sit there next to you. Of course he loved his treats too! And would almost take your hand off if you didn't pull it back quick enough-just ask Cody! A couple of things that I will always remember about Willie are how he loved everyone! He never started trouble and was always so good with the kids. Second, his favorite toy-Mr. Fluffles. One of the boys gave it to him and he played with that toy, carrying it around in his mouth, for days!!! Lastly, whenever he would hear a siren, no matter what kind, he would howl along with it. We would hear a siren and wait to hear him howl along with it. The next time I hear a siren, I know I will think of Willie and shed a tear. I love you Willie-good bye ol' friend.

My baby is 4-

Brandon Malachi turned 4 today. I can't believe that our youngest is that old already. He has such a sweet personality and adds so much love and spirit to our home. I love being Bandinos' mommy. We celebrated is birthday on Sunday while everyone was together for family home evening and then tonight took him out for ice cream treats at Dairy Queen. Grandpa and Grandma Cooper left for Salem this evening as well. What a packed weekend but lots of fun!!!

It's Great to be 8!

Saurday Cody was baptised! WE had such a wonderful day. There was a nice talk about what baptism means and represents. All the moms were also given an opportunity to go up and say something about their child being baptized. (Of course I started crying as soon as I got up there) but it is a neat thing that the stake does. Cody had lots of family there to support him and congratulate him on his special day. Afterwards we had the family over and some friends for refreshments. Thanks everyone for all your support on this special day in our family.