I got a blog makeover and I love it! Thanks Lori! I did not know how to make it how look how I wanted it to. So now, I need to get my act together and post again :o)

Fourth of July Festivities

Our kids look forward to the Fourth of July for so many reasons... Mainly because we get together with family and have a blast! Every year we take a family picture, then head over to the Hadlock grandparents for Food, Games, Fun, Fireworks, and a Talent Show starring all the cousins. The kids do a good job at preparing their acts and showing their talents. This year, the kids were so excited because all the cousins were there.

I was thinking, my kids are kind of like fireworks. Nate (7) is like a jumping jack-full of energy and bounces all over the place. Jessica (9) is a like a flower - sparkly and colorful. Nicole 11 is like a sparkler - steady, bright, full of light and energy, until she fizzles at the end of the day. Drew is like a bottle rocket, light him on fire and he blasts off (lol) and Natalie is like a fountain...words flow out of her all day long...it seems like she'll never stop.
Me and Dave - 15 1/2 years of fireworks...I don't know which firework describes us best...I guess in marriage you get them all eventually!

Tyler is a fun and spontaneous emcee.

The three youngest girl cousins : Alayna Hadlock, Natalie and Christina Stahmann. Nicole made their cute festive tutus.

Breakdancing B-Boys.... Nathan Daniel Michael Ethan and Tyler!

Everybody MACARENA!

Its fun to stay at the YMCA!

Bunny Hop !

Breakaway- Jessica, Kaie and Nicole sounded so good singing this together. They each have pretty voices and its fun to see them get more confident as they get older.

Drew is officially a teenager at 13 and feels a little old for the talent show, but he did the Jerk for us and accompanied the kids on his guitar for "Proud to be an American".

Dave -- showing his limbo skills. He is is know for his lack of flexibility, but he can limbo.
Grandma and Grandpa Hadlock cutting a rug. Dave's mom loves to dance...I don't know about his dad, but I love that he dances with her because she loves it! Our kids get dancing genes from both sides...I am glad they like it too. I have had the opportunity to teach all of them- I hope they will have good memories about it. I'll write this off as another wonderful Fourth of July.. I am so happy to be free to enjoy my family!

Spring Break/Easter Fun

I wish I had more time to blog! I love it, yet I still find it hard to carve out a few minutes to stay current... but I have a half hour this morning:o)


Spring Break is over. So saddd! I absolutely love Spring Break. It gives me a chance to breathe... I love our busy family schedule, but I feel overwhelmed sometimes to make everything fit. Spring Break is chance to relax for a second. Its started off busy because of Easter weekend. Our kids attended the crazy Eagle Mountain Easter egg hunt, which was kinda sparsely attended due to weather and Spring Break. Natalie did it all by herself for the first time. YAY! She was so proud of herself.




The older kids are getting to the age where its fun, but its not as exciting... and barely teenage Drew was too old to participate this year. He was surprised, and I was was too...It seems like alot of things about his age seemed so far off, now its coming fast!


Drew didn't miss out on dyeing the eggs though!



We also went to the Aquarium in Draper on Wednesday. Fun, but too expensive. It cost $53 for our family.. all we could say was ouch and this better be good! Not worth it, but we did have fun!


Sneaky Nate..I didn't even notice until now!
Drew and Nicole were brave enough to touch the stingray! Jess and Nat hitching a ride! Ribbit!

Cool Jellyfish!


Glow in the dark fish



Me and the fish I caught..hee hee!

And another reason why Hollywood is evil...

I know that sounds negative, but I am feeling a little fed up with what they put in movies for little kids. I have to get this off my chest (pardon the pun) so that I can have the Spirit today.

Nicole and I had the most fun mommy daughter date yesterday...we went shopping for new tennis shoes, gift shopping for Grandpa Hadlock's birthday, and to the movies. We decided to see Alice in Wonderland. Such a fun movie...(now the pun will make sense) except for one thing. The Queen of Hearts is surrounded by people with big body parts to help her feel better about her ginormous freakish globe of a head. Most of the body parts are innocent, but then they had to throw in big breasts on one of the women. And she's wearing one of them "olden days" dresses that show off cleavage. The 2 scenes are short, but long enough that both me and Nicole noticed them. The target audience for this movie is our little kids. Why would they throw that in? Me and Nicole discussed how big eyes would have been funny or big hands. I think of my 7 year old toothless first grade son who it seems just barely finished nursing (no worries, it was more than 5 years ago). I was thinking he had a few more years before hormones kick in and he begins noticing girls ... but Hollywood would love to shorten that gap with throwing in a little here and a little there before then. Do these creative genuises really think that added anything to their movie? Useless...and besides that wasn't in the book ;o)

My rant is over. I feel better.

Party Season is over!

Happy Birthday to Us!

Okay, so when we had our kids, we did not have any idea how busy the fall party season would be. All 5 of them have birthdays between September 18- January 1. It wouldn't be as big of a deal if we didn't have 4 other holidays squished in there too... So every other year, we have 5 parties + 4 holidays in 4 months. Its crazy, but we have fun. Thank goodness I get a break until 2011!

Vocal Point Concert- Ahhh Yeah!!!

Andrew had to attend a concert for his choir class. So we chose a Vocal Point concert. Wow! That was a great choice for us. It kept the kids entertained for almost 2 solid hours. Some of the highlights were the Beatbox battle, (the director has a 3 year old son who joined in –he was really good), the sports theme medley, Crazy ABC’s, 12 days of Christmas… even though those were our favorites, the rest of the songs were amazing too. The group is comprised of 9 male BYU students who sing a capella and do vocal percussion (beatbox)…they were also incredibly funny. We loved the little stories they shared with us in between songs. We’d recommend this to anyone and we are going again for sure! :o) The kids had so much fun – even Natalie was entertained - she loved hearing “Once there was a Snowman” in the middle of the songs.

We loved the music so much that we bought 4 Vocal Point cd's. The music is clean, upbeat and uplifting, so we listen to it in the car when we go on a drive. We have all been practicing our beat box skills too. It's pretty funny :o)

Hadlock Halloween 2009

Halloween was fun this year. We were only out for an hour, but it was perfect because we didn't get too cold. Natalie insisted on wearing plastic high heels, so she wouldn't have lasted too long if the kids had wanted more candy. Halloween costumes were easy this year....we have a millon costumes from years past so I wish the kids would use them, but only 1 did. Nate decided he wanted to be ghost...a run of the mill white sheet ghost. Jessica decided to be a golfer. Everybody called her "Tiger Woods" she had no idea who that was. Nicole was a sandwich - which turned out great, and was so easy. It costed about 15 bucks and we got everything from Walmart. Natalie was a princess and Drew wore his Scream mask with gangster clothing. I guess he was a "gangster ghoul"!