Banks Lake M.J. tribute

While we vacationed at Banks Lake we decided to give a little shout out to Micheal Jackson. We had so much fun dancing around in our afros and blasting M.J. music....the kids also had fun while dancing on top of the "party barge". This is after the adults had taken the fros off and stopped dancing....but not the kids! I think us adults were beach dancing for....what?...20 minutes or more? It was so much fun!

What did you do to honor the king of pop? :)

Sophia is happily chasing me at the end of this...sorry for the shakiness

Halloween comes early at our house

Bella painted her face on the last day of her art class

Emma found Halloween face paint and decided to be creative

Small town run

I went to Idaho for a visit and knew while I was there I needed to run about 9 miles to stay on track for training. I emailed a childhood friend of mine to see if her and her family would be in Lewisville over the 4th. She said yes and that she was also training for a 1/2! Perfect! I was so excited to catch up with her and have the chance to run with her. She is way faster than me...but she pretended that we were the same pace! Love her! The only time we could run was after the fireworks....which ended up being about midnight! We ran around the main part of town a little more than 2 times....mind you, this is only a town of about 4oo people, so it was totally dead at midnight, but we had a great conversation and it was really great to be with Megan. I was staying with my 89 year old grandma, so when I opened the creaky front door at 1:30 I woke her up. OOPS! I ran to her room as I heard her moving her walker....it's me grandma just coming back from getting some air. So the first thing she said in the morning was....sorry you were uncomfortable last night. (shoot!) Oh, grandma I was actually out running with Megan, i didn't want to worry you. I explained the reasons for the run....She looked at me with a frown and said...."Keirra is that using wisdom!?" I laughed and assured her I was fine. I am not sure if she didn't want me running that far, or running the 1/2 or if she didn't want me to be out so late. Either way...I am totally using that on my kids....."Is that using wisdom?" Grandma is a faithful, strong person who I can learn from. In December she will be 90! She told me that her patriarical blessing said something like..... if you remain faithful you will be blessed in your short life, she laughs at that and can only assume that "short" meant short in an eternal perspective.

Run baby RUN

Before the race with my handsome Duff Dyer
AFTER

We did it! Duff and I ran (okay he walked the hills) the 12K Sound-to-Narrows race on June 13th. My sister in law is a great runner and has run several half marathons and other races told me that the sound to narrows run was an 8 on 1-10 scale of difficulty. So.....my only goal was to finish without stopping to walk. And I DID! The last part of the run was the hardest because the last mile is mostly all up hill. I gave Duff a big hug after the race and asked him how many sprinklers he ran through, he said....none! Poor guy was dripping and he said I will NEVER do that again. Then we got home and looked at the race results and he said SHE/HE beat me? I am totally running it next year!


I have been running with Duff's darling Aunt Margaret and it feels so good to be consistent with my running again. We are the same pace, we have good conversations and she modivates me to keep running. On one run her and her daughter said that I should run the tacoma's half marathon with them. I said "NO! I don't wanna!" And I meant it, I swore up and down that I would not run any more than the 7 1/2, that any more than that would be too much running....mostly with all the training. But that invitation ate at me all week. I asked Duff what he thought about me running....he said, "Yes, you are a good runner, you can totally do it!" Oh, I love my husband! Okay so here I am training to run the 1/2 on August 1st!!! Last saturday we ran 10 miles....the most I have ever run...this saturday will be 11! You know I feel great and am glad with my choice....I will give an update after the race....no real "race" for me...again just wanting to finish without stopping to walk!

Emma's got talent

Last weekend Duff and I went on a date and came back to Emma playing this....

(don't be scared...it's a quick 40 sec. vid)

She has been taking Violin for two years now. She has been in this play (Savior of the World) once and is practicing (for a small speaking part...and for singing the 'whole cast' songs) for another show with Duff and Bella, for this summer. So she is familiar to with the music....but so cool that she could pluck it out on her own without any music in front of her. She wrote down the notes when she figured out what they were, she said it only took her 5 to 10 mintues! Wow! Good job honey!

Hair Raising!!!

With short hair....you never know what your hair will be doing in the morning....I should have known what kind of day I would have when I woke up on Mother's Day with THIS hair!

Everyone was all dressed for church when.....Sophia threw up! It happened so fast after she had her milk....it smells just like milk, so we rinsed it off her dress and dried it while hanging it outside the window of the car on the way to my parents ward. She threw up twice at church before we left early. Poor thing, so sad! She ended up throwing up more than 12 times that day, and a few more the next (once all over me...in the car!!!) and the rest of the week she was not herself, it took all week to heal herself from the bad stomach flu! It was so sad to hear her say..."I'm hungry mom", or "I'm thirsty Mom"....and give her something only to have her throw it right back up! It was one of the worst experiences of being a Mom I have ever had...she was crying, I was crying! But as the Doctor said....you aren't really a

Mom unless you have had throw up on you. Happy Mother's Day to meeeee! ;) Glad to read via-blogs...that everyone else had a great day! You all deserve it! I have so many examples of great Mom's ALL around me!

Cousin from Idaho

We surprised my Mom (Dad was in on it) and showed up on their door-step to help celebrate my parents 40th Anniversary. The look on my Mom's face was great...she was so shocked she looked at me like she didn't know who I was....hey how could SHE be HERE! It was great!

We stayed at a hotel, the girls and cousins had fun in the pool.

Bummed this is blurry....our girls love it when my handsome Duff Dyer flips them.
All the cousins lined up for the same fun.

Tristan, Jaden, Zach, Sydney in the back, Samantha, Emma, Lillian, Bella and Haley on the edge.

Our Green Emma is 11!!!!

On Cinco Ce Meyo Emma turned 11! I can't believe she will

be in Young Womans in only one year! ugh!

Emma is not necessarily big on being "green" but she liked this tee-shirt

She requested anything Asian...she is fasinated with China

and Japan and would like to visit there someday.

Waiting....

The cousins were coming to town and the girls were VERY excited!

Sophia, Isla, Lillian, Bella, Emma
They arrived!

popcorn did pop!

We absolutely love it when spring...springs...and are so sad to see our four trees in the front yard...lose the popped popcorn.

Lillian turns 6

Enough air? love this!

Ganah made the cake...cute huh!

Lilli opens gift from her best buddy...Jared Dubinski...spy goggles.

We always opened our gifts first thing in the morning...when I was growing up. Hence...the bed-head. And yes, she got lego sets for her gifts, and no that is not jello cubes at the bottom of the fish bowl.

Charley Safari

Sister tries to kiss and make it better

Battle wound from hotel pool



One of our days during sprink break....this is a fun, new place in Olympia. The girls talked me into going down the black slide to the right. It was scary! I was holding Sophia and she stuck her elbows out and got rub-burns. I was trying to respond to her cries by getting off fast, so I bumped my head on the way out....ya feel so stupid when you can't even ride a kiddie slide...duh!

Bella gets musical

Duff calls the boy next to Bella "loud mouth" cause he got an ear-full from him at Bella's lunch. Notice Josh Duby, second row down kiddie-corner from Bella...he had his happy face on during the whole program . And smiley-girl Jordan in pink...she is a cutie. I think the kid in the front with black-tee didn't hear..."wear your best clothes"....or did he?

Poor Bella was so nervous she had a hard time executing her bow at the end....most of the students did the same "bow" funny!!! She picked this song because she like that she had to hold the pedal down the whole song.

Policewoman

Why do people think they have to tell others when they are doing something wrong? I was minding my own business....speeding in a school zone (going about 3oish). I know, I know...not good. Then I was watching Emma walk to the school, when I heard this honk...i turned to see a woman next to me wanting me to roll down my window.
So I did.... "I was following you back there...I was going 20 miles an hour...and you MUST have been going 35 until you caught up with the bus in front of you....I feel sorry for the kids who are not in your line of vision!"
I smiled at her and rolled my window back up. She pulled out of the parking lot ahead of me and she pulled in front of another car...and got honked at!!! Ha, ha! See lady, nobody is perfect!
I must admit I have a speeding problem...so her point was a good one......I did get a speeding ticket last week.....but why does she have to pull over and tell me that! Whatever...what do ya do huh? I swear this lady was the type of girl in the elementary music program that corrected the kid next to her when they were singing the wrong words or doing the wrong hand motions (we just went to Bella's program yesterday and saw several girls doing this)
But in my defense.....I did have a "good" reason for speeding. Poor Emma was stressed that day about being on time. She said the teacher had asked her to try and be earlier so that she did not have to rush. So she was really good and got up early and was ready to get in the car when her backpack zipper broke open....her backpack is completely full. So we were rushing to find some bag(s) to get all her stuff together. So we were on time....but not early like she wanted to be.

Lesson I learned.....don't roll down your window when a crazy mom is honking at you he, he! Oh yeah...and don't speed!

Sophia's dream

One morning Lillian and Sophia were talking about how they slept that night. And Sophia said, " I had a dream Mom!" I asked her what it was about and she said that she got "runned" over by a train. "That's scary", I said. She said "Yeah, I didn't get up, I died"

"Oh sad!" I said. Then she said she went to Heaven and Jesus

picked her up and gave her to her Daddy.

"When Jesus comes"

So our poor Sophia has had a wart on her finger for....EVER. We have had it "frozen" at the doctor two times and put compound W on it....a zillion times. You can even buy this at home "freeze the wart" kit.....which we have done twice. One of those times was last night. If anyone has had this done to a wart....you know how painful it is....it is awful. She was really good about it...really only whimpered/whined about it for a few minutes. Then it was off to bed. I asked her to say her prayers and she didn't want to....mostly because she is the queen of putting off bedtime. I said honey you can pray that your finger will feel better and ask that the wart will go away soon. So I helped her with that prayer, and she climbed into bed. She then said....
"Mom, when Jesus comes to my house, he can help my wart go away....will he bring his tools with him?"
What do you say to that? "Oh....honey I don't know when he will come" And then she said,
"He can kiss it?" Then she kissed it, then I kissed it.
Oh.....how cute is that I say? It made me think of how we are supposed to be like little children. She was fully expecting Jesus to come to her house and take care of her problem, so much faith and trust in what we have taught her.

For the last six years my handsome Duff Dyer has taken our girl(s) to the Daddy-daughter dance....put on by first the high school, and now the city. They all look forward to it. Duff makes it special by taking them to dinner first, then usually a dessert after. Just such a fun date for them, I hope they remember these times when they are wanting to "pull-away". Sophia is too little just yet....so her and I had a mommy-daughter date, we had fun...... I thought, dinner and movie at home, then great treats...... then the next day she asked Duff if she would be old enough next year to go to the dance with him.....she is for sure our biggest Daddy's girl.

Our Sweet Bella-button Turns Eight!!!

SISTERS! Oh....do you want to just squeeze um both?

Bella's first friend birthday party....I know...I'm a bad mom! It was a "tea"-party with a pinata...at the end, funny combo....but we were aiming to please our Bella.

My parents came from Idaho to help celebrate!

This is right before she was baptized. Annabella is our sweet-hearted and...little-bit-shy-girl. As her birthday got closer she kept saying that she was nervous. We assured her that her Dad would talk her through everything, and that it would be fine. I kept thinking, she a great swimmer...not afraid of the water, what could she be nervous about? I asked her and she said....."all the people". I said, oh honey we don't have to announce in it sacrament meeting, and we can just have family and close family friends. And she let out a big sigh...like oh thank goodness. Poor thing! Didn't want all eyes on her. So we did just that....and we still had a biggish group. Come to find out she was also nervous about her dress coming up and her underwear showing. So we were able to borrow a dress from my good friend Christie....that someone had made for one of her girls...and it had weights sewn into the bottom hem...you can't even see them or feel them...but the bottom is heavy. Bella was very excited about the dress...so it was Christie to the rescue....love that woman! The Saturday before her baptism I had a dream that we went to church and there was an insert in all the bulletins "advertising" Bella's baptism! Funny!

Babies holding babies

The girls watching...and waiting for the new baby!

Notice Jenny and I....how we are gripping our own hands/arm. One of the nurses, who happened to be Ruth Markward, her daughter is in our halloween pictures (fun to have her there!) insisted on taking this picture, glad she did...shows our excitement. Oh how cute if he???? This is the first picture of the

"new-macrae, the new boy" our girls called him.....now we know his name is Rhett.

I stole this picture from Kjrsten....look her to blog for all the great pics! Congrats Anna you were awesome!!! I love you so much!

Christmas morning

She ended up in our bed....then we had to wake her up to see what Santa brought her

Her first journal entry in her new journal

Not enough room!

Gingerbread houses

Sophia eating way more than what ends up on the house