All Caught Up!

Alright, I've spent the most part of the last full day getting caught up on here! I better be getting calls of praise! LOL! Only kidding!

There are a LOT of posts so grab a drink and put a pillow under your toosh and enjoy catching up with our little family!

I have changed it so it is NOT private FOR NOW! I WILL be changing it back. If you could get into it before nothing will change...I still have your email addresses. If you would like to be added please either email me or leave a comment with your email address.

Please also remember that you can click on each picture to make it larger and see more of the details in the picture collages! :)

Wrestling

Wow! Wrestling was a lot more stressful this year than the last couple. Hurricane participated this year in the Bantam wrestling program instead of through Dixie State College. It was just a lot more traveling, but was a lot more competition for the kids. All of the tournaments were either Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings. Then he had 2 hour long practices each week. Tucker's in 1st grade and this is his 3rd year of wrestling. He started the season out the middle of February really really well. Yates and I were both impressed at how much he had retained, how much quicker he was and how much he'd seemed to just sense on his own what he needed to do.
Throughout the season, he had some ups and downs. Some tournaments he did really really well and some he really struggled. There were a few times he just cried and told Yates that he never wanted to wrestle again and he wanted to just go home. :( When he was up, he was really up. When he was down, he was major depression down! The times he struggled were mostly times that he'd beat himself mentally before he ever got out on the mat, so that's something he's going to have to work on. In reality, a few kids were better technically than he was and would beat him legitimately, but for the most part when he lost he beat himself by not trying.
That was the most frustrating thing as a parent is to WATCH him lose his confidence and not be able to do a darn thing to help him out. I've never been a fan of wrestling to be honest. I've always thought wrestlers as a whole were just smelly and gross...lol! I have completely changed my outlook. There are so many life lessons to be learned in wrestling and I think it's important for kids to learn how to graciously win AND lose! It's hard work and sometimes the better wrestler doesn't always win. Your success depends on the effort you put into it and even if you do your best it doesn't always work out how you pictured it. What an important lesson for kids to learn these days!
Tucker finished his season this last Saturday, April 10th. Their Bantam State Tournament was at Canyon View HS in Cedar City. I was amazed at how many kids there were. The tournament itself got off to a shaky start. They were supposed to start at 9:30 and ended up not starting until about 10:45. About 8-10 matches in, on EACH mat, they called a halt to the tournament and announced that about 5 wrestlers who had registered didn't get bracketed due to a glitch in the system and they were going to have to re-bracket everyone and start completely over. They ended up re-starting the whole tournament around 12:00 and we weren't finished until about 5:15 pm! It was a loooooooong day (and NO NAP for Titan)! It was a little frustrating...Tucker was one of the wrestlers who had wrestled before they stopped the tournament. He got pinned by a kid we've never seen before (they combined 1st & 2nd grade in this tournament) pretty quick. How fair is that to the kid who beat Tucker to have to wrestle him again and possibly lose the 2nd match-up? It WAS a good thing for Tucker. He hit rock bottom after losing so quick that 1st match and had a chance to start completely over. His bracket ended up not changing at all so when they re-started he was wrestling the same kids. He pinned his 1st guy and the light came back on for him! He just needed a confidence boost. He came out to his 2nd match and wrestled a kid that was pretty evenly matched with him and beat him in 3 rounds by points. He was on top of the world! Then he had to re-wrestle the kid who had beat him. He did a lot better the 2nd go, but in the end still got pinned by him (which to be truthful, like I've already said, was fair in my opinion).
He ended up taking 2nd place and I am soooooo proud of him! He ended his season on a good note and felt a lot better about himself and his achievements!

Easter

Easter was good for us. We went out to Coral Pink Sand Dunes with Yvonne and camped one night and met Nicole, Roxi, JD & Nick for dinner and let all the kids run around and play and got so so so dirty. There was a big wash next to our little campsite and it was pretty steep-walled. The kids decided to make it their personal dirt slide and went head first, feet first and rolled somersaults down. You name it they did it. We had to give our 3 kids baths before we dared let them into their beds in the trailer. McKinlee asked why she had to bathe in brown water after the boys were done...LOL! The kids got lots of rides on the "cycle" in with Daddy and loved it. That's the last thing Titan cried about at night and the first thing the next morning he wanted. What a kid! We tried to make Anakin sleep outside because he'd been swimming in the cow poo pond, but he was FREEZING literally. It was really cold overnight, so we reluctantly let him come in the trailer and had to clean it out the next morning. :( Poor Anakin! Then the next day Tony & Linda, Ryan & Miranda, George & Lonnie, Kirk, Natalie, Connor & new baby Paislee, JoeB, Staci, Jaci and new baby Brynn came out and we had a big Easter lunch and spent the day together. We had to leave a little early because Yates had to get home to catch a few winks before working a graveyard shift that night. It was fun and it's been a few years now that we've missed out on the annual Wright Easter gathering so it was fun to see everyone! Thanks to Jeri, Staci and Nat for the pictures I may or may not have stolen off their blogs...I didn't get group pictures of everyone and they did. :)













Then I continue my lameness...I didn't get pictures of all the kids with their baskets. Yates had worked a grave the night before so we woke him up for the Easter egg hunt and the basket hunt and then we sent him back to bed while we played with all the new toys and listened to conference. It wasn't real easy because the kids were wired, but we did our best. Titan was so cute! McKinlee had gotten new roller skates and he put them on and walked around for a LONG time...he'd been quiet for awhile and I went to check on him and he'd plum tuckered out and fallen asleep leaning over onto a down comforter on the floor of sissy's closet. The picture of the bunny cake was a creation the kids and I put together for fun. They had a blast helping frost and decorate it!

Random Spring Happenings

I was forced to go into Tucker's room and deep clean and was getting rid of things while he wasn't looking...lol! I came across this rock and he caught me trying to get rid of it and started crying and carrying on and throwing a major fit. I told him I'd keep it for now and put it down. Later, I went out and handed it to Yates and told him to take a picture of the front & back and take it out to the garbage can outside. I'm so mean, but honestly! There is a story however...We went down to Grandpa's Pond just a few blocks from our house to let the kids run around one day. Tucker picked up this rock (and it WAS HEAVY) and wanted to keep it. We told him that he could keep it if he wanted to carry it all the way home, thinking it would deter his desire. NOPE! That kid hauled that big-A rock ALL THE WAY back home and named it Sheldon...lol! I caved and got some paints out and we had a little project while we painted the silly rock. He wanted him to sort of look like Spongebob, but with pink. LOL! I have absolutely no problem with the fact that my son wanted a pink rock. I just don't want him to live at my house FOREVER!











This next picture was just after Easter. McKinlee and Titan were being so silly. They crawled inside the blinds and were knocking on the window and giggling and squealing at the dog outside...which threw him in a frenzy if we're being honest. I thought it was so cute though. It's so indicative of their relationship. They fight, but they really do have SO MUCH fun! Don't mind the jammies that Titan is wearing. Yes, they are sunflowers on a boy. They're special jammies for our family and they've been worn by all my kids. They were Mia's jammies, our special little angel cousin. I think sunflowers are gender neutral...lol!

Spring Break

Spring Break is always busy for us! We're grateful that we live in a warm sunny place because it means we always get lots of visitors in the Spring looking to escape from the cold...and we LOVE having people come stay!!!

First, the Murray's from Rhode Island came to visit. It's been 3 whole years since we had last seen them. We went out to Rhode Island 2 summers in a row, but things have been crazy and we haven't seen them in way too long!! Their daughter and her family live in Arizona so they flew out to come visit and made a trip up here to visit us as well. It's ALWAYS so much fun when they're in town and they really have a special place in our kids' lives! Our kids have adopted them as grandparents and they love on our kids as their own. We went to Zion Canyon to the Imax and watched "Treasure of the Gods" and dinked around the half empty Springdale (tourist season isn't quite in full swing yet). We also went and visited the ghost town of Grafton on our way, which is always a cool thing for me...I'm a sucker for old stuff like that. The next day we drove over to Kanab and went to Moqui Cave and then up to the Sand Caves. As long as Yates and I have been together (almost 10 years now) I have never been to either one of those places!! It was a fun, touristy thing that you don't do unless you have people in town, so I was totally excited that we got to go. (P.S. I have to give ALL credit for the pictures to Momma Murray! I was lame again and took my camera but never did get any pictures, so these are all stolen off her blog.)













Then a couple days later my parents came down to visit for 10 days for THEIR Spring Break. We took Tucker out of school one day and went out to Warner Valley just south of Hurricane to just have a day-out trip. We took the trailer just in case the weather turned bad and for a place for Titan to take a nap. It was nice to have, but Titan ended up getting so upset at naptime that he threw up all over the pack-n-play and that was the end of that. He wasn't sick, he'd just worked himself up so bad NOT wanting to lay down!















Jared came up from Vegas one day just to hang out and we all went to eat at Irmita's. Dax was soooo funny! We all were just feeding the little kids off our plate or splitting the quesadilla we had for Tucker & McKinlee. Dax wasn't having any of it. He's a really good eater normally, but all he wanted while we were at Irmita's was the SALSA of all things! He did end up eating rice & beans and some other stuff. It was so funny though, he was just sipping the salsa right out of the little holding cup! We were laughing so hard and trying to make sure he kept his bib on and stayed clean! Then we came back and the two little boys (Titan & Dax) spilled some popcorn on the kitchen floor and kept giggling in there. When we went to check on them they were sucking it up OFF the floor! They'd suck up a piece and then just kneel up and giggle. What little hams!

Ice Skating

St George got an ice skating rink this year. We never did make it as a family to go, :( sad that I can't remember why we didn't make it happen. Tucker was able to go on a field trip with all the 1st graders and go ice skating for the first time. We all had to work so I have to thank a couple friends that were volunteer mom helpers that sent me this picture. I asked Tucker when he got home how he did. He said, "Mom, I was so good. Lots of the kids were falling down all the time, but I didn't hardly fall at all. I went fast too." Needless to say I was impressed...until...I talked to one of the mom's who said he was crazy on skates. He'd just get his speed up and go really fast until he slammed into a wall to stop! LOL! Now, THAT sounds like my boy!

Woods Ranch

We're finally updated to 2010!!! I'd like to thank all my supporters in completing this achievement...lol...kidding! We took our kids up to Cedar Mountain on January 16th to have a fun sledding adventure. We met up with Brandon & Jessie and about 1 million scouts to sled. Well, the scouts weren't a part of the plan, but apparently the whole scouting district had their overnighter at Woods Ranch the night before and was just finishing up breakfast and packing up as we got there. Once they all left it was fine. We rolled around in the snow and Anakin chased sledders down the hill until he made one of them crash so we had to tie him up. :( He loves loves loves the snow!

An Incident

Yates and I have a treadmill which gets a fair amount of use (when we're ON the wagon lol). Sometimes it's the only way to get a workout in with our schedules because we can't leave our kids here at the house alone. Yates had taken to running on the treadmill with the kids sitting right next to the treadmill on our bed. Well, of course our kids don't sit still and sometimes they're running around and hanging on the treadmill WHILE he runs on it...it scares me to death! Anyway, one day he was running and Titan was sitting on our dog, Anakin, on the floor next to the treadmill. Anakin stood up to leave the room and dumped Titan face first on the moving treadmill. This is what the end result was.











I told Yates after that incident that he needed to stop running with the kids next to the treadmill. 2 more treadmill burns later (ALL TITAN I SHOULD ADD) that were much less severe than the one above and I think he's finally got the hint. Phew!

Christmas

This year was our year for Christmas in Idaho. I was so surprised when we got up there and there really wasn't that much snow. It didn't hardly snow while we were there either (it did, just not anything like I'm used to). My dad drove the kids around on the snowmobile a couple times, but there wasn't a bunch of snow to even go riding in. We spent a lot of lazy days just hanging out, playing games and having fun. We went out to IF and went to see Avatar all together one day and went out to Johnny Carino's (Yummy-yum-yum), but other than that we didn't have anything big planned. It really was nice not to have to run all over. All of us kids were home for Christmas and with the growing amount of grandkids we have, it just gets MORE fun for all of us!!!

McKinlee Birthday

4 years old! Life starts to go WAY TOO FAST at some point and I can't believe my little girl is growing up! She's sooooo smart! I'm not sure if it's just the difference between boys & girls, but she's super advanced for her age. She's in her 1st year of preschool and they have started sending her home with 1st grade pre-reading packets. She recognizes all her letters and their sounds and can make it to 43 before she misses a number when counting. She can't remember 44 for some reason, but if you help her past that one number she just keeps going. She's no wimp and holds her own in the middle of the 2 boys. She can often be found being forced to be Tucker's wrestling dummy for practice and Titan is sometimes just plain mean to her. She's still a petite little thing...she only weighs about 28 lbs (just a few more lbs than Titan), but she's healthy. We have struggles getting her to eat at mealtimes (even when limiting snacks during the day) and it's not unusual to spend an hour or more at the table getting down a toddler sized portion of food. Argh!
For her birthday she got a bike, helmet & pads and fell in LOVE with them. The next morning she woke up first thing and even though it was drizzly outside she went out and rode and rode and rode and you can see what happened when she was done...she plain crashed at the table eating her quesadilla. LOL! What a cute little girl!

November

Okay, seriously October was CRAZY for us! We had a LOT going on and we must have made up for it in November because I don't have much. We spent Thanksgiving at our house. We did a fried turkey (like we always do if we're in charge) and Yates injected it with Italian salad dressing and it was sooooo moist and good. We'll definitely be trying that one again!!! I didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving (THAT is how lame I was getting...I had stopped even getting my camera out)!!! Anyway, here's what I have for November.

Halloween

This year Halloween was super fun! McKinlee got to dress up as 2 different things (one for her Preschool class party and the other on actual Halloween). She wanted to be both things so I just let her choose one for each. Tucker chose to be Zorro (after much debate), he could NOT decide what he wanted to be. Titan was the alligator costume that Tucker had when he was little. His little round chubby cheeks were so cute and I can't get over how much I love the little tail. We went to our ward trunk-or-treat and then hauled our kids over to Roberts Ranch (in Hurricane) to go around the big, nice neighborhood. THAT was really fun! We've never done that before because we're kind of crowd avoiders and that place is crawling with people. It was fun because some of the people really go all out and set up spook alleys in their yards/houses/RV's. There was one house that had a lady taking pictures of all the kids in their costumes. Tucker went to preschool with a little girl that lives in there and her mom was telling us they had already gone through 400 full size candy bars and she had to send her husband to the store for more!!! THAT is craziness to me. I joked that they better put something in the contracts for anyone who buys a house in that place warning them about holidays...I know that at least Halloween AND Christmas are like that in there!

Staheli Farm

Each fall there is a working farm that does a Corn Maze and a bunch of activities for kids & families. I'm ashamed to admit this last fall is the 1st time that we've ever taken our kids. It's kind of expensive just to get in, and then you have to pay for the different things after you get in, but it was a lot of fun for the kids to experience! We ended up having a lot of fun!

Miscellaneous October Happenings

Enjoy some random pictures of the craziness at our house:

Dax-Man

A couple days after we got back from the big hunting camping trip Jared and Kylie headed off to Moab for a monster team mountain bike race. We watched Dax and had a blast! Titan & Dax are only 12 days apart and are the bestest of friends. We all had a lot of fun. We found out Titan is a little bully (which continues to be true) and wanted to play with WHATEVER Dax was playing with at the moment. He didn't want to take it away, but he wanted to play WITH him. Dax wasn't always happy about that...lol! When he was riding the trike, Titan just HAD to push him from the back so Dax would move over to the 4-wheeler. Sure enough, Titan would go crawl on right behind him. Dax would lay down on the floor and Titan would start trying to wrestle with him. At times, I think Dax was happy to have to lay down for his nap just to get away from him! LOL!

Elk Hunt

The 1st week in October we went up by Bryce Canyon to go on the Spike Elk Hunt. Yates had a tag and it's always a good excuse to get a good camping trip in. My parents drove down from Idaho so come spend the weekend with us. I know it was a long trip for them and it was rather unfamiliar territory where we ended up camping so they found us luckily in the middle of the night. We're so glad they ended up making the trip...it was a lot of fun!

Yates and my dad mostly ended up getting up before the crack of dawn and spending most of the day out hunting, would come home and grab something to eat and head back out for the evening. We did get some fun family time in though as well. It's always worth it to take the family out and let the kids run around free and get dirty...they sleep SOOOO good! It's nice to have the trailer with kids around. Yates and I used to go tent camping a lot, even after we had Tucker, and we loved it. After Tucker started going with us at a few months old, it became a little more difficult. He ALWAYS slept AWFUL and would get sick from the cold. We bought the trailer a few years ago and it's nice to have a place to get out of the rain, but it's soooooo worth it to have the kids sleep good at night.



We headed over to Bryce Canyon the day we were leaving. My parents had never been to the park and we were so close that it would have been a wasted opportunity to not go. It was rather blustery (to say the least) and my Dad's favorite ball cap was blown off into the bottom of the canyon. He valiantly thought he'd be able to hop the fence and fall to his death to save his hat, but we talked some sense into him. A long drive into the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, the loss of a favorite hat, no elk. Trip worth it? hmmm...you'll have to ask them! It was for us! LOL!!!

Tucker's Birthday

Tucker turned 7 on September 20th. He had a big birthday party with some friends over. He wanted to do "Cowboys & Indians" and I started planning a little late so we just did more of a Western Theme. I sent out invitations inviting the kids to a round-up at our house and then we had bbq hot dogs, chips and sasparilla (root beer) for dinner. We tried our hand at roping, they panned for gold and threw snakes into a boot. It ended up turning out really cute and the boys had a lot of fun. We tried something new for opening presents and it ended up working really well. We passed a boot around (kind of like musical chairs) and played music. When we stopped the music whoever was holding the boot got to get his present to give to Tucker. He always has made friends so easily and I think everyone had lots of fun.

On another note, 7 YEARS OLD?!? It's hardly possible. I love this boy so so much! He's my biggest helper. He has such a tender heart and is so good with little kids. A lot of older kids want to play with kids their own age (and he does too), but he's ALWAYS willing to watch over his little brother and sister and help make sure they have fun too! He keeps us on our toes and is the bad-word police at our house. ha ha. He lives for praise, loves to read, play games and do crafts with mom. He ADORES his dad and loves to do anything with him. Tucker...I'm so proud of you!

Home for Ashley's Wedding Reception

My little sister Ashley, the baby of the family, got all hitched this last May in the exotic Hawaii. She married Doug Henning and although I don't see them very much it's been fun when we get together. I've teased him quite a bit and he just takes it and dishes it right back. That's the key to survival in our family! I don't think he quite knew what he was getting into. LOL! It was a dream of theirs to be married in Hawaii and even though they knew lots of people wouldn't be able to make it, they wanted to fulfill their dream. I'm proud of them! So we didn't all miss out they decided to throw a big reception at my parents' house in September for all their friends & family.

First up we have the beautiful decor. Outside in one of the most beautiful places on earth I might add. How does it get any better than that?



Then we have the festivities. They had a full BBQ dinner. There were burgers, dogs, salads galore, chocolate fountain with all the fixings and mom's famous cinnamon rolls. McKinlee, as you can see, was a chocolate fountain/strawberries hog and made the hugest mess ever! It took 4 times washing that shirt with stain stick to get the chocolate stains out. I love the picture in the top left of Tucker with Ashley. Ashley lived with us in St George when Tucker was born and they have always had a special little bond. She slept on a mattress on the floor right next to his crib and if he'd fuss at night she'd stick her hand up through the crib slats and he'd hold onto her hand until he settled back down and went to sleep. I know that, at the time, all she wanted was a full night's sleep, but it created this bond between them that is really special.



Last, but not least, the happy couple! Mr. & Mrs. Doug & Ashley Henning. I just messed around taking some of their pictures and the sun was pretty bright/right in their eyes, but we got a few decent shots. Love you two!



The next morning I got up early and took my camera out just for fun to get some fun shots of things I love in Teton Valley. All of these are on my parents property and just remind me of home. I can't think of any place that tugs at my heart strings like these. I LOVE TETON VALLEY!

I'm Back!

Okay...I've heard enough of the whining! I'm sorry. I've been in a funk and honestly the blog was a little low on my priority list. However, now I'm feeling a twinge of guilt that I haven't blogged some of the funny stuff my kids have been doing because that's how I REMEMBER. Oh well, suck it up and try to do better. I've removed the blog from private for a little bit in order to get everyone caught back up and will go back in a little bit. I worked tonight on getting collages all set up and will start posting all the new posts hopefully tomorrow! Hold on for the ride. I've missed almost 6 months of stuff and in the Wright family that's an eternity of fun!!!