Block Party!

We had our annual block party on Saturday, July 2nd this year. There were tons of people and lots of good food! Chris made his potatoes, Jon did sweet and sour meatballs and we did pork carnitas, and a triple berry cobbler. There was a lot of food, but that was good because I think everyone in the cul-de-sac came this time, and they all had friends too. I was very glad to account for all of our bikes/trikes/etc before the fireworks started. Ben and Sarah started off in the back of Jon's van. That only lasted a few seconds. Let me just say that I am so glad these too are friends. They say the cutest things to each other...... Then the firework show started. It was really good this year because not too many fireworks are illegal anymore. Ben's favorites were the parachutes. Isabel like the chickens that had fireworks shoot out their bums. I love Adams face in this one! Pure excitement. He started jumping in place shortly after I took the picture.

The other group that didn't have to stand to watch the fireworks :) From left to right: Jon, Grant holding Sam, KelliAnn, and Jen holding Nara. Nara kept saying 'cool'! Very cute.
I think this picture is adorable. It was a very big firework and this was Sarah's reaction.
Nara watching intently. She was a very tired girl, but loved the fireworks.
I got Sam right as a big firework exploded. Just to be safe, he closed his eyes. He enjoyed the show so much that he even fell asleep at the end!
One more shot of the kids watching. Ari covered her ears almost the whole time.

We had one casualty from the sparklers this year. Ben is a tough kid, so I'm glad it was him I guess. He, for some strange reason, took off his shoes to do sparklers..... One fell on the ground and he didn't see it and stepped on it twice. :( It melted the skin. This picture is the day after. I was glad that it was red and had blisters cause that means it doesn't need a skin graft.... Sunday was the worst day, but since then he has been swimming, running, jumping, tumbling, riding his bike with it. I'm just praying it doesn't get infected, cause he does get skin infections really easy.... As soon as the blisters pop we will see how tough he is!

There was one more casualty. A firework exploded into the crowd and burned a little girl's mouth, hair and clothes. As soon as it happened, Isabel and Ari ran into the house crying cause they thought their hair was going to catch on fire. Isabel is ok, but Ari is still terrified. :( All in all it was a fun party, too bad it had to end with burns....

Watermelon and Slip and Slides!

Hooray for Summer! We have had the cousins over a few times for bike days, and swim days. We have a few kiddie pools, sprinkler heads and a slip and slide that the kids love. More than anything I think they just love playing together! So, following are tons of pictures of all the cousins enjoying summer :)

Sarah LOVED her watermelon! She ate a ton of it!

Sam wanted some too! He kind-of liked it :)
Isabel Loved hers too! Perfect treat for a hot , sunny day.
Starting in the front left we have Zoey, Ari, Isabel, Maylee, Nara, Sarah, Adam, and Benjamin.
Another shot of the cousins. Can you believe they were all sitting in the same location :) The past 2 pictures are the only ones I have of Nara and Zoey. They hung out with me, Kandi and Tamina more than playing in the water. I think they were a little intimidated by the bigger kids splashing on them!
Slip and slide time! Ben still runs down the slip and slide and slides into the little pool at the end.
This picture 'cracks' me up :) Footballs, boogie boards, what else could you need?! (Isabel, Adam and Ben)

Sarah wasn't sure about the slip and slide, so she played in the pools.
The kids just keep getting bigger in this picture! By that I mean that we have a picture of them every year doing this same thing. Drinking the water for the slip and slide! (Adam, Noah)
Noah decided to slide down sideways! He made some awesome splashes doing it!
Another cute picture of Sarah in the pool!
I picked out this slip and slide because it has 2 slides next to each other so you can race. I didn't get it for the race factor, I got it so they wouldn't have to wait for a turn as long, hence less whining :) It worked pretty well! (Noah, Ben, and Ari)Noah pushing on the slide so that water will squirt Adam!
The kids all seemed to have a blast playing! I'm glad we have cousins to hang out with! Adam informed me that I have the best bike days ever at my house! (They rode for 10minutes before they decided to play in the water!) With the warm weather finally here, we will have to have more days like these!

Tumbling Recital 2011

Isabel and Ben are doing tumbling this year. They did awesome at their recital! Ben was very excited to go "superfast" and as you can see in the video, he does :)

Isabel loved wearing make-up and doing her cartwheels! She was going to do her backbend with 1 leg up, but she didn't want to get run over by the girl behind her!

Ben got off the stage and wanted to know when he got his next turn! I love these kids!

Happy Father's Day!

Tamina saw the cutest idea for Father's Day. We both decided to do it! We made a "riesen" jar with reasons that the kids love their dad! Brady loves riesen candies, so this was a perfect idea! I typed up 15 reasons from each kid, printed them off on different colored paper (so he would know who said what) cut them out and had the kids fold them and put them inside the candy wrapper. They loved decorating the jar for dad! Lots of jewels, just like he likes it ;)
Here is the close-up. Some of their reasons were so cute, I've decided to post them here :)
Isabel's List: (5yrs old)
1. He gives me big hugs, as big as the house!
2. He gives great kisses
3. He teaches me to play soccer, and now
I learned how!
4. He roasts fires with me
5. He taught me to ride my bike
6. He goes on bike rides with me! Long ones!
7. He makes the best white eggs ever!
8. He helps me read
9. He plays every kind of game with me
10. He colors with me at church
11. He lets me help him clean his truck
12. He plays with me
13. He pumps up the tire on my bike
14. He is so smart he can fix anything!
15. He helps me plant my garden!
16. He carries me when I'm tired
17. He lets me walk on his back!

Ben's List (3yrs old)
1. He plays catch the ball with me!
2. I like to fix things like daddy does!
3. He reads to me, I don't know what
4. He plays basketball and I watch
5. He drives the 4 wheeler and gets snow off the ground!
6. He tickles me!
7. He drives a truck with a trailer on it
8. He goes on long bike rides with me, mommy and Isabel
9. He takes me on his motorcycle with a helmet on
10. He do a fire and let me help
11. He lets me get on the trailer
12. He says "excuse you pig Mommy!"
13. He picks me up from class at church
14. He showed me sprinklers turn on all by themselves!!!
15. He rides my yellow bike with NO training wheels on it!
16. Just because I love him.

The kids wanted to make him something else special too. They picked lawn mower cupcakes. Chocolate ones. I let them pick out what candy would work good. They picked black licorice handles, red vine tires, because they have grooves like daddy's tires, sour worms, and a hershey nugget. We tried green coconut for the grass, but Ben wanted sprinkles, so we did both.

I let them make 5 lawnmowers, then they had to pick their very special one for daddy. Here are Isabel's cupcakes (below). Brady ate one of hers. (He didn't trust Ben's.....for very good reasons)
Isabel had worms hidden in the dirt with the lawnmower running over them. That was the one she picked for daddy.
Ben made one the way I showed him, then he realized that there was no seat for dad to sit on (Brady has a riding lawn mower), so he made his own versions. All with a lot of chocolate and candy on them. Then he started burying the candy bars with frosting..... this was when he realized he would get to eat some :) The above picture is the one with he was making with the seat.
Notice some of the candy is missing...... Ben is a candy thief :)
They had fun making very special treats for dad! They even gave him huge hugs and kisses. Isabel decided that she would just stare at Brady when the primary sang, instead of singing to him.... it was funny, but I wont tell her that :)
Happy Fathers day Brady! Thanks for being a great husband and father! We love you for many Reisens! :) (Happy Father's day to my dad and grandpa Steve! We love you too!)

Bike Day!

We decided that all the cousins should have a day when they could ride bikes in the cul-de-sac! They were all very excited! Uncle Grant even drew pictures for mom and dad (a few days before, but still cute!) We ended up getting together on Thursday night, after my kids recital practice. We had b-b-que hot dogs, but the kids didn't eat much cause they were so excited.
Ben was one of the first ones out there to show his cousins how to ride in his cul-de -sac.

Uncle Grant took Sam and Sarah (and Nara) for rides around the cul-de-sac. They loved it!
Adam hadn't ridden without training wheels before, so I had him get on Ben's little yellow bike. This helped him not to be scared cause he could just put his foot down and wouldn't fall very far. After a few times of me giving him a push to start, he was off and riding! After practicing for a bit, Jon took the training wheels off Adams bike and he was able to ride around! He LOVES it! Good job Adam! Adam and Noah had a blast riding together!
Here are Sarah, Nara, and Sam in the wagon! Nara got to hang out with me all day, and since we are SO exciting at our house, she only took a 20min nap all day. She was one tired girl! She did awesome all day though. (Jen was at youth conference! We will have to catch her next time!)
And of course, these 2 just love to play together, no matter what it is!
Here is Ari on Ben's bike with no training wheels! Her balance is pretty good, she just doesn't like to pedal fast. And, if stationary objects get closer, like a curb or parked truck, she jumps off of the bike! (both legs over the top so she is on the side of the bike!) I have to say she is really talented to jump off so quickly. :)
Ben can ride without training wheels too! (He likes to be bribed to do so though...... He can ride really far for a big piece of crab or an otter pop!) He says he needs to be 5 like Isabel to ride with no training wheels..... He is starting to do tricks on the balance bike, so it is just a matter of him wanting to take his training wheels off. His current training wheels are bald from riding so much! I'm pretty sure when he discovers that he can go faster without training wheels on , he won't ever want them on again!
Here they are fixing a chain on Adam's bike! Someone fixing things = Ben right there!
Brady got home from work, mowed the lawn and then joined in the fun! He likes the little yellow bike. Ben is impressed that Daddy can ride with no training wheels :) Brady had fun racing/teasing the kids. He rode almost every kid bike that was there. He would convince them that they should trade him.
Grant and Jon even rode the little yellow bike. Grant's flip flop slipped off and he biffed it, Jon made it, but not too far. Lots of fun! Tamina even came and joined the party after her 5k for relief society.
The kids had so much fun riding together that they were already talking about when our next bike party would be! So, until the next one ........

Memorial Day

Isabel and Ben were very excited to help me go get flowers to put on the graves this year. They helped me load them into the cart at Winco, then get them into and out of the car.
They had to arrange the flowers multiple times around the porch til they looked just right! They took their jobs seriously.
They wanted to make sure Grandma and Grandpa Morgan saw a picture of them with the flowers.
Here is Isabel looking cute :) I didn't get any pictures, but I did mom's side of the family and the Yamashita graves on Saturday. Grandma Tracie met me at the Ogden cemetery so I could find the Yamashita grandparents. Then Chris, Jen and Nara met us at Altarest on 36th st. Good news mom and dad, they give away hot dogs and drinks now! You picked the right place to want to be buried :) j/k From there we went to cemetery on Washington, across from the golf course. Isabel made sure to give Tanner a red flower, cause he was a boy and that was a boy color. Funny story at the Ogden Cemetery..... (not intended to make fun of anyone's name) I was reading names on headstones to the kids and the kids asked me what the name was on a round headstone.... you'll never guess what it was.... Pancake! They thought it was hilarious! So did I.
On Monday, we made it up to Logan in the snow. :( You can see some on the ground if you look close. Since it was raining, we didn't need to water the flowers, so the kids were all in charge of placing the flowers and taking the plastic off of them. They did a good job! Here are Isabel and Ari posing for Grandpa Grant, showing him the name Morgan on the grave.
This is the best picture I could get of the grandkids at the Logan cemetery. They did really good not to step on the headstones, scream or run around. I think the fact that it was cold helped :)
We had a hard time finding Olas Johnson there. We KNEW he was close to a certain tree, but come to find out, it was another tree that looked just like the one we thought it was :) Funny story about Isabel and Ari..... We asked Isabel and Ari to find the name Johnson on a headstone for us, so they walked around looking for it. All of the sudden, they came up to me and said, "Mom, we found Jesus!" They were very excited! They had found a headstone that had a picture of Jesus with no words on it, and they assumed that Jesus was buried there. Who knew Jesus was buried at the Logan cemetery?! :)
Here is Ben, taking his job seriously! He refused to wear his coat, cause Adam only had a sweatshirt on, so that's all he wanted to wear.....I ended up carrying him cause he was cold and wet and whiney..... :)
Chris got to carry Isabel. He said that it reminded him of last year, when he carried her the same way :) Traditions make for fond memories! Happy Memorial Day!