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!

Dandelions!

Blowing dandelions is a sure sign of summer, or so I thought! I took these pictures 2 weeks ago.... yet we are still having sweatshirt weather :) Got to love Utah weather!

Tangled Birthday!

Here are all the party details! I know I already posted these invitations, but I wanted all the Tangled stuff in one spot. :)Isabel invited 8 girls to her party. This picture was taken at the end of the party, but I wanted it at the beginning of the post so you could see all the cute girls who came! From left to right, there is Ari, Allie, Isabel, Sarah, Zoey, Emma, Shiloh, and Emily. Only one of her friends she invited couldn't come. They made princess crowns with lots of jewels and glue and if you look close, you can see frying pan necklaces on some of them. The Rapunzel braid was originally hanging on the front door, but letting the girls hold it made for a cute picture! Aren't the girls beautiful!
Here is the line-up of the food that was made. Pascal (Rapunzel's chameleon friend) cupcakes, blue jello with orange slice boats, and of course the cake. It was chocolate cake with a rice crispy/white chocolate tower. The hair lining the cake is twizzlers. There is a close-up picture later :)
These are the Pascal cupcakes. I think they turned out cute!
A close-up of the jello boats. (These were Ben's favorite!) The girls seemed to like them too.
Here is what I did for decorations. In the movie when Rapunzel gets into town, there are banners across the city that look like the ones below, so I got some felt and made Isabel some! The ones across the ceiling say 'Happy Birthday' and the ones on the fireplace say 'Isabel.' I tied purple and yellow balloons everywhere too. We had a Tangled table cloth, plates and cups too.
Isabel loved the banner with her name on it so much, that it is hanging over her bed in her room. I'm glad she liked it :)
When the girls got there, I had a coloring page for them to do. Rapunzel was missing her hair, and they had to draw it. I didn't get a picture, but they made Pascal party blowers too. The blower looked like Pascals tongue! Then I had purple jewels and the girls took turns hiding them and finding them. They got to pick out flower jewels to put
into their frying pan necklaces, and then they got to decorate their own princess crowns! I thought this might be fun, seeing as Isabel loves anything sparkly and glue :) Lots of both were used! Then they danced with balloons to the Tangled soundtrack and played ring around the rosie!



Then it was present time! Isabel loved being the center of attention! All the girls took turns bringing Isabel the present they got her.

Ari made sure to get her a Tangled Barbie, so that she and Isabel could be twins. (Ari had one already). Isabel loves it and takes it everywhere. She is even having me teach her how to braid! That's an adventure! Thanks Ari!

Zoey got her a Tangled brush that sings! She loves it! Thanks Zoey!
Allie got her coloring books (one of her favorite activities!) and some outdoor toys! Awesome! Thanks Allie!
Shiloh got her a cool badmiton set! These are definitely Ben's favorite :) Anything he can hit with is great! Isabel loves them too! Thanks Shiloh!
Emily got her a cute Belle doll and blanket! Isabel said that the blanket is the best, even better than Ben's favorite car blanket, because it is soft and stretchy! Thanks Emily!
And Emma got her a Hello Kitty scrapbook kit! It took Isabel 3 days and 4 glue sticks and a lot of jewels to put her book together, but she did it! She is definitely a fan of her cool cutting scissors! Thanks Emma!
Then it was time for cake! I got lucky and found a #5 candle (I couldn't find any other candles....) I think that it turned out cute! And Isabel said it was just what she wanted! Chocolate cake with green marshmallow fondant. I used rice crispies, white chocolate melts, and marshmallows to make the tower. The top is an ice cream sugar cone covered in purple candy melts. The flowers on the cake are made of fondant and the hair lining the cake is yellow twizzler candy.
Even though there was only one candle.... it took 2 tries to blow it out! Luckily everything tasted good! Never know how things will taste with no eggs or milk in them! :)
Then the girls headed out to the sandbox out back to play! Isabel said that it was lots of fun and that her favorite part of the party was ALL of it! We made the girls a take home bag with a tangled coloring page, flower suckers, a purple bead necklace and a ring and anything else they made they could put it there!
A special thanks to my sister in law Kandi for all of her help! I forget how long it takes to do cute stuff sometimes! Thanks again Kandi, I couldn't have done it all without you! And thanks to all the girls that came to help Isabel celebrate! She loved every minute of it! Happy Birthday my angel!