Free Range Family

Today is Grandpa Kevin's birthday. Happy birthday Grandpa Kevin! We love you so much! My dad is seriously the coolest. He is one of the strongest men I know. But his heart is sooooooo big, he has so much love for his family. I have quite a bit of respect for him and his hard working ethic too. My father has his own drywall company that he started from the bottom up. I would love to someday do that with my own business! We have a lot in common too. My father is soooooooo stubborn about most things and usually refuses to go to the doctor even if he is sick. I am a terribly stubborn person myself, just ask my husband lol. Just one of the many traits I picked up from my dad! I have picked up a lot of his crazy notions throughout my life. :) He has always been a great teacher. The things he teaches me are different then the things my mother has taught me too. They are valuable in their own ways. :) My father has taught me how to ride a bike, how to fish, how to ride motorcycle

I mean, of course, its July. In my huge family, we have like 325,482,926,454,824,863 birthdays in this month only lol! Just kidding of courseThis weekend was Grandma Melanie and I's birthday party at the Reef Waterpark and the kid's friend Carly's birthday party at Kids Klubhouse. We all had such a great time! First are the photos from our birthday party at the Reef! I only was able to take so many because it is ONE WET PLACE lol, I mean obviously. It has several kids slides, two bigger kid slides, a basketball pool, a obstacle pool, and a wave pool. Very, very cool! Here are the pictures: One of my presents to myself was this Chicco baby carrier. Anna has looooooong since grown of her Moby Wrap and we passed it down to Baby Benton. However, she has become quite needy as of late due to teething and our attempt at weaning. This carrier has been a lifesaver! I love it so much! We have seriously used it at least once a day since I bought it! She sure lo

Dance has always been such an important aspect of my life. I have been dancing for almost 20 years now and have shared the gift of movement as a teacher for 2 years now. I live for dance, think about it all the time, and apply a lot of dance notions to real life. Dance is just the greatest thing ever: its communication without a voice. I have always believed that you can be a dancer without any training. Dance isn't only about technique, its about the feeling you get from it and the passion. Today is National Dance Day. Unfortunately, I did not have any of my dance classes today. But I did teach my gymnastics class this morning. We did our regular routines but finished up dancing to "Cha Cha Slide" for NDD. The kids were so silly and they loved it! I told my dance students about today earlier this week, and reminded them that no matter where they are, they should dance! :) I cannot wait until Wednesday so we can share our National Dance Day stories! I thought I had a

Tomorrow is National Dance Day!! I am so excited, I have a tumbling class in the morning and we will be learning a mini floor routine and I am going to play "Cha Cha Slide" at the end of class. I cannot wait, wish I had a dance class tomorrow. I will have a breakdancing class on Saturdays in the fall though. And I told all of my students about Dance Day and cannot wait to hear how they all celebrated it! I finally figured out how to get onto My Little Life's blog on my phone! I can participate in her weekly blog hop Five Question Friday finally again! I am so excited, I used to really enjoy participating and am glad I can once again! Yay! Here is this week's Five Question Friday! What is your best cleaning tip? Use old fashioned cleaning supplies. With all the cleaning brands and products out there these days, its easy to forget how far plain old bleach can get you. We use bleach, baking soda, rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide for cleaning in our household way

Alan has done so well this past month in his swim lessons! Lon and I are so proud of him! He has learned so much, Lon says that Alan can probably swim better then him now! :) Yesterday I was able to take an awesome set of photos with my phone, the photographer in me was soooooooo happy lol! Here is a continuous shot of Alan jumping into the water: This top one is a running shot of them all, so you can get an idea of the jump. :) It goes clockwise, starting at the upper left corner. The next few are the photos enlarged. :) Love it, love it, love it so much! Love my camera phone! Today, he had his last swim lesson class most likely for the summer. He did not graduate the Sunfish Class but he had a fantastic time today! The last class of the session usually involves a safety presentation and a special little treat for the students: they get to run out and jump into the pool. Alan loved doing it, like he does everytime. He did so good! We are s

There are only a few more classes left in our summer hip hop program and every one of my students has improved so much, in each their own artistic way. These classes, like all of my classes, are dear to my heart. The kids are great and they perform very well together! I am so lucky to be their teacher! Today I had my birthday party in my hip hop classes. We had oatmeal raisin cookies and each student received a YMCA bracelet as a small gift from me. In my younger class, we played a lot of games. However in my older class, we learned how to Moonwalk and some basic locking steps. We performed a little dance (my favorite five minute choreography I've ever done lol) to Justin Bieber's "As Long As You Love Me". We had a great time in both classes! Two of my students gave me little gifts for my birthday! They are all such sweethearts! One student made me a little Happy Birthday card and the other student gave me a smiley face ball with a birthday card. I als

Today is Grandma Melanie's birthday! Happy birthday Grandma Melanie, we love you so much! My family is still in Missoula with my sister and my nephew, my mom will be back in town this weekend. We cannot wait to see her! Oh we have missed her so much these past few weeks, we cannot wait until she is back home! Aunt April, Uncle Kalvin and Grandpa Kevin too lol! :) We will probably have a double birthday party at either the Reef or the Oasis this weekend for the kids. Alan is so excited, he told me today that he was all done with swimming lessons so he could go lol! Silly guy! Mom, you are truly the best mom ever! You carried me for 41 weeks and patiently waited for my overdue arrival. You nursed me, like you did all four of us children, something I now have full appreciation for. You raised my siblings and I with good morals, family values, book and street smarts, strong hearts, a love for learning and a hard work ethic. You also taught my sisters and I to be beautiful, but to

Today was my 24th birthday. It was a pretty good birthday, although I really do not feel 24 years old. Isn't that weird lol? We did not have too much planned, since my family is out of town with my sister and my nephew still. But I still had a great day because I spent it with my beautiful children and my husband. I spent the morning with my family, woke up early to play with the kids. Anna is growing up so much, she is fantastic. She know blows kisses when you do know, I love it! I watched Alan swim too, which I do most days, but I enjoyed it more than usual. If that makes sense lol? But I did. And he's getting good too. His swim class has moved deeper into the pool and he does pretty well with it. He just gets nervous about going underwater. He does so well though! Then at work, I brought cupcakes for the staff and their children. There were Oreo cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes and regular vanilla cupcakes (I know, I spoil my Y family lol, but I love them so much!). Towards

This week I helped teach the Y cheer camp. We worked with a group of 20+ girls ages 4 to 8 years old, 4 which were from my previous gymnastics camp, and we taught them basic cheers and dance moves. We named ourselves the YMCA Dynamite Cheer Squad (my idea lol). Let me tell you, their name describes them perfectly! These girls are for sure DYNAMITE!! Today they performed for their parents and they did FANTASTIC!! I am so proud of all of them! They even performed it without us! Good job girlies! I only was able to get a group photo of them, I need to start taking my own class photos and videos! Bad teacher, bad lol! Here is the cute photo I took! Such a great group of gals! Baby Benton is doing great by the way! They were allowed to go home yesterday and have spent most of today resting. My mom will be staying with them to get them settled in. I got a BRAND new batch of photos today too. Auntie Jillian is quite happy now! Dunno though, I might still have to walk u

Benton, not baby! Silly readers! See how I fooled you all? I'm such a trickster! You heard it right! My sister had her baby boy and they named him Benton. He was born Tuesday, July 16th at 10:48 pm. At night, just like his cousins! Benton is a perfect 7 1/2 pounds and 20 7/8 inches long! I think he looks a little bit like his mom and his dad! He is so handsome! We love you Benton! Natalie, I am so very proud of you beautiful. You are so strong. I wish I could have been up there with you, holding your hand and getting you to laugh through your discomfort and pain. I hope that I was able to support you enough through texts. I love you and Jake so much. I am so proud of both of you! Welcome to parenthood guys! It truly is a beautiful thing. Its hard some days (and most nights lol) but is always, everyday, worth it. Children really are the greatest gift ever. Life is beautiful! Love you!! I cannot wait for my family to meet Benton! They will all

Its Baby Day!!! You saw that right, I should become an aunt by later tonight or tomorrow! To say that I am excited is an UNDERSTATEMENT!!!! I am estatic, I cannot wait to get updates from her and finally meet him! Hurry Baby B, Auntie Jillian wants to meet you and hold youuuuuuuuu! :) Natalie, good luck and I believe in you! You are a strong woman and you can do this! I love you and Jake! Cannot wait until he is here!

Friday was Relay for Life in Billings. I volunteered with the YMCA and helped work the inflatables. Alan was also able to come with me, I think he had a blast. :) He played on the inflatables with his school friends for two hours and then had dinner, got a balloon gun and some chocolate ice cream. He also got to sit and watch the parade of survivors, he loved cheering for them! I enjoyed volunteering as well, but I'm pretty sure he had a better time then even I did. :) But there's so much more to Relay than just fun. Relay for Life is literally what its name says, its about life. Its a celebration of life for some and a memorium of life for others. It is a walk against cancer and for the survivors. I was surrounded by so much love, beauty and happiness. I have never given out so many hugs to random strangers, but that's what this is about! There were so many tears, both happy and sad. I have never felt so alive and so grateful to be alive! Life truly is go