Friend Film

It's half birthday time again! Dallin chose to gather 7 of his best buddies last week at the movie theatre to go see Toy Story 3 (in 3D!!). We had SO much fun!! Before the movie started, we were able to hang out with the Chick-fil-A cow (random),

spin the Chick-fil-A wheel for free stuff,

go up the backstage elevator to see how the movies are shown,

and they even got to play some video games beforehand. We then grabbed their movie snacks and watched Toy Story 3 (LOVED IT!). The boys were all in the row behind Peter, Claire and I and they looked so cute with their 3D glasses on all shoving popcorn into their mouths. I wish I could have taken a picture.

After the movie, a party area was set up for us where Dallin opened his birthday gifts and we snarfed some alien birthday cake.

This fabulous afternoon was finished off with some serious boy balloon smacking.

It was a wonderful, fun, low-stress, super-memorable birthday for my 7 1/2 year old and some of his best buddies!! Happy 1/2 birthday Dallin!

Lucky Lad

My parents often tell us that we have something called "Waldron luck". To be honest, we don't really win things, but we are very blessed. Dallin, however, upped this luck the last week of school.

At the close of each school year, there is a basket raffle. Each class is given a topic (such as camping, baseball, princess, movies, etc) and the class makes donations to put together a fun basket filled with items that fit into their category.

Dallin's class had a "gardening" theme and it turned out great. There was one basket, however, that Dallin salivated over. Can you guess what the theme was?... basketball... of course! He passed by this basket everyday and would tell me all about it when he came home from school.

When the evening of the raffle came, we purchased 12 tickets... Dallin got 10 and he gave Claire 2. Claire put one of her tickets in a girly basket filled with tutus and hair prettys and her other ticket went into an art basket filled with glitter pens and play doh. Dallin... he put all 8 into the basketball basket. As we left the school, I prepared them both mentally for the loss they were going to experience the next day when they picked the basket winners. We lost last year and had purchased 40 tickets!! "Just remember that lots of kids put their tickets in and we should be happy for whoever wins". I chanted this the entire evening and as I took Dallin to school the next day.

When I picked him up from school, there was a special look on Dallin's face... it was the look of luck. The basketball basket happened to be the first one chosen that morning and as the principal reached her hand into the box, she pulled out the name and it said "Dallin Waldron" on it. Um, there could not have been a more excited child. We went into the office, picked up his basket and drove this prized possession home. We took pictures of it, admired it, and then tore it open. It was filled with basketball goodness:

Such a lucky lad!

Ten Times

That's right... Peter and I have now celebrated our wedding anniversary 10 times! It was June 17, 2000 that we went to the Seattle temple and were sealed together for time and all eternity.

I cannot believe how fast these 10 years have flown by and it is even harder to believe that I love my husband more now than I did on that wedding day.

For this big anniversary, Peter and I drove to Las Vegas and had a super-fun weekend. Thanks to my wonderful brother Dave and his fabulous wife Erin, we were able to escape kids-free for 3 days.

We ate at some amazing restaurants, went shopping, saw the Cirque du Soleil "Ka" show (AMAZING), went dancing, pretended like we were 20 again, saw some famous people, saw the Wayne Brady show (were even able to meet him afterwords),

went swimming, watched movies, relaxed, etc. The best part of the whole weekend was having my husband all to myself with no signs of stress on his face.

It was perfect. I can't wait for the next 10!

Boat Blast

For Memorial Day, our fun friends the Nilsons invited us to join them on their boat. The boys (Ryan, Peter and Dallin) left early in the morning to get a good beach spot and take the boat out while Sheina and I wrangled up the little ones and grabbed some picnic food. We met the rest of the gang at Lake Elsinore and rode on the boat over to our little spot on the beach (it's a nasty lake, but only 15 minutes away... give and take).

I looked up to see that smack dab next to us was Dallin's principal... sunbathing on their boat :). Dallin had a blast playing with her daughter Tesla Ann, who was in Dallin's class last year.

We played in the nasty green Lake Elsinore water, ate some Subway, and chatted. We then all packed up, hopped back on the boat and went wake boarding. It was SO fun!!!! Even in the nasty water. I am smacking my hand that I didn't take more photos.

The day seriously flew by and we headed back home around 4. We were all feeling great and exhausted. It was a super-fun day!

Phoney Phonecalls

I went to a wonderful Enrichment church activity a couple of weeks ago and came home to a dark house. I walked in the front door to find my husband giving me the "shush", be quiet sign and to meet him in the garage. I was excited cause that could only mean one thing... a good ol' Waldron family prank. This time, Dallin was the prey. Here is the background story...
Dallin and Peter were having another funny basketball conversation. Dallin told Peter that Kevin Garnett (from the Celtics) was stronger than him. Peter begged to differ :). That was reason enough for my husband to show Dallin whos boss and bust out a Peter prank. He quickly changed all of our iPhone settings and photos to Kobe Bryant (home phone), Kevin Garnett (my phone), and LeBron James (Peter's iPhone). SO, whenever one of these phones called, it would show this on the iPhone screen:

He told me to call his cell phone from my cell phone and pretend to be Kevin Garnett. So there I was... a grown woman... standing in my garage at 9:30 at night... calling my 7 year old son... pretending to be a pro NBA player.

The phone rang and Peter picked up and confidently said something to the effect of "oh hey Kev. How's it goin'? ... Oh good. ... no, I can't shoot hoops tonight... I've gotta get my son to sleep... oh, Kobe is going to play tonight too?! Well, tell him I said hi and that we'll play sometime tomorrow. Ok, cool... see ya tomorrow". DALLIN WAS DYING. He totally bought it and couldn't believe that his dad was friends with all these guys and just turned down a chance to shoot hoops with them.

I was asked to call again from the home phone and this time, Dallin picked up. In my best LeBron James voice (it was horrible), I said hi to Dallin and talked with him for a bit. He was giddy... and I was getting a pit in my stomach. How are we ever going to break this joke to him that he is so stinking excited about right now? It had to come out before he went and told all of his friends the next day at school.

I came in the house and went upstairs (note that Dallin still thought I was at Enrichment this whole time). He was sitting up in his bed, bright-eyed and bushy tailed and quickly told me everything... how Dad is friends with Kevin, Kobe and LeBron. He is going to play basketball with them tomorrow and he even got to talk with Kevin on the phone!!!! I couldn't handle it. I told him that I am pretty sure Daddy is teasing him. Didn't work... he had the phone calls and the caller ID to prove it. I handed this one over to Pete. Good luck breaking the news to Dallin that this fantastic evening is totally rigged. I went downstairs.

I sat down to watch some TV when all of a sudden Peter's phone began to ring. I went over, picked it up and look who was calling me:

I smirked, picked up the phone to hear Dallin's impersonation of Pee Wee Herman. It was priceless. I have never laughed so hard and so quietly before. Apparently Peter showed Dallin how to change the settings on the phone and he was totally okay with the whole prank. Especially now that the joke's on me.

Wonder who's gonna call next...

Outlandish Outfit

Claire came down the stairs dressed like this... and said she was ready to go... where exactly that is, I am not sure.

side note - if you look closely, she has makeup and glitter all over her face.

Western Wear

It was "cowboy" day at preschool and I lassoed three of the cutest cowkids into my chuck wagon
and took them to a rootin' tootin' preschool shindig!

Basketball Bash

BASKETBALL... the love of my Dallin's life. He is still in love with the game, the players, the teams, the jerseys, the cards, the stats... he loves it all. He especially loves playing the game and he just completed his second season. He was #6 on the Clippers with Coach Andrew (we requested him again).

He did really well and had an absolute blast. The other parents often comment on how much spirit and drive he has for the game. He really does love it.

I was the team mom this year (still don't know how I got roped into it) and planned the team party. My new motto of "simplify" came into play as I put this party together... it was hard to control myself from going overboard, but I am pleased to say that it wasn't that fabulous of a party. Just like I had hoped :).

I reserved one of the rec center rooms, set up some tables, ordered some pizza and cake, blew up some balloons and invited the team. It ended up being a fun evening with socializing, balloon beatings, trophies, kind words and team photos. Everyone had fun and I didn't explode :).

Congratulations to my basketball stud and we all look forward to the next season!

p.s. Dallin has really enjoyed having Andrew as his coach the past 2 seasons. So much, in fact, that he made an appearance in Dallin's 1st grade memory book...

Prescott Party

We had a wonderful and super-quick weekend in Prescott, Arizona. We packed up the car and drove out late Friday afternoon and arrived in Prescott at midnight. The kids were wonderful and even survived the psycho, windy road up the mountain (no one barfed this time!). We checked into the Marriott (where the rest of the family was also staying) and carefully did the car-to-room transition with all of the kids. Spencer completely woke up and was a nightmare for the next 2 hours. He screamed and was inconsolable. It was awful. Eventually we all went to sleep and woke up to a nice continental breakfast... and no family to be seen. Apparently we were the first to arrive. We played around in our room, went on a little family trip to Target and came back to find the rest of the gang.

Our whole purpose in coming to Prescott was to see Casey (Peter's brother) graduate from college with his nursing degree. We all got spruced up and went down the street to witness the graduation. It was wonderful!

The speakers were fabulous and the whole presentation was really well done. Each of the graduates filled out an "acceptance speech" beforehand and it was read by an emcee as they individually received their degrees... it was personal and wonderful.

Congratulations Casey!

Oh yeah, and Spencer slept the entire time!!!

We greeted Casey outside afterwords for congratulations and family photos...

It was then onto Outback Steakhouse for a big family dinner...

When we were done with dinner, we headed over to the Prescott courthouse (where some of Back to the Future was filmed).

It had a large, beautiful lawn surrounding it with people throwing frisbees and having picnics. There was a nice fountain and beautiful gazebo.

The kids had a blast running around, playing lightsabers, climbing the courthouse stairs, etc. We even crossed the street and all got some ice cream.

It was a perfectly gorgeous and wonderful evening.

We all walked back to the hotel and our little family decided to go swimming (always a Waldron family favorite). I put the little ones to bed while Dallin and Peter went and sat around the fire pit with some of the family. They even went on a late night snack hunt and got pulled over by a Prescott police man. Never dull with the Waldrons.

The next day we all had breakfast together, took some more photos...

played and then met up at Casey's house. We went on an adventure walk (completely got lost)...

and finally ended up at the park were searching for...

We played and then said our goodbyes to Mom, Dad and Steve. The rest of us had some lunch at Red Robin and then we headed back home. We fit all of that into about 36 hours. Amazing how so many memories can be made in such a short amount of time.

Congratulations Casey and thanks for giving us all an excuse to get together and play!