You may find this suprising...

that I

LOVE

Monster Truck Racing!

I didn't post about it this year, but we went in January & the January before that & I think the January before that...

They come every year to the Tacoma Dome in January. We usually go with my mom & Thom. My bday & Ray's bday is in Jan. We usually go for our bday presents.

I don't really have a favorite truck, I don't watch it enough to know the trucks. I love when they jump in the air & when they crash & get back up. I love when they safely catch on fire and it is put out right away. I love how loud they are and you can feel it in you're whole body. (tv doesn't do it justice) Here is where I blogged about it before. Sometimes it is a little too cold & sometimes too smokey...(from the truck's exhaust) but mostly just FUN!!!

Now you may wonder why in the world after not posting for so long would I randomly post about this? We recently got the sports channel (for football purposes) added to our channel line-up, and they have Monster Truck racing on there. Keagan has been recording them on the dvr & we watched it Saturday.. in between conference.. I know felt a little weird.. like we were breaking the Sabbath or something, but it was so fun to watch. Who wants to come this year with us in January to the Tacoma Dome? My mom & thom are gone on their mission..

This one was really cool because fire was coming out the back! :)


The view from our seats.. we actually had really good seats this year.

They usually have some kind of other event there too, before they do the Monster Truck races, this year they had motor cross. It is really fun to watch, too.

Happy Birthday Melissa 15 years old

Melissa has been Gently reminding me that I haven't done a birthday post for her and her birthday was over a month ago now. I have been telling her it has been 1/2 way done for a long time, it just takes toooo long for pictures to upload! I know too many excuses, it is nice for once for Keagan to have something first and for her to wait... And maybe if I don't post it, it could mean that she's really not 15?!

Happy Birthday Melissa!

This is her on her birthday at the park with the young women, it was ward YW activity day.

She loves to go to the park with her friends &

to be silly & goofy.

This is also on her birthday!

Thanks to the Olivers for saran wrapping our house and her room!

They got us pretty good!

It was HILARIOUS!!!

This year she has the awesome experience of going on trek. Trek is where the youth 14 to 18 years old dress up in pioneer clothes, pull handcarts for a few days and re-enact our pioneer heritage. They get to cook, sleep in a tent and pull the handcarts several miles a day with their gear loaded in it.

Melissa was the only causality of trek, and one of the tires ran over her big toe and bruised the bone(we learned that after she came home and went to the Dr.) She came home dirty and tired and spiritually fed. She was such a trooper and had a terrific time! Even with her injury she says she would do it all again.

Here she is riding in the cart after she got her toe ran over with her good friend Katie.

Here is her trek family.

Everyone is divided into families, a ma/pa and several children

They even have a "baby" that they have to take care of.

Here she is modeling one of her trek dresses we found at DI(a thrift store), she was so excited because it had butt ruffles! Silly girl!!!! She made her own aprons and bonnets. She was very excited to make the aprons and bonnets, so she could use fun material. She used dinosaur & zebra print for the aprons & star & Polk-a-dots for the bonnets. (Notice how clean it is before trek!)

She even cleaned a fish!

Here she is riding a horse after she injured her toe.
I think she looks more like a hippy than a pioneer, here.
:)

Here she is at our cousin reunion riding the go cart
&
Getting muddy!!!!
It was pouring that day!
But she loved it!
Melissa has been in a clogging/tap class for the past 6 years.
She has gotten pretty good at it.
Here she is performing one of her favorite dances
to the Napoleon Dynamite song.
She's right in the middle.. hands on hips

Her 2010 dance picture

We love to tease her.

about many things.

One of them being.. around the house she will wear things that don't match and we fondly call her

Grandma Stambaugh.

That was Ray's grandma who would walk around the house not matching.

Melissa also loves fuzzy socks and to wear mismatched ones on purpose.

Here she is helping paint the bathroom. She is a very good helper and I miss her when she is busy.

She loves any kind of party or spirit day, anything to get dressed up. She dresses up for all of the holidays and spirit days at school. Here she is on St. Patricks day & below Valentine's Day.

She is a good friend. Very loyal and true. She has been blessed with many good friends & many good friends that she has known since she was born or known she was too little to know any different.

She also loves her ward family and especially her youth group. I love her youth group, too! They are all kind and nice to one another. Love that! Here they are at the Vancouver BC temple open house.

Some more of her good friends & Aurora.

She loves to make silly faces,

she had just got her new camera this day &

was playing with it.

Playing with her camera &

her little cousin Aurora.

She is such a good cousin to her!

Here is a short (11 seconds) video of her creation from Keagan's Christmas present.
She worked on this for a few days!

Making silly faces

AGAIN!!

She is a really good big sister, too!!

In Seattle,

on the phone,

I'm not sure if she is taking a picture or

TEXTING!

I love having Melissa as a daughter! She is funny, kind, sweet, hard worker, etc., etc. She is a good babysitter, too. We love having her in our family, when she is gone is it quiet. Which unfortunately is more and more. I can't believe she is 15 already! I don't think I'm ready for next year... good thing I have another year to prepare for it!

Happy Birthday Keagan! 11 years old!

Some random pictures of Keagan this past year that show his personality!

Getting his haircut into a Mohawk, which he likes to do every summer. He is so funny about it though, he wants it done, but then he is a little too embarrassed to wear it up.

Here he is embarrassed/shy


Cool!

skating at the ward activity, he loves his ward family!

More of his ward family, he really looks up to the "boys"

in our ward. He can hardly wait until he is 12 to be with them.

Giving me the dirty look.

He can be quite good at it!

Fixing things. He is quite the helper!

In the parade for the Lacey Fun Fair.

Pinewood derby

He has loved cub scouts.

Doing a skit for cub scouts, this part suited him so well!

He loves teasing Ray that he is old and goes around imitating what he thinks an old person does. He was excited about this part, making his old man beard and practicing with his cane.

He says he hates dance...

BUT once hes there he has a good time And

you see him doing steps all around the house.

This year I payed him to keep going..

He loves his family, he pretends to not like Melissa picking on him..

BUT

he secretly LOVES it!!!!

He really loves his cousin, Aurora, too.

I love listening to them play.

They have great imaginations together!

He is very talented. He likes to dance and sing. He has a very good sense of rhythm, he is constantly making a beat with different objects around the house. Usually.. it doesn't bother me. I didn't think much of it until I heard another child do it and they had no sense of rhythm and then I knew Keagan was really talented!

He loves things that are silly!

He found these glasses at the dollar store and wore them all around the house.
He reminds me a lot of his Great grandpa Stambaugh!

He also needs a lot of sleep. He tells me when it is time to go to bed.

He still falls asleep in various weird positions.

He fell asleep with his silly glasses on!

Here he is getting his awards and moving up to boy scouts!

Sooo exciting!!!

Wearing a silly hat!

rolling of the eyes, a common Keagan occurrence!!!

Singing in the choir

Another silly Keagan face, also a common occurrence at our home!

We love Keagan! His teacher wrote in his year book that she loves his kindness. He has one of the biggest hearts! He likes to make us breakfast in bed. (Melissa, too) A lot of times he will tell me wait, mom, and he will come and open my car door for me. He still likes me to tuck him into bed and say prayers with him and pretend that he doesn't like me to kiss him goodnight. :) I love how he gets so excited about things, he heard that we were having an apostle come for stake conference and that is all he could talk about! He makes sure we read our scriptures every night and say our prayers. He is also a time watcher. He doesn't like to be late!

On the other hand.. he is all boy! He got an i-pod touch for his bday and his favorite app. is the one that farts.. and burps.. really! How many times can you press that button..

We love our sweet, kind-hearted, silly, shy, talented, obnoxious, stinker boy and wouldn't trade him for anything!

Happy Birthday you big 11 year old!!!!