Graduation announcement

After 3 long years, the day is finally approaching. Law school classes are officially over. Just 2 more finals to get out of the way before graduation!!

Chelsea, Brianna, Mason, Cord, and Jalyn McKelleb are proud to announce the graduation of Michael W. McKelleb from the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, On May 7th, 2010

Michael is graduating Cum Laude and will be honored as a recipient of the 2010 Dean’s Award.

He has worked hard through this 3 year process and we are proud of all he has accomplished.


The Boyd students will have their graduation ceremony here at Artemus hall friday morning. I think it's a good excuse for the kids to miss school so they can attend.

Dance awards banquet

Tonight was an awards banquet for all those who were on dance team, cheerleaders, or girls/boys basketball team. After a dinner they began handing out trophies for the participants. It was just fun to see Brianna hang with her friends as everyone celebrated a job well done.






After all the awards were handed out, they let the kids have some fun with the DJ that was there. Makes me remember about middle school dances. It's interesting to watch the dynamics of boy vs girl at that age. There were about 3 girls for every boy. The girls all cling together in one group and have fun dancing. The boys hung out on the outskirts and just watched. There was one point in the dance that the DJ played thriller. About half the girls (including Bri) broke out in a choreographed dance. Fun!

And the braces come off....

Brianna was supposed to have her braces for 18 months, but after almost one year her orthodontist announces that they are ready to come off. No fair! Shouldn't there be a required amount of torture that comes with braces?? But what are you going to do? Today was the big day.

BEFORE:

DURING:

How much is this pile of metal worth? All I know is how much it cost us.


AFTER: What a beautiful smile!

This is what Bri was looking forward to - the goody bag filled with all the things that were supposed to be avoided while the braces were on.

More of Chelsea's photography

Just some more of my favorite pictures that Chelsea took and developed.

Sunday Art

One way to keep the boys quiet during sacrament meeting is to give them some paper and have them draw. Mason always comes up with some interesting cartoon with a lot of detail and he always has some story behind what's going on. This week Cord surprised me with this drawing. This is the first drawing he did all by himself that shows he really knows what goes where (kind-of, I mean we don't have arms coming out our ears but you know what I mean). I was so impressed as he would say the body part he was drawing. Just wanted to document this day in history. As side note - he drew with his left hand. I guess we have 3 and 3 in our family.

I'm not sure what the story behind this weeks cartoon that Mason drew, but i'm not sure it was totally appropriate for church. Looks a little violent. But I still love all the details that he does.

The best medicine

Friends are the best things in life. Thanks to the Schwendiman family for hanging out with us tonight! It's just what I needed. The kids hung out at the house while we all went to dinner. It made me remember the good old times when the kids could just run down the street and hang out together.

Picture Overload

I finally got pictures organized from our last vacation to San Diego over our spring break. I took a million pictures and narrowed it down to just a few hundred to put on the blog. So I'm just apologizing now for the picture overload. You can enjoy them if you want but you'll have to scroll down past the last couple blog entries since I posted them on the date we did them. I just wanted them to tell our story once I print the blog since I haven't been very good at scrapbooking lately.

Quick summary of our trip to San Diego - Balboa park, Maritime museum, Mormon Battalion visitors center, shopping in Old Town, shopping at a seaside Bazaar, Moonlight beach, Point Loma light house, and Easter activities with the Anderson Family.

I always love being with my sister and her family and appreciate their hospitality. We are glad they love living in San Diego so we can wear out our welcome often. She told me that next time we come we have to bring our own case of TP though.

I've done a lot of vacations with just the kids leaving Mike behind since he has so much going on with school or work, but this was definitely the hardest one I've done because of the age Cord is at. This was the first trip with him potty trained so we were always on the lookout for bathrooms. He actually did really well with this, only had a couple accidents and that was on the long trip out there and back home. The hardest thing was that he didn't want to sit in the stroller and just look at things, he wanted to walk/run and touch things. And he wasn't so good at listening to me, OK he was terrible. Most of the vacation was spent with me chasing him or carrying him off somewhere kicking and screaming. It was exhausting. It may be awhile before I try it again.

Highlights of the trip for me include:
*Late night or early morning talks with my sister (I always enjoy time spent with her!)
*A trip to the 99 Cent store with Maria and Tim (without the kids)
*A solo walk down the beach to get the stroller that we abandoned after we carried it down a ton of steps with Cord in it.
*A fabulous Easter brunch provided by the Andersons
*Taking pictures of the Point Loma lighthouse.

Baptism weekend

We made a quick trip to St. George this weekend to attend the baptism of my niece, Rebekah Gentry. We have been looking forward to this for a while and were so glad we were close enough to be there. What a beautiful little girl!


It feels good to be with family!

After partying with family, the girls snuck off to spend a little time with some friends. Brianna took in a movie with Sasha, Chelsea had a late night with Sarah and Taylor. As I was driving through Ivins at midnight I took in the silence and marveled at how bright the stars were. I had the thought that even though we have been in Vegas for a year, I still feel more at home in Ivins. Maybe someday....?

My baby goes to school :(

After jumping through hoops for a couple months, Cord finally got accepted into the preschool program at the schools so they can help him with his speech. He had his first day on monday. He looked so cute with his little backpack. At first he wasn't so sure about the whole thing but as soon as his teacher came and took his class away, he was happy as could be and had a great first day. He'll get to go Monday through Thursday from 12:50-3:20. We are excited for this (free) opportunity, but right now I'm unsure of how this thing is going to work because it messes up the time I have to sleep in the morning after work.


After his first day of school he was EXHAUSTED! He fell asleep on the way home. I tried to carry him in the house to sleep on the couch but he cried and ran away. I found him later on the stairs. He is in the "i don't want to take a nap but my body still needs one" phase of life. With school in the afternoon he doesn't have much of a choice.

One nice benefit of the child find preschool is that a bus will pick him up and drop him off each day. He was so excited for the bus today. As soon as it pulled up he ran outside with his little backpack. You can tell by the smile on his face how excited he is to be a "big kid".

Point Loma Lighthouse

Had to sneak in one more adventure before we left town so we headed up to Point Loma. I had heard about a lighthouse up there and they talked about it on the harbor tour. It's the highest point in San Diego and the view was fantastic. I loved walking around up here and touring the small lighthouse. The only thing that stressful was trying to keep Cord from running off the cliff. Mason wasn't interested in the lighthouse and I was tired of fighting with him so I let him sit in the car while we enjoyed the view. Even though it put us behind about 2 hours getting home, it was well worth it. There is a visitor center there that we didn't have time to explore. Maybe next time?

Easter morning

Happy Easter! We were excited to celebrate with Anderson Family. Thanks to Tim and Maria for the fabulous brunch. Tim made us yummy crepes and Maria made us drinks with OJ and sparkling cider. After breakfast, we saw that the easter bunny had hidden some eggs in the backyard so we went on a little hunt.

We had a long drive home to Vegas. When we got home there were a few more Easter surprises including another egg hunt in our own backyard.