Sweet 16!!!

Sami turned 16 this year, and she was driving 2 days after her birthday. She has gone on one date and has been asked to Prom. I am not sure if I am ready for this... but then I think about what a great girl Sami is and I know this is going to be a fun road to travel with her!

Sami's passions are music, volleyball, and dance. She is becoming a very accomplished pianist and I hope she will continue to learn and practice. Sami will be Junior next year and is hoping to play varsity, which I know she will! She is a very good volleyball player! Sami is good at everything she attempts... but if it's not fun to her, then she's not about to waist her time with it. Sami has a very strong personality but she is also very kind and tries to never hurt feelings. Sami also has a very strong testimony and love for her Savior. Sami has always said she wants to serve a mission! We are so blessed to have Sami in our family!

Happy Birthday Sami

Lovell dance team 2014-2015

 Jr dance team

 Sami is the red head in the back and to the right

Happy Birthday Zeke!!!

Zeke is 12 years old! What a special birthday and what a great boy! Zeke turned 12 on a Saturday and was given the priesthood the next day, and a week later he passed the sacrament for the first time. What a great day for me as a mom to have one boy blessing and one passing the sacrament. 

Zeke is a great kid! He is always full of life and energy. He gives everything he does 100%. He is also very kind. There have been multiple occasions where adults have stopped to let me know an act of kindness they witnessed. Zeke truly is a good hearted kid.

Zeke is also beginning to win over the girls, with those big dimples of his!

From day one Zeke was either the happiest baby or the saddest baby, there was not much in between. Even to this day he either seems to be bouncing off the walls or asleep, it's never a dull moment with that kid! In the picture below he is sporting an orange julius smile (which I can't seem to remember how it happened, but that might be for the best).

 We cant do presents without doing "heavy heavy hangover!"

 

I never knew a 12 year old boy could be so excited about clothes! All he wanted was a Lovell Bulldogs jacket and a Nike Elite jacket. At least he is easy to please!

And then there's the cake.... skittles..... I am not sure what he was more excited for, the skittles or the jacket!

Zeke was able to wrestle in middle school this year, and he did awesome! He seems to be a natural. This was his first year to ever wrestle, ever, and he took 4th place at the best of the best for our region. This was quite the accomplishment! However, he is still sold on basketball. . . even though his coach is convinced he was built to be a wrestler! Here is a quick video we put together with some of his highlights from the season.

We love you Zeke!!!

Here we go with another big post!

We ended 2014 on a great note!!

Jakes 17th birthday. 

If you can see the look in Jakes face, he was very pleasantly surprised this year. Jake went to EFY in August. While there he lost his EFY bag, complete with his scriptures, driver license, and a $200 pair of Bose headphones he wears when he is running. To make a long story short, he called once, maybe twice, to see if anything had been turned in, but no such luck. I made it very clear I was not going to replace his headphones. So, all he asked for his birthday was a new set of scriptures, which I told him I would get some. About two weeks after EFY I decided to call the Provo extension, even though he attended EFY in Rexburg. Before I was able to track down a Provo number that day, they called me. They had found his bag and it was in Provo.  Later I told Jake I got him a present for $14.00 that he was going to love (that was cost of shipping)!!! He tried to guess for a few days but was unsuccessful. Well, he had no idea, but his reaction to his present was priceless. He had opened the box just enough to recognize the EFY bag and he squealed like a girl. It was great!!

With the fall brings hunting. Here are some pictures of the kids with their first antelopes, and Tom with his antelope and his elk. The elk antlers are mounted and hanging in the basement, lucky me!

Halloween was a little different this year. I ended up with just Matthew to take around the neighborhood. Amee and Zeke both were with a friend. Not sure where Jake was and Sami was home with her dad cutting the elk meat off the bones. Good old fashioned daughter father time!!

Amee wanted to be an Indian Princess

Matthew is obviously a turtle of some sort (haha) and Zeke, his has a story behind it. He saw a costume of that Slenderman person and thought that would be pretty cool. Neither one of us new anything about slenderman, except what he looked like and that he was some type of game. Well we got online and ordered a white bodysuit that would cover his face also. He was excited. Well a day or two later I heard something about kids murdering kids because they were wanting to make Slenderman happy. Zeke and I did a little research about Slenderman and he quickly decided he did not want to be Slenderman. Well we still had the body suit and nothing to be for Halloween. So he added some black to his costume and there you have it.

 The businesses on main street have treat for the kids the Friday before Halloween. We went with the Woodfords.

Matthew and Ashlyn

Matthew is 7!!

Breakfast in bed used to be a normal tradition, but now birthdays are all too often on school days and it doesn't always happen. But for Matthew he got lucky this year!! (Actually he kept telling me to go get him his breakfast in bed and he wouldn't get out of my bed)


We forgot to get a picture of his cake before it was cut. He saw this cake at a cake auction we had in August and he simply had to have one for his birthday!!!

The older we get the less fun birthdays seem to be, but Sami is always needing a reason to make cheesecake!

Amee is 10!!!

And into clothes and volleyball just like her sister!!!!

Christmas 2014

Christmas is getting to be filled with clothes and shoes instead of games. All Sami wanted was stuff for painting fingernails. She is becoming quite the fingernail artist and probably changes her nailed twice a week, spending about two hours on them each time.

Matthew wanted a remote control helicopter. He played with it nonstop, until it broke. It took a crash landing :(

Amee wanted beads for making things and clothes of course!

I do enjoy seeing them play together, even though its not the traditional games we use to play. I think they are playing mine craft, which is a game that seems so boring to me

Jake got a set of Legos, which he is not so sure about . . . they were actually for Matthew but ended up being wrapped for him

Matthew hugging his Denver Broncos hat.... not sure when he became a Broncos fan. This house is pretty faithful to the Patriots and Tom more or less likes anyone playing the Broncos... maybe he takes after his Uncle Jared.

Matthew has been asking for a suit for two years.... since Zeke was going to be turning 12 and Jake had grown out of his, we decided to get a suit for all the boys. Matthew was more than excited!

Zeke with his headphones and a new jacket. Zeke likes anything that is bright and fluorescent!

Our big trip for this year was back to New York and Eastern Canada. Suzie's parents are serving in the Palmyra Temple mission. Tom served his mission in Toronto Canada so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take the kids to see where their dad served.

Lay-over in JFK Airport

First stop, Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls in Canada is so beautiful! Everything was so green and the homes and parks were so beautifully landscaped. They had flowers and plants unlike anything I had ever seen. The kids kept asking if we could move there, and I really think they would have!

We took a jet boat ride down the Niagara River and were able to experience the rapids. It was awesome! Unfortunately, due to the amount of water we were submerged with, we were not able to have phones and cameras on the boat. Jake and Sami sat in the front row and were more that wet when we returned. It was awesome! 

Seeing Fort George was pretty neat too. In the picture below we are standing in Canada and looking at New York. We are actually standing on the fort where cannons were used to fire at the US during the War of 1812. It was neat to have a visual on many of the smaller battles at Fort George and what they may have been like.

Sami and Amee enjoying Canadian ice-cream!!!!

Originally we thought we would take the kids to a Blue Jays game, but opted to take the jet boat ride down the rapids instead. While visiting the CN tower we were able to participate in the opening festivities for the Blue Jays game.

This lady on stilts was walking around tossing a ball to kids. I am pretty sure that between my three boys, they played catch with her more than any other one person. Matthew and Zeke were in heaven!

Zeke and Matthew both did the pitching challenge. Zeke was pitching in the 11-14 age bracket. The record was 57, held by a boy who was probably 13. Zeke's fastest pitch was 55. Although the machine was having a hard time reading his pitch because of the way he was standing, as he is a lefty. Some of his other pitches seemed to be faster than the 55 that registered.

Matthew was pitching in the youngest bracket. His fastest pitch was 37, which was good enough to get his name on the record board!

Below is the view of Toronto from the CN Tower. While up there we were able to watch them open the roof of the Blue Jays stadium. That was pretty cool. I think it took a good 30 minutes and I am pretty sure Zeke stood watching the entire time. This might be the first time he has stood still for that long. He was pretty heart broke that he could not go inside the stadium, but I guess that gives him something to look forward to doing at another time.

Our trip to Toronto would not have been complete without making the drive out to Brampton to see the Temple.

We were able to find a nice beach along Lake Ontario, but were not to excited about all the teeny, tiny bathing suits, so we selected a less desirable place to play, but it was still fun!

Niagara falls was quite a sight! While getting as close as we possible could, Amee, standing up as high as she could safely get, dropped a flip flop. She reached down to get her shoe, which was just laying on the other side of the rail, and someone bumped her, causing her to push her shoe over the ledge. I had seen something fall and then saw Amee jumping and crying. My head started to race trying to figure out who or what had fallen. I was very relieved when I discovered it was just her flip-flop.

We teased Amee about the fact that this was a pretty smart way to try and get a new pair of shoes. Amee however did not like the teasing.

Our time in Canada and Niagara Falls was very fun and we will have many memorable experiences. However, it seemed a pretty unanimous consensus that Palmyra was the funnest and neatest part of our trip. Having family there was definitely a positive factor!!! Without hurting any feelings, I might have to say the Ezra was the highlight of our trip!!!

Peter Whitmore Home

It was here in the Peter Whitmore home that the church was first organized!

The Sacred Grove was so beautiful! No picture can even do it justice. While we were there I went running a couple times, both times I passed by the Sacred Grove and I could not go past without stopping and going in for just a minute. The spirit there was so strong and it has such a holy feeling!

Below is a picture of the Smith home that was being built by Alvin before he died. The Smith family finished the home during the years after Joseph's first vision. Under those bricks are where he hid the plates.

This tree is the Alvin Tree. It was planted the day Alvin died

Thank you Grandma, Grandpa, Ben, Jamee, and Ezra for making our trip so wonderful!!!!!!!