Congrats to the Grad!

Congrats to Aly who just graduated from Hillcrest on Tuesday, June 3rd. She barely made it, the night before graduation her dumb counselor, with whom she's been having major struggles with, called and said that she didn't finish her biology class from her sophomore year. Okay, so Aly and mom go into freak out mode and figure a little prayer couldn't hurt. So Aly decides that she will go look through her things. Amazingly she finds her bubble sheet completed and graded test from her biology class from 2 years ago. So she turns it into the dumb counselor and she gets the okay to walk at graduation. What a relief. She didn't want to go to the graduation ceremony but Mom made her. It was actually kind of fun. Every time Mari & I cheered the kid sitting 2 rows in front would cringe and give a really weird look. It was hilarious. So we started cheering for anyone whose name sounded familiar. Eventually he stopped freaking out, boring. But that's when the beach balls started flying, literally. There were probably 20 beach balls, not all at the same time. The teachers did their best to stop it, but eventually gave up. Except one teacher who was very angry about it and would slaughter the ball if he got it. It was hilarious. Even the crowd got into it and boo'd every time he snatched another ball. Very entertaining. Anyway, back to Aly. We just want her to know how proud of her we all are. She's such a sweet and sassy girl! My girls just adore Aly and Emma was really sad today because she knew Aly was going on her graduation trip. Thanks for being such a great sister and a wonderful aunt. I hope you know how special you are and what a blessing you are in our lives. Love you Aly!

World's most entertaining drummer

So here is a video we took of my sister Alyson. She always keeps us laughing and she didn't disappoint while playing Rock Band with our family. She gave me permission to post her video. Just remember Boofie...we love you and we're not laughing at you, sort of. Thanks for being a good sport. You can post my jumping picture. Love you, Aly!

Up for Sale

After much debate, Nick and I have decided to sell our house. We've decide to test the market and see how it goes. So it's official, our house is listed on the MLS. We have no idea where we're going to go if it sells, we're taking things one step at a time. We're keeping our eyes open for houses we like and are in our price range. But only time will tell if our destiny is to stay or leave. We'll keep you posted and if you know someone looking, point them in our direction :)

Our favorite 5 Year Old!

We just celebrated Emma's 5Th birthday and it was such a fun day for all of us. Emma woke up and ran into to wake us up and let us know that she's 5 now and that she's old enough to go to school and to play in the 5 year old group...whatever that means. We laid out all of her presents the night before, but in her excitement to remind us how old she was, she didn't even see them when she jumped out of bed. The first thing she said after the birthday announcement is, "Where's all my presents??" So we pointed her back to her room and Nick got up and snapped some pictures of her. I can't believe how much my little Emma Jean has grown up and I have to admit, I love it! I'm only a little bit sad that my toe head baby is growing up too fast.
Does she look like anyone you know? Maybe her baby sister?

Emma's such a fun girl and has such a great personality. She's a loving, caring, and happy person and she's a fantastic big sister. She loves helping Maggie and playing with her. I'm so grateful for my Emma Beans and what a sweet little girl she is. Even though we have our days, I hope she always knows how much Nick and I love and adore her. My little drama queen...what would we do without her?? Love you Emma Jeanie who eats zucchini!

For Nick

Nick & I Nick & Emma Nick & Maggie


Here's a post to the Man of our family. The one and only man, unfortunately for him. He's such a wonderful husband and a sweet daddy. He might try to act tough, but when it comes to our girls, he's a tender and loving person. When the garage opens at 7:00 both of our girls start screaming and yelling in excitement. They look forward to Dad coming home. And truth be told, every time the garage opens or closes they start screaming for dad. He & Emma have had so much fun making up games and teaching them to Maggie now that she's getting old enough to play. The usually include chase, Emma hides and Dad finds and chases her. This generally ends in our bedroom tickling Emma. Catch, where dad sits at the bottom of the stairs and Emma sits at the top and they throw the ball back and forth. The girls love it.
These pictures of Emma and Nick are so dang funny. The second picture needs explaining. They decided that they would count to 3 and both lean down and sneeze in the water at the same time. A silly game but Emma thought it was hilarious. Usually dad's sneezes lasted longest and Emma busted up laughing. So cute! This is how Nick is everyday with our girls. He's silly and tender and their best buddy. I love watching him play sports, games or video games with the girls. They all usually end up laughing cause he's being so silly. So here it is, an Ode to our Dad. He's a great man and a great husband. I feel so lucky to have someone so amazing in my life and for my girls. Love you Nick!

Hogle zoo

On Monday April 28th we got to go to the zoo for Emma's monthly preschool field trip. Aunt Mari and Aunt Jerrica went with us. We had so much fun! We got to see so many fun animals. We got to see baby spider monkeys, Maggie had lots of fun imitating the monkeys. Emma had fun running around with her preschool friends and her aunts. Maggie walked almost the whole time, fortunately we got her a little harness to wear that looks like a dog backpack. She was in heaven! She loved seeing everything and taking it all in. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post. I forgot my camera, duh Amy! But my neighbor, Amy Colbert was kind enough to take some for me, she'll e-mail them to me later. There aren't a whole lot of highlights, except for the tiger. When we were looking at the tiger he started to talk. It was so cute, he went on for a couple minutes. It was so soft you couldn't hear it if you were talking. But we all stopped and listened to him. It was really cool. After the tiger we took a break for lunch...mmm...peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. After that we headed back to the front and visited the gift shop, then left for home. We were only there for about 2 hours, which was perfect, Maggie was exhausted on the way out. Her little body was just worn out. But she did so good. Overall it was a good trip and the girls learned a lot about the animals.

Catching up....

You might have thought that the Powell's have left the blogging scene due to our lack of posts. But that's not the case. It just seems that life has been crazy along with a few problems with the Internet. But alas....we are not gone! In fact, I have lots of posts to catch up on. About a month ago we went down to St. George yet again, that's the only place we know to vacation at. We went down with the Ruttenbur family and truly relaxed. It was very nice and the weather was very nice as well. We left on Wednesday night and unfortunately hit some bad weather in Beaver. The roads were just ice and two semi's got in an accident and had the freeway shut down. So we sat on the road for about 20 minutes and Nick decided to get out and talk to the semi drivers to get a status update (they have CB radios and were talking to others closer to the accident). He got out of the car and almost slipped and fell right there, it was that bad. We got a status update and let the other drivers around us know and then waited about another 40 minutes. Our girls were so good! We were there for so long but they didn't whine or fuss at all. But we got going and finally got to St George. The Ruttenburs showed up on Thursday night. Friday we went to Zions and did a couple of little hikes, again, the girls were all so good and they had a lot of fun. Anna, Lena, Emma and Kylee

Our only mishap was Maggie tripped and face planted in a puddle of mud. I wish we'd have grabbed the camera! It was sad but so funny. Poor Mags. Zions took up most of Friday so we headed back home and got some grub and just hung out. Saturday we decided to go to the park and the weather was so nice! It was sunny and warm. All of the girls had a lot of fun playing on the playground, blowing bubbles and running races. They raced each other two at a time. First Lena and Kylee, then Emma and Lena, then Emma and Kylee. Anna didn't have anyone to race so her dad was good enough to race her and let her win. It was cute. I'm sure her mom, Sowako, would have raced if she wasn't 8 months pregnant. This is Lena and Kylee racing

We spent all day Saturday playing and enjoying the sun. Sunday we packed up and went home. It was a short vacation, but still a lot of fun. Thanks to the Ruttenburs for entertaining us.