Miss Swimmer

Miss Emma has started weekly swimming lessons at EVO Swim School.

We wanted to improve her swimming skills and get her ready to do a city swim league next summer. We know the owners of EVO through Emma's preschool last year and as it is 2 miles from out house, so it was too good to pass up!

I have been THRILLED with her success at EVO and beyond impressed with the teachers, the organization and the facilities.  Emma anxiously awaits swim lessons each week and just loves swimming.  I hope it is something she continues to enjoy.  She does not come from very "sporty/coordinated" parents, so we are hoping that swimming can be a physical activity where she can find success.

She just advanced to the next swim class from "Sea Lion" to "Porpoise" - and she was ECSTATIC.  Now she will be learning more advanced technique and improving on her strokes.

And wanna know what makes it even better?  They have a toy area for younger siblings to play in, while the older kids are in swim lessons.  Grant is in heaven.  It is one of Emma's activities that he actually benefits from going!  I can sit on the bench in front and watch Grant and Emma.  We love it!!

Rachel visits Arizona!!

Emma has recently learned the acronym "BFF". Best Friends Forever. She now likes to refer to many different friends/family as her BFF. Super cute.

My BFF from childhood in Kentucky, Rachel Kearl, came to visit us in Arizona. The last time she has been to Arizona was my wedding, almost 10 years ago, and we were SO happy to have her!! The kids were thrilled to have a visitor in our home.  So thrilled that it appeared that I never let them interact with anyone else besides our family.  Haha.  They followed Rachel around like parasites.  She could not go anywhere or do anything on her own, because Emma and Grant were constantly by her side.  She was so kind to them and such a great sport to have small children constantly stuck her.  And Emma told everyone that her Mom's BFF was visiting from Washington D.C.

We took a very short hike to show Rachel some of the Arizona desert.

Rachel brought the kiddos some cute gifts.  One was a pink feather boa for Emma, which she has not let go of since receiving.  What would a hike be without a feather boa?

Thankfully, I had Rachel's support during church!  It was nice to have another adult on the bench with me!  With Greg in the bishopric, there have been a few difficult Sundays, flying solo.  Grant was VERY interested in cuddling with Rachel.

Rachel also bought the kids a book and was happy to read it to Emma in bed.

We took a tour of Arizona Temples on Sunday.  Here we are outside of the Gilbert Temple.

And Sunday evening, I put Rachel to work helping make all of our neighbor gift Halloween treats!

I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful friend, like Rachel.  She is such an incredibly kind, hilarious, intelligent, generous, loving woman and I hope that someday I can live up to her example.  We are so glad that she took time and money out of her busy schedule to come and spend the weekend with us!!

Keeping Mom Busy!

Life keeps me busy... sometimes I lay down to sleep and wonder what I have to show for my 16-hour days, on my feet, taking care of the littles.

Here are a few things that we've been up to lately...

Emma has started having "dreams" about how her hair should look.  We spend lots of time in the bathroom trying to recreate these dreams...

I ordered 60 pounds of peaches from Utah.  Wow.  That is a LOT of peaches.  A LOT.  I was really on my feet canning these peaches for at least 15 hours.  Phew!  I really hope they taste good when we open up them up sometime.  I finally bought my VERY own canner, which makes me feel like I am at least 50-years-old... but I have been canning more lately and felt horrible always borrowing canners from other people.

I also got a few flats of raspberries... and it made the BEST batches of jam!  Emma could eat it by the spoonfuls every day!

I'm a big Rascal Flatts fan!  So when I heard that they were coming to Phoenix, we purchased tickets for each other for our birthdays.  We went with Porter and Lana and we had a great time.  The evening was even a little cool as the rain clouds kept the heat away.

I started back into my 7th Season with the Tempe Symphony,  Took a picture of our first rehearsal because I was so happy to  be back playing the violin.  This is such a fantastic outlet for me, I will forever be grateful for the opportunity.

Grant Plays!!

One of my favorite things to do as a Mom is taking my kids to community classes.  They are FUN and they are INEXPENSIVE.  We are lucky to have the McQueen Recreation Center about a mile from our house, which has some fantastic programs.

Emma and I had so much fun going to a large variety of community classes through City of Tempe when she was younger. And I have been so anxious for Grant to grow old enough to also enjoy these classes. It is our special time together. Emma goes to preschool and Grant and I got to class. This first class was a gym class and he LOVED it!! He just ran around and PLAYED. I absolutely loved it as well. Great to meet other children and other parents and just enjoy play time with our kids.

General Conference Cabin Weekend

We took another cabin escape to watch the LDS General Conference. If we are going to watch church meetings for 8 hours... we might as well watch it in a beautiful landscape!!

Jeff and Michelle (and Tate and Taylee) joined us for our relaxing weekend.  We had a wonderful time together.

I really tried to make preparations and activities to keep Emma engaged and occupied during General Conference.  I found all of the ideas on Pinterest.  When a topic was addressed she received a piece of candy from the associated jar.  And when a specific apostle spoke, she found his picture and on the back was an activity that could keep her occupied during the talk.  Some ideas worked, some didn't.  You live and learn, right?  She got tired of the candy, except for the "fruit by the foot" which was associated with temples, and which she constantly asked, "have they talked about temples yet"?  She loved most of the activities on the back of apostles, but she still got a little antsy and did not sit still and listen like a reverent child for all 4 sessions.  Haha.  I hope it helped her listen a bit better though... and I will tweak and re-tweak for the next General Conference.

Sweet baby Taylee in Emma's jacket.  Emma was thrilled to share her jacket so that Taylee could stay warm.  I just love her chubby little cheeks.

Tate and Grant (one month apart in age) started chasing each other down the cabin driveway and were getting awfully close to the Highway 260.  YIKES!  Michelle sacrificed herself and went sprinting away to catch them.  Silly, active, crazy boys!!

We thoroughly enjoyed hearing from the Prophet and Apostles and enjoying the cool weather!!  We had fires in the fireplace every night and were able to bundle up in coats and jackets at night.  Yeah for family that is so fun to have around.  Emma and Grant just LOVED spending time with Tate and Taylee.  Grant would bend over (hands on knees) and say in a very high pitched voice "hi baby"!  And Emma loved just sitting by her and touching her cute cheeks and smiling.
 

Labor Day Cabin Weekend

We escaped the heat of Phoenix for Labor Day weekend and enjoyed the cool mountain air of Forest Lakes.  Porter and Lana Shumway (and kiddos) joined the festivities as did Rob.  Good times, little sleep and excessive eating were a plenty!!

Here we are hiking along the Mogollon Rim.  Just a gorgeous view.

Great times on the swings!

The happy Mr. Bubbers.

We had a few really wonderful rain storms!!  Because we just don't get rain much in Phoenix, it was quite exciting to play in buckets of cool rain.  So the kids (and adults) played hard!

Always nice to escape the heat and enjoy great times with friends!!

The Krebs Reunite!

In August, my brother John came home from his mission in London, England.

To celebrate his return and gather as a family, we had a reunion.

We held it up Ogden Canyon at a timeshare resort my Grandpa let our family use.  It was AMAZING.  As is all our time with my family.

Emma was SUPER excited to see Uncle John home from England.  Here he is with the kiddos.

The resort had great outdoor tables for all of the messy kids while they dined.  These are the oldest four.  They sure had a great time being together.  Too bad they live in 3 different states...

Grandpa joined us for a portion of the week and made us breakfast the mornings he was around.

The three musketeers.  Emma, Tyler and Aliya are 4 months apart in age.  Pretty darn cute if you ask me.

These rocks were in the backyard of our rooms.  Grant thought they were his personal rock climbing wall.  Thank goodness Uncle Tom was willing to follow him around many, many, many times. 

Grandpa and darling Elsie... such a cute baby!

Almost every night we would play games and run around in the backyard.

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And the other set of three musketeers.  Except these three are 8 months apart.  Every time I put Grant in his high chair to eat, William and Joseph would suspiciously find their way over to his chair to help themself to his food.  Not sure if he ate much the whole week, but at least we could share with cousins!!

Uncle Glen was great at entertaining the kids (and the rest of us).

We went on a very short hike one of the evenings.  Have to keep things short and sweet with 9 kids in tow.  Emma, Aliya and Ty having more fun!

Our final hiking group!  Randomly ran into our pal Allen Sproul from Kentucky on this hike!!  Talk about crazy coincidence!!

We rented a boat and spent one day on the lake.  It was definitely a HIGHLIGHT of the trip.  The beach was super great sand, which gave the kids plenty to do all day.  Then we rotated turns on the boat.  Wish I could say I was a super star on the skiis again, but unfortunately I couldn't quite get up on anything but the knee board.  Boo.  I hate getting old.

Captain Jackson, who got a little sick while riding on the boat and threw up all over the boat.  Poor little guy. :(

Laura, 9 months pregnant, on the boat.  We were hoping all of bumps and waves would put her into labor early so that the family could all meet the baby!!  No suck luck.  But, boy was she a trooper on the family reunion. 

Aliyah decided she wanted to lay under the towel.    Haha.  She is always creative!

Another day was spent touring the Brigham City Temple, followed by lunch at Maddocks.  It was special to be in the temple with our family.  But, I have to say my children were being especially naughty that day, and my spirit of peace and love was not at it's highest point.

Our table at Maddocks.  Super famous steak house in Brigham City.  The rolls were AMAZING. 

We followed the temple with a tour of a friend's farm and cabin property.  The kids loved seeing all of the animals.

Paddle boating at the cabin. 

Trying to get formal pictures of all the grand kids.  I believe we spent more energy in this one task than anything else through the week.  WHEW!!!!

Pool side lunch.  I just love Emma's hand on her hips.  Because I see these hands on these hips FAR TOO OFTEN!

It was a WONDERFUL REUNION!!!!  We just love being with family.  

Here are some of our "inside joke" stories that we collected at the end of the reunion for posterity.  I won't go into detail explaining them, but wanted them recorded somewhere:

Ty/Emma/Aliya sing songs at extended Krebs reunion
Jojo ox cart song
Jeanette's 5lbs bag of chocolate
Watched the lorax
Red rover
Grant getting flown in the air and loving it
Will running into everyone during red rover
Tammy breaking the chain so hard that Emma flew back and hit her head- no mercy
Grant loving duck duck goose and rocks ("ra")
Emma and Aliya best princess buds
Morning devotionals
The great Dalmoody and matt as the. Permanent scum and laura's "woot"
Glen's Dalmoody quote-"it's lonely down here at the bottom"
John's mission questions and Tyler's question: "ummm, someone's going to sweep all this up right?"
Emma in line at Cherry Hill: "my grandpa is the fattest of them all!"
Glen liking to have Matt come over and beat him up so the he has a little attention. It is rough being the last child
Ty: When you smile really big at her(Elsie) And she smiles back at you really big
Mom: " it's hard to keep track of your age bc they keep changing"
Grandpa Hancock on babysitting rate " I won't tell you bc I want you to have a good time.
Tyler wanting to move to brigham city bc of the TV on the bus
Jojo looking up Laura's dress " I get it" looking for the baby
Jojo and will running into each other at the tennis courts
All the kids being entertained at the tennis courts
Emma telling Jeff how perfect she is and howbshe would never do anything wrong
Olympics: Ty popping 36/50 balloons in one minute
mom and dad's "little blue man"
Ben and Tyler's skit
Monster mayhem at Maddox- the lunch from hell
Running into Al Sproul  on our "hike"
Charades
Mom to the cranky little kids" it Sounds like you need chocolate"
Grandpa Hancock babysitting and laying next to a scared Emma
Pirate will (always closes one eye when he smiles)
Will running naked on the beach
Glen's joke "how much does an elephant weigh? It's irrelephant" And Ashlee pretending it was on the laffy taffy
John wanting to become a prosthetic engineer but not willing to lose a limb
Aliya "whispering" in church
Emma having to pee in line at Cherry Hill and after the slide... "I think I went in line so I don't have to go to anymore" 

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And it ended with a Krebs Family miracle!!!  Greg and I were supposed to drive home on Saturday, but Laura had still not had her baby.  So we decided to stay ONE more day and hope that she went into labor... and by nothing short of a miracle, she did!!!  All of our prayers worked!

Here are my Mom and I in the hospital Saturday night when they started the induction.
About 4 am we got a call that she was feeling contractions and labor had started!  We flew over to the hospital were so blessed to be in the labor room while the baby was born.

It was such an honor to be in the delivery room.  Laura was amazing!!!  She had severe pain in her neck that was causing trouble pushing, but she was so strong and made it through.  It was so amazing watching the baby born.  I am really grateful to Laura and Tom for letting me be a part of it all.

Here he is in all his glory!!  Spencer Thomas Bay... meet the world!!

We realized in the hospital room that Laura, John and I all had our National Champ shirts... so of course we had to take a picture with the tiniest UK fan.

SO. PRECIOUS.