HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! We celebrated my mom's birthday last night. The last few years we have celebrated with a home-made dinner with a home-made German Chocolate cake to finish it off.

This cake has become a tradition for a few birthdays. It was Grandma Tessendorf that introduced me making it home-made. Grandma T would make it every year for Grandpa T on his birthday. One year, Marc asked me if I could try making this home-made version of the cake he LOVED!! I accepted the challenge and have been making them at least twice a year from then on. I have to say.... I can not purchase a box form of German Chocolate cake anymore now that we have been spoiled with this one.

Cameron decided to do track during the off season of basketball. Marc was all for this.... told Cameron he should do the high jump. It would help him with his rebounding and things in basketball. His first track meet he placed 2nd jumping 5'6''. Cameron had a track meet on Wed and he did really well... Conquered a goal of jumping 5'8''!!! He was super excited :)

In the backyard he has been working on dunking the ball... He is really close to being able to dunk it!!!!

These wings are scrumptious!!!!! We don't go out as a family to eat very often anymore... It's one of the things that goes away as your children get older. Getting older comes bigger appetites :) However, when we get a craving for wings and pizza, Oregano's is a top choice for our family. We have celebrated a few birthday's at Oregano's!

These are their wings... Yummy, yummy!!!!

A Little Work...

I am sitting here looking at my blog and realize....this thing needs a little TLC!!! It is almost as if I have deserted the poor thing. Part of my writing this is to help me commit to making it better :) At times, I think our life is really boring, but ya know there is always something going on or someone saying something funny. I need to make the time for this in my life again and remember why I am doing it... and that is... for memories!!! One day, I hope to publish these years into books. Kind of like scrapping books, but who has time to sit and scrapbook anymore. The books will be printed from my blog.

This is my new commitment!!!!

EMILY LILLIAN FREDRICKS.....

got to go home with Lydia yesterday after being born on Feb 12th 7 weeks pre-mature. Emily needed a little help with oxygen and making sure she was eating. After 4 weeks the doctors let Emily make the road trip home to Page!! We are so happy for Lydia that she got to take her baby girl home :)

A COUPLE WEEKS AGO.......

we attended the Mesa High Jackrabbit Basketball Banquet. It turned out to be a fun night with yummy food. Everything always seems nice when there is yummy food to devour :)

Each coach got up and spoke about each boy that was on his team and then presented the player with a certificate.

Cameron is a fierce competitor. He leaves it all on the floor. He has the approach of going to win the game instead of trying not to lose it. He always demanded to be the one to guard the other teams top scorer and refused to let them score. He never backed down from any situation and would take and make big shots for us.

The above words were what Coach Stansberry (Freshman coach) had to say about Cameron. The JV coach didn't give us his words typed out but I do remember some of the things he said. Coach Velasco started off by saying, "Cameron got hurt just before the beginning of the season during a scrimmage and missed the first part of the season. I thought Cameron was going to struggle a little bit when he came back. His first game he score 23 points. I realized he wasn't struggling." Coach Velasco also said Cameron will have a great few years at Mesa High because he works hard.

We really enjoyed the banquet. We laughed at some of the memories we had from the season. One being during the Mountian View game a ref called a technical on our coach Stansberry. Coach didn't say one word it was the dad's in the stands that were yelling. I know it may not be funny now, but at the moment we were laughing. The ref did take the technical back and asked the dad's to be quiet. I think they had bigger issues that game.....

The beginning of every year the Young Women have a program called "New Beginnings". It's a program to welcome the girls who will be turning 12 and going into young women's throughout the year. Hard to believe, but Ellie was invited to New Beginnings. I can't believe this year is the birthday we have been talking about for years!! Ya know, turning 12 on 12/12/12... surely, you have heard us talk about it a time or two :)

As parents we were asked to bring a flower that we felt represented our daughter to introduce her. In talking with Marc we both immediately thought of the Lily. Lillie was her grandmother's name (Marc's mom) whom Ellie never had a chance to meet, but the similarities are amazing. As the night went on (Ellie was the last to be introduced because of her birthday) I soon noticed it was the mother's getting up to introduce the daughters. Marc and I had agreed he would be the one. I leaned over to Marc and asked if he wanted to me to do it. He assured me he was fine. I guess we are different like that... only follow the important rules. All other rules are meant to be broken.

Marc added in some of his humor, but by the end Marc, Ellie and myself were in tears. Even though Ellie can be a prickly pear at times, she really has a sweet spirit about her. She has overcome obstacles already at such a young age. She did what she needed to do in order to get her vision corrected (without surgery). Ellie has a strong personality which blesses her life. I hope with this personality she will be able to make the right choices when the right choice is hard to make.

We love you Ellie!!!!!