10 wonderful years of marriage!!

Married for 10 years baby!

I LOVE YOU GARTH

Busy days of summer

I feel like I haven't had a single spare moment this summer!

I think it is because of the preparations for my sister's wedding, which is just under a month away! Yikes!! There has been a lot of things that I was involved with planning. The big thing that I was worried about was a photographer. My sister didn't book one until just a week ago! Thank goodness the one that she wanted was still available. I think we only have the favors and centerpieces left to get together. YAH!!!

Gerrit has been very busy this summer as well. He took swimming for two weeks straight, every morning from 9-9:30. He is now doing a second session that is once a week for 10 weeks. He is still doing KKD at BTB and loving it.

Emma is doing dance and her session ends next week. I think she will have a hard time with that so I am going to sign her up for another session. She is so cute!

My work load is still climbing in numbers each month. We had to hire a babysitter as Garth is going back full time at work.

All of this makes for one busy summer!

The Dixon Family
July 27th 2008
Emma 2, Angie 30, Garth 31, Gerrit 6

Genie, I wish you free

This is my friend from High School, Kindra Watson. Well now it's Myers! This picture was taken at her Bridal Shower on July 26th 2008. She is getting married on August 31st, same day as my sister and since I can't be in two places at once my sister trumped my friend from High School. I am sad that I am missing her special day.

Love Ya Kin!

Tamara's bridal shower

I make it through the shower!
I helped my sister with her bridal shower on the 12th of July. I was in charge of the food and making the invitations. As you saw the invitations before they turned out way cute. I decided to make the food relatively easy...chicken salad croissants, meat and cheese platter, fruit platter and cookies. So here are some pictures from that day.

swimming Lessons

Gerrit also started swimming lessons this week. He goes everyday for a half an hour for two weeks. We are so proud of him. The first day, Monday, he got in and they put is head under water right off and he was fine. He is so excited to swim and he is asking all the time now. He even thinks we should get our own pool because that way we won't have to ask our neighbors if we can use theres. (Garth, don't encourage that!)

At the end of each lesson the kids get to go down the twisty slide into the water!

Gerrit thinks it's AWESOME!

More cute sayings

This one is from Gerrit. Garth and I were out on a date and we got a lunch pail for gerrit; one that he could open easiely for school lunches. we were excited to give him his suprise...what we thought would be a cool suprise...it is Spongebob after all!

We gave it to him and he wasn't at all happy about the lunch box. he wanted a toy. I tried to use this as a teaching moment about grattitude and to be grateful for suprises, even if it is something that you didn't expect.

He then turns to me in a pouty tone and says,
But Mom, my life is only about toys!

Katy's surgery

Yesterday we took Katy to the Vet so she could get fixed, micro chipped, and given her rabies shot. The poor thing looked like she got hit by a train! The kids and I picked her up around 5pm last night and when we got home I tried to have her come out of her kennel but she just stayed in and basically ignored my attempts at flattery and treats. I even took off the door so she would feel free to roam in and out. Nope she just stayed in there for almost two hours until Garth got home. When she heard the door close she RAN to greet him just as she always does! Why him?!? I don't know. But she stayed right by him the entire night. She has a nice incision we are trying to keep her from licking and another on the back of her neck that they had to shave a spot for the Microchip. A microchip is something that is inserted just under the skin and when scanned it has all our information on it. So in case she gets lost or picked up she will have a better chance at getting back to us. I know I know I am so attached to this little girl! I think of her as another one of my kids. We were all worried about her when we dropped her off at the vet's. Gerrit told us all day about how much he loved Katy and that he hoped she would come back. We said she will come back but we have to make sure that we are careful around her for a while.

Both Gerrit and Emma have been really good around her. I was worried about her with Emma around! Emma likes to pounce very close to Katy and let Katy lick her all over. We were worried that Emma would get to close- So far so good!

Nap time around the Dixon house

This is what sunday afternoons look like around our house!

The kids were in their beds doing the same thing!

Happy 4th of July!

What a couple of WATER BABIES!!!

Is that a Peace sign or is that "I want two pieces of Chicken"?


Well I finally got these from family members so I thought I's share them with you!
We went up to Modesto for the day because Garth had to work the next day. We went and saw Get Smart with my Dad, Tammy, Grandma, Tamara, Kent, Jerry, and Marcia. We ended up taking the kids with us because babysitting fell through and Garth and I had to take shifts out in the hall with them.
We then went over to Keith and Kaleen's house (even though they were in Utah) and went swimming. We had chicken, a couple different kinds of salads, fruit, chips and dip, and basically just lounged around all afternoon. It was very relaxing. Jerry bought some fireworks so when it got dark we went out front and Gerrit had fun choosing what to light.
Emma didn't want to watch so she snuggled with me and eventually fell asleep in my arms.


After all the boom booms we packed up and headed home. We made it home around 12:45am. What a full day. I am glad we were able to spend it with family.

Even Katy joined in on the fun. She loves the water! She is defiantly part of our family

To all my loyal viewers...

I have been a total slacker when it comes to blogging the past three weeks. I have been so busy with work and the kids events...which means that I have a lot to catch up on with my blog! Yikes! I wanted to give you a teaser about what is to come.
Gerrit-Tae Kwon Do
Emma-Dance
Swimming lessons
Emma eating but not quite getting it in her mouth
Bridal shower to do list
Sleeping with my dog
Spaying my dog
Happy 4th of July
Lazy days of summer...Not around here!

So keep me in your bookmarks because one of these days I am going to surprise you and have a new post!

Until then...Stay healthy and if you are here in the valley...STAY COOL! :)

Tae Kwon Do

Gerrit started Tae Kwon Do at Break the barriers. It is really neat place that both abled and disabled children and adults can do dance, Tae kwon Do, Gymnastics, swimming and other sports together. Gerrit looks so cute in his outfit. Can anyone help me out with the name of it. It isn't a Gee, it has a different name that I can't remember. Anyway he has been in it for three weeks now and he is loving it. They start off with running and stretches. Then they work on kicking, punching and thier form. I am so proud of my big boy for all that he is doing. I hope he will stay with this for a long time. Funny though I have flashbacks to when Eric was in Karate and he used me as his punching bag. :)

This is Luke working with Gerrit. He is a black belt in TKD and holds the record for most bricks broke at BTB; 10! He had a stroke before he was born jsut like Gerrit. It affected his right side of his body also. It was so neat to see him at the age of 19 and doing so well. I can't wait to see him work more with Gerrit. Gerrit thought it was cool to see someone who had a stroke doing TKD as well as he did.

Messy face girl

This is how Emma eats a cupcake...... She also uses it as eye shadow!

Tiny Dancer!

When we went to BTB (Break the Barriers) to sign Gerrit up for TKD Emma saw the gymnastics and went crazy with excitement. I inquired and they had to be three to start Gymnastics, but they could start dance at two. We singed her up for that. Gerrit has TKD from 4-5 and Emma has dance from 5-5:45pm. I ha to keep Emma happy for that first hour and it was tough because she wanted to go to her class.

Emma watching Gerrit throught the window

When it was finally her turn she ran right in and did her thing. She looked so cute out there in her balet leotard and skirt. She had a hard time at first listening to the teacher, but I know she will get the hang of it soon and she is having so much fun with it.

Emma with her pom poms and tap shoes

Sorry the pictures are so bad. The lights were off in the waiting room and I was shooting through glass.

GANG REUNION 2008

2008



Hopefully this is the first of many get togethers with the gang from Modesto. To fill you in on the Gang, I am referring to the Family Home Evening Group that started in Modesto in 2001. There were a lot of young married couples in our ward and we thought it would be neat to get together every Monday night to have FHE. When we started we only had one child between about 5 couples. We would get together at least once a week for over two years. In that time our numbers grew and we started outgrowing our houses. It also became apparent that we needed to start gearing the FHE lessons toward our kids and not the adults. So we decited to not meet for FHE anymore but we would still get together for playdates and ect. Now, 7 years later we have 18 kids between 9 couples with another on the way. We had two couples move to other states but lucky for us one came back to California...Love you Maashoff's :) We miss the Guisinger's who live in Idaho and wish we could have seen them at the reunion. They have a little girl Kate that we have never met!

2004

WEDDING INVITATIONS!!!

I have finally finished the wedding invitations and the Bridal shower invites for my sister's wedding! Whoo Hoo!! Tamara and I designed these (with some ideas from my fellow card makers...thanks Jennifer!) and we are very happy with the way they turned out.

Now that they are done I am on to the food for the shower!

Cookies!

Natalie was down for a week and a half and one afternoon the kids wanted to make cookies. Natalie said she would help them. What a sweetie! They had fun pouring in the ingredients and watching the mixer go fast! But thier favorite part of course was eating some cookie dough before the cookies were put into the oven. Yum Yum!!

Cute Bug

Ok so I am a little behind on blogging. I haven't had the time to sit and post so check back and there will be some catch up ones that I post hopefully in the next few days.

But in the meantime I had to write this or I would forget.

We were all walking into church this morning and Emma saw a rollie pollie in the parking lot. She turns to Garth and says, " Daddy look, a bug! Awe cute bug!" And with that she stomps on it!!! And says, "Bye Bye bug!" Only Emma!!!

Fun in the sun

Since this week it is supposed to stay in the upper 90's to low 100's we decided to get a small pool for the backyard that the kids can splash around in. In saying the kids I mean all three!

Gerrit is starting swimming lessons in July and he wanted some goggles so of course when he saw the spiderman goggles he was all over them.So was Natalie and Garth!

Girl's day out

My neice Natalie is down spending soem time with us and I thought it would be fun to have a girls day out. We got a babysitter for the kids and we went out on the town. We went to David's Bridal and got fitted for my MOH dress for my sister's wedding. Then went and got our nails done at Aqua Nail Salon. This was Natalie's first Pedicure and she loved it. They had massage chairs there and we were having fun with all the different settings on the chairs. We both got French Manucires and loved the leg massages. Then we went out to lunch at Panera Bread company. YUMMY! We both had soup and salad. It was three hours of FUN and I am glad Natalie was with me to share in the fun!

OUR CUTE FEET!

Emma's cute sayings

Emma thinks Rice Crispy Treats are called Rice Christmas Treats!
How Cute!!!

Swimming at the Richardson's

We went across the street today for a little fun in the sun but it didn't quite turn out that way. The kids did have fun and they didn't want to get out of the pool but it was so windy that we were all getting hit by little pieces of dirt that was being blown all over!

On another note I am so proud of Gerrit. He was all over the pool with his floatie muscles on. He still doesn't want to get his head under water but he is doing really good with kicking and moving both his arms to paddle.

This is wonderful therapy...which by the way has been cut way back. We were seeing both the OT and the PT once a month but the OT went on maternity leave until August and we got a call from the PT two weeks ago that she is leaving the MTU and because of staff shortage Gerrit will be on a waiting list for PT. So we are without therapy for the summer. We will hopefully keep the OT going in the fall, mainly with the school OT and the services there. So swimming is excellent for him this summer. We put him in a swim class in July so we will keep you posted on that! :)