Random

I have not been very good lately at posting much on our blog lately. So I thought I would just put up some random pictures that I have taken around the house of Josh and of Brooklyn playing "soccer" with her church friends.










One night I was cooking dinner and John came down the stairs and asked where Josh was. Brooklyn told him that he was asleep. John looked in the family room and saw Josh laying like this and could not believe that he was asleep. So we both went into the room and saw him laying like this. We both busted up laughing and I just had to take pictures of it.










Josh brought Elmo downstairs and decided that he needed to go a ride with him. It was so cute to watch how cautious he was with Elmo on his back. He made sure that he was careful as he made the turns so that Elmo did not fall off.










Brooklyn has been playing in a little soccer league with some of the kids from our ward. She did really good at the teams first practice but then started to get nervous during her first game. After about 5 minutes she ran to me crying. We could not figure out why because she was doing such a good job. Well this last Saturday they only played their game for the first half and then brought out the big balls. I think for some reason the kids got more excited about this..as well as the coaches. You can see Dave Riding getting tackled by all the kids and we all know that he just loved it.



Daddy's little BYU boy.

Charlotte Latin 8th Grade Volleyball

So I just finished up my second season of coaching 8th grade volleyball at a private school here in Charlotte, called Charlotte Latin. This year was extremely exciting. I had a great team that played great together. We finished the season 9-3 and second in our conference. For our conference tournament we had a bye in the first round and then played Charlotte Christian. We went to three games that were all very tight. The first game we lost 21-25, but we think it was because of a call a ref made that he ended up being wrong about and therefore called a replay on. We lost all our momentum on that call. We won the second game 25-21. It felt like we were on top of the world at the end of that game. The third game was even closer than the first two. We ended up losing 25-27. We were devastated, but it was the best game the girls had played all year long.

As soon as I got my pictures I will post them up.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I chose to read this book after seeing a blog on Stepehnie Meyers page saying that she loved this book. I figured if I love to read a certain authors books then the books she reads have to be good too. And this one was.

I had a tough time at the beginning as I thought it moved a little slow. But was extremly pleased at how easy a read it was. I had no expectations going into this read having no idea what the book was about. I got a little hesitant when I realized it was a book about fights to the death among young children. I felt Suzanne did a great job of handling the "games" not bringing in too much violence and gore.

I will definitely be picking up the next book when it comes out.


View all my reviews.

My First Vinyl Letters

While this may seem like not a big deal to a lot of my friends out there, I am very proud of the fact that I was able to get some vinyl lettering up in my house. Thanks to Jane's friend I was able to get a great deal on all of the phrasing that I got done, which makes it even better. I did our family name and President Hinckley's Be's to put up in Brooklyn's room. I actually have to finish painting her room before I can do that, but when I do get it done it will look totally awesome. So here are some pictures of my little handy work.

Brooklyn's First Day of School

Brooklyn started her first day of school yesterday. She was so excited. We began to prepare Sunday night by getting her bathed, doing her hair all pretty so that when she woke up it would not be too difficult to make it look like she had done it. We then tried to get her in bed, which at that time it was 8:15. She fought it like it was the horrible monster that she claims is in her bedroom. Finally at 10:00 she fell asleep.


Brooklyn's school begins at 7:30. When I first saw that I thought, "Are you kidding me? I can't remember the last time I got up that early, let alone my 5 year old." So I set my alarm for 6:30. When I went to get Brooklyn up, she sat right up said, "Mommy I am not tired." Laid back down, looked at me and said, "Well, maybe a little." She was really good though, she started getting ready right away and was so excited.
We decided to walk to school since it is right outside our neighborhood and there would probably be lots of cars there with no parking spaces. It took us 10 minutes to walk there and then we had to wait in an unmovable line for 25 minutes to just sign her in. Brooklyn was all chatty with her friends that she new from church, from preschool, and from the neighborhood. (I think we have a Chatty-Kathy in our family.) Once we reached the front of the line she was ready to go. Didn't even want to say goodbye. She just held her teachers hand and walked right off. This was nothing new for her since her preschool class was just down the hall from her kindergarten class.
Now the worse part of this whole thing is that she doesn't go back to school now until next Tuesday. For some reason our county has started a new thing where the kindergartners do staggered days the first four days. They then meet their teacher after the staggered days and then officially start school after Labor Day. So now she is just bored because all of her friends are older than her and they are already in school. Hopefully this week will go by fast.

Our Princess' Birthday Party

Our Beautiful Little Princess has turned five!! We decided to have a Princess/Prince Birthday Party for her. I put so much work into this party, although you wouldn't have been able to tell if you attended the party. I was constantly on eBay searching for party favors, looking at different websites for different ideas on party games. It all turned out wonderful, and if we had all the money in the world to spend, our house would have actually looked like a castle to make it even more authentic. Of course that wouldn't have made a bit of difference to the kids as the still had fun.

The ivitation for the party went as follows:
Announcing a royal celebration

As a royal subject, your presence is requested by the King and Queen of the Kingdom Hullinger to attend an enchanted Princess Birthday Party for her Highness, Princess Brooklyn Hullinger on the magical occasion of her 5th birthday.

This royal celebration will be a Prince and Princess costume party where all are invited to dress in their royal wardrobe. Our enchanted birthday party will take place on Saturday, August 2nd and will begin at 11 o’clock with our celebration concluding at precisely 1 o’clock.

The King and Queen request that all royal subjects planning to be in attendance please RSVP by Thursday, July 31st.

Her Royal Highness, Princess Brooklyn, looks forward to your attendance at her princess birthday party which promises to be an enchanting time for all.

Our party will take place at the Castle Hullinger.

We started off with the kids coming in and making crowns. We then went and played hot potato with a "poisonous apple." They all enjoyed that since they each got a turn to stop the music for someone to get out. After that we sat down for a royal lunch. We then went on a magical dragon egg hunt. The eggs were filled with magical jewels. We then cam back inside and opened presents and had birthday cake. While waiting for one of our princes to come back from karate class, we went back outside and played freeze tag and red light/green light. Once our prince came back we went on a dragon slaying adventure. The kids all took turns at slaying the dragon.










So our next adventure of kindergarten begins in only three weeks. While I am very excited for her to go, it so hard to believe that she is already five years old. I know she is going to love going to school especially after she attended preschool at the elementary school. She is definitely ready, just not ready to wake up at 6:30 to get their on time.

Splish Splash Just Takin' a Bath

I don't think that Broooklyn would forgive me if I didn't put a post up about her taking a bubble bath with her cousins. She waited the entire trip to be able to take a bath with them. They had all taken a bath when they were in California at my granfather's funeral and she has been so excited to get back together with them so it could happen again. She had a blast in the tub and then all the girls stayed over at grandpa's house for a slumber party. So here we go...