So Exciting!!!

Look what my Husband gave me for my birthday!! I have been wanting to do this for so long and never have, I always talk about it but never do it. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself! This has got to be the coolest book ever. My first blog book is the year 2008 when I started blogging, and it has 247 pages. I am pretty sure the other years will be bigger because I was just getting the hang of the whole blogging thing in 2008. I just absolutely love this book and so do my kids, it is so fun to look back on and read all the fun things I kept track of that I never would have wrote down if I didn’t have a blog. I would recommend all you bloggers out there to do this if you haven’t yet. I know these are not good pictures at all and they don’t do justice for how beautiful this book is but here it is! The best birthday present ever! Yeah for blogging I love it!!!! If you haven’t noticed this cool quote at the top of my blog…this is what got me started with blogging I love this!

"You will have significant experiences. I hope that you will write them down and keep record of them, that you will read them from time to time and refresh your memory of those meaningful and significant things. Some may be funny. Some may be significant only to you. Some of them may be sacred and quietly beautiful. Some may build one upon another until they represent a lifetime of special experiences." — Gordon B. Hinckley

 

Playing in the snow!

Don’t you wish you could be a kid again? I do, I loved playing in the snow ! My kids are ready for summer because they get to go outside and play more, and they don’t have school all day. Here are some fun pictures with my girls and the neighbor boys playing in the snow on their Saturday this weekend, they love Saturdays. Maddy is such a big helper with these little ones, it is nice because she always comes and tells me if anything is wrong, that’s nice when I can’t always be right there especially in the snow. They had a blast sledding down this hill it was fun to watch them play and hear them laugh!  It is so nice that we have good neighbors that the kids can play with! These three boys are brothers, it is crazy that they have three boys and just got a girl and I have three girls and just got a boy!! I hope they are always good friends.      

Happy 29th Birthday to Me!!

Wow I am feeling old now, my last year in my twenties and I am going to make it a good one! My birthdays use to be this big celebration when I lived at home and then I got married and it sometimes just feels like another day. Well I decided from now on even if I have to do it myself I will have a celebration, I will have a cake and I will blow out the candles because that is what I always loved to do. So this year I spent the day with these sweet little people while my other two were at school. Kenna sang to me on her little stool and Jaxon tried his best to help, I loved it!

I got these beautiful roses from my sweet husband, they smell wonderful!

   I insisted on a picture of me with my kids and this is what I got. People always tell me that I get the best pictures of my kids and how do I get them to hold still for pictures etc etc. Well I am telling you what…it is not easy to take their picture and here is poof. We told Kenna to put her chin down and she started crying and then Jaxon started crying and that was the end! But hey it is a picture of me with my kids and that is what I wanted! Then I got this cute picture with my boy and his Mommy’s Little Man shirt that I love!

I told you I would make my own cake and I did and it was yummy and I blew out the candles with some help, and my kids loved it!!

  

I loved my little audience I had, they were so excited for me to have a cake this year!! I did it for them, Maddy asked me all day the day before if I was going to have a party and what kind of party it was going to be, and what kind of cake I was going to have so I couldn’t disappoint her!

Then my sweet Mom came over and ate some of my cake and it meant so much to me. She started laughing when I got my camera out to take her picture eating cake! She also brought me dinner, Josh had to work nights, the kids were in bed and it was just me and Mom and it was so much fun. This is my Mom the one who gave life to me, the one who literally almost died having me, a posterior baby that was stuck and would not come out. They told my Mom I had stopped breathing and that I would be handicapped because I went so long without oxygen…well I am not!! My brothers tease me about that all the time! I have a new appreciation for my Mom and for birthdays now that I have had four children of my own. I know what it takes to get babies here and how hard it is and what a special day their birthdays are and it is no wonder my Mom always made ours so special. Love you Mom!

I know this isn’t the best picture but me and Mom were trying to take a picture of ourselves and after tons of trying we finally decided it was late and we just had a long day and didn’t look the greatest but I loved getting a picture of me and Mom together.

    

I had a wonderful birthday. Maddy wrote a special birthday song for me and sang it to me and it was just sweet, I got it on video and it will be a treasure forever. My Aunt Judy surprised me and came over with a really fun cupcake cookbook that I am going to love using and two cocoa Bean cupcakes (my favorite)! I love Aunt Judy she has always been so good to me. My friend Kacey came to see me and brought me a fun jewelry organizer that I will love because I loved organizing everything!! She knows me too well!! Josh’s sister and her boyfriend also came over, brought a movie and ended the night with me! Then I got to go to dinner the next night with my family and that is always fun for me. It was really a wonderful and very happy birthday!!

Jaxon is officially Walking

My Little guy started walking on my birthday, January 28!! Almost 14 months old and he finally decides he is ready to go and I mean go! He is very steady and at times acts like he wants to run. When he does fall he gets mad and gives me his mad scrunched nose face that I love so much! He has discovered he can get into so many more things now that he can walk. He loves my cell phone and even puts it up to his ear to talk I love it. Jaxon is growing too fast for me but he brings me so much joy each and ever step he makes, I love you little guy!       

Taking a Break

O these sweet little girls of mine I could tell so many stories on them. I had asked them to help me pick up the house and I was in the laundry room folding clothes and came out to this picture and it was too cute to miss. Kenna actually had her arm around Kynzee but moved it right when I snapped the picture. They said they were taking a break when actually they never really started to help pick up in the first place. So we moved the piano bench….shut off the TV…and made them help and they were very unhappy with me, but I got a cute picture out of it!!

Families are Forever

I don’t even know where to start with this post, but I know it will be one of my most important posts in my blog book so it has to be made. It seems like people only hear the bad things that happen in people’s lives and they never get to hear the happy ending, well I am going to change that, because I want people to hear my happy ending. My blog is private so only people who really know me read this and those who really know me know my life. So you should know what this is all about and how much it means to me. This journey started when I was young. My parents raised me and taught me to have a strong testimony of the church and of forever families and all the other important things that come along with those. So that foundation was built by my sweet Mom and Dad which I will be forever grateful for. Then I was married 8 years ago in the Idaho Falls LDS Temple and what a very special day that was. I will never forget that day or the feelings that I felt on that day or the things that were said to me on that day. The one thing that stands out to me was “Marriage is never perfect and during hard times never forget this important day and the promises that were made”. Well little did I know that, that little sentence would be a marriage saver for me one day. I had a bomb and literally a bomb hit our marriage and it changed everything! I had two choices and both choices were what I called huge mountains, neither would be easy to climb. My Mom and I talked and cried often at how HUGE these two mountains were. I had a huge decision to make and at the time was young and emotionally a wreak I couldn’t think clear enough to make a wise decision. I relied on my family and church leaders to help me make that decision and it was the best thing I ever did. I know sometimes people make drastic decisions without thinking it out especially during hard times and I would have done that… I know I would have. I was given many priesthood blessings and I attended the temple very often and my sweet Dad said to me one day “You didn’t get married so that when things went wrong you could leave, you were married for it to be forever, you will do this and it will be okay”. Now I listen to everything my Dad tells me, I always have and I don’t think he has ever steered me wrong. I listened to his words over and over in my mind and I finally said “Okay Dad I will do this, it is going to be hard but I will trust you and hope it works out”. Really inside I wanted to tell my Dad he was crazy and I wasn’t going to listen to him. I thought…. this isn’t what a Dad is suppose to tell his daughter in this kind of situation.  But I will be forever grateful for my Dad’s wise counsel on that day when I needed it the most. What a journey this has been, years of heartache, truly I was at my lowest of lows at times. But would I have changed it…No! What I have become and what my sweet husband has become could not have been greater. I thought I wanted that man I married back so many times, but what I got was the same man I married, only better, and for this I owe my Heavenly Father. It was a blessing in disguise, a life changing experience that brought us so close as a couple and as a family. I feel like I GOT to go through this… I didn’t have to. I climbed the highest of mountains and I fell more times than not along the way, but we made it!!!!! I could not have been more happy on this special day January 15, 2011 when I got to take my sweet little family into the temple. The tears rolled when I saw my children all in white, it was so beautiful. I will never forget this day, one more amazing memorable day that I have! I had so many good people help me along the way, so many people cheering me on and I am so grateful for those people in my life. I feel like I was picked up and carried on days that I couldn’t make it, I have angels along my side, we all do. I have such a strong testimony of faith, prayers and patience without those I would not have made it. I hope that through this story someone out there learns something important. I wish I could speak to everyone out there and tell them all that if I can do it they can do it!  Life is not perfect but we can make it pretty close to perfect if we give it all we have, and I mean all we have!!! I am so grateful and I could not be happier right now in my life, I am truly blessed to call these people my Forever Family!! My sweet neighbor and friend came and took these pictures for me. It was cold so we made it very quick and I absolutely love them!! This was my fastest photo shoot ever taken of my family but by far my favorite because of how special they are to me. Thank you Amber http://www.ambervestphotography.blogspot.com/       Jaxon was cold and not very happy, but at least he stayed good for most of the pictures!  My sweet little girls….I love this picture of them! They were my lighthouses that got me through this!!