Two Big Celebrations!

We had a very busy weekend throwing two huge parties. The first one, on Saturday, was Allison's 5th birthday party. She had a "Pretty in Pink" party with lots of pink every where! This was her first "friend" party so I went all out. It reminded me of the scene from one of my favorite movies, Steel Magnolias. "The house looked like it had been hosed down with Pepto-Bismol..." Allie loved it and she had a fun day. Thank you to my wonderful sisters for helping me...you guys are so awesome!

On Sunday, we blessed our sweet Asher. Thank you to everyone who came to see him blessed. We had a fabulous dinner and dessert after and got to have a nice visit with family.

The Birthday Girl!

Pink cake, pink decorations and pink food!

At the party, the kids made bracelets, pink chocolate suckers and played with pink playdoh.

We couldn't keep Abigail away from the food!

Our first family picture!

Our Alli-gator is 5!

(Photograph courtesy of my sister in law, Anna)

Our sweet little Allison has been such a joy to us. I remember sitting up with her when she was just a couple of weeks old and had developed colic how lucky I was to have this sweet spirit in my home. Even though she was crying at me I remember being overcome with love for her. I also remember fondly the late nights we had together watching "Sweet Home Alabama." Every time I see that movie it still reminds me of the time we spent together all those sleepless nights. Once she got over colic, she has been nothing but smiles. She is able to see beauty and happiness and love in all of the most simple of things. She is so positive about life. She is daring and willing to try new things. She loves complimenting people and she is sincere about it. She is compassionate. She is surprisingly gentle with her little brother. Every time she holds him I can't believe how patient and loving and careful she is with him. She is our rough and tumble tom-boy (who can beat her older brother at sticks almost every time) and loves to play in the mud (much to the irritation of her mother). But she also loves to dress up and be a princess...it is a perfect balance. She is beautiful inside and out and we are so glad that she is part of our family.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLISON!

Bragging Session...

So my anniversary was this last weekend and my husband has always been a romantic. He really should teach classes to other men on how to be romantic and how to treat your wife. Besides doing some other pretty amazing things, he texts me "Good morning..." every morning. He also writes me a "love e-mail" every morning as well. Every year on our anniversary he writes me a "love letter." One might think he would run out of things to say but he always seems to come up with different ways to say that he loves and appreciates me. Well, on our anniversary he bought me flowers. He also makes the ordinary "flower giving" a little more romantic as well. Here are some excerpts from "Love Letter #11" including his explanation of what his flowers mean this year.

Excerpts from Love Letter #11

"We have had 11 years together and each one (symbolized by the 11 individual flowers I have given you) has been different and beautiful in its own way."

The ladies in the Flower store said they thought it might look funny with 11 different flowers but when he told them what he was doing they said they would make it work. :) It turned out beautiful and it smelled fantastic!


"I am giving you one single red rose to symbolize the love, passion, desire and joy I plan to share with you over the next year."

"When I wake in the night, I reach to know you are still there. When I leave in the morning, I kiss you on the forehead whether you realize it or now. When I am away, I try to think of reasons to call you and excuses to get home to you sooner....everything we do together would not be worth doing without you. You are truly my better half."


Yeah, I know!!! And that is only a portion of his one page (typed) letter. He should totally be writing for Hallmark! :)

What's in a Name?

Several people have asked us how we finally arrived at Asher's name since it wasn't on our original list of names. So here is the story.

Chris originally liked the name Adam. I hated it. I originally liked the name Andrew. Chris hated it. We both kinda liked the name Aaron and so we thought that was the name we would end up with. Well, my friend Veronica mentioned the name Asher to us. We both liked the name but didn't really give it much thought at first. As it got closer to having the baby, I mentioned the name Asher to a couple of different people. One of them mentioned that Asher was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel in the Bible. I was intrigued by that. But we still felt like Aaron was probably the name we were going to choose. Then the day Asher was born, Chris just said his name was Asher and that was that. Chris has always been the one to pick our kids names in the end. I always have a hard time deciding. When we got home from the hospital, I looked up the name Asher in the bible and it said that it meant "Happy." I knew at that moment that we had chosen the right name for our sweet little boy. :)

Eleven Years!

Wow! Another year has gone by...I can't believe it! I would have to say that this last year (and a half) has probably been the hardest and most emotional year so far in Chris and I's marriage! Ten years ago, if someone asked where we thought we'd be in 5 years or in 10 years we would have been very wrong. Sometimes it seems almost pointless to set goals or plans because they have changed so much from what we could have thought up.

• I did not plan on marrying someone like Chris. (sadly, my expectations were much lower)
• I did not plan on buying two houses in our first year of marriage...it was quite overwhelming!
• Chris did not plan on rupturing a disc in his back, having back surgery, giving up his dream job and going back to school.
• Chris did not plan on waiting to have kids.
• We did not plan on having a miscarriage.
• I DEFINITELY did not plan on having 4 c-sections!
• We did not plan on moving 10 times in 11 years.
• Chris never planned on moving to a big city, let alone "Sin City!"
• I never planned on moving back to Cedar City.
• We never planned on moving back to Cedar City just to have most of the reasons why we moved back, move away!

I could probably list a hundred more things. But even though we didn't plan on having any of these things happen, we wouldn't have changed them for the world! We are so grateful that we have a Heavenly Father watching out for us and always doing whats best for us even if it is not according to our own plan! Everything turns out for the best! I truely believe that! And like President Monson says "Our future is only as bright as our faith!" I truely believe that as well! Happy Anniversary Chris! I am most thankful that Heavenly Father intervened on who I was going to marry! He made a PERFECT decision!

I LOVE YOU, CHIRS! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Teaching Self-Reliance

We are so grateful to Chris' grandpa for "making" us grow a garden this year. We hadn't planned on it because we thought we would be too busy but when his grandpa needed help with his we couldn't pass up the opportunity to serve and to teach our kids about hard work and self-reliance.

This summer the kids learned to hoe, rotter til (I am not sure if that is how you spell that), move sprinklers and are now learning to pick corn and potatoes...and what to do with it once we get it in the kitchen. Here are some pictures...

Heading in....

Austin hiding in the corn fields.

Abigail hiding in the corn fields.

Dad teaching them how to dig up potatoes.

The kids got right in there and started schuckin' the corn. They were actually really good at it too!



Here is some of the corn we canned. We also canned peaches. We also froze corn and peaches. And we still have a lot more to do...:)

Iron County Fair

We went to the Iron County Fair over Labor Day weekend. There was a parade, petting zoo, carnival, great food and lots of vendors. Abigail rode her first official amusement park ride and although she said that she loved it her face was very stoic on every ride. I couldn't get her to smile but when I asked her if she was having fun she would shake her head yes. Austin and Allison rode the Gravitron (ya know the one that you go inside of and it spins you around super fast) for the first time. Chris and I are too old to stomach that kind of a ride anymore so they went alone. They both thought it was great but another little boy threw up when they were on it. Yuck! They thought it was hilarious. :)

First Day of School!

This post is a little late but better late then never, right?


Austin was very nervous and hesitant to start second grade because he LOVED first grade soo much. He didn't think 2nd grade could compete. However, his first words home from school on the first day were "second grade rocks!" I was so glad.


Allison started preschool. We are doing a preschool co-op with some friends and cousins. She LOVES it!



Abigail is lonely now for the couple hours a day that both Austin and Allison are gone. Hopefully as Asher grows they will become as good a friends as she is with her two older siblings.