January

  Aaah January!

Lots of exciting things coming up this year and I know it's bound to be a great one! Baby Girl #2 will be here in March and its hard to tell if mom or Taylor is more excited! Adam graduates from school this May! He is holding a 3.85 gpa and we are SO PROUD OF HIM! We already have lots of fun things planned for this year and can't wait to see where it takes us. Life is good.

Summer Sundays :)

Wearing the dress Jed and Adrianne brought her from Hawaii!

Love this girl.

Catering helper

Catering Helper

 The best part of mom and dads catering job is licking the beater :)

Pics

Last weekend we went to a family reunion. We were thrilled to see family and Taylor was thrilled with the sandbox :)

Finally got an app to blog/post pics from my iPad... We will see if I can figure it out!!

And here Are some from our camping trip the weekend before last.

LOVE MY FAMILY!!

Camping

We have been lucky enough to go camping the last two weekends.

 The first weekend, Taylor and Adam spent the night and I went home. I was going to Idaho Falls to meet up with some friends and left early Saturday morning.

This past weekend Adam was in Casper but Taylor and I went up and dad met us up there around 8:00. We spent the night, went on a little walk the next morning, had lunch and packed up. It had been raining off and on and we decided we had better get out of there before it got too muddy.

I love to camp. I love being away from it all and sitting by the fire for hours. I love how excited Taylor and Aspen get when they have free reign to run and dig and get dirty.

As I was sitting by the fire Saturday I felt overwhelmed with gratitude to my Heavenly Father for all of my blessings. I have a husband who loves me and takes great care of our family. I have a little girl that thinks I am the whole world. We have a dog, a house, a beat up Chevy and an old trailer that we pull around and park in the woods because we think it's cool. We aren't fancy and we aren't rich, but I love that our truck has dents, our trailer has a leak, and that my toddler thinks it's cool to take off her pants ANYWHERE... aka the sand box at the park. Really?!

There are things I wish were different, things I wish I could change, but overall I think I got a steal of a deal when they were handing out lives. :)

Our Comings and Goings

We have had a busy last few weeks full of travelling, family and fun!

At the end of April, Adam and I went to St. George to spend the weekend for our anniversary. We had the worst hotel experience ever, which is already one of my favorite memories. We went shopping at the outlets, hiking at Zion Natl Park, and went and toured several historical sites in the area.

Adam spoiled me on the night of our anniversary and made reservations at The Painted Pony... it was pricey but really fun! I got bacon wrapped duck with apples and celery... soooooo gooooooood! We had so much fun.

The next weekend, we headed back down to Utah for Abbey's baby blessing. Aaron and Ally blessed her at their home. We had a great time seeing family.

Two days later, Taylor and I were headed down to Utah once again... this time to catch a plane to Kansas! We got to spend a week with my family for Kole's graduation. Taylor, Jed and Adrianne and I all flew out together and had lots of fun. Taylor liked the airplane and only had a minor meltdown when the airline people took her carseat. We had fun going to the zoo, having a hotdog roast, and just hanging out with the family. Taylor loved being spoiled by her grandparents.

We finally made it home and said hello and goodbye to Adam before he and Jed headed out for their annual backpacking trip. He left Friday afternoon and was supposed to be home late Tuesday night... but surprised us by coming home a day early. He came home Monday afternoon and surprised both Taylor and I... and he MADE TAYLOR'S DAY by bringing her a TRAMPOLINE!!! "Oh my GOSH! Thank you so much Dad I am so excited!!!" He made her whole year.

Now we are all home and settled into our routine again for a few days.
It's nice to visit but so nice to be home!!!

Our Little "Painter"

After cleaning the house all day today, we decided

a). we needed to go on a long drive to find potential camping spots; and then
b). that we needed to stain the bench and arbor in the back yard.

So we headed home and Adam pulled out the stain and a paintbrush and headed to the back yard. I went downstairs to change laundry when a few minutes later I heard frantic thumping down the stairs and Taylor yelling "Mom I need a TOOTHBRUSH!"

I finally figured out what she really was looking for was a paintbrush to help Dad stain outside. So we stripped her down to her underwear and put her to work. She was a pretty big helper...

and the neighbors laughed as they saw her streaking across the back yard to get into the tub.

Wow...

What a day.