New Blog

So in addition to this blog and my Kelly's Cards and Crafts blog, I have decided that I just need one more thing to do in a day. I started another blog called Let Them Eat Cake! One day this will be the name of my bakery, but until then this will have to do. I hope you all enjoy! You can find it here.

I Stand All Amazed!

I'm way over due for an update. Where does the time go? I know, it goes to unpacking, organizing unpacked junk, having adventures, exploring our new area, re-organizing junk, new callings, work and organizing junk once again.

We have completely fallen in love with Utah. It has a beauty all it's own. All around us are these amazing mountains! We live in Cedar Hills (Alpine/ Highland area), from our neighborhood we have an amazing view of Utah Valley. It never fails to take my breath away. You look out and you can see forever! Several times on my morning runs I stop just to enjoy it. It makes me wonder what Brigham Young saw when he came into Utah. Was he shown what it would look like now? Did he have any idea how beautiful it would become? I like to think he did.

There is so much to do here. It's actually a little overwhelming. So far we have explored the local area (American Fork, Pleasant Grove), which really means we have eaten out a lot. Thanks to some good friends we have become addicted to a few different places, thanks Megan Pilkington! :)

Our first big outing was to Temple Square. It is so amazing to see in person. To see the Temple and think about how much the early Saints sacrificed to build the Temple helped me to appreciate how blessed we are to live in the current times, where we have eight Temples with in a reasonable driving distance, not to mention that I didn't have to sacrifice any thing to see them built. Their dedication to their beliefs is inspiring.

We also toured the Tabernacle. It was a really neat experience, I would love to see a performance there. The way sound moves in there is so amazing. I'm sure the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sounds heavenly in there. After that we moved on to the North Visitor's Center. The kids enjoyed hitting all the buttons on the model of the city of Jerusalem that light up different parts of the city. Then we went up to view the statue of The Christus. It was absolutely beautiful. At one point they have an audio recording that plays, Charlie thought the statue was talking to us. The look on his face was so cute. He looked completely surprised. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. Not on this trip to Temple Square, but a later one, the kids and I were able to go see the statue again (Jason was in DC) with the Wright family. On this visit Payton was completely enamored by it. His whole face lit up, like he was seeing someone he knew well. It was touching and of course made me tear up. We all stood in front of it to have our picture taken and I had to keep a good grip on Payton as he was trying to crawl out of my arms to craw up to the statue. It is a memory I will never forget.

We also toured the Conference Center. Wow is that place big. Walking into it makes you feel like an ant. To picture it filled to capacity with Saints coming to listen to General Conference fills you with awe. To say the organ is huge is an understatement. Everything was larger than life. I hope to one day be able to attend Conference there one year.

A few weeks after that we ran our first 5k! So much fun. It was during the Cedar Hills Family Festival. We got the kids up early so they could come and watch us start the race and later cross the finish line. Katrina was so wonderful to watch all five while we ran. It was a nice run and even more importantly it was a nice cool morning! I don't think I would have run this if it had been in Georgia. It was such a great time running it with Jason. We laughed, acted like teenagers and just had a good time, all while running. Thank you sweetheart for doing this with me. It's just another wonderful thing we can share. I love you.

Don't you just love the dorky head phones. OH yeah by the way, they're Faith's...from Kindergarten.

Good time on our run, plus it's always good to get Jason on film acting like a nerd, makes for great blackmail later.

After the run we went to IHOP. What better way to celebrate your first 5k than by eating a bunch of pancakes. After filling our tummies it was time for a nap so that we could be rested for the rest of the activities that were being held for the Festival. We went over to the city park and enjoyed rides, games, food and sitting in the nice cool grass as a family. Later that night they had fireworks at the park by our church building. We brought sweaters (yes it was cold and windy, it was great), blankets, hot cocoa and Jason bought us all a bag of kettle corn. It was a great fireworks show. You would have thought it was Fourth of July instead of June 25. It was a very fun day for all of us.

"Look mom, I can actually enjoy sitting on the grass." He wasn't quite sure what to make of it at first.

Practicing his salute! Could he be any cuter? I think not.

Just a couple of weeks ago we celebrated Emma's sixth birthday. I can't believe she is six. She has grown so fast. She is still the sweetest little girl. We are so blessed to have her in our family. For her birthday she wanted Bar-b-que and to go to Seven Peaks. We were happy to be able to do both. She is fearless when it comes to the water slides. She is our little thrill seeker. All the kids had a great time playing at the water park. It was a wonderful day spent together.

My little Emma Claire Bear! Getting so big. We love you tons!

Payton is ready for his bar-b-que!

Who doesn't love a naked baby?

We call it his "stink eye" look (totally stealing the name from my sister, thanks Molly). He's yummy!

On the morning of Emma's birthday we took Payton to his first appointment at Shriner's! What a wonderful place, we are so blessed to be taking him there. The staff was amazing. We learned more in one day there than we had learned in the last eight months with MCG. We won't have to amputate his feet after all! They are going to take molds of his feet and make him special prosthetics to fit. We go back the day after Labor Day. They are talking about removing one of his toes and attaching it to one of his hands at some point. We are supposed to get an appointment with a plastic surgeon soon to look into that more. It won't be a functioning thumb, but it will be a post he can pinch things between. We are very optimistic that it will be possible. Every thing looks great otherwise. In fact the doctors were all very amazed at how much he could do. One doctor, Dr. Pond, couldn't believe how adaptive he was. He said, "He is an amazing child and will accomplish amazing things." I know I'm his mom and I think he is amazing and that he is a very special spirit, but to have someone else recognize it, it made me tear up (it seems I'm doing that a lot lately). We are very proud of all the things he has been able to do. He is right on track for all his milestones. In most cases he's done them sooner than our other children. He is a blessing in our family. We couldn't imagine our family without him.

It's official, he likes Shriner's. How can we tell you ask, well the tongue is sticking out. That's always a good sign.

Lastly, yesterday Jason took me to a wonderful dinner at The Roof Restaurant for my birthday. It is right across from the Salt Lake Temple. The view from up there is amazing. Not to mention that the view across my table was pretty nice too (love you babe). When we were walking to our table I notice that Jason has ordered a dozen red roses to be placed on our table. They were beautiful, now they are beautifying our living room. We enjoyed an amazing dinner and view. Everyone thought we were celebrating an engagement. How sweet, huh? You should have seen their faces when we told them we had in fact been married almost 11 years and have five children. Then Jason made it a point to tell them it was my birthday. He loves to make me blush. All the ladies at the restaurant thought he was just the sweetest thing (which of course he is). We followed up our romantic evening with a movie and then passed out when we finally got home. Celebrating your birthdays in your 30's is a lot different than celebrating in your 20's. Now I'm not just 30 I'm IN my thirties. That's ok, bring it on 31! It's going to be another great year with my family.

The view from our table.

The view across the table. He's yummy too!

Had to get one last picture before we left dinner. Breathtaking!

I know I said the previous paragraph was "lastly", but I lied. I like to keep you on your toes. Jason finally got a calling today! He has been called into Young Men's. He is way excited (he loves sports and really anything kid like). I was called almost a month ago to Nursery. I'm actually really enjoying it. I'm with Hyrum's class (Sr. Nursery). I love getting to see Hyrum interact with kids his age, instead of always being the little one playing with the "big" kids. He is a very sweet child. We don't usually have any problems with him sharing, which is funny because he is not nearly as generous at home with his siblings, but then again in our house it's eat or be eaten. I love him so much.

This week we are headed to California! So excited to go see family. We have a niece and a nephew we haven't met yet and most of our family members haven't met Payton yet. We realized the other day we haven't been to visit since Hyrum was six weeks old. Can't believe it's been almost three years. Then when we get back the girls start school. They can hardly wait and to be honest I'm more than ready.

Ok, now I'm done, promise, now go out and enjoy your families! Here are some pictures from recently. Enjoy.

Yes, I'm nerdy too.

Look at Faith's face. I don't think her smile could get any bigger. Well, maybe if it were the real Justin Bieber.

The boys love playing on the tramp, especially when daddy crawls under it and gets their feet. He's a good daddy like that.

Eating his eggs so he can grow up to be big and strong. Yes he can feed himself.

Our Next Great Adventure

For a long time we thought Georgia would be the place we put down roots, but Heavenly Father had other plans for us. On Saturday, May, 20, 2011; we made our way back West. We watched the movers pack our whole life into boxes, watched our home go from the home that we had filled with memories, laughter, and love; to just a house we once lived in. As I watched the movers put our stuff onto the truck I felt the rush of excitement that comes with going to a new place, where you start with a clean slate and have a chance to be better than you were before. A new place filled with new adventures and new memories. I also felt a stabbing fear; fear of the unknown, fear of not fitting in. Fear of not making great friends like we made Georgia. I know everything will work out, but that first step is always the hardest.

So for the next few days our life was going to be filled with hotels, fast food, potty breaks on the side of I-80, and gross, gross, GROSS gas station bathrooms. The kids actually did great on the drive. It was such a blessing. There were only a couple of things that can make a car trip truly awful, those are, crying kids and stomach issues (let's just say we didn't stop for any Mexican on our trip). Thankfully we avoided both of those. I wish I could say we had amazing adventures seeing amazing things along the way, but mostly we just saw flat farm land (mostly cows) and sky. We did, however, have a great time singing songs (we love the Tangled soundtrack); talking, sleeping, and reading out loud to Jason (my dad gave me a great book about one of my ancestors). We did have a fun experience at a gas station in Wyoming. It was so windy when we drove through there. I'm talking gusts of like 50 mph. The kids had to go so bad and we were finally in an area where there was a turn off that had a gas station; the last three times they had to go we had to just pull over on the side of I-80. Having Charlie pee on the side of the road with the wind blowing that hard, made for an interesting experience. So we get to this gas station and I have to get the older three out of the car. The wind practically blew my door off! It was hilarious watching the kids faces when the wind hit them. I haven't heard the kids laugh that hard in a long time. The wind practically pushed us to the bathroom. I had visions of Charlie being blown away (have seen how skinny he is?).

Once we hit the Utah state line everyone started to get excited, which for the kids entailed singing our Utah song (I like to make up random songs about things, I know you wish you made up cool random songs too) and asking if we were at our house yet. After about the millionth time of asking Jason said, "Yes we are living here on the side of the road." They stopped asking after that.

The drive into the valley was amazing. There aren't words for how beautiful it is here. The mountains were still covered in snow (it snowed a week after we got here, crazy) and the sun shining on them made them seem to almost glow white.

So now begins our life in Utah. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about fitting in. Tomorrow is our first Sunday in our new ward and I'm terrified. I know everything will work out, but meeting new people is hard for me. I miss my old friends who knew me and where everything was comfortable. Other than that part it feels wonderful to be here. I forgot how much I loved the west coast weather. It was 78 today and I didn't feel like I needed to turn on the A/C in the car; I just rolled down the window and enjoyed the breeze. I haven't seen but one fly the entire three weeks we've been here. I love it, no cockroaches, big hairy spiders and any other big nasty bugs you can think of.

The home we are renting is pretty good. The only complaint I have is that the dinning area is really small and that the previous tenant didn't clean this place before they left. It was a disgusting mess. I have since scrubbed it down (several times in fact) and it is getting better, we've almost eliminated the funky smell in the basement. Despite all that it will be a good home for the next few years. Then we will be building our dream home, just not 100% sure where that will be. I'm 90% sure it will be in a community called Daybreak. This place is amazing. It has it's own temple (in the neighborhood), schools, 13 miles of trails for running or biking, shops, parks and the most beautiful homes! It's pretty amazing!

I look forward to seeing what life will bring to us out here. As long as our family is together I know it will be great!

Welcome Home, Let's Party! (and other totally awesome events)

On March 29, I got one of the greatest surprises EVER! Jason was due to come home on April 3, but he decided to be sneaky and not tell me he was actually going to be able to come home early. Had I known he was going to be home that day I would have skipped the gym and made myself look nice, but that wasn't the case. I get home from the gym (and lunch at a girlfriends, yes I went in my gym clothes, she's cool like that) and start putting the boys down for their naps. Just after I get them all down the phone rings, it was Jason. I was so happy because he never calls in the middle of the day. So we're talking and then the door bell rings. I tell Jason to hold on while I check to see who is here. I look out the window and at first don't see anyone. Normally I would have just gone back upstairs, but I decided to open the door to check if someone was still there (probably not the safest idea); I open the door and there stood Jason (trying to hide in the corner of our porch). I was speechless! I ran up to him, jumped on him and gave him the biggest hug I could. He was finally home. No more Iraq! It was the greatest surprise.

About two weeks later I got the chance to surprise Jason. I had been planning a surprise party for Jason, sort of a welcome home, happy 30th birthday and a farewell all rolled into one. Mom and Dad W. came out for a visit during this time (which made it just perfect, you'll see why in a moment). On Friday, April 15, I told Jason we were going out for a fancy dinner with his folks at a hotel called The Partridge Inn. When we got to the hotel I told him we had to use this new entrance, because the regular one was being worked on. This door actually led directly into the banquet hall where all our friends were waiting. Jason opens the door for me and then steps in behind me. It took a few moments for him to figure out what he was looking at. Just then everyone yelled surprise! He had no idea, that's probably because we had to throw together an impromptu surprise party a week before because he was getting suspicious. We had a wonderful buffet dinner, dancing and way too much carrot cake. His cake was delicious, although I think maybe they told me we needed more than we did, because we came home with about 30 lbs of cake. They also had written the wrong birthday number on it earlier in the day. So glad that Mom W. and I went to check out the room before the party. They had originally written Happy 12th Birthday. Thankfully it was fixed by the time we showed up for the party. The DJ kept us all dancing till closing, and let me just say we have some dancin' fools for friends. It was totally awesome! In case all of this wasn't enough, Sean and Liz surprised all of us by being there. It was so wonderful to have the whole family together! Thank you Mom and Dad for coming out and thank you Sean and Liz for leaving your precious little one behind so you could make Jason's party even more amazing! We love you all!

How do you top off a party like that? Well, you enlist Nana and Papa to watch all five kiddos and you secretly book a room at the hotel. We got our first night alone in more than two years! It was wonderful. We even meet up with Sean and Liz and enjoyed an adult only breakfast, I can't remember the last time that happened. It was so nice to get an evening alone with Jason (and a morning as well). I am so blessed to have such a wonderful man for my husband.

In April Jason left once again, but this time just for a few weeks to get things ready for our move out west. He found us a house in the Cedar Hills area of Utah. I am very excited to see the house in person! We are nestled right up against the mountains.

This month has been extremely busy with the usual end of the year stuff, in addition to getting ready to move. First we had Emma's end of the year program. She was so cute. I can't believe she'll be in first grade this year! Such a big girl.




This past Saturday, May 14, was a very busy day for us. I participated in the Ft. Gordon Marine Mud Challenge in the morning. It was so much FUN!! I still can't believe that I did it. It was a five mile course with 19 obstacles. I ran with three girlfriends, Megan, Emily and Diane. What a great group of ladies. We completed the course in 2 hours. Jason came along and took pictures, and laughed at me...A LOT! I realized from looking at all the pictures that I'm not very graceful, but at least I'm not clumsy. While we were waiting to go over an obstacle Jason told me that he heard over the radio that someone broke their leg. That was not encouraging news, but I managed to not break anything, so yay for that! I did leave with lot's of cuts and scrapes on my legs and arms. Plus I'm still stained red from the mud. Maybe the third shower will get rid of it all. Will definitely be doing one of these again. Next time Jason and I will be on the same team, I would love to see him doing this.
















That same night the girls had their last ballet recital. While I won't miss spending tons of money on ballet, I will miss seeing them dance on stage. They danced so well this year (we will post the videos on youtube after the move to Utah). They both looked beautiful! Great Job my dancing princesses!








So we are all caught up for now. Tomorrow the packers come and put everything we own into boxes. I'm excited about the move, but am also sad about leaving. We have lived here longer than any other place since we've been married. To all our amazing friends we are leaving, we love you! Thank you for being there when we needed you, for making us laugh, for loving us for who we are, and for becoming our family!

I will be blogging during our LONG car trip with FIVE kids! I'm sure I'll have plenty of material to work worth.