4th of July celebrations

Now that July is over halfway over, I'm finally getting to our 4th celebrations. We had a great weekend with 3 of Brad's siblings and their families, and my sister, Lori, also came to visit for the week as well. We started off with some Snowbird fun, the Alpine slide, panning for jewels, and swimming...

We of course cannot get together without a little homerun derby action. Brad is still the running champion, he was on fire thanks to Randy's great pitching as usual. We are determined to have a pitching machine next time Randy!

Followed by some fun and cooling off with water balloons in the back yard.

"Fill my balloon up please!"

Daylen had his first experience with fireworks and he did not care for them too much. He got scared so he and Ivan hung out inside.

Here's the crew after the fireworks were over.

We had a great time together, even if it was in close quarters. I don't think we had any extra floor space, but it was well worth it! We love our families!

tradition

It's tradition to set up our Christmas tree and decorations the day after Thanksgiving (if we're in town). Daylen had a lot of fun "helping" set up and decorate the tree. Unfortunately he likes to continue to "help" even though the tree is all up and finished. I feel like a broken record, "Daylen, don't touch the tree. Daylen, don't touch the tree. Daylen stay away from the tree!" After the tree was all set up he had fun just laying underneath is looking up at the lights. Do all kids love that? I remember doing that as a girl too! So cute huh?

I absolutely love having our tree set up and enjoying the twinkling of the lights at night. It makes the atmosphere simply pleasant, and when I can smell the holiday scent burning in my Scentsy candle it just makes it all more sweeter.
Here's a smile for you from my favorite girl!

happy thanksgiving!

I've been a bit lacking in my blogging lately, but hopefully all that will change now that I finally have a camera again!

We had a great Thanksgiving at home this year. It was my first time making dinner at my own house. Brad's sister, Mandy, and I made it by ourselves about 3 years ago, but this time I actually made a BIG turkey. 20lbs! We are still enjoying the benefits of the leftovers. Rachel came over Wednesday and helped me get a few things ready beforehand so I didn't have to make everything the day of. It was really fun making all the food, I love to eat, especially Thanksgiving dinner, so I think the anticipation helped. Our party got smaller the closer it got to Thanksgiving and it ended up just being us and Rachel and Tyler. So we had a LOT of leftovers. They dwindle pretty fast even with our small family.




That's some good lookin' meat! The turkey looks pretty good too, don'tcha think?
Mmmmmm..............

Yummy!!!!!
What a sweet girl! This was the first picture I took trying out my new camera. I love Kate's smiles!

I really do have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

I am thankful for:

• My family first and foremost
• My wonderful husband who loves and takes such good care of us
• 2 beautiful children who make me smile and laugh enough to counteract the difficult times
• Both mine and Brad's extended family, we come from the best families, we don't get to see nearly enough
• My testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
• The peace knowledge brings in these uncertain times
• Great friends
• Modern conveniences, appliances (it made cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner so much easier!)
• I am not pregnant so I could enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner this year
• A warm house to protect me from the cold. (Although Rachel might say otherwise during the winter-the part about the "warm" house)
• In Brad's words, "One handed catches by Austin Collie"

I really could say a lot more, but you probably wouldn't want to read it all. I'm just thankful for EVERYTHING I have been blessed with!

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year, each holiday gets more fun as Daylen gets older and can appreciate it. He really liked getting candy, I kept having to tell him to put it back in his pumpkin until we got home. He did really well saying "Trick-or-Treat!" between houses, he got all excited and then he was silent after he knocked on the door. As we left each house he said, "Let's go knock on the door!" Kate was content to ride along in the stroller. As much fun as Trick-or-Treating was, the real fun started after we got home. Every time the doorbell rang Daylen ran to the door, opened it and yelled, "Trick-or-Treat!" at the expectant kids in costume. After giving them candy he would say, "Thank you!" and shut the door. Maybe next year we'll just stay home and give out candy since it was so much fun. You can see Daylen running to the door behind Kate and I in one of the pictures below, the doorbell had just rang as we were taking the picture. Daylen sported his wizard costume from last year, it fit him much better this year, and Kate was our cute little puppy. Brad went as a football player and I was a hula girl.










I just had to take a picture of Kate and I after church today in our matching red.

pumpkin patch

Tonight for FHE we went to Southridge Farms in Santaquin for a "hay ride" to go pick out our pumpkins. I thought it would be some sort of horse drawn carriage, but it was really a tractor pulling a huge wagon. Oh well, it was still fun. Daylen had a great time running around to all the pumpkins despite the COLD! Kate was the only one all bundled up, I wasn't expecting it to be quite as cold as it was, but we still had a good time. And even though we were freezing by the time we got back, we had to have some of their famous ice cream while we were there, yum! Brad borrowed a camera from work so we could take some pictures.

This first one is kinda blurry, the wagon wasn't so smooth.

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day in Utah. A beautiful day to celebrate our Savior and all He has done for us. I love this time of year where everything is coming to life again, a true symbol of our Savior that He lives! After church we went over to my Aunt LuAnn's house in Springville for dinner with family and an Easter egg hunt for the "kids." Daylen grasped the concept of finding eggs and putting them in his basket very quickly and had a lot of fun.

This last week I finally got all the equipment I needed to put our home videos onto the computer so I've been working on getting the footage somewhat edited and burned onto DVDs. I made up a couple of clips to post of Daylen's egg hunting, but it takes FOREVER to upload and so far I haven't been successful. I will keep trying so hopefully I will have video footage on my blog soon!


Daylen is obsessed with balls and he loved being able to dunk the basketball with the help of daddy.
He wasn't too happy when the big kids took over the hoop with bump, but luckily....
....there was a Daylen size hoop in the garage where he could dunk the ball all by himself!

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas in Walla Walla with my family this year. I was not excited at all about the lengthy drive, but it was definitely worth it. The whole reason we even decided to go home for Christmas was because my good friend from home, Candice, got married on the 21st. We decided to go for her wedding and we might as well just stay for Christmas while we were there, so we did. She looked absolutely beautiful, it was so fun to be there and see so many friends and family.

While at home we discovered we have a little Beethoven in our family, Daylen found the piano and loved to play it! He did pretty well too, I mean he wasn't spouting off any concertos, but he didn't just bang the keys he actually played it nicely. It was so cute because he would play for a little bit then stop and throw his hands in the air and yell, "Yah!!"

When Brad's parents moved to Alaska, Karen let my mom have her old high chair she used for her kids and was then using for her grandkids. My mom wanted it to in turn use for her grandkids. So Daylen got to use the same high chair his daddy used when he was a baby!

The Sunday before Christmas we got to go to visit Grandma Murray in Waitsburg, Wa, just about half hour away from Walla Walla. We spent a few hours with her and Daylen had a fun time playing with Grandma's toys. She had just gotten a bat and ball set, and Daylen LOVES balls so he had a great time. Plus, Brad and I then knew he would like his Christmas present because that is exactly what we got him!

On Christmas Eve we took a drive to Othello, Wa to visit my grandparents. This is where my mom grew up and I'm related to more people than I know in that city. If the last name is Gilbert you can bet I'm related. It was good to see them and visit for awhile, it's so hard to see your grandparents get old. I'm not sure my grandma even knew exactly who we all were, but luckily grandpa is still doing great in the mind area at least, he knows us and appreciated the visit. I especially enjoy getting to see him. My Grandma Goodwin is also living in Othello now at an assisted living facility. She lived with my parents for the last year, but she has dementia pretty bad and needed more attention and care. They had a piano in the eating area so my sister, Lori, sang "O, Holy Night" for grandma, then we all stood around while my mom played and we sang Christmas Carols for grandma and whoever else cared to listen. It was fun to sing with my family again, it's great to have husbands now to sing the men's parts, before we were pretty much a female choir as my dad always jokes about what a great lip syncer he is.

When we got back home that night the kids got to open 1 present, pj's of course. We tried to take pictures of them by the tree and they were a bunch of monkeys, they all had to have a banana. Daylen really enjoyed opening presents Christmas morning, and he was good at ripping that paper away.

Daylen was so cute with baby Kayla, he loved holding her. If someone else was holding her he would go up and put his hands out to hold her. He would watch her and touch her little fingers, he would hold her for quite awhile. When he gave her back he would have a big smile on his face, it the cutest thing! I think he'll be a good big brother.