My sister Emily looked amazing! Here are all my siblings and then all my beautiful sisters. This bottom picture is of my amazing parents and all the grandkid's. It's pretty tricky to get a good photo of every kid... hence the reason mine all look bored.

Here we are at the wedding... the colors were black and lime green. It turned out beautiful!

We spent a week down in Utah with family. We started the week with my niece Hallie's baptism, then an extended family reunion to celebrate the 4th. The weeks end was by far my favorite though, my sister Emily's beautiful Wedding.

The kids and I had some time to kill while Joe was at his seminar. We played with the toys in Target for some time.

Let's play catch up...


I know I am so behind. We have had a busy summer. Here is what has been keeping us so busy.

We took a quick trip back to Oregon for a seminar. It was a blast to take the kids back to the city we spent three years in.

Today after dinner and baths and stories, I began the nightly ritual of a quick pick-up and sweeping the floors. As I was finishing the kids told me they needed a snack. Like a loving, kind mamma, I made some toast and jam and made them go outside on the back porch to eat it so the floor I had just swept would stay tidy... are you judging me? Anyway when I went out with a washcloth to wash up the sticky fingers the kids were busy having a race from the back fence to the porch. They were having so much fun that I let them play outside in there Pj's and bare feet till they were ready to come in. I love summer evenings and happy kids.

Also during the big birthday weekend we moved the boys to the downstairs bedroom and gave Bekah her own room. Really this was selfish because if we had one more night with three in one room something was going down, if you know what I mean. Bekah slept till 9 the next morning and came out like this... My little Diva all grown up.

Check out the butterfly birthday cake... it actually looks kinda like a butterfly right?

Bekah also got some sunglasses and a Dora book, and of course a birthday is not a birthday without special birthday money from Grandma Hastings, Grandma and Grandpa Clayton and Nana and Papa. Bekah is wealthy for a 3 year old... come to think of it she is wealthier then us. If only my birthday was sooner, rats. Thank you Grandma's and Grandpa's, we sure love you!

Rebekah turned 3!

That's right my baby turned 3! I almost can't believe it ...except Bekah is sassy and feisty and independent, definatly in the three's. We had a wonderful birthday on Sunday, full of presents and pizza and balloons. Bekah loves Dora right now, you know Do-do-do-do-do-Dora the explorer? yes that crazy life sized doll is in fact a giant Dora. Our friends daughter outgrew the Dora stage and they gave us this Dora as a gift for Bekah. I wish I could have gotten a picture of her eyes when she came out birthday morning and saw her new friend. You can squeeze her hand and she sings and talks. I think those batteries might be running out fast :)

Out in the garden...


We are lucky to have a rental home with an awesome garden box in the center of the backyard. Now that the weather is finally warm we have been out weeding and planting. The kids loved to help plant the seeds and are excellent at reminded us to water everyday. Hopefully our little seeds grow... fingers crossed!

Happy Mothers
Day!!!

I love Mothers Day! I was spoiled rotten! Jace woke me up early with some cards he had made at school and had kept hidden. He was practically bursting with excitement for me to open them. It was priceless. Joe made the kids lunch and made us all an amazing dinner, with brownies and chocolate covered strawberries. He was taking forever dipping them, when I went in to investigate I saw some amazing art skills on the strawberries. Hyrum is crying because he is ready to eat the works of art, and forced picture taking is really "hurting his feelings"

We have church at 9 so we had the kids put Easter baskets in the basement and we waited to see what the bunny brought till after church. I know what you're saying... "you mean horrible mom! how could you make your kids wait that long!" After having a vision of church pants full of melted m&m's and sweaty sticky palms all over my skirt I decided it was a smart move. The kids were excited all through church and have never been so fast at washing hands and hanging up church clothes. * you might notice the white spots on the stairs... that's because the bunny leaves footprints all over where he hopped. The kids love it. He hopped on all the furniture and through the kitchen to get down the stairs. Tricky rabbit!

Easter Weekend!

We had a blast Easter weekend. Friday night the kids had a cousins sleepover at Nana and Papa's house. On Saturday Joe and I headed over to help take all the cousins over to the Rigby Easter egg hunt. The kids loved it. It was chaos for about 5 min and then it was a bunch of kids sitting on the grass sorting through the loot.

Who doesn't love conference weekend? Treats, pj's, coloring, and of course talks inspired from above. What's not to love?

Bekah was really excited about the empty space left behind. She kept pointing and saying , "Jace, its gone!' and then laughing.

Jace has had a loose tooth for the last several days, and Hyrum and Bekah have been helping out with ideas for getting it out. Today as we were finishing scriptures, Jace was busy wiggling away. With a little coaxing from Mom and Dad, and with Hyrum''s reassurance of the tooth fairy money, Jace let me "Help" and out it popped. Might I add that Joe tried to get it out with pliers and a washcloth and was not successful. I yanked it out. He says he is too kind to do that... it's true... Joe is the kind one... and I am the one that gets it done. No pain, no gain. :) Of course everyone wants a picture on such an exciting day.

Nothing like family night treat... you gotta love all the dye they put into walmart cookies. Blue fingers+blue teeth+blue tongue= happy boys. We love these kids, we can't believe how big they are getting... when did that happen?

The other day we were at the dinner table talking about going on a mission. One of our many exciting discussions on the subject. I was explaining how Daddy and all our uncles and our Grandpa's have gone on missions to different places, and some have learned new languages. To help illustrate how Daddy can speak two languages I said, " Hyrum what language do we speak?" and he looked up from his pudding and with a knowing smile said, " Mom we speak normal". We laughed so hard. What an innocent answer.

The kids woke up early the other morning and immediately went downstairs to play and dress up. We woke up to them dressed like this. They all have pj's on under there dress-up's. We love our little pretenders.

a quick pic before church...