Grow Old with Me

You may have noticed the quote on the left by Paul Cardall.

Paul is waiting for a heart transplant and also recently lost his brother. In light of all of this, he told his wife, “Go out and buy our rocking chairs. I don’t want to wait to grow old with you. I would love to sit with you on the porch today!” With this they went out that day and bought rocking chairs for their front porch.

I was really touched by this story and shared my thoughts with Marc. We decided that we didn't want to wait to grow old before we started enjoying certain things with one another as well. We shared what we felt was important for us to start doing NOW. And with that for our 3rd anniversary, we treated oursleves to a new porch and bench to grow old together on . . .

BEFORE (really more of an entry way)

AFTER!

Growing old is fun!

I hope . . .

My children will always know what loving grandparents they have . . .

Family Reunion '09

We went straight from Bryce to meet up with Marc's family for a wonderful family reunion in Pine Valley. Below is the crew (minus Hailey and Melia):
It was so fun to see Lucy just hang out with her cousins. She is growing up so fast!
We really enjoyed being in the outdoors, going for walks, watching wildlife (cows, turkeys, humming birds, deer) and just being with one another.
Aunt Karen knows what Lucy likes
We had 4 babies bless our family from December to July! Here are the first 3 (David, Zachary and Eliza). The other 2 have a good 5 months on David, but I think he is going to catch them pretty quick!
Then came little Brigham. He is just 2 1/2 weeks old. David is 3 months older. We can't wait to see all these babies running around together.
David was a very happy boy. He is SUCH a good baby!
Lucy and Claire played together so well and I am sure Eliza will soon join their club.
Here are the 4 sets of parents who had a baby join them this year . . .
And all of this happened because these two young folks fell in love a little over 43 years ago!

Thanks for a great time everyone!

Any advice on things to do with a toddler in . . .

Bryce Canyon? This was my question to the lady at our hotel. Her response was, "No. People don't really bring toddlers here". After her response, I didn't dare tell her we also had a 3 month old! At any rate, we still found LOTS of wonderful things to do as a family in Bryce.
David was a great little hiker. He'd go right to sleep as soon as he was in the Bjorn and I'd start walking. There are many foreigners in Bryce and they all loved to look at our cute baby.
One of our favorite hikes ended in a waterfall. We all took our shoes off and played in the water. The water was cold so David just dipped his feet and wanted out immediately!
This was David's preferred method of hiking.
Can you believe we each have a kid attached to us in this picture? The whole trip was so much fun.
We hiked "Wall Street" from The Navajo Loop which is a VERY steep set of switch backs down through the red rock and hoo-doos. Below is the face Marc caught of me as I realized we were about to hike down . . .
THIS! With two babies. The down part really didn't concern me as much as the UP part did.
Here we are at the bottom in a bit of slot canyon. It was heaven.
And we made it to the top! I was pleasantly surprised at how well we all did. Oh and the weather was great too, 80 degrees!
There was a random museum of animals that Lucy loved and right outside of it you could feed some "exotic deer".
I let Lucy pick any stuffed animal she wanted to at the gift shop (there were cute beavers, bears, raccoons) and she was dead set on having the wild pig!!! It was pretty funny. She loves that ugly thing.
And for your viewing enjoyment. I really love Utah!

Someone is ticklish

Just like his Daddy . . .

Nothing says a day of fun like . . .

a smeared butterfly painted on the face of a sweet toddler who fell asleep within minutes of getting on the road.
David also enjoyed himself at Ophir Days this year. Nothing like some good small town fun.

It's ME!

So do my babies look anything like me???

The Council

The Council was reunited on Monday with a BBQ at our house. It was so great to be with my old roommates. These are truly great women! I'm looking forward to our slumber party on Friday (Kat, you better be there girlfriend)!
Here is the next generation of Council members: Anna, Ainsley and Lucy . . .
And this is what having children has done to us . . .

Love My Council!

Am I warping my child?

Conversation with Lucy:

Mom: "Today we should do LOTS of fun things".
Lucy with total glee: "CLEANING!!!"

Charity

An excerpt from my Relief Society lesson on Sunday regarding a conversation the Prophet Joseph Smith had with some men:

‘Now, boys,’ said he, ‘can you make a ditch three feet wide and two and a half feet deep along this line?’

“We said we would do our best, and he left us. We went to work, and when it was finished I went and told him it was done. He came and looked at it and said, "Boys, if I had done it myself it could not have been done better."

This lesson was on charity and there was something that really hit me about that last line. I want to use that line more frequently in my life. I am way too quick to think that my way is the one and only true way. I want to respect and allow for those around me to enjoy the freedom of doing things how they think is best. I especially want to do this with my family.

What greater compliment could we give someone? How better could we apply charity than by seeing the good in what others do instead of focusing on how they didn't do it the way we might have.

Sunday Best

My Mom made Lucy this adorable skirt. She loves it! As we walked through the halls of church today so many people would say, "Oh how cute," when they saw her. Lucy would smile and say hi and shake her little hips. I think she knew she was cute.
I just love dressing David up for Sunday. He looks so much older when I do. Oh, he is so cute. I just love, love, love him!
My attempt at getting a picture of my two little ones together. As you can see, Lucy still doesn't quite get the idea of holding David. Every time I put him on her lap she just looks confused, but David seems to be happy.

Sweet little ones . . .

Colors

Lucy at 21 months.

The 2 Month Stats Are In

And David has a future in football . . .

Weight: 14 lbs 2 oz . . . 92nd percentile (that is how much Lucy weighed at 6 months!)
Length: 24.5 inches . . . 93rd percentile (taller than he is wide)
Head: 89th percentile

The Doctor called him a perfectly proportional baby that is VERY healthy.
He said to keep doing whatever it is we're doing because it is definitely working.

Happy Anniversary

Marc & Katie after just saying yes to eternity together
August 5, 2006
3 wonderful years
2 beautiful babies
1 home full of love
0 need to ever feel lonely again

If I had only one friend left, I'd want it to be YOU!

Why???

Must Lucy's finger always find her way to David's eyeball???

Somethng New

I've started a new blog. It's called My Good Friend's Blog.

Here is the introduction (let me know what you think, I plan to put something great on there nearly every day. (Danica and Megan, you've already been featured):

Welcome

I have caught myself several times sharing a great story, a fabulous tip or telling my husband a new place I want to try. He will usually inquire to me with something along the lines of, "Where did you hear that?" To which my response is often, "My good friend's blog".

Thus came the birth of this blog. I plan to share great cleaning tips, fabulous sales, yummy recipes, helps for Mommies, must have items for the home and outdoors along with any other great stories I hear along the way. I hope it is enjoyable and useful. (Oh, and most of my ideas will be from "my good friend's blog(s))".

The address is: http://mygoodfriendsblog.blogspot.com

I'm a believer!

This cleaner (Barkeepers Friend) really works! I just cleaned some stains from my bathroom that I thought would never come up! Best part: it costs $1.78 at WalMart!