Give Away Time

Hey guys there is a giveaway for the cutest tutu on Catey's blog winner of the 2009 Utah Baby Guide Blog Contest. She is super woman with 7 cute kids and she is in the Stake Primary Presidency in our Stake. She is super talented and makes the cutest things. She just started a giveaway friday and is having her 1st one you can enter until July 30th. Here is her blog address http://randomthoughtsfromthezoo.blogspot.com/. Go check it out!

My Sweet Husband

Well I've been home visiting my family and Mike couldn't come due to having a new job and us just going on Trek. It worked out great because I was able to drive home with my brother Caleb and I get to drive back with my mom and dad on our way to a family reunion. I miss Mike so much and today there was a knock at the door and there was lady delievering flowers. Aren't they so pretty? He also sent balloons for the girls and I got lots of chocolates! He is too good to me! Love you Mike!

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

We had the opportunity to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House on Friday. What a beautiful temple! I can't wait to be able to go this temple! We had a great time and it was nice not having to chase the kids around like when we went to the Draper Temple Open House. We got to go with our great friends Michael and Krista and we had a wonderful time. The part that really hit me was when they were talking about what oquirrh means in Ute Indian language. Oquirrh means "shining" or "glowing". What a fantastic name for this temple. When you drive down to the 'The District' this temple truly is 'shining' or 'glowing' for all to see! It is beautiful and just is breathtaking as you see it when you drive around the corner. I'm am so grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that because of temples we can be eternal families and I'm so grateful for the priesthood and that is restored to the earth at this time. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and know that all the happiness I have in my life is because of the church! Thank you Dad and Mom for teaching me the gospel and having such strong testimonies! Thank you Kelly and Sherie for raising such a righteous son who is so amazing! Thank you Mike for being you! I love you! Thank you all my dear family and friends for always being there. I love you all so much! I'm still a little emotional about our ward split. I can't imagine church without so many of you. But I know that the Stake Presidency was inspired and know that it will be good for our stake. Enjoy the pictures!

Just beautiful isn't it!

Mike, Me, Krista, and Michael

Mike and I

"Holiness to the Lord. The House of the Lord."

This is truly the Lord's house.

It truly is 'shining' for all to see! Just amazing!

Madilyn loves Outside

Maddie loves to play outside and loves to play in the water. Grandpa and Grandma Clayton got Kate pool for her birthday cuz the wind blew ours away and Madilyn just loves it so much! Mommy had to run to the church and Daddy decided to go work on the garden. The kids followed him outside and Maddie hopped right in the pool. She had so much fun and was not very happy when Daddy took her out of the pool.


See her poor red eyes from crying so hard that she had to get out. :( It's hard being 1!

Trek...Amazing!

Mike and I had the opportunity to go on Trek with our ward July 8th-11th! It was truely an amazing experience. My testimony was strengthened as well as everyone elses. It was just great! We had so much fun and it was so spiritual! We went to the Wille Handcart Site and stayed there. I will tell the stories as I go through the pictures. We left the church and headed off on our 6 hour drive to Wyoming. We arrived and trekked 2.7 miles into our campsite.

This was our handcart

Steve and Jessica...after we set up camp we all got to sit around and talk. The Ma's and Pa's were all sitting around chatting.

Mike and Brandon chillin'

My baby sister McKenna came down with my parents to help babysit. The night before trek we were getting ready and Kenna really wanted to come so we called the Bishop and he said she could come on trek. So this is me and her...at first she was having a hard time finding some good friends so she said we were going to be BFF's for the trek...well as soon as Rachel took Kenna over to some of the kids...my BFF left me cuz she found some new BFF's! :) LOL it was really funny! She had a blast and made a ton of great friends. Everyone kept calling her mini-Dede and kept getting us mixed up...it was so funny!

This is us starting our 5.6 mile trek on the 2nd day. This is my family pulling our handcart.

Me and Kenna again! We had a great time together!

This is my awesome Trek Family! From left to right...Bryon, Mike, Me, Brennan, Cassie, Kylee, and David. We had so much fun. I was amazed at how close we became! I love each of these kids so much. They truely are amazing people and have so much to offer the world! We had so much fun with them!

Me, Rachel, and Jessica at the Martin Handcart Center...it was so nice out the 2nd day we were finished with our 5.6 mile trek by 1 pm. So we got to all hop in the car and head out to go see the Martin Handcart visitors center and watch a movie about the pioneers and hear a talk from some senior missionaries.

Brandon, Steve, Dallas, and Mike at the Martin Handcart Visitors Center.

Us ready to head out the 3rd day...this day was much hotter

Here we go!

Mike and I

Here is our cute family again! They were so awesome!!!!

The men being call off to war...this is called the Women's Pull...there were so many pioneer women who had to trek to Zion alone. This was one of the most spiritual experiences of the trek.

This is a picture of the men marching away. As soon as the men left it felt so different. They walked up to the top of a hill and then all the women had to pull the handcarts up the hill. It was so hard and as we reached the top of the hill the men were all standing there on both sides of the trail with their hats off respecting us. They couldn't help us as we tried to make it up the hardest part of the hill. It was so spiritual and as we were walking through I could literally feel the power of the priesthood from them and the cart felt lighter as if we were having help pushing the cart. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. After we got back to the campsite we all got to go swimming in the river. We got to jump off a bridge and it was so much fun! Then we got to hang around and have fun until it was time to square dance! It was so much fun! Have I mentioned trek was so much fun? :)

The square dance caller...he did awesome!

The kids square dancing

More square dancing

Cindy, Jessica, Rachel, and me

Me and Cassie she was in my family and we became really close! She is awesome!

Byron, Conner, and Carson...the 3 boys who kept me up until 2 am Friday night...here is the funny story...Of course it was so hard to get all the youth to bed but we finally got them in their tents and were able to finally get to bed. I'm a really light sleeper and any zipper that unzips I jump up and think a youth is getting out of their tent. Well an hour or 2 after we had gone to bed I hear a zipper unzip from our boys tent. I had heard them talking prior to this and looked out the window and David (0ne of our boys) was outside a girls tent talking to them. I stuck my head out of the tent and said, "David get back in bed now!" He ran as a fast as he could and then I heard the zipper un-zip again and a big thud into the tent and boys laughing and saying, "Shhhhshhhhh...quiet." Then I hear David, "Hey guys be quiet Ma heard us and is awake." So I hop out of the tent and walk over and say, "Byron, stay in your tent. I need you guys to be quiet so I can go to bed. David you stay in here too!" Then I paused and said, "Conner and Carson you can say in here but be quiet...I understand you guys want to have fun the last night and that fine but stay in this tent and be quiet." They were like, "How did you know we were in here?" I said, "I know everything just be quiet but have fun, goodnight!" The next morning they kept asking me how I knew they were in there...maybe it was the fact that they kept saying each others names. It was so funny! They thought they were so sneaky and had dooped the leader but I'm a lot smarter than they think! They just couldn't get over it, it was awesome. They said the best part was when I paused and then said the 2 boys names who weren't supposed to be in the tent. It was so funny!

The picture above is of the youth cleaning up the camp making sure we didn't have any trash on the site. The video is of square dancing. We had so much fun! Being on trek was one of the greatest experiences of my life! It was awesome! Now our ward is spliting and we have to all be in different wards...I'm so sad! :( But I know that all will be well!

Happy Birthday Kate!

Katelyn turned 5 on July 3rd! She is growing up so fast! She came into our family July 3, 2004 at 9:21am. She was 6 lbs 12 oz and 19 inches long. From the very begining she had an amazing spirit and I am so grateful for the amazing person she is! She is an amazing helper and a great listener (most of the time)! She is very smart and very kind! She smiles a lot and her laugh is infectious! She is amazing and we love her so much! We are so glad Heavenly Father sent her to us!

Here is a few pictures of Katelyn throughout the years. (Unfortunately we had a computer crash and lost quite a few pictures of Katelyn's first years....word to the wise...back up your pictures! Mike was able to recover some but we are still missing quite a few so this is what I could find missing a few birthday pictures.)

Katelyn at age 1 month

Katelyn age 1

Katelyn age 2

Katelyn age 3

Katelyn age 4

Kate age 5 opening presents

Katelyn with her dress-ups she got

Kate with her cake!

Kate's cake...yah I know I didn't make it but when life is busy sometimes you just have to make choices and making a cake wasn't the most important. She loved it though and it was really good!!!

We had a good day on her birthday. Daddy had the day off so it was fun he got to be with us all day. As soon as Kate woke up she was ready to open presents. We got dressed and opened presents. Then we went and got Slurpees and went to go on a tour of the cannery and see all the big machines they use to can stuff. They were running peas and we got to see how they can them. The best part was going through the candy drawer...Brandon let them pick whatever they wanted. The girls loved to see all the big machines work. Afterwards Katelyn picked Chinese for lunch. We then went to Walmart and picked out a cake. Headed home had pizza, got to ride bikes, and eat cake. Katelyn had a good day!