FINALLY!

I know that it has been forever since I updated this. It has been a crazy busy summer. We've spent a lot of time with the kids and with family. There's been way too much that we've done for me to include everything in this post but I am going to do my best to include the biggest highlights of our summer.

In June Kassidy turned 13. I can't believe how fast she is growing up and she is getting to be more and more fun as she grows into herself. She loves design and fashion. She is my artistic companion in our family and I love having someone to be creative with. We have been working on redecorating her room. She loved picking out her own paint colors and we stenciled designs on her walls. That was her favorite part. I've been sewing like a crazy woman to make her a new bed cover, curtain and throw pillows. Thayne is going to build her a new bed frame that she helped me design. We are close to finishing off some of the smaller details so I will also post photos of the entire finished project. It has been fun to see Kassidy's excitement grow as everything has come together.

Our newest photo of Kassidy taken by Roxy.

Two walls are pink and the other two are white with the black stenciling. We also painted the desk black. I made the bed cover and all of the pillows.

In July we had our official vacation. We went and stayed with Sam, Roxy, Lily, Marah & almost Gabe in Monticello. They were so accommodating and it was awesome to have some time to just hang out with them for a few days. One of the days they watched Max while we took the older kids on a river rafting trip in Moab. The river was a lot more calm than we expected but it was fun to be able to do a lot of swimming in the river alongside the raft. Kyle and Thayne also went mountain biking on slick rock. They loved it until Thayne;s bike broke down on him halfway through the trip and he had to hike it most of the way out. We spent one night in the mountains above Monticello picnic-ing and 4 wheeling with Sam, Roxy and the girls. It was beautiful up there and nice to hang out. The highlight of that night was when we were looking for the key for one of the 4 wheelers. We asked Marah if she'd seen it and she said "I think it fell down my pants somewhere." Bahahaha. It was so funny. Sure enough, when Roxy pulled open the back of Marah's pants she saw the key in her pull up mixed in with some poop. We're all still getting a good laugh out of that one. The last day we were down there we had Roxy do our family photos. She hasn't been doing photography for very long but she is AMAZING! Click here to go to her photo blog. She took so many amazing photos that I can't possibly post all of them here. Here's a couple for now and I will post more later...



On a way more serious note... our most recent news is that Thayne and I are going to be grandparents. Yes, you read that right. GRANDPARENTS. We are still trying to get used to the idea of it. We found out a few weeks ago that Kyle and his girlfriend Maddie are very unexpectedly expecting. They are almost 13 weeks along. There are still a lot of decisions that they are going to have to make over the next few months so it's hard to say at this point how everything is going to turn out. But I will love and support Kyle and Maddie in whatever choices they make for themselves and I hope for only the best for both of them and the beautiful little baby that they are bringing into the world. I also need to thank all of you who have been supportive since we found out about this. Friends and family like you make all of the difference.


I had another birthday last week. I took it easy all day and spent some time with Jakson, Max & Thayne in the afternoon. We went to Lowe's and Thayne bought me a dishwasher. I have been wanting a dishwasher for years so I was ecstatic. I wouldn't trade my cute old house for a new one any day of the week but the thing I have hated most about it is the fact that it didn't have a dishwasher. Now I feel like I'm totally living it up since I don't have to spend my time in front of the kitchen sink anymore. All in all, it was a great birthday.



The kids enjoyed their first week of school this week and they are all excited for the year and all of the many activities that come along with it all. In some ways our life will be slowing down but in many other ways life will be even more busy. But I do promise to get back to updating the blog regularly.