Happy Birthday Taylor

Taylor is 1 today!

Can you believe we made her wait a whole year for this!

Here is her birthday car ($10 on black Friday) and already worth every cent, she loved going back and forth to her brothers and sister on it. I think that Jake is doing some sort of break dancing in the background.

I saw this cake on the back of a box and thought it was so cute I had to make it for her 1st birthday it was quite easy too (which is a must for me) I don't even like to frost cakes.

I can't believe that she is 1 year old today. The time goes by so fast and my little infant is gone, it makes me sad but yet it is so fun to see her reach each new milestone.

Here is my sweet newborn, Taylor, Britnee had made her into a "princess"

Close to one of her first smiles



My 11 month old beauty

Christmases Past

Here is a picture of my Mom (Janis) in 1955 she is about 1 1/2 yr. old.

The card was actually included in a scrapbook that my Great Grandma Stott

gave to me as a gift on a Christmas Eve at her home in Choteau.

She always made wonderful handmade gifts for all of her

grandchildren and Great Grandchildren.

I love the handwriting of my Grandma Stott it is still

the same over 50 years later!

This picture was taken in 1976 I'm guessing on Christmas Eve.

It is Grandma Stott, me and Uncle Jim (don't we all look young!).

1977

I'm sure that my Mom made that cute little nightgown.

This is Nels and I (Emilee).

The next 2 pictures are from Christmas Morning 1980.

The lower one is of Chase and I. You can't really see it but the stocking

I am looking in has Chases name on it I guess he wasn't looking

at it quickly enough for me.

My Mom always made me a pretty Christmas dress.

Well here are some pictures of Christmases Past. I have such wonderful memories of my childhood Christmases. Now I get to enjoy the wonder of Christmas through my children! They bring so much joy to my life.

F.F.T.

We decided to have Family Fun Time once more outside

before the really cold weather sets in. On Sunday the high, yes high,

temperature is forecast to be -7. BRR!

Kelly and I originally implemented FFT when we would want to go on a walk and all we would hear from certain members of our family was "I don't want to go", "I'm not coming", "Do I have to come", "BORING", etc., etc., etc.

We would smile and say "You have to come its Family Fun Time."

Apparently Kelly can use that line on me now when I don't want to go down by the river and it is only 29 degrees. Well I went and we all had fun! We roasted hot dogs and ate cheetos. I stood by the fire to keep warm and it did feel good. Taylor had her first taste of a cheeto and thought it was pretty good. The kids love it when we do things like that and I know that memories of roasting hot dogs by the river will help to make our family stronger.


It looks a bit desolate but I love it anyway!

Family Fun Time

Give it a try!

THANKSgiving

Well this picture was intended to be the last picture for this blog but I guess it gets to be first, one of these days I will get it figured out. As the sun was setting this evening I had to take a picture. I thought that it looked beautiful. I am thankful for all of the beauty on this earth.

This picture was supposed to be my 2nd to last picture. This was Tate's excitement over Thanksgiving weekend besides my family visiting of course.

Here is a picture of us right before our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Sorry McKay I didn't mean to cut off half of your head.

Here is a picture of Britnee, Grandpa, and Colton.

Colton, Uncle McKay, and Britnee. McKay and Tate were such good sports about wearing turkey hats. You had to know that the pictures would make it onto my blog! I am so thankful for all of my family! Tate's picture of the turkey hat is also supposed to be here but I don't know how to insert a picture into the middle of a blog any advice? Is it possible? Maybe I will have a random picture blog soon to post all of the picture that I have missed over the last year.

Here are Kelly and I posing in our almost matching striped sweaters. Aren't we cute?

And one little passionate picture to end with!

I really do love Thanksgiving time. I love that we take a little bit of extra time to think of all that we are grateful for. I feel so blessed in so many different ways. Especially when I take a few minutes to think of all of my blessing and all that I am thankful for ~ I can't help but smile!

Happy Birthday Lacee & McKay!

Lacee and McKay share the same birthday I just want to wish my favorite sister and one of my favorite brothers a Happy Birthday!

GO EAGLES!

Here are some pictures of me just a few years ago. These are from my senior year, I played on the girls basketball team and then cheered for the boys basketball team (way back then they were during different seasons). With my baby brother on the football team that is playing in the class B state championship this weekend I thought that these would be fun to look at!

GO BIG BLUE! I'm just working on my cheers. When I was in High School these cheer-leading uniforms were our favorite and brand new. When Lacee was in High School I saw the uniform in her bedroom (which was actually my bedroom ) and I asked her if they ever wore them but she said that they were the ugliest uniforms that they had! DEFENCE~EAGLES~DEFENCE (stomp, stomp). Are you all getting school spirit now? It should be fun to go watch the game and see a few people from the hometown. We will have to snuggle up in lots of blankets and drink hot chocolate to stay warm. My kids can hardly wait to watch Uncle Tate. Side-note~Last weekend Bostyn was here and Kelly asked her if he was her favorite Uncle and she said "No, Uncle Tate, Kelly is a girls name." I thought it was funny. She told him what she thought even though he is 6'5". Good luck Eagles! See you this weekend.

Why is this on my mantle?

Anyone who knows Kelly very well knows that he loves to tease. I guess this is his way of teasing me. I have put this skull away in the closet a dozen times and it always mysteriously ends up prominently on the mantle. The picture below is of the fireplace and mantle minus the skull. I didn't do the masonry or cut the mantle but I did stain it. My mom helped to stain our railing and then I was on my own. It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated and I am very pleased with the end results! I can hardly wait to hang stockings this year. Maybe I'll hang Kellys stocking from a tooth.

The next three pictures are from temple square in SLC when we were there a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day.

Britnee, Jake, & Colton

We almost got everyone looking at the camera.

Now it works?

Taylor & BritneeMy Little Spooks
Britnee, Colton, Jake, & Taylor

Taylor Mae 10 mo.

For the past 5 days my pictures would not upload or I could get one uploaded and then a window would pop up and say "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" for some reason now it is working. Does anyone have an idea what was going on? Anyway here are some Halloween pictures. I will try to post more pictures of our trip to UT and maybe I will even put some pictures of the new house (that we have been living in for 3 months now) up, if my computer continues to cooperate with me. I hope that you all had a fun Halloween! Time for me to put the decorations away.

A picture is worth 1,000 words

1300 Miles

What do you find in your car after you drive nearly 1300 miles with 4 kids? Fast food wrappers? Random socks? Empty water bottles? How about when you go to clean it out 4 days after you are home you find a live snail with a crushed shell in between a bunch of papers. Any guesses who put it there? Anyone who knows my children at all can guess.

Well for some unknown reason I can't add any more pictures. Anyway we went to WY and UT over the weekend. It was Kelly's Grandpa Jenkins 90th birthday party. It was fun to visit his Grandparents and spend the weekend with his family. On Saturday night Susan, Patrica, and Sarah (Kelly's Mom and sisters) and Olivia and I went to Witches Night Out at Gardner Village in West Jordan (I think) I actually have no idea where I am when I am in UT. Gardner Village is such a fun place to shop I can hardly wait to go back someday. On Sunday we took the kids to Temple Square and watched the Joseph Smith movie. Somewhere along the line a snail was picked up and carefully placed in the car for me to find at a later date!

I have faster internet service so my blog might get updated more regularly now ~gasp~(if I figure out why it won't upload any more pictures). Nels already gave me free tech support THANK YOU. Apparently even if you only use the free support once in the free year they charge unbelievable amounts for their vast knowledge. I could pretty much buy a new computer for what they wanted to charge.

Fairfield is Wonderful

Mom, Dad, and Taylor (7 1/2 mo.)
Mom and Emilee Jake in the truck and on the trailer

McKay harvesting
Jake and Tate
The whole gang

Taylor Mae in the middle of the field
Colton

Kelly and I moved into our new house on the 5th. We spent 4 nights there and then I took advantage of my chance to visit my family in Fairfield. Here are some pictures of the harvest. I have great memories of playing in the grain when I was growing up so I am glad that my kids were able to spend a little time in the field and on the combine during the harvest.

THIS IS A TEST

It is only a test. I just want to see if anyone still checks my blog. Don't worry I won't feel bad if no one responds, I haven't even checked it for over a month or updated it for like 3 months. Our house is nearly done. The carpet will be finished tomorrow, a/c installed and rock put on the front. Kelly and I need to put up the interior doors, stain the front door and replace some sheet rock in the garage (long story). Then we need to build a deck. Piece of cake, right!?
My life may become somewhat normal within the next 2 months or so. But I won't hold my breath, you had better not either!

Sheet rocking (still)

I am using the large sized letters so that this will appear like more words. Kelly and I have been sheet rocking for about 2 months now. We planned on 2-3 weeks. All I can say is that 2500 sq. ft. & a triple car garage is a lot of sheet rock and work! We do have to take into account that in that time period Kelly got type B influenza (yuck!) and we took time off to go to a funeral. We are seriously so close to being done (with the sheet rock). The garage is partly done and there are only a few small things left to do in the house! I am so excited to move in although there is still a pile of work for us to do. Taylor gets to hang out with us in her play pen. She really has been good and she is growing like crazy. I will put up a picture soon. Jake, Colton, & Britnee don't really appreciate me hauling them out there after school but they are good troopers most of the time. They like the big pile of dirt and have big plans for a garden this summer.

Happy Birthday Jake!

Today is Jakes birthday, I absolutely can not believe that I am old enough to have a 10 year old. Happy birthday Jake I love you! Jake chose corndogs and BBQ potato chips with ripples for his birthday dinner. I added banana chocolate mini-muffins to the menu (they were somewhat healthy and I was the only one who liked them, maybe when Kelly gets home tonight he will like them). We will be having angel food cake later on. I am so glad to have Jake as a son he is a good helper and he is very smart. He likes to hold Taylor, play with legos and bionicles, he also likes to read books that he is interested in (Levin Thumps) and knows Book of Mormon stories better than me (thanks to Tennis shoes among the Nephites.)

Smile

It seiously took 19 minutes to upload these 2 pictures. Actually it took longer than that because the first time I tried after 10 minutes the internet connection disconnected. How long does it take you to upload a picture? I want to know what I have to look forward to at my new house. Here is Taylor smiling she started smiling about a week ago. I think I was scaring her with the camera because it took a while to get a shot of her smile. We also made valenine cookies last week as you can see Jake, Colton, and Britnee had a lot of fun decrating them!