Emily's Birthday

Emily's birthday was October 4th. Poor Little Emily. Nate and I both had to work in Salt Lake on her birthday. Thank goodness for grandparents who made sure she had fun all day. My baby is four years old. She loves her older siblings and will follow them to the ends of the earth. She is a good girl. I work all day everyday and she is so patient with that. She quietly entertains herself and never causes me any trouble. She saves her trouble causing for when I am not working :). Emily still gives us kisses on special occasions and loves to be tickled. We do homework every night with Ben and Rachel. Emily loves to do her homework too. . . out of one of those preschool workbooks. She really is a doll. I keep wondering when she will stop being so cute. . maybe never. She is very excited for a new baby to come to our house and I am sure she will make a wonderful big sister.

Ten Years. . . Ten Years

This year Nate and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. Hard to believe that it has been that long. We have known each other for 17 years. Pizza, pizza in 1993. We met doing the dishes. I remember just talking for a couple of hours because. . . well, frankly, there was nothing better to do. We were stuck there for the night with a pile of greasy, disgusting pans. We just hit it off. I was hooked immediately. We had the wonderful blessing of developing a very solid friendship over those first years. It has made our marriage better. We have been on a lot of rocky roads over the years. I am just so glad that I have been on those roads with Nathan. And, I have to say, it is awesome to be on some smoother roads with him now. :)

We were hoping to do something really awesome for our tenth anniversary but that didn't work. So we stayed in Park City at the Waldorff Astoria. Way too classy for us. Valet parking only. We had a great time and enjoyed swimming in their very heated pool under the stars and a full moon. The jacuzzi was great too, if you minus the drunk people who seemed to gravitate to that point. We shopped (because I love to and Nate knows it), we had a nice hike, we ate, we went down the zip line at the Olympic park. We had a lovely time. And one day, Nate will take me to Italy for our anniversary. I am sure of it. Oh yea, and we still like to shove cake up in the other one's face. . . figuratively speaking. True Love. :)

Rachel is SIX

Rachel had her sixth birthday on September 23rd. She is such a stellar little lady. Starting school this year has been a wonderful adventure for her and she is proving to be very good at it. She has already gotten a safety award in an assembly for learning the rules of the school and doing them and this last week we got a note that said she had been invited to be the student council representative for her class. I know, she is only in kindergarten and not likely to do much with that. . .but it just shows her personality. She is very obedient by nature. A trait that I am sure will serve her well for many years. She is also a leader. She often comes home and tells me about how she befriended a new person or stood up for a student who was getting picked on. I think part of it is being one of the oldest in her grade, but she seems to take on responsibilities easily. Rachel is a joy to my life. :)

Some Things Never Change

My girls will always be Daddy's girls.

Neighborhood Parade

These are the kinds of things I don't want to forget as my children get older. The kids and their friends put together there own parade. I was the one and only spectator. . . I tried to cheer really loud.

Red Butte Gardens

Let's see, this was done on Labor Day. We went to Red Butte Gardens. Surprisingly enough, I didn't hear any butt jokes that day. They are plentiful every other day :). We had a nice time as the weather was perfect. . . although I remember Nate was kind of sick that day. Anyway, it was still a nice daycation and we took some cute pics.

Ben's Baptism

BOO!!!
Wow, it's Halloween. That means I didn't blog once for the entirety of October. I have a ton of things to catch up on so I will just give this a whirl.
First off, the reason for not blogging.. . life is just crazy. You know how they say you only use 10% of your brain. Well, work is taking up at least 5%. . . probably closer to 7% of my brain. That leaves me a measly 3% to handle the more important things in my life. The kids have adapted incredibly well to our schedule. I have adapted. . .not as well as them. I so don't have it in me to get motivated to blog. Yet, i don't want to leave all of the lovely things happening behind. So, let's start with Ben's Baptism.

Well, we were very excited for this event. Many of our family memebers made the long drive to Ogden in order to be with us on Labor Day weekend.

Doesn't Ben look handsome. All ready to go. We, of course were running late, so let's hurry! But before we could get out the door the phone rings because. . .

something is wrong. The doors to the Stake Center are locked. What in the world!!! Phone call, phone call, phone call. . . .finally over an hour later success. Someone who has a key to the building and the font.
Gracious family waiting and waiting.. .


Finally inside, we still have to fill the font. Apparently Labor Day weekend is the worst weekend to have a baptism. It came down to a simple mistake. . . the guy in charge forgot and was out of town for Labor Day. The baptism was supposed to start at 6:30. We started about 2 hours later. You know what though, we still had a beautiful baptism. It was really neat to watch Ben be baptized and recieve the Holy Ghost. He isn't a man of many words. After the baptism he simply said "I feel good."
Ben was baptized along with a sweet girl in our ward. . . Anna.

Our family. . . they are just awesome. Not one of them complained about the long wait.



So, it was a really fun day. We had a nice bar-b-q before. . . so at least everyone had full belly's during the wait. We can't say enough about how much we love our family. Can't say enough about how much we love Ben!