High on the Mountain Top

Ryan told me one day that our stake had a few tickets to the Payson Temple groundbreaking and that our stake president had offered the stake presidency first 'dibs.'  My hopes were up.  Then he told me that he said no.  We would have to be there at 8 and we couldn't take kids so he thought it would be too hard.  I made him feel bad by saying I really wanted to go and that we may never have another chance.  So he went back to the stake president and got the tickets.

October 8th rolls around and it turned out to be freezing!  It was hard to maintain the enthusiasm when you lose all feeling in your extremities.  I would not have been a good pioneer.

  

At first we assumed this would be our view of the groundbreaking.

The mountains are actually much taller than this!

 The prayer was said and included a plea for a reprieve from the rain.  It stopped.

The program included some wonderful speakers who all grew up in this area.  The songs were both written by Payson people; "Sweet is the Work" and "High on the Mountain Top".  Elder Dallin H. Oaks grew up in Payson and he said the dedicatory prayer.  It was wonderful.  I hope we're still here to help with the open house and dedication.  My memories of the Bountiful temple opening are still fresh in my mind (sadly, they were quite cold as well) and I cherish that opportunity.

Brown Eyed Girl

When Audrey was a baby I thought she had the most beautiful eyes.  Plus, I was so shocked that they were blue I just couldn't get over it.  Here's a reminder of Audrey around 5 months old.

Her skin wasn't actually this white.  She's a little washed out.

 Along comes Kennedy.  She has dark, deep brown eyes. 

 I may be remembering wrong but I think Kennedy gets more comments and compliments than Audrey did! 

 Some fun updates on Kennedy:  She's quite wary of people outside our family.  She stares long and hard at anyone looking at her.  She won't talk on cue for people even though she knows about 20 words.  I already mentioned her love of reading.  She also loves to have songs sung to her.  She wants to do everything like Audrey.  She and Audrey play really well together (most of the time).  She likes to dress up and act silly.  Her favorite is definitely shoes.  She eats her big sister under the table and often joins me on my chair to eat some of my food.  Her imperfections include unhappily riding in the car, throwing fits while grocery shopping, ability to make huge messes in a short amount of time and not holding still during church.  She just reminded me of another one...playing with electronics.

She is so sweet and angelic and we love our little brown- eyed girl!

The fruits, er vegetables, of our labor

***Warning***

This post will be lame for everyone but me.  Sorry, I'm just so proud.

We decided to grow a garden this year.  We planted carrots, peas, beans and cucumber seeds.  I told Ryan that if we ate just one thing out of it, I would consider it a success.  Apparently, I underestimated Spanish Fork soil because we can barely keep up with the reaping!

 Our favorite was probably peas because we could eat it fresh and ready right out of the pods.

 The girls loved it so much!  As soon as we walked outside Kennedy would say, "peas!!"

I was able to freeze a lot of the beans and we were still eating them up until last week even though they haven't been growing for a few weeks now.

I think we've had about 10 cucumbers so far.  They're still growing.

The carrots are a bit odd looking because you're supposed thin them out and we just let them go.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.

We also planted maybe a few too many flowers.  They exploded!

Next year we'll have a bigger garden with more things and we'll do something with the backyard.  We had such a good time doing it all together as a family.  

Part-time/Full-time

It's been one year since I gave up my full-time job at Sears as the Human Resources Manager.

I am still working there part-time and doing basically the same things, but I have less time to do them.  I owe the whole experience of full-time work peace-of-mind to some wonderful parents, (including in-laws).  My mom would drive to Draper from Bountiful at 6:30 in the morning-whether rain or snow or sleet-to pick up Audrey and take her to her house for 9 hours, then drive back to Draper in rush hour traffic and have dinner with me and Ryan EVERY SINGLE MONDAY FOR OVER 2 YEARS!  I don't think she knows how much it meant to me or how much I feel I owe her.  

From my point of view there is no such thing as part-time mom so I don't feel like I'm now a full-time mom but I do now spend most of my time at home with the girls.  I don't feel less stressed and I don't feel like a better mom, but I do feel like I'm more respected by other moms, which is sad.  Also, I've become a better cook.  Soon I think I need to add another motherly talent like sewing.  We'll see.  I know my mom is ready for me to learn so she doesn't have to be my on-call seamstress.   And this change couldn't have come at a better time because in January Ryan was called as the Stake Executive Secretary.  So with me in the Young Women presidency and his calling, we are only ever home together as a family on Monday nights some Saturdays and most Sunday nights.  

Anyway, before I cleaned out my own things out of the office I now share, I had to take a picture of the wall that served as my inspiration for three years. 

When I moved into my office this was a motivational poster about imagination.  I would rather see the face of my beautiful baby girl every day so I stuck a couple of pictures in the corners.  But she grew so I added more pictures.  Well, she never stopped growing so the poster is full.  When people would come into my office they'd say, "How many kids do you have?"  I'd say, "Just one.  I just have lots of pictures of her."  

There is another poster on the back wall that had a few pictures of Kennedy before I officially stepped down, but it's not as impressive.

Thank you to everyone who helped and supported me in this.  Thank you to Ryan for being willing and, more importantly, able to spend so much time alone with Audrey.  You're a great dad!  And thanks to Audrey for being such an amazing, easy-going little girl.    

Summer Funnin'

Now that our summer is drawing to a close...

I can't believe it!  I guess it's time I shared what we've been up to for the last few months.

In May we visited the BYU museum when they featured the amazing work of Carl Bloch.  I don't think I could really describe what I felt there.  But I do know that I left with a new perspective on some of the events we hear so often in the Savior's life.  What would it have been like to pick up the nails that were covered in His precious blood?  The paintings put you right there.

Kennedy trying to fall off the wall at the museum

Audrey was really reverent inside

 

Kennedy developed an OBSESSION with books.  I have to say I am both thrilled and bugged.  I have always felt like the best gift I could give my kids would be a love of reading.  So I love that they are both so excited about going to the library (one of the first places I wanted to be able to drive to myself at 16).  I love that the minute we get home Audrey doesn't want to eat lunch or play or anything until we've read every single one of the books we checked out.  I love that they both run to my bed to read bedtime stories each night.  But the situation with Kennedy isn't always as exciting.  For one thing, the books she reads are usually less than 20 words so I have them memorized.  Also, she'll want to read it over and over again.  Then it doesn't matter if I just got out of the shower or I'm eating or cleaning--she scoots back into my lap and it's reading time.  Okay, I mostly love it!

Audrey had a dance recital in June.  It was her first big one on stage with makeup.  She was really excited.  Her costume is a cowgirl and this is her "guns" move.

For our 9 year anniversary Ryan and I went with the girls to the pool.  Romantic, right?

There's a really great splash park close to us that we don't visit enough.

 

Salina carnival for the 4th of July and Spanish Fork carnival for the 24th.

 

Lots of visits to lots of parks.

To sum up: we've not been anywhere or done anything exciting or out of the ordinary.  But there have been lots of smiles, laughing, playing, learning and growing and I can't imagine anything better.

The Smell of Jellies

I love being a mother of girls.

I love being able to sing princess songs -word for word- and not feel weird about it.  It's not socially acceptable for me to wear a tutu but I get satisfaction in putting my daughter in one.  I secretly love when Audrey asks me to color with her because I love coloring.

But mostly, I love that it takes me back to being a little girl.  The simplest thing like a scented strawberry shortcake doll or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich remind me of a time when my biggest concern was whether my sister was playing with MY favorite barbie.  I look forward to a trip to the library because we will get some of the books that I was first in love with so many years ago. 

Then a couple of weeks ago I opened up my mailbox to find my Old Navy order had come.  I was excited to show Audrey the shoes I had ordered for her and Kennedy.  I cut it open and there it was...the unforgettable smell of jellies.  Wow, it took me back.

It's good to be a girl!    

I Love Easter!

Halle and Audrey were enjoying their new found treasure.

Lehi easter egg hunt with Grandma Jackie and Papa Craig and cousins Halle, Chase, Elizabeth and Seth.

 

Easter egg hunt in Salt Lake with Grandma Raylene and Papa Randy and cousins Chloe and Gretchen.

 

To say that Kennedy loved this little whistle would be an understatement!

Another big fan of the whistle!

Audrey and I made glitter eggs!  It used to be that you'd go to the store and buy a little egg coloring kit with about five colors and you were good-to-go.  Now there are so many choices!  It's a little bit overwhelming!  There are glitter and tye-dye, pastel and florescent; the possibilities are endless!

Another Easter tradition is to go to Salina to eat in the garage and throw eggs.  Sounds glamorous, right?  Actually, it is so fun.  The garage tradition started one year when the weather wasn't cooperating.  It was so much fun it has stuck with the family for years.  The whole family wouldn't fit in any normal size house anyway.

Kennedy and Audrey both had a ride on the wooden rocking horse.

Ryan's cousin's daughter Ashlyn is Audrey's good friend.

Throwing the eggs was great because those eggs would not break!  (Maybe part of the issue is the girls throw about as well as their mom.)

Audrey on Easter morning.

I didn't get a picture of Kennedy that morning because even though we don't have church until 1, I can't bring myself to get anyone ready until the last minute.

On a more personal note, I loved Easter so much this year.  I think Easter is in some ways better than Christmas because there's a commercial side and a spiritual side and there's much less stress.  This year we had so much fun with the girls.  They were both so cute about the egg hunts.  On the other side, we were able to have a real conversation with Audrey about Jesus and the really amazing story behind the holiday.  On Easter Sunday one of our amazing Young Women leaders gave a beautiful lesson, Kennedy was out with her dad, and I was able to feel the spirit of Christ's life, death and resurrection.  It was a wonderful couple of weeks to think, feel, and enjoy our many blessings.