Kathryn is 4!

Tuesday was a busy day. Besides David's wedding, it was also Kathryn's 4th birthday. My sister Melanie did the wedding luncheon so for the dessert and Kate's birthday, she had purple and yellow cupcakes as the centerpieces. It worked out well because even though purple and yellow were the wedding colors, Kate's favorite color is purple so she thought all the purple ones were for her and the yellow one's were for the wedding. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to her and she didn't like that much attention so while she liked it, she wasn't sure how to handle it. We didn't do her presents until after the reception was over and all cleaned up. It was pretty late. She was so happy though. She kept saying to me all the next day, "That was my favorite day ever!" An entire day filled with lots of family, food and fun....Life to a 4 year old really doesn't get much better than that!

4 fun facts about Kate:

1. She is a big tease! Her favorite person to tease is her Daddy and because she is his little princess, she is the only one who can get away with it.

2. She loves being a girl. She likes to wear pretty shoes and clothes and wear fingernail polish and make up and play dolls. She dreams of growing up to have big boobs and a boy to love her.

3. She loves having two big sisters. She calls them the "girly girls" and she goes everywhere and does everything with them. They are honestly her best friends.

4. She is a princess in-training. She loves to dance and sing and watch princess movies. She is not going to pre-school but pretty-school. Someday she is not going to kindergarten but pretty-garten. She makes us laugh.

Happy Birthday to my Kitty Kat! Thank you for always making me smile. I love you, baby girl!

David is married!

We are so excited! My little brother is now married to the cutest girl and she is now the newest member of our family. I just had a thought....My mom has always told us that when one of us gets married, she does not loose a child but gains another. Well, I now have all my sisters here. 10 girls! Cool! Welcome Kimberly! We love you and can't wait to get to know you better.

My brother David and his new bride Kimberly:

David and Kimberly were married Tuesday morning in the Rexburg, ID temple.

All of my siblings and their spouses and children were all able to attend except my little sister Kami who is currently in the Philippines serving a mission for our church. We missed you Kami! It was so awesome to be sitting in the sealing room surrounded by all our loved ones and then to realize that most of the people in that room were my own siblings and their spouses. I remember looking around the sealing room at my own wedding many years ago and, though the room was filled with loved ones, I remember experiencing a feeling of loneliness, or maybe empyiness is a better word. Nine of my most favorite people, whom I had spent my entire life with were missing. At that moment, I began dreaming of the day when all of my brothers and sisters, along with our amazing parents, would all be there together....NO EMPTY CHAIRS! What's ironic to me, was that when the doors closed and the ceremony started, there were still 2 empty chairs in the room. We are getting closer...only two more weddings to go. Kami and Chanae, we are still waiting for you!

After one of my siblings weddings, I was talking with my sister Kami. She told me that the hardest part of weddings for her has been that she is one of the youngest in the family and, each time there is a wedding, she has had to wait outside the temple and watch as everyone else gets to go inside. That has helped instill in her a strong desire to always live worthy so she would not have to be left outside of the temple for any other reason than age. I have thought about this conversation many times and the powerful lesson she showed me that day. Seriously, look at this crowd. They are 40+ of the most amazing people I know and I get to have the honor of calling them "My Family"! When I look at the eternal picture of this life and the things that really really matter in the end, I want to be with them. ALL of them. For Forever! But it's all up to me....There's no way I'm missing out on this party!


I love seeing a bride, dressed in her pure white dress, along side her handsome suited groom on immacutely landscaped grounds with the Temple of the Lord in the background. There is something so reverent and beautiful in the knowledge that the union, that was just created inside those walls, between those two beings, is bound by God, for Eternity, according to their faithfulness.


It's a small glimpse into the awesomeness of God's eternal plan and the happiness that can be ours if we remain faithful to the end.

A Busy Time of Year!

I just finished....

Have you read it? What did you think?

This week has been busy!

I have spent way too much time driving this....

while we drive, we have been listening to this.....what a great story!

My grandma is having a family reunion next weekend and my sister took over the family directory. Between the two of us we typed like crazy, made a ton of phone calls, and sent several email notes trying to be as acurate as possible. It's done, and off to the printers. I can't wait for my own published copy.

My baby brother is getting married in 12 days, and there is lots to do to get ready. I'm sewing some of the dresses. This is where I go when my mind needs to tune out the world!



Apricots are falling on the ground around here and how do you walk away, and just let them waste? We're making freezer jam! YUMMY!

I just canned my strawberries that thawed in my freezer a couple of weeks ago. They didn't really turn out as I had hoped.....but now I have lots of strawberry syrup. We had some over pancakes and it was delicious! I love strawberries!

I just got a phone call that beans are ready so my plans for the weekend have changed and I'm off to sit in a hot field picking beans the rest of the day. At least I now know exactly what I will be doing the rest of the week! There's nothing better than home canned beans though!

Between canning, weddings, family reunions, and more harvesting, the days are just not long enough anymore. Then it's Back-to-School, more harvesting and canning, and then winter is here!

Where did the summer just go?
?
?
?
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????

Speaking in Code

About 6 months ago, I threw a little fit about my need to have working machines so that doing laundry wouldn't make me crazy every day. So Ken spoiled me and bought me new machines. I love them. They are so quiet and pretty and they do a great job.

One of the cool things about them is they talk to me. I'm slowly understanding their language without looking in the little owners manual. For example, when the dryer flashes AF I've figured out that means Air Flow and I check the vent thingy or the hose and then turn off that code. Another code is UL. This means the load in the washer is unbalanced. A little manuvering of clothes and it's happy again and we're back in business. Pretty much we get along really well.

Well, yesterday the code F came on my washer and it locked me out and I couldn't get it to work and it wouldn't open the door so I could take the clothes out and it was really frustrating. I babied it and eventually it let me try to spin the water out of the clothes again and then it did it again. It flashed the F and locked me out again. I got up in the middle of the night with Henry and it was flashing agian. I worked with it again with the same results and finally went to bed baffled.

This morning I noticed water on the floor under the washer and I finally got the hint that this was serious. I got out the owners book and looked up the codes. I was so pleased when I realized how smart I am. I was right on for the other codes. YES!

But what in the world could the F stand for?

This is what the book says: F "F##" Call for service.

Excuse me, did my machine just cuss at me?


3 hours and $$$$ later, this was what the repair man handed me:

A mangled pair of shorts that had gotten over the top of the first tub and into the second tub (no clue how that happened, I didn't even know there was a second tub) and it had jammed everything up.

So, now it's business as usual and I'm feeling a little smarter(?) because now I understand the F code.

Busy Skies!

For a couple of days last week, the skies above our house were busy. We loved it! We stood outside and screamed and waved and dreamed and felt awe and inspired and so much gratitude for our country and the amazing men who choose to serve and protect our rights and freedoms.

On Friday afternoon we got to go out to the airport with Ken's work to watch one of the practices. It was hot! miserable! and AWESOME! The other 3 days we watched it from our backyard where it was much cooler! less stressful! and still AWESOME!

Some people watched it like this...

Very few were lucky enough to watch it like this....

Most of us were on the hard, rocky, very hot, no shade ground!

Shades and good friends were a must!

This is the corner of my house. I wanted proof of how close they really were flying and of what kind of show we really got to have all week long.

Wordless Wednesday

Simple Request

Holly posted this a while back and I'm a little slow but I have decided that she is onto something brilliant here so I'm borrowing her request. Thanks Holly!

Please go into your blogger profile and next to the words, "Show my email address" click the little box. If that email address is one that you don't want made public, then create a different address in yahoo or hotmail or whatever. Once you do this, people can respond to comments you make or easily answer your questions. It's really very easy. And, who knows, you may even make some new friends.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

If you'll do this, then when I read your comments in my mailbox and I really want to comment back to you, I can just hit reply and then we can chat without the blog. I'm not so great at commenting in my comments back to you but I can definitely hit the reply button and chat back to you that way. Let's try it!