Father's day!

Father's day is a bitter sweet day for me. I LOVE my husband, and I LOVE the wonderful dad that he is. Instead of making breakfast in bed this year, I made my own Cafe Rio. Spencer loves the pork barbacoa, so I decided to try to make my own. To my surprise, it turned out delicious! We had Spencer's dad and two sisters over for our own barbacoa, and it was a really great night with good food and family.

Spencer is and extraordinary dad that is always there to help when they need him, to comfort a scrapped knee, to just sit back and relax, or cuddle. He has always been great to help with diapers, bottle feedings, and cleaning up puke at 2 am. Spencer is an unbelievable dad, who is there for our kids through the goods and bads. I know most families have one parent that is more of a disciplinarian and the other is a softy (good cop, bad cop.) Spencer and I don't have that kind of relationship with our kids. We both take active steps to teach our kids the rights and wrongs of life. A lot of dads have a "my way or the highway attitude." Spencer doesn't have that either. We let our kids make their choices, and while they aren't always great choices, we are just supportive in their decision to try again with some friendly parenting advice. We all make mistakes, and I am grateful for forgiveness. Spencer and I both know as parents we have made mistakes, but we are in this together, and life goes on. We point out our mistakes to our kids too, because really nobody is perfect. You know that saying, you never know how good you got it, till you got it? Well, I got it, and I LOVE IT! Thanks Spencer for being such an amazing, great, loveable, fantastic, devoted dad. Our kids are SO lucky!
"Grandpa" is also a great part of our kids lives. He is really a great man, and I am glad my kids have a grandpa to be around. There are times when Spencer's dad just comes out to visit and will sit in a chair and just read to each kid. They love it, and I am more than grateful for his love for our kids....We are all blessed by his kindness.


Father's day is also a very sad day for me. I miss my dad! It is so hard to have to visit a grave instead of a warm embrace. My dad was one I could go to for everything. When I needed advice, had car trouble, or just needed an ear. My dad was an amazing grandpa. When Trevor was born my parents helped watch him so I could work. My dad was so great with him. He would take him on walks, rock him and sing, show him his shop and tools, swing him in a swing, make foam bats to hit balloons in the house with, and just love him! It is so sad that my kids will never know this amazing man, and two of my kids weren't even here before he passed. Life really is too short, LOVE the ones around you before you too realize how much truly is gone, and you are visiting a cold grave instead of that familiar warm hug. Happy Father's day Dad!

TEN!!!

June 7, 2001 Spencer and I were married in the SLC temple. It is amazing to look back. I never understood when older people would say they blinked and life passed by, but honestly these last tens years seem to have just disappeared. I look at my five kids and wonder how in the world they are all mine? I still remember my wedding day very clearly though, and I will never forget the happiness and love that day I felt for my wonderful husband. I knew Spencer was a great guy, but really I never knew he would ever exceed my expectations so much! We have endured a lot as a married couple. I can't even imagine having to go through most of that alone. Spencer is my rock, or my soft spot to cry. When something is wrong, he just holds me for however long it takes me to get back my composure. I don't cry often, but seems like lately I have had more than my fair share of crying to be had. I remember thinking, man when we get to our ten year, we are going to do something awesome! Little did I know that we would have five beautiful kids all 9 and under :) I have been pregnant for basically half our marriage, and yet we are still married. HA! Our tenth anniversary was a normal day, but we did go on a date to the cheesecake factory, and came home to enjoy a night full of LOST episodes while eating our dessert. It was perfect, because we were together doing what we enjoy most, spending time as a happily married couple. Here's to 60 more if genetics will allow :) and since that doesn't look promising, eternity will do!

Tyler is 3!!!!

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Tyler has been such a fun little boy. He can always give you a great smile and loves to be tickled


He found a potato bug outside, and loved it crawling all over. He told me that it loved him too.

He loves to be outside, especially playing with Dilan.

He tries so hard to roll down the hill, but just can't seem to get those elbows tucked in.

He is a little OCD already and likes thing to be a certain way all the time. He likes routine ( sometimes a little too much routine) and when things just don't go as he would like, we get this side of him.

For the most part, he is a happy little guy that loves doing anything...like decorating cookies....YUM!


He is my little baby elephant with these amazing long lashes. He also has some really beautiful eyes to go with them.

And he can be a good sport when I get a good laugh out of a funny face.

Tyler wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese for his birthday. This year his birthday fell on Easter Sunday, so we went the Thursday before, Aunt Liz and Aunt Emily came along with us.

Then we went and got some FROGURT after, it was yummy :)


Tyler is a really great little boy. He is fun to play ball with, wrestle, tickle, read, cuddle, and laugh with. I am so grateful for his calm in the mass chaos, and for the love he always has to give. I LOVE YOU TY-GUY, and I am so grateful to be your mom.

This post is way late. I haven't done any reading or writing of blogs for awhile, YIKES!

My baby girl is ONE!!!!

I can't believe it has already been a year since this little girl entered our life. Kairi is such a fun happy little girl. She has all of us wrapped around her little finger, and she has since about two hours after birth :)
I can't believe she was ever this small....amazing!

She never became a skinny baby, she has always had these adorable chubby cheeks.

She has a true go getter personality and has never wanted to sit still

She had a special birthday outfit, because the boys wanted her to look like a princess (I forgot to put on her little tiara Dilan picked out for her though)

She got this tinkerbell chair from Spencer and me. She loves it! I think she loves that she can sit down when she wants, but she is crazy enough to stand too, so we have to really watch her when she is enjoying her sit down time :) (lasts all of about 10 seconds)

She enjoyed a dinner at Training Table, because she loves the turkey sandwich :) YUM!

We didn't have cake, but she enjoyed a nice donut after we sang to her.

She still tore it to shreds too :)

I think overall she had a great first birthday. Kairi has changed my life. I have loved being a mom to all my boys, but I always had the "wonder what" in my mind for a girl. Wonder what she would look like, act like, how her hair would be, how the boys would be with her, how I would dress her, how would life be different/would it be different etc. Life will obviously never be the same with her in our life, but it is more than just another body, it is an experience to make me whole. This one little girl has changed us all, and all that change for the better. The boys are already extremely protective of her and love her to pieces. She is a daddy's girl and loves to see him after work. She is my little angel, and I am just honored to be called her mom. Happy Birthday Kairi! I love you SO much my little princess.

Her one year appointment she was 21 lbs 4 oz or 60% and she was 29 1/4 inches or about 70%. A big, beautiful, healthy baby girl :)

Principals Pride!!!

Dilan got nominated for the Principals pride honor roll at school. They had a special award ceremony before school for the kids to present them with the award. Dilan's teacher wrote, "Dilan has a very positive attitude. He is always happy and gets along well with his friends. If I ever need Dilan to help out, he is always very cooperative. Dilan's great attitude makes our classroom a fun place to be."
Here is Dilan with his medal and certificate.

This award doesn't shock me at all for Dilan. He has always been a very obedient kid. I have always loved this about Dilan, it makes me so proud to be his mom, and to see him being true to his nature. Congrats Dil, you are an awesome little boy!

Happy Birthday Trevor!!!

It is amazing how much Trevor has grown and how little he actually has (he is still so short!) I can't believe he is already nine years old. I can still remember his birth so clear. Trevor has a hard role in our family. He is the oldest of five, and as much as he loves his brothers and sister, I know some days he has a hard time being "the big brother." He is really cute when he comes home from school though, because he will run up and give them hugs when he gets off the bus. He has to read for school every night, and we make him read 30 minutes instead of the 20 his teacher requires.
He was reading to Bryson, when Bryson fell asleep....This picture makes me teary eyed as a mom.

Aspen has become "his dog"

He loves when she can sleep with him. There are many nights the other boys want her, but Trevor would have her every night if he could.


He has enjoyed being in scouts this year too.

He did such a good job making his "rocket" for the big race

He is fun to be around and make you smile

I love his unique personality. He is such a fun kid to have, he is so helpful, and he is great at helping me fix dinner. I love my Trev, what a goof-ball!

Oh, we also went to Planet Play on his birthday. It used to be called incredible pizza, but since has changed management. It was fun. Aunt Liz, grandpa and his great aunt and second cousin joined us too. I don't have many pictures of him here, because him and Dilan went around playing games together, but here's him eating :)

And She's Off......

Kairi is now walking. She has been cruising furniture taking little steps between each piece of furniture and walls for a long time. She has been able to take like 8 steps for a long time, but would only do so between Spencer and I.
She has been scaling walls around the entire basement for months too.

She finally will take off from the couch and cross the whole room without any encouragement. She was fast to get into trouble before, and I can only imagine what kinds of stuff she can find now, and how fast she can destroy what she finds :)

Hopefully, this video works!