Maylee's 2nd Birthday

Maylee is TWO!! I honestly can't believe it. For her birthday we had a "butterfly" party at the park with family. I just have to say neither Blake or I should be trusted with pictures! We had just gotten a new camera the day of her birthday, and once everyone was in bed I was going through the manual learning how to use it. It talked about formating the memory card, and I asked blake if he had done that, he said no, so I did. And deleted all her pictures from the party!!! Luckily My sister in law had some on her camera, so we do have documentation that we did have a party. I'm just so sad that all those pictures are gone! To add to my case why we shouldn't be trusted with pictures, blake lost all of Kaleb's FIRST YEAR on a zip drive. And I recorded over maylee's first 24 hours on our video camera. We are so lame.

But enough with that, one to the party!!! It was a great party, and I made really yummy cupcakes, lemon with strawberry frosting (made with real fruit), and strawberry-lime cupcakes with a toasted coconut cream cheese frosting. They were both delicious! Here are the pictures I have... If any of you have pictures from this party, send them to me please!!

What can I say about my Maylee girl aka Miss Maylee?? She is such a funny little sweetheart! She loves to cuddle and give loves. There are times during the day where nothing is wrong, she just wants to snuggle. Which I love and totally understand, being a girl too! Sometimes you just need to cuddle! Despite my best efforts, she does not like to dress up in her princess dresses, rather, she always is caring a purse and a baby, usually some sort of essential item like a bottle to feed her baby, and wearing a play necklace. She is such a good mommy. She adores her big brother Kaleb, and must do whatever he is doing! They are truly best friends! They share a room right now, and they both struggle when one has to be on time out and they are separated. More often than not, when Kaleb gets sent to time out for hurting her, just a few minutes later I find them both on his bed playing. When she is not being a mommy, she is Kaleb's princess and he rescues her as whatever superhero he is at that moment.
One of my favorite memories is looking out into the living room and seeing both of them walking around with blankets over their heads as shawls. I asked Kaleb what they were doing and he said they were Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem (this was in March). I asked where baby jesus was, and he said he was still in Mary's tummy. I went on with my day not thinking about it again until I got Maylee ready for bed that evening. In her onsie was a littlest pet shop kitty. I asked what it was doing there, and Kaleb said, "That's baby Jesus!" I still laugh thinking about that! He really was in Mary's tummy! Maylee is also known for storing food down her onsies too. One day we were at the grocery store and I started to smell peanut butter. I got worried thinking that one of the kids pulled something off the shelf and started eating it. But no worries, Maylee showed me her sandwhich that she had put down her shirt at lunch time, saving it for a later snack! I haven't been putting onsies on her as much lately because she is hopefully getting close to potty training, but when I do there is always something being stored down her shirt, whether it's a bottle for her baby, food, or just a little book she'd like to read later!
Maylee is still pretty stranger shy. She loves people and is pretty friendly, but if she is new to a place or there is a lot of attention on her she totally clams up and hides her face in my shoulder or nearest object! Most of the time, though, she warms up and gives very loving good byes to whomever it is! She loves to help clean, and make messes too! My favorite scenes throughout the day are when her and kaleb are laying next to each other watching a movie, reading a book, coloring, etc. They are so cute together! She has added so much to our lives, I don't know what we'd do with out her! She is always good for a laugh and to melt your heart! I love my Maylee girl!

Farm Country

A few months ago I won a Thanksgiving Point membership off of a friend's blog! We just activated it last month and went to farm country. It was so fun! The animals were hilarious, and there were lots of babies. There was one particular goat that was crazy! He had big floppy ears and would jump over the other goats over the fence! We fed them dried corn, and all I can say is it was interesting! I have never had so much slobber on my hands! It was fun to let the kids feed them though and let them get close to the animals. They had the cutest baby lambs. My heart melted watching them and petting them. It was actually sad though, because all of the bigger animals would bump them out of the way trying to get pet or fed! Poor little lambs! I had a blast that day, Blake kept teasing me because I was having more fun than the kids!
Sorry for the picture over load, we have so many and it's hard to choose!

"Groovy Dude!"

This was the goat I was talking about! He even has a beard!

Tour De. St. George

April 9th was my first race day of the season. I signed up to do the Tour De St. George, 100 miles with one of my good friends. About 3 weeks before the race my friend decided that it was too much and she wasn't going to do it. That kind of took the wind out of my sails and discouraged me, I mean who wants to ride 100 miles by themselves?? But luckily there was a large group going down to ride 75 miles from Orem. So I decided to ride with them. On Thirsday it started to rain in Orem, but St. George was still beautiful. Friday was a different story. Blake and I had a hard time deciding to go down with the weather, I was really nervous because I had never ridden in the rain before. But I decided that I would regret not going, and what would happen if saturday turned out to be pretty dry? So we went. Saturday was awful! It pretty consistent rain all morning, and the race officials started telling people to use caution, and if anyone didn't want to do the race they would give a $10 credit towards another race this year. I was nervous. I got on my bike and was riding around the parking lot, my tires were skidding, it was freezing, the wind was blowing so hard, and all I could think about was what if I crash? What if I break a leg? After a little while I finally decided to back out of the race. It was such a hard decision! I kept wanting to tell blake to turn back after we left, I had trained so hard, and I kept getting text messages wishing me luck, and I didn't want to admit failure or disappoint anyone. But finally I was confident in my decision, it is what it is, I wanted to make sure I stayed safe.
The rest of the weekend we had fun though! It was pretty gloomy weather so we spent most of the time inside. We stayed with our good friends Collin and Bethany and our kids had a great time together. Taya is a month older than Kaleb, and it is our family joke that they are going to get married! Here are some pictures of the kids...

Most of the time was watching movies and playing games, Maylee absolutely loved the little princess couch and was pretty much found there the whole weekend! This picture is of her watching tangled on the itouch.

Sunday the weather cleared up and we took the kids to the duck pond in the morning before church. Kaleb and Taya are so cute together!

Day 30- One Last Moment

Yay!! I'm done with the 30 day challenge!! Even though it took me over three months to finish it, I liked that it was kind of a personal history for me. Looking back on those entries in five years, or 50 years it will give me, or my children, or grandchildren, a good glimpse at my life right now. The things that were important to me and the thoughts that I had. I hope when I look back I will laugh and think how trivial life was for me back then. I hope to grow a lot more over the years. :) I'm excited to get back to blogging about the usuals, birthdays, holidays, family fun days, etc, etc....

I am so grateful for my family. I love them so much. I look at my beautiful children and wonder in awe that they were given to me. They are such precious souls, I have such a great responsibility to raise them the way the Lord would have me. I worry sometimes that I will ruin them for life. Hopefully that's where the atonement will kick in and make up for where I lack! Blake is so wonderful too. I don't want to cheapen our experiences together by broadcasting them all over the internet, so all I can say is that I am so glad that he is the one for me. I know that we were meant to be together, he is perfect for me. I love him so much, I can't imagine life without him.

That's all. That's my moment. I am just really grateful for my wonderful life, and the thing that makes it so wonderful is my family.

Day 29- My Aspirations

So if you have been reading this blog for a while you will know that Day 16 was about my dreams. I think my aspirations are very similar or actually the same as my dreams. But to add a few more, here are some other aspirations I have....

I would love to own a home one day. I have learned not to put a time line on that one, because with Blake's line of work, we could be moving every 3-4 years, and it would not be very wise to buy a home you may not be able to sell when the time came. None the less I would like to own one, and be able to paint/ decorate/ garden however I want!

I would also like to go back to school once all my kids are in school. I haven't decided what I would want to do yet, there are so many options that interest me, but I do know that I want to do well. I want to get a 4.0 GPA and make up for all the slacking I did in high school. I know I am a smart girl, now I want to prove it!

I would love to become efficient at sewing/ creating out of fabric. Don't know about full on clothes, but dresses would be nice, and home decor stuff like bedding and pillows. I now Kaleb would love it if I sewed him a superhero cape... or four or five!

Speaking of create, I would love to get good enough at baking that I am known for it. I want to be able to be so good at cooking that I KNOW what goes well together, what I need to make a super moist cupcake, or rich chocolate brownie. I'm working on it.... and it is definitely a work in progress!

Those are some of the things in my life right now that interest me enough to do them and want to do them better. So I guess they can become aspirations! :)

Day 28- Something that I miss...

I miss the good ol' days in Alaska. The last two years I was there were life changing, so challenging, but also a lot of fun. I have often said that I wish I could just go back for one day to being 16 in fairbanks. We had so much fun cruising around in my car, singing on the top of our lungs, dancing in parking lots, dancing in the cafeteria, painting the spirit rock, making homemade Blair witch project videos, football games, church dances, student council, staying up all night crying and talking. I am still friends with all of those girls who stood beside me that year, they are some of the best friends I have ever had. I miss being so far away from them. But I'll take what I can get, I'd rather miss a long distance friend, than to have never met them at all!

Day 27- My favorite Place

I don't want this to sound too preachy or anything, but honestly, my favorite place is the temple. I have been to many beautiful places, but nothing brings me the peace and clarity that the temple does. I have never left a place feeling empowered and in control like the temple does. I don't yearn or crave a specific place like I do the temple when I am struggling and need peace in my life. Really if I could go anywhere at anytime my number one choices would be wherever my family is(husband and kids) or the temple.

Then once I have those, maybe Europe :) But I have never been there so it can't be my favorite place yet!

Day 26- My fears

This is a difficult post to write. I don't really know how to put my fears into words, or really what my fears are. I do have lots of fears, or insecurities, which I think describes them better.

I think my worst fear is doing something that will hurt the potential of my children, or keep them from achieving what they are meant to achieve, or creating insecurities in them that will hold them back as well.

I also fear that I won't reach my potential. What if I am not good enough? What if I can't over come my weaknesses? What if everything I've learned and believe and live my life for I don't obtain? What if I never reach the point in my life that I hope too? What if my marriage fails? What if I lose one of my children or husband or all of them to premature death?

Gratefully, when I was a beehive my advisors made us memorize this scripture, 2 Timothy 1:7 , "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power,of love and of a sound mind." I come back to this scripture often in my life when I start to feel doubt, or let it overcome me. I can't predict the future, I don't know what trials I will face, but I do know that if I am striving to do my best, and repent everyday, that the spirit will help me to find strength and peace. Fear is not from God, it is from the devil, and he wants us to by into it so that we live our life in doubt and insecurity. That way we are sure to not reach our potential.