Lacey and Rylee's Birthday

There is my cutie, she wasn't shy about eating the cake and making a mess once she got the okay from us. She only ate the frosting. (This is at the family party at Grandma Thompson's house)

Today is Rylee's Birthday and I felt like I should write a little something about my wonderful one year old. I can't believe that year has already passed since she was born and yet she still looks like she is 6 months old. She has been such a pleasure to have in our family and I couldn't be happier to be a mother of 3 wonderful girls. They are the apple of my eye and I don't know what I would do without them in my life. They are always playing together and trying to make the other one laugh. Jordyn is now 6, Lacey is now 4 and Rylee is now 1. That means that I only one more birthday (my husbands) before I have a 10 month break from any more birthdays (besides mine, but hopefully I am exempt from planning my own party).

Lacey had her birthday 10 days ago and didn't get many pictures. We went to dinner for her birthday and she got to choose where we went. And you guessed it, we went to Souper Salad. Then we took her swimming a couple of days later because it was to late to go on her birthday. Then on Sunday the 4th of January we had a joined party for our family at grandmas house and had family come over and had cake and ice-cream. I am pretty sure she enjoyed it even though we didn't through a huge part like we did Jordyn. I didn't think I could physically or finacially do another party like that. Although it would have been easier now that Ben is here to help.

I thank our Heavenly Father each and every night to be blessed with so many things. My family is the best and I couldn't ask for anything better. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LACEY, RYLEE, AND SOON TO BE BEN.

Christmas Eve

I always love Christmas Eve, with all of the traditions that come with it. At the Thompsons they have a Norweigen dinner with flat bread, salmon, ludafisk, boiled potato, and steamed carrotts. After a great meal Diane has tradition cookies and Rice pudding. After such a wonderful dinner and dessert we have a special visitor named Santa. He comes in while the house is really dark and we all sit around and watch as he drops off presents for everyone. Then after we open our presents from Santa the kids get p.j's from grandma and grandpa. These are the p.j's they got this year. Isn't it cute that the kids love each other so much. They both let me curl their hair too. I was so excited. Jordyn's didn't turn out with the sponge rollers so I had to grab a hot curler and I think it turned out okay. I am so blessed to have such wonderful children and have them like each other.

This is me just chillin with my three beautiful girls while we wait for santa to come. They were so excited.

Jordyn got necklaces and an earring set. Lacey got a big yellow carebear that sings. Rylee got a carebear also but it was more her size. This was her enjoying her toy.

All the fun before Christmas

I love it when the girls play so good by themselves in the playroom. They were playing house with the barbies and it was so great to have some time to get ready for Christmas. Jordyn is just like her mother and likes to play with friends that are older than her. This is Ashley who is 8, and Lacey will do anything her big sister does. It is nice that the older girls will play with a 4 year old.

My lovely husband gave my baby a cookie while they were doing gingerbread houses. She enjoyed that cookie very much. She enjoyed helping eat the houses and crawling all over the house.

This was our gingerbread house, and as you can see we can never do a traditional house. This is our car wash gingerbread house. Ben loves doing gingerbread houses and looks forward to it each year. It is nice to have such great friend, we could really call them family with the way they take care of us. Thank you Triggs.

This picture was taken at her cousins baby blessing. Oakley McKnight was born October 2nd and was blessed December 7th. He is a great big boy even bigger than Rylee and she is 11 months old in this picture. This is her Christmas outfit that we bought for Lacey 3 years ago but she only got to wear it once so it was great that we got to let Rylee wear it atleast 3 times. It should have been small on her but it was actually big because as we all know she is barely 15 pounds and still fitting into 3-6 month clothes. She is our petite angel.

Jordyn's 6th Birthday

Jordyn had a great Birthday Party. Her Birthday is November 24th but since I had a volleyball game I scheduled her birthday parties on Sunday the 23rd with the family and then again on the 25th for her friends. The Party with her family was great we had everyone over that is living in the area. It was a great to see all of our family around to see and celebrate her birthday with us. The party with her friends was an experience all of its own. She had 13 friends over that didn't count her and her sisters. I did this whole party on my own because as some of you know Ben was still in Colorado finishing up work there. I fed, played games, had presents and also had cake and ice cream for all of these kids by myself with help of my friend Nikki, my cousin Brittany, and my Mom. Jordyn loved all the attention that she got and all of the toys she received. I am greatful for great friends and family who support me and my family. Thanks again. This is just one of the many toys she got from her friends. It is a doll head that you get to style her hair. I hope she practices a lot to do not only her own hair but her little sisters hair also.

This was the stash that she got from all of her friends. If you couldn't tell she is a real girlie girl.

This is all of her friends that came to the party. It was really loud at my house and I was very happy when it was over.

She was holding her cake that I made for her at the family party. I didn't mention this is the second cake of three that I ended up making for her birthday.

If you can't tell the cake was supposed to be the skirt of the barbie dress. It didn't work the way I really wanted it but at least I did try. I think I know how to do it next time so atleast I learned something. I am sure I will be making some more with two more girls behind her.

Moving back to Salt Lake.

These pictures were put in the wrong order so I hope you understand. For those that didn't know I moved twice. The first move was from Gypsum Colorado to Ben's parents house in Holladay, and then the second move was from their to our house in West Valley. In the meantime while living with the inlaws all of our stuff was stuffed into my mom's garage for a month. This was me talking to some family and giving them directions to our new house. This is one of our chairs while still in the garage.

This is another picture of the garage with all of our stuff in it. It only took us 4 car loads of stuff to get it to our new house but thanks to all of our family and friends we were done with packing and unpacking by 12pm. Then I had the tough job of actually unpacking the boxes.

This was our old home in Gypsum Colorado while we were packing up the truck there. This is a lot cleaner than it was earlier.

This is what we were living in while still packing. The only place I could find boxes was the local liquor store and so all of our boxes are liquor boxes.

Here is a better look at all of the alcoholic boxes. We had about 100 boxes and that still didn't hold everything.

Colorado living. (Vail, and Gypsum)

We lived in Colorado for 2 and 1/2 years. We moved out January of 06' and moved back October of 08'. Colorado was a lot of fun and made a lot of lasting friendships. We were able to grow in so many ways. We became a closer family with having to depend on each other more. We became more independent and self motivating. We are also more intune with the spirit since living in the mission field. This is my first time ever living outside of Utah and boy was it different. I made a comment to my neighbor that I was LDS and she looked at me and she said "What is LDS?" I then replied I am a Mormon and she said "Oh." and that was the end of that conversation. I was shocked to realize that people really think that we have horns and that the men have more than one wife. It was really nice when people had sincere questions and they really wanted to know the answer. The hard part for me is that I never had the same questions so for some of them it was hard for me to answer, even though they were easy after I thought about it for a while. I know I never converted anyone to the church, but I was happy to express my love for the church and for the things that it gave to me. I know also that my friends now understand what we believe more now than they did and I think that they have a better appreciation for us as a religion.

My ward family was so good to me. They helped teach me things, like quilting, cooking and they also helped keep me in shape. They were there for me when I got really sick when I was pregnant. They were there for me over the holidays when I couldn't come home. They were there for me in every situation. I am sad to say goodbye to all of those wonderful people I hope to see them again really soon.

Rylee's blessing

I know that I am really late in posting this since she was blessed in March of 08 but I thought late is better than never. This picture is taken with her cousin Sophie. Rylee is on the right and she looks so much bigger than Sophie in this picture but if you saw them now it would be the opposite. Sophie is bigger than Rylee now.
For the blessing we had the choice to do it in Colorado where it would be hard for all of our family to come or do it with Adam's family in Salt Lake. We decided that family was more important then doing it in Colorado so we drove the six hours and blessed her in SLC. I am glad that I made that decision. Adam told me later that his baptism and my blessing were on the same weekend also so I think we have some kind of bond even though we are 8 years different in age.
I love Rylee so much and I am greatful everyday that God has blessed my family with 3 beautiful and healthy daughters of God. They are my world and I am so happy to be their mother.