HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US?!?!

Is it okay to wish ourselves a Happy Anniversary? Well I'm doing it anyway, even if it's not. Anniversaries never get remembered (at least by other people) unless you remind them. Although I do have some wonderful family members that did remember - but I'm not going to name any names, because I don't want to make the ones that forgot feel bad! hahahah:) (It's okay I don't remember anniversaries either)

Anyway, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my wonderful husband. It has been 8 unforgettable years and we both wish that we looked like we did 8 years ago! It was very low key - but I did make Jed all of his favorite meals yesterday, including a strawberry mud pie last night - yummy!!!! I LOVE YOU MORE TODAY THAN THE DAY I MARRIED YOU!

P.S. Our Anniversary was September 29th

Olivia our Jack-o-Lantern

Just in time for Halloween!! Actually it happened about a month ago, but mom has gotten lazy on her posts. Anyway, Olivia finally lost one of her top teeth and she was so excited. Jed keeps on telling her that she should definitely be a jack-o-lantern for Halloween this year - she's not so sure:)

Lexi turns 1!!!

Lexi turned 1 year old on August 31, 2009. Wow how time flies! It feels like it was just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital. She has grown up so quickly. It took her a while to crawl, but it seems like since then she has taken off! She even took her first steps last week (while Jed was on his hunting/boys weekend trip in Utah)!! But that's alright because we were at our friends house when she did it and so at least a couple of my girlfriends were there to get excited with me:)

One of her favorite things to eat is oatmeal and so instead of a cake we made her some oatmeal cookies (hers didn't have any chocolate chips in them) and she absolutely devoured them! I've never seen her so excited - I guess sugar will do that to a 1 year old:) Since then she is discovering that she loves all kinds of table food - squash, zucchini, broccoli, whole wheat pasta, any kind of fruit, and definitely anything that's sweet! We are so grateful to have Alexis as part of our family - she was truly a much needed and appreciated addition:)

I have a 1st Grader!!!

Today was Olivia's first day in the 1st grade!! I can't believe how old and mature she is getting. It feels like 16 is just around the corner. She even picked out her outfit for today (last week). She has been waiting very patiently to wear this shirt. I think I may have a future fashion diva on my hands - sooooo not like her mother:) Hopefully she'll be much better than me. Again, I think this was much harder on me than on her. It's only been a few hours and I don't know what to do with all of my spare time! (I know this won't last very long - I'm just procrastinating all of the work I really have to get done). Oh, I love being a mom and I love my girls:)

Final Summer Days

Olivia is finally starting to make some really good friends here in Texas (hopefully more once school starts). One of those friends is Robert. He came over the other day for some final summer memories and I had to take some pictures of them. First they were playing hop scotch in Olivia's slippers. Then after lunch they decided they wanted to make some sugar cookies. They wanted to do everything from rolling out the dough to cutting out the shapes. What great helpers they were - aprons, flour and all!!!!

Utah Home Sweet Home?

I hope I don't offend any of my friends in Texas, but I still kind of consider Utah my home. We just got back from a vacation to Utah this past week and it felt really weird coming home to Texas. It's probably because we have only been in Texas for 5 months and we were in Utah for 10 years and a lot of our family lives in Utah, but it was still a little strange.

Anyway, the girls and I had a wonderful time and got to see so many family members and friends. So thank you to all who were so generous in letting us stay and play with you!! We love you so much and of course miss you already:) We started off the week with a family reunion for my mom's family in Salt Lake. We had parties, went swimming, went to the Childrens Museum at the Gateway (Uncle Bryce taught Jace to make paper airplanes, while Val and Olivia played with the magnets) and of course did not get enough sleep at all! I got a priceless picture with Lexi and Grandpa Bear. I just love Lexi's smile with all of her teeth now - we almost have 6. (Thanks Mimi and Papa Romney)!

Then for the second half of the week we went up to Kamas to stay with Jed's parents and we went to his family reunion up in the COLD mountains (it was about 55 degrees - this was the first time I had worn pants or a sweatshirt in months) I had to put Lexi in the Baby Bjorn and then zip her up in a coat with me so she could stay warm - it was so cute!! It was so nice to have some cooler weather, where we could actually enjoy being outdoors - it was so beautiful and green. Thank you Gines family for all of the relaxing fun!

Those of you who know me well, know how much I love to sing and so as part of our trip I had the opportunity to participate in a Jenny Phillips music workshop with my mom, my aunts and my friend Julie and we had a ton of fun - it was really wonderful:) I also got to record a demo in a studio with Tyler Castleton (writes a ton of amazing music) and it was incredible - I loved every minute of it! I also got to meet Hilary Weeks - one of my favorite LDS artists. Altogether, the experience was unforgetable. Music has always been a passion of mine as well as a blessing. I just hope that one day I will have the opportunity to share with others the joy I feel when I sing!! We miss you Utah:)

Yes, she did!

Everyone keeps on asking if Lexi cried when we got her ears pierced and yes, she did! Jed took this picture with his phone right after the piercing. The crying only lasted for a second. We wanted to do it when she was younger, but 11 months was the magic age for Lexi (we pierced Olivia's at 9 months). Now I won't get anymore compliments on my cute "boy"! (Don't worry Lexi - you don't look like a boy - you're too pretty!)

Sleepover with the Young Women

Okay, so some of you may think I'm crazy, but at the end of July we had a sleepover at one of my counselor's homes for all of our young women and it was so much fun! Not a lot of sleep took place, but there was dancing, singing, nail polishing, and who can have a party without food? We indulged with a chocolate fountain and tons of goodies to dip in it! Yummy!!!!

Olivia and Alexis got to come with me for the first couple of hours while Jed was still at work and so Olivia got to have her nails done by Alyssa (one of our Laurels). Olivia was in high heaven and did not want to go home! Can you really blame her?

The youth here in Texas are pretty incredible - especially our young women!

Gotta get it off my chest!

Okay, I don't usually post on our blog, but I have something I need to get off my chest. Some of you may know that I have been working a second job (Selling Pest Control door-to-door) in the evenings from 6-9pm. Now I sold for 4 summers during college and didn't mind it. I swore I would never knock another door again, but here I am! Anyways, Some funny stuff happens every year when I am knocking and this year was no exception.

It all started on Friday night, July 10th. I was out as usual knocking, it was hot and humid (103 @ 6:30pm) and everything was going great. I had just made a sale two doors prior to the following incident. I rang the doorbell and waited, but there was no answer. Now after a few seconds it is routine for me to then knock on the door. I did that and waited some more. I could hear people in the house, so I waited some more. Finally a man answered the door and said: "What do you want!" I said: "Hi, I am with Romney Pest Contr..." (Interrupted by the man) "I don't need it!" SLAM!!! Now this happens all of the time, so I just brushed it off and went on my way around the corner. After a few doors, I had to head back and knock the other side of the street and much to my surprise, guess who was waiting for me on his porch, Yep the guy that had just slammed the door in my face.

Now I did not say anything to him, just kept doing my thing when he walked out to the end of his driveway and started yelling at me. He was telling me how I am not allowed to solicit in his neighborhood and bla, bla, bla! I said: ''Sir, I don't know why you are attacking me, I did nothing to you. You slammed the door in my face and I left, so stop bothering me at my workplace! (you like that?!?!)" He kept threatening that if I didn't leave, he was going to call the cops. I told him to go right ahead. He pulled out his cell phone and hit a few numbers and then proceeded to give my description (which he was not very nice, I would consider myself heavy set, not fat!) anyways, this has happened to me in the past and I know that when this type of situation happens, Is all they want you to do is leave. I didn't! I just kept on knocking and basically waited for the police to arrive. They never did. (I think it was a fake call)

Well to shorten things up, I for some reason got really bugged (pardon the pun) by the whole situation. I could not let it go. I vented to my wife and a few other people, hoping someone would tell me to go back and beat the you know what out of him. No one did. The next day as we drove up to Walmart, guess who walks out with a cart full of beer? Yep, the guy. I tried to get my wife to pull over so I could have a talk with him, but she wouldn't. Good thing she is the bigger person! I let this whole thing fester over the weekend and got so worked up about it that it was all I could think about. Then Sunday rolled around and much to my dismay guess what the lesson in church was. Yep, Forgiving others.

I had been thinking of all kinds of ways to get back at this guy (My favorite was to give his address to a spam company or egg his house) and then on Sunday I hit a crossroads. I could continue to let this affect me, cause you know he has forgotten about it and it is not affecting him, or I could move on and forgive him of his shortcoming. Well part of the purpose of me posting is so I can get it off of my chest and move on.

Final Thought:
Heavenly Father has a funny way of teaching us all the lessons we need to learn in life. You never know what the next "door" in life might bring. I hope everyone can learn from my mistake and not get worked up over the little things in life. Life is too short to let these kinds of things hold us down.

Regards,

Jed
P.S. I would still like to hear some of your thoughts on what would have been a good & legal way to get back at him. :)

4th of July

Our 4th of July was not at all what we are used to doing - but it was still a ton of fun! Stephanie and her girls came back down on Friday and stayed until Saturday night. The girls played for almost 30 hours straight and amazingly enough there were no melt downs - even though they didn't even go to bed until almost midnight. They built a tent (fort) and slept in it in the front room. Stephanie and I weren't any better - we stayed up until 1 am chatting like old friends - it was so great to catch up!

On Saturday we were all so tired that we had a very relaxing day - INSIDE!! We didn't even go outside until that evening when we lit some sparklers (It was still about 95 degrees). It was actually really enjoyable, but I have to say that we did miss all of the fun activities in Oakley - the parade, the kids activities, and the Rodeo - maybe next year:)

Even though we didn't go out anywhere we still had fun celebrating! The girls got all dressed in their patriotic outfits (including the flag tattoos) and we had a wonderful BBQ (thanks Jed) that ended with star brownies and red, white and blue ice cream. Thanks Arnell's for the fun memories! We will miss you tons!

Summer Fun

Here are some pictures of what we've been doing so far this summer. Jed's cousin, and my friend, Stephanie has been living in Austin for the past month with her family. We lived next door to each other when Olivia and Taylor were toddlers and it's like the girls haven't skipped a beat. They play so well together. Adi is their middle child (sorry about the spelling?) and then they also have a baby, Leah, who is a month younger than Lexi. We were just so excited to see some more familiar faces down here in Texas - even though it does make us a little home sick.

Olivia has been busy reading her books that we've been checking out from the library - hoping to keep up her reading skills.

Alexis has finally started crawling. It's about time - Livvy was crawling at 6 months so we were beginning to think something was wrong with Lexi. The Doctor informed me though that 9 months is a fine age to start crawling - she also told me to never compare my children! Parenting lesson #1 million learned - aren't we always learning new things every day:)

Father's Day

Tomorrow is Father's Day and so I thought I would give a little shout out to all of the incredible Father's in our lives. First and foremost, we love you Jed!! Livvy and Lexi are so lucky to have such an amazing dad - you're the best!! I also feel so blessed to have such a wonderful father and father-in-law - they are truly one of a kind (each). My brothers and brother-in-laws aren't so bad either (jk). They are all pretty awesome too!! We hope you have a memorable Father's Day - we love ya'll and think ya'll are great dads:)

June Fun

June has been a pretty busy month for us. We had Olivia's Kindergarten Graduation (Mrs. Harrison) one week and then the next week I was off to Girl's Camp with the Young Women. Mimi and Papa came into town to take care of the girls (and Jed) while I was gone. Mimi planned a music camp for Olivia and then she had a performance for us at the end of the week - it was adorable - there was music, choreography and even costume changes. Way to go Mimi! How lucky are we to have such incredible parents and grandparents!!