"This is not the life I planned... Its better"!!

Happy 6 year anniversary to the love of my life and father to our 2 beautiful children!! It seams like not that long ago we were staying up to 3 in the morning talking, laughing, and anticipating starting our new life together! I never saw my self following the typical "mormon girl" time line and getting married at 19, I always had a plan to get through school first and if you ask any of my high school friends that knew me well I was the last person they thought would take the plunge first! But man was it worth it! My life has been absolutely amazing ever since! We have had our ups and downs like eveyone in life usually does.. but I feel as though I could not have picked a better companion to go through these things with. He is such a wonderful, kind, understaning husband (there are not many out there that could put up with me:) and to see him with our children is pure joy! We have had some pretty awesome anniversary weekends, from hotel honey moon suites and fancy nights out to a romantic weekend at a little cowboy cabin on a secluded buffaloe ranch outside of Zions... this year I decided to keep it simple and focus on US and the life we have shared together and continue to share. I dropped the kids off at my sweet moms house, got take out (2 pounds of snow crab... yummm) and we headed up to the family pinevalley cabin and had a cozy romantic picnic on the floor with candle light and a little michael bubble. I made a video of the two of us from pics over the last 6 years (compliments of my amazing MAC) and we went on a walk holding hands, danced together, and talked of the past- first impressions- and about our future plans, goals and dreams together. So simple and yet so wonderful at the same time I loved every minute of it and it was nice to be that couple we were 6 years ago when life was just all about us! I feel so blessed that I have the rest of eternity with this incredible man!

ADDI"S BIRTHDAY!

My sweet little baby girl had her 5th birthday on the 12th this month. I cannot believe that I am old enough to have a 5 year old!! She is very dramatic and sweet and a whole lot of stubborn but man do I LOVE that girl! We had a whole day all about Addi.. first we went to IHOP (waste of money) and ate pancakes- Addi loved it- then we went to jumping jacks! Tay and I paid to play with them and we all had lots of fun! Pace has asked every day for the last 2 weeks to go to "upng acks" (jumping jacks) and I say "oh no its closed" and he runs and gets my keys and says "keys open"! He is gettin harder and harder to trick! Later in the evening we went with my mom and nana and between the two of them and Tays mom they bought her a brand new bike! She was so excited as you can see:) She had a pretty good birthday.

REPTILE HAVEN!!

Living by the river is so much fun... until you have some strange visitors that surprise you by chillin out on your front porch! My kiddos love catching frogs and toads and in the summer they are everywhere! Frogs, toads, and even lizards dont freak me out now that I am used to them but what I DONT like... SNAKES! A month or so ago Addi and Payson were playing in the front yard and came in screaming that a snake went right past them on the front lawn... of course I think they are being dramatic but as I step outside I see this long brownish snake coiled up hissing at me!!! I can't see its tail so Im not sure if its a rattler but I soon realize that it doesnt look like one so I head into my garage to get a shovel! (when I was a little girl we used to camp out every year in the mountains in arizona and my uncles would find rattlers all over the place and chop their heads off with a shovel).
Why was I so brave I dont know but once I saw we had no shovel I went to a neighbors and once I told him why I needed it.. intrigued.. he decided to come along! Thank goodness for my neighbor Mark cause once that thing took off it was soooo fast I about pooped my pants! (not very lady like I know but true none the less) He chased after that sucker hopped the fence into my back yard and caught him! The kids loved petting its tail (it was about 6 feet long) but I was just glad to get it out of my yard. He set it free down at the river and a few days later.. back wandering the neighbohood!!

These are just more pics of my kids havin fun with their "pets". It has taken a while to get Pace to hold frogs he used to scream like a girl and run away saying "YUCK"!! Now he will hold them for a couple seconds and then once they try to jump away he freaks out and throws them on the ground.

This is a King snake that Addi thought was a bracelet! It sat on our front porch coiled up not moving... it let us get so close to it as we later found that it was in the middle of dinner. If you look close you can see a frog hanging out of its mouth (it started eating it by its feet) so the poor thing was looking at us like "HELP"! Addi started yelling at it saying "let it go get it out!" she was very traumatized as we watched that snake slowly devour that poor little frog... I thought it was pretty cool I was just glad that it was gone in the morning!