10 years!

Casey and I have been married for ten years today! It's been great. I love that I get to spend my life with this wonderful man.

Here are a few reasons I love my husband so much. (I was going to make a list of 100 things, but I'm a little short on time. I'll have to finish it later but I do have a good start.)

50 Reasons I love my husband
1. He loves God
2. He honors the gospel and the priesthood
3. He is generous
4. He’s a great dad
5. He helped me dream bigger than I ever would have without him.
6. He makes me hopeful for the future
7. He helped me discover who I truly am
8. He makes the best scrambled eggs
9. He supported me going back to school even though it wasn’t the most logical thing to do at the time.
10. He takes care of his body
11. He’s always doing some type of self-improvement
12. He’s great at explaining things to me when I have questions about something he knows a lot about. And doesn’t make me feel dumb for asking.
13. He’s a great kisser
14. If I have a stray hair on the back of my shirt that’s tickling my arm, he helps me find it.
15. He’s adventurous
16. He loves me unconditionally
17. He tells me I’m beautiful when I need to hear it most
18. He puts up with my quirks, indecisiveness, and insecurities
19. He makes me feel safe
20. He’s open-minded
21. He encourages me when I try new things and take on new projects
22. He’s patient
23. He’s forgiving
24. He has a very laid-back personality most of the time.
25. He’s taken up a new hobby to encourage his son’s interest and talent.
26. He’s a good listener.
27. He’s great with babies.
28. He looks really good in his motorcycle jacket
29. He likes to cuddle
30. He denies that he snores even though he has since he was a kid
31. He’s pretty picky when it comes to food, but he’s never complained about anything I’ve ever made, even if it has something in it that he doesn’t like.
32. He pays the bills
33. He always researches the best prices and brands before he buys big ticket items
34. He’s going back to school to better himself and make more opportunities available to himself
35. He sweeps my hair out of my face if it’s in the way
36. We get to keep our puppy even though he’s allergic
37. He’s not afraid to take on new challenges.
38. He wants what’s best for me and the kids even if it means he has to sacrifice a little
39. He values my opinion
40. He isn’t afraid of change.
41. He’s very smart with technology stuff but not in a nerdy way
42. If there’s a problem with our phone bill, or our cable or internet is causing problems, Casey is always the one to call the company about it
43. He knows how important it is to me that we have windshield washer fluid in the cars and always keeps them full
44. He has never gotten mad at me when I’ve been in a car accident. His first question is always, “Are you ok?” Even if the accident was my fault.
45. He helps me put lights on the Christmas tree every year even though he doesn’t like to.
46. He gets up with crying kids in the night even when he has to go to work the next day
47. He loves “my” brownies even though they’re just a package mix.
48. He likes country music, which makes him a true romantic even though he’ll never admit it.
49. He cares about this country and the freedom we enjoy
50. He can always make me laugh.

I love you Casey. Happy Anniversary!

Summer Summary

I guess I'd better get all caught up on our summer stuff before school starts again. I can't believe how quickly this summer has flown by.

Jace played spring soccer with a local community league. He had games on Saturdays in April, May and June. He made a couple of goals and really likes playing. We might sign him up again, but I think golf will still be his primary sport since one of the goals he made was for the other team.



The elementary school has a dance festival at the end of the school year. I didn't get a good picture of him during the dance because he was in the back, but what I did see was cute. They danced to the song, "Splish Splash I Was Taking a Bath." They all had bare feet and used towels as props.

When the last day of school came we were all ready for summer. This is Jace with his teacher on the last day of school. He had such a great kindergarten experience and a large part of it was his teacher. She was awarded teacher of the year for his school and she deserved it.


One of our first summer activities was a trip to Lagoon. The kids always like going there.

This was Jace's favorite kid's ride. But he also had fun on some of the bigger rides. He even went on the roller coaster with Casey.

Camden loved this ride because it had a gun.

Alek went on this ride twice and preferred it to the faster rides. He cried on some of the others. But that didn't stop me from putting him on them. I'm such a great mom.

And here's my little niece Sophie with Jace. She looks so small in there.


On the 4th of July we went to Casey's hometown.
The kids had fun at the parade. (We went home with a ton of candy.) After the parade, we had a BBQ, went to a carnival and then to the rodeo. We got rained on at the rodeo but stuck it out. We couldn't leave before they did the fireworks. We got to do so much that day and it made for a great holiday.

A few days later we went to Lava Hot Springs with Casey's family. The kids had a blast at the pool and we swam most of the day. It was fun to get away for the weekend.

Some of our other July activities include:

Another golf tournament in Vegas for Jace. This time he took 3rd place.

We also had a fun 24th of July at my parents house with swimming and a BBQ.

Ok, I think I'm all caught up through July. I'll have to do another installment of Summer Summary to get caught up to the present. (I like that title too much to use it only once.)

Jace's Birthday

I feel terrible that this post is so late. I usually try to get at least a little something on the blog right on the actual Birthday of each of my kids, but this summer has just been flying by.

Jace turned 6 on June 21st. Not only is his birthday on the first day of summer, but he also shared his birthday with Father's Day this year.

This was the first time he had a friend party instead of just a family party. We had planned a party at the park around the corner from our house. That way, if we ran out of activities, the kids could just play at the playground. But as luck would have it, it rained the day of his party. So we partied at home and the kids seemed to have lots of fun. There were lots of the typical party games and of course a pinata followed by cake and ice cream.

We also celebrated with my family right on Father's day. We sang Happy Birthday to Jace and had cake and ice cream again, but my dad and Casey also got presents. It was so fun to have so much to celebrate. It really made for a fun day.

Here are a few things about Jace at 6 years old.

• He loves to learn and is always asking questions about how things work or what things mean.
• He is such a friendly, happy kid. He makes friends easily and even strikes up conversations with complete strangers everywhere we go.
• He's also a generous friend. I have watched him give away hot wheels and or money from his piggy bank several times this summer. And he is so happy when he does it.
• He's a good big brother. He's especially good at watching out for Alek.
• He loves the Bible and Book of Mormon stories. He asks for me to read him a story out of the illustrated children's versions almost every night for his bedtime story.
• Jace really loves math and gets the concepts pretty easily. Between counting his money in his piggy bank and figuring out golf scores, he is really good at simple math concepts like adding and subtracting. It's fun to watch him figure things out.
• I love watching him golf. He never ceases to amaze me with that sport. I've had so much fun watching him compete in tournaments this summer.
• He has such a great relaxed way of talking about golf with others like it's a sport every kid plays. He knows he's good but he doesn't know how great he really is which is probably a good thing.

I love Jace so much and I'm both proud and honored to be his mom. He's such an amazing kid and I hope I can raise him accordingly. Happy (late) birthday Jace! I hope you have a wonderful year!

I'm Jumping of the roof of a hotel!

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Another Boy?

Yes, it's true, there is another boy in our family. We have a puppy!

His name is Jasper, he's a mix of a shiba inu and a shi tzu. Isn't he cute?



I wasn't really in the market for a puppy but my sister didn't have enough space for him so she asked if we could take him. He has been so good for the kids. That's a big part of why we took him. Camden is doing so much better with dogs now. He isn't scared of Jasper and even other people dogs don't scare him as much as they used to. That is a huge step for him. He truly used to be scared of dogs to nearly phobic proportions. This picture was taken less than a week after Jasper came to live with us. (I don't know what's wrong with this picture. It looks right in my picture file but when I upload it onto blogger it is turned. Sorry)
Alek loves the dog too and has no fear It's funny to watch him try and play with the dog. And Jace is being really responsible about taking Jasper out to go potty and take him for walks. Being a dog owner is a new thing for us and it's taking some getting used to but overall, I think it's a good thing.

(I have a ton of other stuff to catch up on but this was a short, easy post so this is what I started with. More new posts coming soon!