My new hutch. Merry Christmas to me! I've been wanting one for quite a while, and it was a super good price and I love it!

Dav and I in front of our newly decorated tree.

Getting Christmas trees the day after Thanksgiving.

This just makes us smile every morning!

Kayla plays the piano for the intermediate school choir.

The St. George Marathon. Darin ran it in 4:00 and 23 seconds! Way to go honey! I got sick and only did 16 miles. Really disappointing after all that training. This was Lindsay and Buzz's first marathon and they did great. Lindsay finished in 4:15, and Buzz came in about an hour later with a very sore and swollen knee.

I haven't written for a long time because nothing major was going on. We've been busy as ever with school starting, bottling and freezing all the produce from our garden, and just every day life. But it's the little things that are the most important, so here are some pictures of the every day...and the once in a lifetime goat hunt.

Summer turning to fall

Peaches galore! We had more peaches than we knew what to do with! We ate them, bottled them, and gave them away. We LOVE our peach tree!
I love this picture! Davin drinking his milk. You can see it running down his tummy.

Darin's once in a lifetime goat hunt. He had a wonderful time and we have goat meat in the freezer.

Oregon Coast

We had the best vacation! We saw some incredible stuff in the tide pools, lots of sea stars, even a sun star, which is pretty rare. (This is a sea star)
We caught crabs off the dock, and ate them that afternoon.

We had a bonfire, dutch oven dinner, s'mores, and fireworks on the beach. And that was just a few of the fun things we did!

Lake Tahoe

We hiked to Vikingsholm Castle and took a tour.
We rented a paddle boat.

And we played on the beach for a long time!

4th of July!!!

Grandpa's back yard in Richfield. We had such a fun time!

The big girls got stars in their hair this year. They thought that was pretty cool.

Puppy Love

Her name is Sunny and she's a golden retriever. We got her on Friday and we all adore her! She is so smart. She has already learned how to sit, stay, and come and potties frequently in the right place. And to be honest, she potties frequently in the wrong spot too. But she's getting there. She doesn't whine and cry at night and loves to play. We took her with us to Sand Hollow Reservoir and had such fun watching her swim and play at the beach!

Sweet Boy

I couldn't resist putting this one in. He is such a little cuddly boy! He gives me big hugs all day : )

Merry Month of May

Cousins at Capital Reef over Memorial Day weekend. We waited for the rain to stop, spread a picnic lunch, and played a game of kickball. Very fun!

Erin graduated from her first year of Joy School. Oh Boy, another round of joy...

We're getting a PUPPY!

We told our kids they get a puppy and boy are they excited. They've been asking for YEARS and they weren't giving up. Our neighbors' dogs just had golden retriever puppies and we decided to finally give in. We get to bring her home next month.

Davin walks! He walks everywhere!

Lyndi is 6! She had a "fancy" party where her friends had their faces painted, we painted their nails, and made candy bracelets. She gets to have her ears pierced tomorrow!

Buzz, Amber, and Darin ran the Hurricane Half Marathon. Bring on the marathon!

Amber's piano recital. 20 students played. Lyndi, Aubree, and Kayla did such a good job!

We have a couple dozen little green tomatoes. Very exciting! AND...we ate our first snap pea the other day, delicious!

Easter!

This is how we do Easter at our house. We wake up on Saturday and eat a LOT of candy first thing. This was definately Davin's favorite part. Then we hunt eggs. When we have found them all, we take them to a really big hill, and dispose of them by rolling them all down.

We go to the Rotary Easter Car Show and everyone gets a picture in front of their favorite car.

And then on Sunday we put on our nicest clothes and go to church and remember what Easter is really all about!

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Smile Under Construction!

Before... During...

After!

Kayla LOVES her new smile!

Aubree's First Cheer!

This is Aubree's first cheer performance. She was so

excited about it. She can't wait to be just like her Aunt

Leslie when she's a teenager. Scarey thought!

Spring Break :)

Yeah! Spring Break! We went camping with our friends the Petersons to a place called Warm Springs Ranch. It's in Nevada and is an oasis in the middle of NOWHERE. The water is from a natural hot springs and is like taking a lukewarm bath. We had so much fun there. Hope you all have a fabulous break, whenever and wherever it is!

Spring Fever

We've got spring fever here. I planted milk jugs in the garden...
our peach tree is in bloom...

and we put in a picket fence to separate the garden from the rest of the yard!

The grass really IS greener on the other side...

Quote of the week: "If you can run 5 miles, you can run a marathon"

Garden Time!

We've planted a garden. Actually we planted a couple of weeks ago, for those of you who are enjoying your sledding weather. We already have little broccoli plants. Yeah!

Kayla played in her final ZYSO performance of the year at Abbravanel Hall.
Camille, my mom, and I went to Scottsdale for a girl get-away. It was SO fun! We went shopping, ate really good food, stayed at a beautiful resort, went to an art show and a horse show called Cavalia, and visited the Desert Botanical Garden. That's where this picture was taken. They had "Chihuli" blown glass displayed throughout the Garden. It was really neat. What a fun weekend!

Erin is 4!

Erin is such a fun girl. We are so lucky to have her in our family. We call her our "sunshine girl" because she's usually happy and she gets along with anyone. Happy Birthday!
Erin had a princess/prince party. Her friends came in their royal clothing, we played games, opened presents, and finished up with this castle cake.

Oh yeah, we also made crowns.

Happy Birthday Davin!

Davin was so funny with his cake. This is his before picture, and then there's a video of him during. I missed the funniest part part though. He was attacking it over and over with both hands and yelling "Aaahh" as he attacked. He's kind of winding down by this time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We're back! We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year. We sure did. We started the new year out with the stomach flu or something, which lasted 2 full weeks and involved a lot of laundry, bed, and floor scrubbing. Now we're healthy and back to crazy busy mode.

All the girls got scooters from Santa. (Kayla and Aubree's are electric and SOOO fun) so we went for a family ride/walk on this trail.

Kenna, the girl's cousin, came for new years and had her baptism here so we could be a part of it. Doesn't she just fit right in with our family? (She's the one on the left in the middle)

We went hiking on New Year's Day with my sister Tiffany and her family and my brother Lee and his wife Melanie. This is in Zion National Park and it was beautiful with snow and frozen water and all those wintery things we don't get to see very often here.