July 2013 - Blessed

This month has been a month of blessings.  Truly, the Lord has overwhelmed us with gratitude for all we have been so blessed to receive.

First of all, we are so blessed with a wonderful extended family!

We had a family reunion with the Reynolds this year for the 4th of July, and it was such a party!

We were sadly missing Jennifer and Zachary, but George flew out to join us.  And of course, mom and dad are on their mission in London.  But the rest of us gathered in Utah for a couple of days of fun!  

We went to the Provo Fourth of July Parade:

Met back at our house for a delicious BBQ, including this patriotic fruit pizza for dessert.

We went swimming and played games all afternoon, and then went to the Pleasant Grove fireworks.  We had a lot of fun waiting for the fireworks to start!

Here is Blake, surrounded by his admirers:

Balancing glow sticks on the baby is a fun game - ha ha!

Blake adores Nathan.

That's one bright smile!

The next day we gathered for breakfast,

Minute to Win It competitions:

glow-in-the-dark dodgeball, a yummy lunch, movies, and much more fun!

Cousins!!

Did I mention that Blake adores Nathan?

What a wonderful Fourth of July weekend!

In other news, this little guy just gets cuter and cuter every month!  :)

He is such a blessing to our family!

And what would we do without this incredible little girl in our lives?  What a blessing she is as well!

With summer here, we try to spend lots of time in the nearby mountains as a family.  We feel blessed to live in such a beautiful place.  And, of course, enjoying s'mores is a must.

Hiking and climbing rocks is always an adventure!

 

We found this basketball hoop at a garage sale for a quarter.  Score!

We are also sooo blessed to have the Rowe and Anderson family part of our life through the blessing of adoption.  We went on a camping trip in Island Park this year with their family.  As always, it was such a wonderful, amazing time!  We floated the river, explored, and had tons of fun just hanging out.  I sadly forgot my camera, but Gretchen took some pics for me and hopefully I'll post them soon.

We did have a 'camp-out' in the living room one night as well - ha ha, so fun!

Finally, Gerald received two job offers this month and he started a new job with a great architecture firm in Salt Lake City.  This job is a real answer to prayers; we feel strongly that Heavenly Father guided us to this new job and, as I have mentioned, we are feeling very blessed. 

June 2013 - Lovely

We spent a lovely day in the mountains at the beginning of this month.  I adore living a 15 minute drive from the canyon.   We drove a scenic loop, took a few little hikes, explored a beautiful natural springs, picnicked, and simply enjoyed being surrounded by the beauty of nature.

My two happy little hikers!

I love this view.  :)

Blake was in little boy HEAVEN.  He loved hiking, running, playing in the dirt, collecting rocks and sticks...

and he had the dirty bum to prove it!  ;)

We visited Cascade Springs for the first time ever.  It was gorgeous.

Though Blake didn't love being contained while we walked the boardwalks, as you can see in this picture.  :)

We did a little wading in the stream.  Brrr!  The water was cold!

Katelee loves her s'mores!

But Blake was getting a little worn out by the time we had s'mores.  :)

It was a perfect, lovely day.

 We had the cousins over for a sleepover in June, and not to brag or anything, but I built the most awesome furniture/blanket tent ever!  It's one of my special talents.  ;)  It took up practically the whole room, and the kids had a ton of fun playing and sleeping in it.

This was a big month for my lovely mom.  She inspired us all by running yet another half-marathon!

Oh, and they brought more suckers when they came to town for the race.  This time the suckers were Cliff's gift; and we didn't miss the fact that they were even larger than the ones grandma brought last month!

what a l.o.v.e.l.y sticky mess!

But the most important thing my mom accomplished this month was getting married to a great man, Cliff Hughes.  We are so happy for them and it is nice to see them so happy.  We are thrilled to welcome Cliff into the family. The wedding was absolutely beautiful!

My mom looked so gorgeous!

Here she is with the grand daughters.

My mom and me

 With Katelee

 I had the privilege of making the wedding cake.

It was a LOVELY day! 

Following the wedding, we stayed in Mesquite for a few more days and enjoyed seeing some of our extended family.  We spent most of our time at Uncle Duane and Aunt Kim's house; they are always such generous and thoughtful hosts, and we had a great time visiting with Aunt Alice, Jaime, Tara, Tanya and their kiddos and making crafts together!

We also found a fun new splash park to enjoy this month near our home.  Thanks to Juli for introducing us to this fun place!

Blake loved copying his sister.  Anything she would do, he would do his best to imitate.  It was so funny and cute!  I love these two kiddos so much!

My little fish - this kid LOVES the water, just like his sister!

Fun times!