First boating trip of the year!

Alright... Saturday, April 21 was our first boating day of the year. Yes you heard me correctly, APRIL!!!! It was a beautiful day and the water was not too bad. We had a large group with us and it was a blast! Everyone did some wake boarding as usual.. and then we filled our ballast system and surfed. I am loving this new boat, and I think that everyone else did too!! I have quite a few pictures so bare with me as they are all loaded on!

Steve jumping the wake, showing all of us what's up!

Steve's brother Kyle doing his thing

Steve's sister Cherrisa about to crash! Nice air though

Myself wake boarding.. although the pic is not the greatest.

Steve's sister Brittanie doing a little hop!

Steve's brother Aaron

Steve's sister Lindsy

My sweet Destinee. She didn't even get into the water that day, but had fun with the kids.

Here was the crew.. There were a couple people not in this picture that were on the back of the boat.

Here is the crew looking the other way! Now, new this year with the boat is the ability to surf!!! I had no idea that it would be so much fun, and everyone that has now surfed loves it. I anticipate some fun this summer with this new found joy.

Easter

This Easter was great for us. I was so excited to be back near family this year. I am such a loser and didn't really take any pictures this time. I have a few... such is life. So on the Saturday before Easter I took the girls to a neighborhood egg hunt. It was so crowded that the girls didn't get much for eggs, but they had a lot of fun just being outside. So then we did some egg coloring, an Easter egg hunt of our own at the house, and made some cute Easter sugar cookies that we were taking to my parents house the next day. It was a fun day. Destinee set out a little note with carrots and water for the Easter bunny. She was so excited to see that it was all gone! The girls got their Easter dresses on and we headed off to church. When we got home the girls had their baskets waiting for them. We didn't do much for Easter baskets this year, because we were trying to celebrate Christ and the resurrection. After Steve left back to work we got everything ready, watched a conference talk and headed to my parents for dinner. It was DELICIOUS!!! My grandma and uncle were able to make it out, so that was a treat for me. She looked really good. What a way to end the day! Now we have spring break. I am loving not having to get up and get Destinee ready for school.


This was after the egg hunt with the neighborhood. I have no idea what Oakley is doing...


The hunt is on


Peyton found one... and is showing a little crack in the process


Dez was excited to find a hidden one.




My little sweeties all dressed up!


Easter basket fun.

kids, cake, and birthday celebrations

I love having kids in my home. They are such a joy to me. I love the sounds of laughter coming from those sweet little princesses. The other day Destinee, and Peyton were flexing (I have no idea why), but they were being hilarious. So I decided I would take a picture. Of course, dad had to step in and show them what was really up!


Hilarious!

Around the same time, Destinee comes out of her room all done up with her makeup, but not only did she do hers, she also did her Barbies. Dez is very girlie and is loving to do her makeup.


Both of my parents have their birthday in the beginning of March and Steve and I were gone for both of them. I felt so bad that I hadn't done anything for them. So I invited my family over to our house for a birthday dinner and some cake. I recently did a little cake decorating class for a relief society activity and it was so much fun. They taught us how to do a layered cake, so I thought I would give it a try. I decided to try a few different designs, because I am also going to be making some cupcakes for my brothers wedding in June. Him and his fiance don't like cake, so they asked if we would do some cupcakes. I am going to build boxes for the cake and set it up in a cake-like design. I am really excited. So here are a few pictures of the cake I made. Not the best, but I thought not bad for a first time.







Next up..... EASTER!

Arizona weather

Wow, it has been a really long time since I posed anything. Life must have caught up to me, and I have neglected to post anything! So our most recent excitement is the new addition into our "fun" family.... A new boat! I think this boat has been a few years in the making but we ended up just purchasing it. A coworker of Steve's really wanted to buy our boat, so that is what got the wheels turning. This coworker (Scott) is from Arizona and told us that the next time Steve was off in the beginning of March, that the weather would be in the 80's and we could go boating. So, being the crazy people that we are, decided to go. So we left on Wed, Mar 7 and got home on the 12th. It was such beautiful weather and we had such a fun time. We showed Scott how to work the other boat and we played a lot on ours. This boat that we bought has so many new things that we needed several days to just figure out the basics. We can wakeboard and now surf behind this boat. I forgot to take any pictures of the actual boat itself (and now it is in our garage, so getting pictures is difficult).... but here are a few that we took.


Here are Oakley and Destinee with Scott's two kids, kicking their feet in the water. They were a little cold that day!


Goofing off


Here is Scott wakeboarding.. first time! There were no other pictures of wake boarding the rest of the trip, go me!


Here is Steve surfing for the first time. The pictures are not the best because I was driving also... haha






Steve is always teaching the kids to wakeboard.


This is us heading home!






We had to stay in a hotel room on the way to Arizona so here are the kids at the table eating breakfast and watching tv...

The trip was a blast and we can't wait to boat again!!!!

Babies and valentines

Happy Valentines! The girls here at home had an awesome Valentines. I ended up finding the cutest little books for the girls at seagull book and tape and decided to put together little bags with some treats and toys in them. They loved them! We dressed everyone up in all their cute girl and it was a nice day. I only got a picture of Destinee, but it was fun!



Steve's sister Nikki just recently had her baby girl MyKynzee. She was so super cute. So we visited her at the hospital with a few of Steve's siblings. I get so baby hunger when I see brand new babies. They are so precious. Here are a few pics...


The new baby and big brother Jackson!


A very happy uncle Justin.


Destinee was looking at me like, "Hey mom, where is my baby brother/sister? Haha... keep dreaming!


Look how sweet she is. They make such a cute little family...

Baptism

My sweet Destinee is now baptized and the newest member of the church in our family! What a day... I was so emotional but it came out of no where. My father-in-law says that baptism will sneak up on your emotions without any warning. She had lots of family come and support her. There was another little boy in our ward that was baptized the same day so we combined the program with them. It ended up being really nice and it was such a neat experience to be standing there with Destinee while she was baptized by Steve. It was really special for me to see Steve baptize her and the connection those two have. After the baptism we had everyone over for a lunch at our house. It was a lot of fun and couldn't have been a better day. Destinee got a couple CTR necklaces and some neat books and journals. I am so proud of her. Of course I have no pictures of this event. Oops.... They took a picture of Steve and her before the baptism, so that will have to do!

Baptism photo shoot

Well, Destinee dear is getting baptized next weekend. She is getting so excited and I am starting to now freak out a little bit! I took her up to Timpanogos Temple yesterday to kind of do a little photo shoot so we could get her invitations sent out. It ended up being way more fun than I could have hoped for. I am not photographer of any kind, but I did the best I could! She was super photogenic, and the more pictures we took, the more relaxed she became. She started adding some input of what she wanted and it was nice. We were lucky that it wasn't raining all that much, cause after we finished it started coming down. What a little cutie she was! Here are a few of the pics at the temple...

Chadwick Family photos

This post is only about a month late but I thought they would be fun to put up. In the middle of December Steve's immediate family got together for a family photo now that 2 of his siblings are home from their missions. We wanted to do a snow in the mountain picture and it wasn't working out so well. Everyone was freezing cold and not cooperating. All that aside, I think we got a few cute pictures. Peyton would not look at the camera and smile. The few that we had that she did, no one else was really smiling. Go figure! So here they are.


Here we are! Mom and dad, 13 siblings, 3 spouses, 6 grand kids, and one on the way. What a group!!!!


We had to walk into the trees for this picture and the kids were so so cold and not having it. All of my kids were crying. It was honestly kind of funny.


Here is Steve with his sister Brittanie and brother Kyle, both of whom just came home off missions. This was the picture to check lighting. What a handsome man I have I must say!!!

Hopefully we can do pictures in the summer when it is much warmer and I think we will have better luck!

Its great to be 8!

Well my little (not so little) Destinee turned 8-years-old on Wednesday. It was all so strange to have her turn 8. She is my oldest and I am thinking that I myself don't feel old enough to have a daughter that is 8. That aside, I am so happy to have her in our lives and she is such a blessing to me. She is getting ready for her baptism that will be on Feb 4 and she is beyond ready. She is quite nervous but I told her that she has nothing to worry about because her daddy will be with her every step of the way. So on her birthday she went to school, and got a surprise visit from her dad (who was only off for a few hours) and took her out to lunch. It was so neat that they got to spend some quality time together just the two of them. She came home and opened presents. Not all of her presents were there though because Steve ordered something special just for her that won't be here till the end of the month. We ended the night with a dinner of her choice, my parents and brother coming over, playing a game of her choice and eating cake and ice cream. It was such a nice night. We decided that we would kind of make it a birthday weekend. So yesterday we went shopping for a new coat, some new church shoes, and then we took the kids to see Puss in Boots (which was really cute). Tonight we are going go roller skating, her choice. It has been such a fun week and I hope that she has had a fun birthday! Here are a few pictures...






What a lame cake, but what do you do. She looks so much older to me in this picture. It might be the little bit of makeup that she got for her birthday.


Singing to Dez. My mom would be mad if she sees this picture posted. Kind of funny.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DESTINEE!!!

Utah Valley Marathon

My mother-in-law (who is totally amazing) came to me and said so what races are we running this next year? Last year I got her and some of Steve's siblings into running. I talked her and Steve's sister Nikki into running a half marathon. It was a blast being able to run that with them. His mom ended up beating both of us by about 10 mins. Yes, I feel like a loser (haha). So in November she decided that we were going to run a marathon. I am thinking to myself, are you insane? I just finished a half, I don't think I could even think of doing a full marathon. Needless to say she pushed and I gave in!! So I will start my "official" training at the end of this month. She will turn 50-years-old the month before the race. How crazy. She acts and looks like she is in her 30's. I guess with 13 kids it will keep you young! So lets all keep our fingers crossed that I don't kill myself in the process. What are mom's for right? Go big or go home.