Beach Day

Yesterday some of us girls (and then Steve later) went to Starvation to play on the beach. The kids all love it and this time I brought the waverunners. We had such a fun time. The kids took rides on the waverunners and it ended up being a gorgeous day. I believe we will be going again in a week.

Utah Valley Half Marathon

I have the final pictures of the run with Steve's sister and mom. What an amazing accomplishment for all of us. I love my bright red face and the sweat glistening off my head (sexy)... So now I am ready for a 10k in July and hopefully another half marathon in October. Yipee. And I am so excited, I am signing up for Ragnar for next year with my sister-in-law. I have wanted to do it this year and was not able to get in, so next year will rock!!!! Thanks Kira.

Races, bruises, and sunday naps

I love everthing about summer. Who doesn't right? Well with summer, comes a few bumps and scrapes. The girls have now had their fair share to show mom and dad daily. Even little Oakley comes inside showing off all her little scrapes too. Oakley would be outside from dusk till dawn if I let her. She is an animal. Peyton loves the usual adventures like riding her bike, swimming, jumping off of things and of course falling down on the playground...


The picture truely does no justice to how it turned out.

Oakley loves to play in the water and even likes the pool when its empty with her friend Jessi. I loved how cute these girls were in the bright blue swimming pool...



Fathers Day was pretty mellow in our home but ended up being really nice. We, of course, want to spoil steve a little bit since he works so dang hard. So we decided instead of getting him a dozen roses, we would put together a candy bar bouquet. We had a fun little poem that went with every candy bar and it was a blast. He came home in the morning to a yummy breakfast, with of course, "I love dad" spelled with pancakes, who wouldn't love a little pancake love! We bought steve a new blu ray player and ended the day with a fabulous roast dinner. Everything turned out really nice. Church was so nice, many wonderful things said about fathers and the girls were really good too. It was funny, after we got home from church, I had to finish up dinner before steve went to work and as I was busy in the kitchen the rest of the house was quiet... to quiet. So as I go to check on the girls, peyton is asleep in the living room with a towel around her and Oakley is on the side of the chair playing barbies. Who knew that Oakley would sit and play barbies all by herself, but she was having a blast. Destinee was quietly reading to her little stuffed animal friends in her room. What a way to have a Sunday afternoon. They are such great kids.








I finished my half marathon just a little over a week ago and I was so happy to have completed it. I had so much fun running with Steve's mom and sister (although his mom took off and we didn't see much of her until the end of the race, she is a power house at the age of 49, GO MOM!!!) I have 2 pics from the company taking the pics and I will have a couple more to post asap.. The first picture is of Steve's sister Nikki and I running down the canyon, I bet I was singing as I am always pulling a funny face. The other picture is of me coming in the end and I was screaming and yelling cause I was so excited to finish!!





More fun in the sun to come as we have beach days, swimming, and a camping/boating trip just around the corner!!!

Summer has arrived

Finally!! The warm weather is arriving and the kids are playing. It has been so nice to let the kids finally run around outside and play. From morning till night they play hard. Its lots of fun. It sure has made my house a lot more quiet and clean, and I can get the kids to do their chores so they can go play. I have my half marathon on Saturday (yikes, hopefully I can last with my bum knee) and we are planning for a camping/boating trip with Steve's family in the beginning of July. Super excited for that. We will be hearing back about the house we put an offer an, hoping that it is excepted so that we can move soon. I continue to cook like a mad woman. Cooking has become very therapeutic for me. So if anyone has any great recipes they want to share as of late let me know! I threw a pizza party last Friday for my little primary class and it ended being a blast. The kids had a great time and I had some fun myself. Destinee and Peyton got a hair cut from grandma Chadwick last time we were in Provo. We cut off 8 inches of Destinee's hair and she is loving it. Very cute on her. Peyton was really really good while we cut off a couple of inches on her hair also. The swimming pools and lunch at the park are starting our summer off just the way we like! More pictures to come throughout the summer has the play time unfolds.


This picture is horrible because my camera is terrible but these mozzarella bread swirls are amazing. I love working with bread.


Peyton playing in the water (clothes on of course), she is getting better about putting on her swim suit, especially if big sister is getting hers on.


What a cute little smile!


Sweet Dez heading out to play with Popsicle in hand. What's a warm day without a Popsicle right?


Oakley would not hold still long enough to take a pic. So we got the messy pony tail with the backpack ready to run out the door.

Happy Mother's Day

I truly love Mother's Day (not just because I am a mother), but it seems like an amazing tribute to woman in general. Sadly enough our Sunday was like every other Sunday. When Steve has to work nothing really changes, but it still was a really nice day. I got up and made a yummy breakfast for Steve and all of us. We just took it easy in the morning and got ready. Church seemed very spiritual to me. We had some great comments from our speakers and of course beautiful music thanks to Mandy, Erin, and Diana. They are so talented. All my kids went to their class and stayed the whole time (HUGE FOR ME)... We then had a nice dinner with dad before he left for work. I mean I can't really complain. I had the chance to talk to family all night and wish them a Happy Mother's Day which just cheered me up. So hopefully when Steve gets off then maybe we can go spoil me a little bit and have a date or something.

I have finally passed my transcription test!! SWEET.. That was a lot more work and time then I was truly anticipating, but I am done. So now I get ready to sell myself and find a job. I am hoping to take a couple of more months off before I start working and enjoy a little summer with my girls. We signed up Destinee and Peytie for the summer reading program and they were both so excited. So that will give us some things to do this summer. Warm weather yet? We are pushing for it out here!!!

Happy Easter

What a great Easter we had this year. I think that Easter is one of my fav holidays. I love celebrating the Resurrection of our Savior and having the chance to teach this to my girls and also to have some fun activities. So this year I planned an activity for almost every day of the week leading up to Easter. We decorated sugar cookies, made sticky Easter nests with eggs inside, made empty tomb cookies with the girls talking about the events leading to the Resurrection (no pics taken... duh me), egg hunting, egg coloring, Easter dress making and more. It ended up being a blast! Steve was working but we had the chance to do a few things with him at night when he got home from work. It was a lot of fun to watch little Oakley this year. She helped decorate and eat sugar cookies, made her own Easter nest, hunted for eggs (eating most of them), and had a blast with everything inside her Easter basket. Peyton was our egg finder this year. There were specific ones we hid for Destinee that were harder and Peyton was finding all of those and more. What a smart little girl she is. We had a very good spiritual day at church. All in all, the week was a fun success.

Destinee had spring break a couple of weeks ago but not much happened. Steve had to work during her spring break so I had the chance to take the girls to the park, out to lunch, movie day, etc. We made the best of it! Both her and I had a nice break from school :)

We are looking at buying a home currently. We are so excited to be able to get into our own home and finally break some ground for us to stay for awhile. We are so excited to be moving back to Utah county and closer to family.. Watch out grandma's and grandpa's.

I am working on my half marathon training still and now running up to 9 miles. Okay for all those who have run a half marathon that made it look easy, you are all liars.. It is hard work, but will be totally worth it when I cross that finish line.... but sadly enough I think that Steve's mom will get there first. She is awesome!

I love my kids... I mean who can't say they don't but I think they are pretty great. My little Oakley is so much fun to have around. I lately have been catching here do cute and of course naughty (the naughty being usually cute). So she loves toothpaste and I often find her in a corner trying to eat the toothpaste out of the bottle. Just when i think I have them out of her reach, she is yet again found with more toothpaste. She got ahold of some finger nail polish and did some serious damage to her body, clothes, dressers etc.. So I quickly reminded myself not to be an idiot. Lately when she is tired, she just finds a place and crashes. I have found her asleep on the stairs, under the table, and most recently in the hall...



She loves shoes, and I am often finding her digging up everyones shoes and spreading them throughout the house, ( a girl after my own heart). She loves to put underwear and towels on her head...



Oakley loves Destinee.. That is the only name she really says. I can't get her to say Peyton or anybody else's name. If Destinee is eating, so is Oakley, watching a movie, playing, etc... Oakley is playing. Very sweet.
So as you can tell, she is busy as ever but loads of fun! My running is starting to take off and training for a half marathon is much harder than i was anticipating, but surprisingly getting easier as each week passes, for now that it anyway. I finally got on our motorcycle for the first time (What the heck, who ever said riding a motorcycle for the first time was easy was seriously mistaken). Nonetheless, it was a very good first lesson and I am thrilled to get comfortable and on the road. Steve is a great teacher but I think he was terrified to teach me also. The bike is pretty heavy and he thought for sure that I would wreck it that first few times I was starting it. We bought helmets that have an intercom system in them so Steve is able to talk me through everything while I am on the bike. An awesome feature. All in all I am thrilled to ride (but still terrified)! Lots more fun to come as the warm weather takes over the cold.

Well with winter coming to a slow stop I am happy to finally see the sun and for the chance for the girls to go outside and play. Although, when Peyton goes to play, I usually go through several outfits and shoes that day because she plays in water and mud. Go figure.. Steve and I had the chance to go snowmobiling again while he was off. We figured this might be our last shot to go because next time he is off there will be less snow. So here are some pics!!


This picture does not justice but Steve and I were playing on some sweet hills and he went up this one. The snow bank was so steep at the top he almost didn't make it. It was way better in person, but still a cool pic...


Steve looks like a dot in this picture but he was climbing a massive (I mean huge!!! hill), so I thought he would like to see how tiny he looked compared to where I was standing. I almost made this hill, but I was freakin out a bit and wimping out.


What a stud right??? Our ski decided to break so as Steve rode he was getting covered in snow. The sled worked just fine but he and the sled were covered in snow. It was great!!

We had a good time and it was a beautiful day.

I love my kids... They suprise me daily. It is such a fun thing to experience. You often wonder what are they going to do or say next. Peyton comes in from outside and is wet. I asked her to find her coat. So she went back out, found it, and then said to me, " It was in the bloody hole" (with some kind of accent). What? where would you learn that? Oakley is picking up everything that Peyton does. She is obssessed with shoes and loves to wear them. She thinks she is hilarious and does things so that we will laugh. She loves chocolate (and I think it kind of gets her hyper). What a great age. Destinee is a super reader and loves to help at home. She is full of sass and can't wait to be 8 (as she tells everyone she is almost 8).

Steve and I decided awhile ago that we were going to buy a motorcycle because of all the driving that was going to be done and gas prices climbing so fast. So we have been looking and finally found one and decided to purchase it.. I was super excited because it gets amazing gas mileage and it is small enough that I will learn how to ride on this one. SWEET!!! I think Destinee was the most excited. She freaked out after we bought it. (the motorcycle is still in Provo till we can pick it up from Steve's parents house).. I have attached a picture of it! Yipee... Fun times and savin some money!!!

Is it spring yet???

Alright I am a little tired of being stuck in doors now. Yes I hope that spring will come, but by the looks of the snow storm that just hit, I am not sure that will be happening anytime soon... So for now I have taken on a few little hobbies at home. For those who know me know that I don't sew. I never really was super crafty. Well being out here as changed all that for me. I am now trying to find things to change, make, or redo. So I decided that I was going to take on a little sewing. Now I really have not done much sewing so this would be new for me. I found some cute skirt tutorials and decided to try a few skirts of my own. Surprisingly I loved them. There were a few things I might have done differently on all of them, but I was super pleased with how they turned out. So I have posted a few pictures of the ones I have done recently. There will be more, but this is just the beginning for me now! The picture quality is terrible, sorry. A good camera would be nice!!! I also posted a few pics of the girlies as always...












Girls posing, although Peytie wouldn't hold still...


She wouldn't stand... and she loves to cheese it!


The girls love to play together. They are becoming so close. It is very cute. What more could I ask for right? The joys of motherhood...

Love is in the air...

How crappy is it that Steve works on Valentines? Not only that but he is working nights, so no snugglin for me :( No we will celebrate when he is off. Has anyone enjoyed the little bit of nice weather we have had??? I was able to go for a run (I still think it only hit a high of 25, but with the sun shining it felt like 45 compared to what we have had. So I will be pushing for spring. I need the warm weather so I can start training for my half marathon in June. Yes you heard me correctly. Half marathon. Steve is very supportive and is letting me do this but still thinks I am totally insane. So any great advice in training and after the race would be awesome!!! (all you die hard runners out there). I am super excited and I am starting to convince family to come and run. So if you fill the urge to joint the crazy band wagon give me a buzz!!!!

Well my little Oakley is getting into everything these days. Ruining everything (I know how you feel Nicole with Presley). Her favorite thing is the flour, which I still have not got a picture of. I always forget to lock the pantry and before I know it the house is covered. She if finally tall enough to open up doors and its very naughty. The child loves chocolate. She apparently found some in the pantry that she could reach (thank Destinee for that one) and decided to cover herself in chocolate.


Oh the smile is priceless...


And this is how I found her when I was cleaning. Talk about falling asleep where you land.

I have recently been on a home decor diy kick (and driving Steve a little crazy too I think). I only took this picture but there have been several things I have done. Steve was skeptical when I told him the things I was doing but ended up liking everything I have done! My little menu board is not quite finished, but my printer decided to act up. Hopefully more fun projects to come!