Birthday Girl

I can't believe it but my sweet baby girl just turned 8 years old!  Her birthday was last week, but we went out of town for my Grandma's funeral so we postponed her party.  This year we decided to let her have her very first Birthday Party and invite friends.  (I've been trying to postpone the inevitable as long as possible...)  We decided to take the girls bowling at BYU and it was SO MUCH FUN!  Every time one of the girls would bowl, they would all squeal and cheer and jump up and down.  They had about a million "group hugs".  I'm not a girlie girl and I was never like these little girls, but it was so cute to watch them having so much fun together.  After bowling, we went back to our house and had cake & ice cream & opened presents.  Here are some pics:

 The Cake

 The Girls

 Squealing

 Jacob was shocked that he

didn't knock all the pins down

Yesterday Ashlyn was Baptized!  It was very bittersweet for me.  My heart melts when I see this beautiful girl that we were blessed with, and part of me wants to keep her young forever but another part of me is excited she's getting older!

 Thanks to everyone who came!  It was good to see all of you!

These pics are from her actual Birthday: 

 We have a rule that you have to be 8 before chewing gum (it was because of a VERY bad experience at 3 am when Johnathan woke up covered in gum.)  Ashlyn went through this whole pack of gum in about 24 hours :)

 Her beautiful Baptism dress

New Scriptures

We are so thankful for this sweet girl in our family!  We look forward to many more memories together!

 We love you Ashlyn Marie!

Waterfall Date

Johnathan and I went on a super fun date today.  We hiked up to Diamond Fork waterfall & hot springs.  It is up Spanish Fork canyon a little ways.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  All the trees are turning beautiful colors and the hike wasn't too bad either.  It's about 2.5 miles each way.

 The beginning of the hike

Beautiful fall leaves!

 

 This bridge marks the halfway point

 Overlooking the hot springs

 The tiny waterfall

Really warm hot springs

I about stepped on this guy.  He scared me half to death!  *shudder*

We decided we are going to go again in a couple weeks and take the kids next time.  The hike was easy enough that they could do it and they would love the hot springs.  We've heard there are a lot of people who go skinny-dipping there.  Luckily no one was today, and hopefully they wont be there when we take the kids  :)   Also, next time we are going to plan on spending more time there.  We ran out of time today and weren't able to enjoy the day as much as we wanted to.  Next time we'll give ourselves at least 4 hours for the hike.  We can hardly wait!

Corn, corn, and more corn

This year, my family in Lynndyl grew a lot of corn.  They invited us down to pick, shuck, cook, cut, and bag it.  Our kids have never had the privilege of doing it and I believe it is good for kids to be involved in "family work" together, so we jumped at the chance.  We really hyped it up before going so the kids wouldn't "catch on" that it was work.  Hard, boring, tedious work.  I just knew the day would be full of whining and tears.  I am happy to say that I was proved wrong!  They LOVED it!  We didn't hear a single word of complaint and we were very impressed at how hard they worked!  They even said they couldn't wait to do it again next year!

By the time we got down to Lynndyl, it was about 8:30am.  We got a truck and several buckets and headed out to the "farm".  John and I picked the corn and took it to the kids who sat in the back of the truck and started shucking the corn.  When they found their first caterpillar, they came running to us all excited.  They were sure this was very unusual and very exciting!

After we were done picking, we drove over to some shade and John & I helped shuck.    We played music and talked and laughed the whole time.  It was a lot of fun!  John thought it would be funny to trick the kids into thinking he loved eating caterpillars.  He would pretend to eat them and had them fooled.  He made me go along with it, even though it made me sick to think about them believing he really ate one.  We got done with that around 11:30am.

Then we cleaned the cobs and made a HUGE pile.  I cooked the corn & transferred it to the table and John & the kids cut the corn.  My sister Jamie got home from work around this time and helped cut & bag the corn.  After about 10 hours of work we finished!  We got 70 bags of fresh yummy freezer corn!  It was worth all the hard work!

A glimpse into the mind of our 4 year old

 Jacob is such an interesting kid.  I cannot figure him out.  I think we were blessed with him & his personality just to prove to me that I don't know what I'm doing.  With Jayden and Ashlyn, things were going so well.  They LOVED to sit down with me and read and learn.  I figured I just knew what I was doing.  Along came Jacob and suddenly my parenting manual got thrown out the window!  He never wants to sit down with me and learn anything, unless it has to do with technology, like the computer or the wii.  He refuses to let me teach him the ABC song, he just sings it how he wants.  For the most part he does good, well from about A till G, and then it's hit and miss.  [For example (he just sang this to me), abcdefg kikialalpqrscuv, now I know my abc's...]

Then there's another side of Jacob that completely blows me away.  He is a deep thinker!  We were eating lunch together and he was drinking some milk.  He took a drink and then sat there thinking.  He turned to me and said "mom, where does the milk go?"  I said "In your tummy."  He said, "No, how does it stop from going to my legs?"  I realized he was asking what catches the milk so I explained that your stomach catches it like a cup.  He said "Ooohhh."  I could tell a major light bulb clicked on for this kid and I was seriously impressed by his deep thoughts.  Then, again to prove me wrong, he said "Milk doesn't go to my bones" (He saw an x-ray of bones in a leg so he thinks bones are only in legs) "only the bananas do."  I have no idea where that came from!

We are doing a neighborhood preschool this year and are teaching the kids the Pledge of Allegiance.  Jacob wanted me to teach it to him.  I was completely blown away!  He actually wanted me to teach him something!  So, we worked on it when we were driving in the car.  Then he started noticing all the flags while we drove.  He decided to say the Pledge whenever he saw a flag.  I never knew how many flags there are around!  This kid can spot any flag within 2 blocks, usually faster than I can.  We were out running errands the other day and he said the Pledge 12 times, believe me I counted, within 1 hour of driving!  After he had the Pledge memorized, I decided to see if he would let me teach him the ABC's.  NOPE!  Absolutely not!

Thanks for keeping me on my toes Jacob!

We love you Grandma!

Yesterday, a light went out in our family.  My Grandma, Beverly Dutson passed away.  I've been thinking about her almost constantly since I heard the news.  I'm so glad that I grew up living so close to her and that my kids got to know their Great-Grandma for a few years.  I've decided to do a post about my memories about my Grandma.

I was born in Delta and lived in Lynndyl (2 blocks from my Grandma) and when I was 3 (-ish), we moved to Provo.  Then when I was in 6th grade we moved back to Lynndyl.  I have lots of memories of visiting from Provo.  I always had to sleep downstairs in her house and it was a spooky house (to a kid)!  The basement had exposed beams & ducts on the ceiling and LOTS of shadows!  I never slept very well there!

When we were younger, a lot of us Grand-kids would be gathered together at Grandma's and we would sing songs around the piano.  Grandma had made us all matching striped shirts.

My Grandma always loved having the grand-kids come over and play games with her.  Her favorite was Skip-Bo.  Every time I play that game I think of her.  She also had a marble game we loved to play.  It's a wooden game that you roll the marbles down and they go back and forth.  She's had it for as long as I can remember, and even my kids play with it every time they go to visit.  This is a pic similar to what it looks like.

My Grandma was a regular for the Schwann's man.  She always bought ice cream from him.  Every time we would go over we would get either a orangesicle or a fudgesicle from her freezer.  My grandma was the first one to teach me how to shuck corn.  When they would do freezer corn, we would sometimes go "help".  She taught me a cool trick to get all the hairs off the corn cob, and now I've taught my kids!

When I was in 7th grade, my Grandma paid for me to take piano lessons.  We didn't have a piano at our house, so I would go practice at her house.  She would also drive me to lessons sometimes, which were very early in the morning.  I remember one time we were driving home and she turned left onto a busy highway.  She accidentally got in the wrong lane and there was a car coming straight for us.  I waited and waited but she didn't move over.  Finally I said "Grandma, you're in the wrong lane".  She moved over and said "Oh, I guess that's why that car is coming straight at us."

Whenever I wanted to earn some extra money, I would go ask my Grandma if she had any jobs I could do for her.  I usually would clean her bathroom.  She taught me how to clean a mirror.  Seriously.  I remember her telling me to look at the mirror not the reflection to see the spots.  I thought that was the coolest thing.

My last memory is one I feel guilty about.  When I was in 8th grade, my other Grandma (who lived in Minnesota) died.  My Grandma was watching all of us while my mom flew out to go to the funeral.  I had a friend that lived a block away, and we had planned to get together at her house that night and have fun.  It was the ONLY time I've ever snuck out.  And I did that to my Grandma!  I've never talked to her about it, but I assume she knew where I'd went.  My friend and I were outside on her tramp talking and my Grandma came looking for me.  I don't remember this, but my friend told me that my Grandma tripped as she was searching for me and got hurt.  I'm sorry Grandma!  I really do feel bad about it.

One of my hobbies is genealogy.  One of the reasons I love it is because I get to learn about people who have lived in a different time & circumstances than what I'm used to.  It amazes me to learn about their lives and how they lived.  A couple years ago, I sat down with my Grandma and sort of interviewed her about what her life was like growing up.  Things were so different back then and I'm so impressed by her life.  When I compare our lives, I feel pampered and greedy, and my life feels boring (not that I'm complaining and need some excitement...).  I just love hearing about how life used to be.

She was born right before the Great Depression.  She told me how her mom would make them clothes out of the sugar/flour sacks because they didn't have money to even buy material.  When she was young (I can't remember how old), she got Scarlet Fever and had to be quarantined and was bed-ridden.  She missed a year of school because of it.  These are 2 examples that we don't really have to worry about.  It just seems so unbelievable to imagine going through that.

My Grandpa & Grandma got married 65 years ago, when my Grandma was 19 years old.  [Just a cool side-note is that a young Elder Spencer W Kimball officiated their sealing.]  They had 9 children together.  The house they raised their family in had 4 rooms.  Total.  There was 1 bedroom for them, 1 bedroom for the girls and the boys slept outside and in the living room.  They had 4 boys in a row, one of which is my dad.  I've heard so many stories about how wild these boys were.  I seriously don't know how my Grandma survived!  She was such a strong lady!

I'm so thankful I got to know my Grandma.  I am inspired by her life and stories.  I am thankful my kids got to know her.   I am thankful for my knowledge that I will see her again and that she is with my Grandpa and other family.  We love you so much Grandma!  You will be missed!

Grandma's 80th Birthday (11/1/2008)

Grandma & Grandpa at Ashlyn's blessing (10/24/2004)

(This was 6 months before Grandpa passed away)

I've really had a hard time finding pictures of her! I know my cousin has a lot of pictures, but her hard drive is frozen up and can't get to them.  My family might have pictures, but they are somewhere in Lynndyl...  Anyways, I was really hoping to have lots of pictures of her in this post, but since that is proving to be difficult, I guess I'll just post this and maybe add more pictures later...