in loving memory...

"We are here for a purpose. We shall live after we die, and all of it is a part of eternity, and the key to everlasting life is the Atonement wrought by the Savior." Gordon B. Hinckley

President Gordon B. Hinckley
1910-2008
How grateful I am for the purpose of this man's life here on earth.
He was such an example of love, hard work, service, christianity, acceptance, determination, happiness, optimism.... the list can go on and on! He will be so missed, but how happy I am that he is now with his sweet wife whom I know he has dearly missed these past few years. My life is so much better because this great man lived.

I chose to post the above picture because a couple of weeks ago Ethan was waving a stick in the air and said "Look mom, I'm President Hinckley Gordon." Too cute... he always waved his cane and even my little 3-year old remembers Him that way...

Thank You President Gordon B. Hinckley
(or President Hinckley Gordon as Ethan would say),
for being our fearless prophet.
We Love You.

Savanna Blythe Turns One!

well, our little savanna turned one back on December 11 and i have finally put together a little montage of her. oh how we love this little girl. she has brought so much joy and so many smiles into our family this past year. we all adore and love her so very much!
enjoy the little video if you have the patience...it is about 6 minutes long, but all you children of the 80's will appreciate the last song on it... that i am sure of!... i mean, really, who didn't love that movie?!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

"daddy" by cameron

i know, i know, it's been a while! i have lots to document here from the past month or so... stay tuned for some serious back-dated posting coming up!
but real quick I wanted to share this:

daddy returned home today from a business trip. cute cute cameron spent the afternoon making this for him. he hung it in our room just before dad got home. in case you can't tell, it is an almost life-size replica of clint with his work logo on his shirt and all...
cameron is super creative and can make just about anything with a good pair of scissors, scotch tape, and construction paper. he just whips his unique artwork out in minutes all the time. the hair on his head is cut out of paper, not drawn on.
cameron really comes up with the cutest ideas!
needless to say, we all love his creations....
who needs home decor when you have cameron around?

during november...

savanna:

learned to pull herself to standing and inching along furniture

was pushed around by ethan...
in her stroller that is! this was their activity while we finally painted our front door... we still need a gate for the stairs so savanna can roam more freely...

and

she got her first flu shot with all her brothers...sweet cameron had to leave the room when it was her turn, he just couldn't stand to see her get hurt. we also went to see aunt samantha in her dance concert and savanna loved it! she was clapping and dancing right along. i bet she can't wait for her turn to dance. she still gives the best hugs and kisses, loves to play many games, calls for her daddy from the other room, loves to eat, loves to laugh, always smiles for the camera, gets so excited when one of her brothers comes to play with her, has almost 4 teeth, and the biggest accomplishment was the transition from her adorable army scoot to crawling on all fours in only a matter of days.
here are a couple of clips of both.
oh, how we all love every little thing about this girl!
if you listen closely you can hear her cute little growl... she does this all the time.

35!!

happy 35th birthday clint! we celebrated tonight by taking the fam to macaroni grill. i think the laugh of the day was watching the kids try calamari! actually, barrett and cameron liked it, but ethan...well just take a look at that face! our kids really aren't picky eaters....never have been. we ate a lot of course, and cameron made sure they knew it was clint's birthday, so out came the free cake.
to quote barrett: "even if you're full, it's still so good!". it was a fun night.

we are one lucky and blessed family to have clint! he really is one wonderful daddy and husband.

p.s. are we really in our 30's??? when i think of someone in their 30's, i still think of tom & ruth, the neighbors i grew up next to and babysat for all the time. they were a darling little family. it just doesn't seem possible that we are now that age...except clint and tom have the same hair color!! haha!

lack-of-sleep

someone around here has not been sleeping too well at night keeping both of us up at all the wrong hours and exhausted the rest of the day. that someone has also been falling asleep in all the wrong places during the day after those restless nights. poor thing. i think it is teething that has been keeping her up...hopefully we will get a little break from this soon...

the holidays are coming...

well, now that thanksgiving is over, we are settling into the holiday season...
we had a great laugh when clint emailed this to us.
click here to see just how excited the kids are for the holidays!

happy thanksgiving!

we had a wonderful, quieter than usual, thanksgiving with my parents and little sister samantha. lots of delicious food and relaxation.
we have so much to be thankful for, we really are so blessed...
i'm grateful for a holiday to remind us!
happy thanksgiving to all.

outer mongolia...here he comes!

today was the day...cuyler finally left the MTC for mongolia! he has been in the MTC since the 5th of september, and i think he was really ready to go! we went and stood on the hill and waved as his van drove past on their way to the airport. it was literally only a second as they honked and we all screamed and waved...we really didn't even get a good look at him, but nonetheless he saw us and the sign and balloons...etc. later tonight we talked to him on the phone for a bit during his layover in LA...he sounded great... a bit nervous maybe, but very excited to get there.

we miss you uncle cuyler...but can't wait to hear about your adventures in outer mongolia!

October 2007

Here are the highlights of the past month... all the many things that have been going on and are to blame for my major blogging break.....no, i haven't been reading the twilight series...they are still sitting on my shelf unopened...i still don't have the courage to let my life come to a screeching halt just yet...

Halloween
the boys got to dress up for school and they had a fun parade we got to go watch. ethan (peter pan..with a dagger that daddy made that morning) loved watching the parade and cameron loved showing savanna (tinkerbell) off to all his friends. we went to help in cameron's class and then spent the night trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and grandma's.





clint and I went to a super fun party with some friends the weekend before halloween... it was a load of fun and laughs! oh and thanks for the pics, sandee!


Sick Kids
the kids all had a tough battle with some icky virus and savvy had 2 ear infections this month. one week cameron missed 3 days of school and really wasn't feeling too well. but, cameron being the nurturer that he is, went out of his way to take care of me. i went to pick up barrett from school and came home to this on my bed. cameron met me at the door and told me that he thought ethan fell asleep on my bed and i needed to go check on him, but really he had made me lunch, "because I haven't seen you eat lunch yet today, mom". cameron really is a sensitive and thoughtful little man.



Teething and Playing

check out those babies comin' in! we also can't play hard enough with this little doll. she loves to play peek-a-boo, so big, pat-a-cake, so much..etc. she also gives the yummiest hugs and kisses. she is still army crawling all over the place and once in a while she'll crawl on all fours. she also just started pulling herself up to standing...yikes! get ready for some bumps and bruises...

Barrett turned NINE!!


holy cow, we have a nine-year old...and what a handsome one! i cannot believe nine years ago we had our first child! it feels like only yesterday, yet i do feel a lot older now than i did then! as new parents, i think we have so much to learn and the first child is our guinea pig. barrett wasn't an easy infant and definitely forced us to learn many things from the very beginning. i am grateful for that, he really helped us adjust quickly to all that being a parent entails...and we are still learning lots with him. barrett is a great student and is loving third grade. barrett is an energetic and inquisitive boy. he loves learning about everything! he absolutely loves reading right now and speeds through a book about every day. barrett is growing like a weed...most people cannot believe he is only 9! he is going to be taller than me any day. he is a great big brother and really tries to do what is right. barrett had a great birthday. he is really enjoying his new mountain bike, since his last one he got when he turned 5! he had a fun, spooky halloween party with a bunch of friends.
we sure love you barrett...thanks for keeping us laughing and learning!


Fall Days and Friends
i love fall. i love the colors, smells, weather, food... it is quite possibly my favorite season. this fall has been especially long and beautiful....we have tried to enjoy these beautiful days by getting outside...but alas, as it is starting to really turn colder, i am wishing we would have spent more time outdoors this past month.




A weekend in one of our favorite places....Cache Valley
seriously, in my book, there are few places as beautiful as cache valley, especially in the fall. we went up to see old friends and visit grandpa and grandma barrett and i think we hit the timing just right for those fall leaves. it was beautiful! we had a nice time and hauled off a bunch of stuff for the grandparents... we love and miss that place.




A Week of Fun in Sunny California

we had a blast in the OC. we spent many fun filled relaxing days at Disney and a day at the beach. It was a lot of fun to be there with many of my siblings and parents. We really just love this place. our little ethan had a blast and went on every ride he was tall enough for without hesitation...splash mountain was his favorite, but he also loved tower of terror, space mountain, big thunder railroad, star tours, the matterhorn...the list goes on and on! check out ethan's "thumbs up" in the tower of terror picture...it was hilarious! i love watching the kids enjoy disney the first time they are old enough to really enjoy it. we all had a great time and lots of fun! here are some slide shows of our fun week and a cool video of barrett and cameron who were chosen to train as jedi's and got to fight darth vader and darth mal at the same time! they had a blast!

nine months, nine days

savanna had her nine-month well check today. here are her stats...

18 lbs.
28 inches

that puts her between 25 and 50 percentile in weight and 75 percentile in height.
i am actually suprised how little she is and slowly she is growing.

definitely not following in her big brother's footsteps...

here are some other savvy facts at 9 months old

• sleeps through the night about 70% of the time
• is happy about 99.9 % of the time
• has the dang cutest giggle... giggles whenever she realizes she is getting what she wants...usually food
  
• LOVES food... she hasn't really been too picky and eats just about everything, including everything on the floor
  
• still has no teeth...getting close though!
• plays peek-a-boo
• growls! really, it is cute and sounds like a tiger...
• loves to dance
  
• is so so playful...i can't resist playing with her all the time, which is to blame for my slacking in other areas...
• says "da-da" and is definitely a daddy's girl! she responds to her daddy a lot!
• has mastered the army crawl and gets into everything now
• has beautiful blue eyes and crazy strawberry-blonde hair that just keeps growing...can even wear it in full piggy tails!
• loves the mirror...probably her favorite toy right now
  
• gives the best kisses!
• claps "hurray"
• waves bye-bye
• LOVES her big brothers!
• is SO incredibly loved and adored by all of us.