Kaiden's Baptism

We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great one. This year we had Thanksgiving with my family. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. Everyone was there except for my sister MiKell and her family. So we had 10 adults and 15 kids. We really did have a good time together. On Saturday Kaiden was baptized with his 2nd cousin Kindy. Kindy is the daughter of Ryan and Melanie Christensen. RJ and Ryan are 1st cousins and grew up together. They did everything together including rodeo. Kaiden and Kindy were born 3 days apart, so we decided to do their baptisms together. It was such a great day. Kaiden had to pick someone to give a talk on baptism and he picked his cousin Gavon. Gavon is a year older than Kaiden but they have always been very close. Gavon really has a soft heart and has always taken care of Kaiden not only at home but at school also. Gavon did a really good job on his talk. Kaiden was really nervous about being baptized because RJ teased him one night and said maybe he would hold him under the water for 5 min, but when he entered the water he was so calm. He looked so sweet standing there with a huge Kaiden smile on his face. It was very special. Kaiden we love you very much and are so proud of your decision to be baptized.

Visiting Grandma Jones

Blakelee

Playing Rook, Grandmas favorite game

Blakelee, Maicey, Denni, Braedon, McKendree

Blakelee, Me and Grandma Jones

This week my mom, sisters and I went down to Kolob to see my Grandma Jones. For all who have heard stories of my "Hi" grandma this is her. She is truly an amazing person. She was born in 1919 and has experienced some great things in her life. She was born into a family of all girls so her dad took her with him everywhere. She really was a tomboy. She hearded cattle and even has a few wild Indian stories. In Enterprise every 24th of July they have foot races. She won every race she ever ran even into her thirties. She was raced a boy that was 3 years older that her and quite a bit taller that her short 5'4' frame. She said she was very nervous racing him but she beat him pretty bad. She raised 2 of her 7 children alone while my grandpa was serving in WWII. My grandpa came back from the war different and much rougher than when he left. He didn't want my grandma to go to church but every week she would sneak out of the house so she could go to church. She lost her 2nd son at the age of 19 in a car accident. She recalls how difficult that time was for her but she says that the Holy Ghost was with her so strong that she never felt alone. She later got a divorce from my grandpa but never stopped loving him. She believes that they will still be together forever. She has 7 children, 36 grandchildren, 143 great grandchildren, and 14 great great grandchildren. What a posterity. She has always been such a strong member of the church. She's the one that told me that if you go visiting teaching at the beginning of the month it is because you want to, and if you go at the end of the month it is because you have to. Why do I call her the "Hi" grandma. Well, my grandma would never swear even if she had a mouth full of sh--, so where do I get my swearing from, My grandpa. Anyway, one day my grandma decided she needed to work on something in her life. She decided that when she answers the phone be saying "Hello" she was saying something close to a swear word, so she started answering the phone, "hi". If she doesn't make it to heaven no one will. There is no one else in the world like my grandma Jones. I love you.

Happy Birthday Kaiden

Kaiden turned 8 on Saturday. He has been such a joy in our lives.

For everyone who knows him he has always mad us laugh from the time he was a baby. He still can out eat the whole family while maintaining his 50 lb figure. If you've read the comments on the side of the blog you can imagine what our lives have been like with this wonderful little boy. He has such a big heart and cares so much about my feelings. For all the trials we have gone through together, there is definitly a bond between he and I that I hope will always be there. Thank you Kaiden for bringing so much joy into mine and your dads lives. We LOVE you bud.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween once again. Where does the time go? This year each of the kids decided on their own what they wanted to be. I'm tired of tring to put something together that has a theme and no one really cares what your kid looks like they only care about what their own kids look like, so why spend all the time and money on something that only lasts one night? I don't have time. Treyson had a girl from his class dare him to be a cheerleader. So when he came home and told me that we found my old cheer uniform in the cedar chest and found a wig. He looked great. Everyone at school thought he had the funniest costume. Kaiden found the batman costume in the box of Halloween stuff and hasn't taken it off for a week. Lea only changed her mind 300 times, finally at the last minute she decided to be a rodeo queen. It didn't take much work to put her together, with all the rodeo stuff around our house, and we threw on her dance shirt for the final touch. Blakelee also found this puppy costume in the Halloween stuff, Kaiden wore it about 5 years ago. She loved it and we put her in a box with a big sign that said "puppy for sale". The kids all had a great time at the carnival that the school puts on every year, and I was pleased that it didn't cost me a dime this year for Halloween. Hope you all had a fun Halloween. Trick-or-Treat.

Molly Oakley?????

Last year my sisters RaSelle, Sharla and I decided that we needed to learn how to can. My mom never canned while I was growing up because she had to do it all the time as a little girl and she hates it. So now every fall we start canning things. We've done Peaches, Apple pie filling, Salsa, Spaghetti sauce, bottled deer meat and jam. We also dried apples. This week began a very long week of canning and other things. We canned on Tuesday (salsa). On Wednesday, we decided to drive out to Indian Peaks to see if we could find Pine nuts. Usually when the harvest for pine nuts is good they are really easy to find, but this year the harvest was not so good and only a few places had pine nuts and we decided that we could find them. My dad was not to happy about us girls going out in the hills by ourselves (like he thinks we are going to get lost without him, but not remembering that he taught us all how to get around in the hills and never get lost. Last year a couple from northern Utah got lost out in Indian Peaks for 10 days and nearly died. After a 10 hour day of driving every draw and every road out there we came home empty handed, but had a really great time together. On Thursday we had 2 deer given to us by family that doesn't like venison, (my family loves it). With all the men at work my mom, Sharla, RaSelle and I skinned and cut them both up. We were setting there with our hands all bloody talking about canning spaghetti sauce on Friday and I said, "we should call ourselves Molly Oakley, Molly Mormons one day, Annie Oakley the next." Everyone laughed and thought it would be a great idea.

So if anyone out there has a recipe for canning write me and tell me about it.

Timeout for Women

The Whole group (don't' we look good in Pink)

All of us with the Nashville Tribute Band

This is how RaSelle always travels

Last month I attended Timeout for Women in Las Vegas. My mom had bought her my sisters, and I tickets for last February, but it happened to fall on the same weekend of Pres. Hinckley's funeral, so it was rescheduled for Sept. My mom's sister and all of the girls in her family also went with us. We had such a great time. Friday night the Nashville Tribute band performed and it was so great. We then spent the night at the South Point Casino Hotel, 14 of us in 2 rooms. The next day we had awesome speakers. If anyone has ever thought about going to Timeout for Women I definitely recommend it. It really helped me to regroup and feel so much better about life and my role as a mother. It was great.

I Love Fall

Like many of you, fall is my favorite time of the year, but probably for a different reason than most. I love the deer hunt. Deer season starts next Saturday and I'm sad to say my family didn't draw a tag this year. Growing up with only sisters, my dad took me and my sisters hunting with him every year. I shot my first deer at 16 and have loved it ever since I was a little girl. The cool fall days and the smell of sage brush in bloom really gets me excited for the deer hunt. Since neather RJ or I drew out this year we bought an Elk Tag (which is fun but not as fun as deer hunting.) I think the reason being is I love being with my dad and two of my sisters walking the hills, road hunting (which we have shot many a deer this way) and just laughing and having a good time. All of our husbands put in for the deer hunt also but not with us. Like I said I would rather be with my dad and sisters, we have a lot more fun together. I took some pics of the house and Blakelee since we aren't hunting we might as well be decorating the porch. (ha ha)

13 years together

I've been tring to publish a book about our family (via heritagemakers.com). I came across some pictures of RJ and I. We've been married now for 13 years and together for 15. Were does the time go? It really seems like yesterday that Warren (a mutual friend of ours) told me that RJ wanted to take me on a date. Which I replied "tell him good luck". I really didn't know RJ then and I thought he was very cocky. Needless to say a few months later he asked me to dance and we've been together ever since. We started dating in Feb. of 1993. We got engagged in April of 1995 and married in August of 1995. We've really had a great life together. We've lived in 5 different states and now live back home in Utah. We've had 4 beautiful children and I love him more today than I did 15 years ago. He is a wonderful husband and father. For those of you who really know RJ you know he is very passive. I truely love that part of him the most, even though I really would like him to argue with me every now and then. RJ I love you thanks for the best years of my life. (I know he will never read this so I think I'm safe)

CAMPING FUN

We decided to go camping this last weekend. The weather here in Utah has been very warm for this time of the year (about 15 degrees above normal). We had a really great time. My whole family went (minus MiKell's husband who was deer hunting). We really enjoy being outdoors especially with family. We went to Pine Valley which is about 25 miles from Enterprise. The kids had a great time and can't wait until we go again.

Family Trip to Chinle, AZ

We took a little road trip this weekend to Arizona. My dad served his mission on the Navajo Reservation near the 4 corners area and he has always wanted to take us there. So on Friday we left at 5:00am, most of my family went. All together we had 10 adults and 14 kids. We left Blakelee in Utah with RJ's brother and his wife (she is not a good car seat traveler). Very few of us have ever been to the Grand Canyon, which is sad since we only live 3 hours away from there so we decided to take the long way around and stop in the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon was awesome. It was a little scary because we had so many little kids and there are no fences along the trails we took. We then took a 2 hour drive to Page, AZ to Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. After only spending about 30 min there we drove another 2 hours to Chinle, AZ which is right in the heart of the Navajo Nation Reservation. Chinle was really interesting they have open range everywhere so there were cows and even horses grazing off side the road right in the middle of town. We spent the night in Chinle and the next morning drove 3 miles to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Da Shay). We stopped at the visitors center were we took a few pictures near a Navajo Hogan. We spent some time there and the drove just a short distance to the canyon. I thought the Grand Canyon was awesome this was so much better. The Navajo people have lived in this canyon for over 300 years but many other ancient Indians have inhabited this place for over 2000 years. The canyon has seer cliffs that drop from anywhere 30 feet to 1000 feet. There are several look out points, and each one had a different view of the canyon. Some Navajo families still live and farm in the bottom of the canyon. The coolest thing is there are several ancient Anasazi Indian ruins in the cliffs of the canyon. It was just so neat. We spent most of the day in Canyon De Chelly and then drove 30 miles to the town of Pointed Rock. Like I said earlier my dad served his mission there. We couldn't get over to where his lived during that time because the road is very rough and you need a 4x4 to get in there, but we got a general idea of were he served. He had to walk everywhere he went so a typical day for him would be to walk 10 miles to one hogan and then 10 miles to another hogan and then back to his trailer for the night. He really has a love for the Navajo people and has tried to pass that on to us. This part of the country is so beautiful and I would recommend everyone to go there. We drove back to Enterprise that night and got home around 2:00am (we had to make it home for everyones church meetings). It was so fun and like I said above, Canyon De Chelly is awesome.

Thank goodness for school!

School finally started on August 14th. I'm so excited. The last couple of weeks the kids have been teasing and fighting all day long. I kept telling people that school had to start or I was going to jail. Treyson and Kaiden started on the 14th. Treyson is in 5th grade and his class and the 6th grade are trying a rotating schedule like in middle school. He really likes it. Kaiden is in 2nd grade, and improving everyday. He is still behind but is doing better and better all the time. He really loves his teacher. Lea didn't start kindergarten until August 21st. She is in all day kindergarten, and I love it. Blakelee and I are home alone from 8-2:30. We are having a lot of fun. Lea's teacher is our bishops wife who also is the chorister in primary so Lea knows her quit well and loves her as a teacher. I thought I would have more time once the kids went back to school but every time I try to start a project Blakelee needs me to meer (come here). I decided to start organizing my photos and put them into albums. I haven't touched a picture since 2004 so I have a big project ahead of me.

Where did summer go?

Summer is almost over and I don't think we really did anything this summer. The kids start school on Thursday (I can't wait). Lea will be in all day Kindergarten and I'm really excited about that. Treyson just got home from Idaho Falls after spending 11 days with RJ's sister and her kids. We really missed him while he was gone. I didn't realize how much I rely on him. He had a great time, he participated in a few rodeos and rode horses all the time. He didn't take a camera so I don't have pictures. I just got the girls hair cut into a a-line bob. It looks so cute. It definitely makes Blakelee look a lot older. Here is a picture of her in her favorite outfit (her swimming suit). I can't believe she is already 2. WOW! where does the time go.

Harvest Time

Since moving to Utah I have found my new love in life "Gardening". Our house is on 1 acre, so we have lots of room to grew stuff. I love being outside in the garden, it truly helps me keep my temper down. After I run in the mornings I usually spend 1-4 hours outside doing "stuff". We have grown a garden for the last 3 years and every year it gets bigger and better. Like anything else it takes awhile to figure it all out, you can't just throw seeds in the ground, there really is alot more to it. Most of the garden is in sweet corn, then we also have summer squash, cucumbers, watermelon, sweat peas, red potatoes, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and green onions. In the back yard along the barn we have raspberry bushes. I also have quite a few flower beds and pots. I really could spend all day outside and never do another dish again. Above are just a few things we picked this morning. Lea is holding the raspberries, Blakelee and Lea are holding green beans, Kaiden's in the corn patch, and Kaiden helped me pick a cucumber, some summer squash, and a few cherry tomatoes. Look at the last picture, I only planted two squash plants because I'm the only one who likes it and I pick about this many every 2-3 days.