A little Perspective

So I have a Christmas update coming....but just had to post this first. I was blog hopping during nap time today and came across a blog that made me cry...almost sob.... A little angel taken from her parents by tragedy all too soon.... As I read the account of the story from the sweet inspirational words of her mom....i cried...and cried.....

So today as my children woke up from their naps...I held them close...I snuggled them and watched Word World...I didn't worry about the dishes...or they toys scattered all over the house. I didn't even yell at Duke as he came inside covered in mud and I had to give him a bath.

I have felt more grateful in the last year than I can ever remember being for all that I have...today brought a new perspective to that....

I thank Heaven for all that I have for my beautiful children and the opportunity to be their mom now and forever! And now...I am going to go hug and snuggle them more!

EllaKate Turns One!

Where does the time go!?!?
It seems like I was just holding this adorable new 5lb baby girl in my arms and just falling more and more in love with her by the moment!

Now its a year later and I have this spunky little fire ball on my hands with so much personality it's ridiculous, and yet I still fall more and more in love with her by the moment!

Here are her stats at her 1 yr apt. She weights. 18.25lbs (9th percentile) She is 28.54in long (32nd percentile) her head is18.1 in (77th percentile) Ya, she's ours alright!

Ella loves to be right in the middle of the chaos and a big part of it! She has been crawling since she was about 8 months and is so fast she doesn't really have a huge desire to walk! She LOVES to play/torment Jaden and couldn't love Duke more if she tried! She is very friendly and outgoing but snuggly too!

She loves to talk/scream and can say "mam" (mom) "dada" (dad) d"uge" (a mix between duke and dog) "peese" (plase) "Taetu" (thank you) "mo" (more) & "my" (mine)

She loves to giggle and play she LOVES to tease and even though she is young she LOVES to test the limits! :) I love it though! I love that she is strong willed and will fight for what she wants, even when the answer is no, and she can throw a tantrum like I have never seen!

This yea my sister got married on Ella's birthday (congratulations Sarah and Doug) So we celebrated her birthday a day early! Since we spent the weekend in Salt Lake for the wedding, we decided to just do a small low key family day with her!

When she woke up she got her birthday presents which included lots of clothes a walker/stroller and her first baby doll, and a stuffed kitty from her big brother!

She loved everything especially snuggling her baby and kitty! I'm hoping the stroller will motivate her to walk!

After breakfast we took the grandmas and headed to the aquarium and the to McDonalds (Ella loves the parfaits) It was so much fun to spend the afternoon with the grandmas and the kids especially enjoyed it!

After the lunch we headed back to Shawn's parents for nap time! Afterwards we had birthday cake! I made Ella a caterpillar cake because she is our little bug!

Ella was so funny and WOULD NOT TOUCH THE CAKE!!!! She would not eat it even if I fed it to her! She wanted NOTHING to do with it, until.....

I gave her a spoon to eat it with....I don't understand it and I thought it was SO funny!!! Once we gave her the spoon though, she dug right in and loved it!!!

That night I went to dinner and for mani-pedis with my sisters as a kind of Bachelorette Party and Shawn's parents took Ella on her birthday date and then they all headed up to her cousin Dylan's birthday party! When I got home they had all crashed and it seemed like she had a great day!!!

Ella's actual birthday was a crazy day and I should have gotten more pictures but I honestly think we were all just exhausted!!! It was a great day thought and my sister looked absolutely beautiful and my kids...adorable of course!!!

Here is Ella playing with daddy at the luncheon

and with mommy.... (Jaden was so busy playing with cousins he wouldn't hold still for pictures

Ella woke up at 7 that morning and FINALLY crashed (for like 20 min) at 2 pm. For a child that usually takes a nap every 2-3 hrs....it was a long day!

Ella we love you more than you could possible know!! You are a joy in our lives and in our home! We thank Heaven everyday for the privilege of being your parents and can't imagine life without you! I hope you will always be your silly spunky strong willed self!!

I have been blessed!!!

You know that country song... "I have been blessed...with so much more than I deserve, to be here with the ones who love you to love them so much it hurts" Well that describes perfectly my feelings as of late! I feel so lucky to have who and what I have I consider my self very very blessed! I just stink at blogging about it and lately at taking pictures too! I worked SO hard on the kids Halloween costumes this year and I got a few pictures but not as many as I would have liked especially of Ella! She was grumpy and honestly I didn't want to force it! But....what do you do! We have had a very fun filled and BUSY October and November even has more going on! Hopefully I will be better at updating that :)

Anyways, to start off our Halloween festivities we headed to the pumpkin patch and corn maze. You would think that living up in Eden we would have more pumpkin patches to choose from but unfortunately not so much. We did find this little gem though and had a great time! Jaden enjoyed being the leader... until his legs got tired...Then on to our annual pumpkin carving night! Jaden wanted to be much more involved this year...Ella not so much! Anyways we had a great time carving pumpkins and having donuts and hot cocoa! Even gluten free donuts :)

I did a terrible job at taking pictures of the kids in their costumes....it had been kind of a long day by the time it was time to go trick or treating...maybe one of these days I will make them re dress up and try again...when the snow melts of course! :)

This year Jaden was "A kung fu panda wolf" Which being interpreted is the big bad wolf who does kung fu and blows little red riding hood's house down. (we might have had a little confusion but it was fun! Ella was Little Red Riding Hood! I make both of the kids costumes with the exception of Jaden's hat which we found via the internet but I was quite pleased with how they turned out! I'm learning....

At one house there was a lit up ghost, Jaden turned to me and sai "look mo a ghost....just like the holy ghost!" I laughed and then replied that it was, but the holy ghost wasn't scary like that ghost, to which Jaden replied, "well he's a little bit scary!" Probably my favorite conversation of the night!

Jaden told me he wanted to go trick or treating to every house in the whole world....but when I told him he could go home and pass out candy to kids he was even more excited!!! Too bad we didn't get too many kids, but he still enjoyed himself!!!


I hope you all had a fabulous Halloween and are feeling as blessed as I am!

Season and Life Changes

Isn't it funny how life never stays the same for too long? Well that's how life has been for us lately... Starting with this little man going and growing up on me!

Jaden started preschool the last week of August and is LOVING it! The first week he was so excited to go...the second week not too much...but we are back to enjoying ourselves! His teacher's name is Miss Kelly and she is AWESOME!!! So excited for my little man and love to hear the stories he comes home with!

Here he is all ready on his first day with his favorite fall decoration...the scarecrow :)

We had a spectacular flood in August which has caused a few rooms in our basement to need to be fully re done! Its a positive and a negative. I wanted the kitchenette in the basement torn out so this gave us the need to do that and now hopefully we can make the basement how we want with less charge to us...So that's been a fun change but a hard change as well. Despite the chaos and such Shawn's parents have been troopers and still come to visit and we have had a lot of fun!

We took them to dinner at one of our new favorite restaurants...Boccias. Why are they one of our favorites you ask? Well because they have gluten free pizza....gluten free pizza? Yes. After months and months of being sick and feeling like I must have the WORST luck ever, and just get food poisoning from everything I eat.....I went in for an ultra sound, endoscopy, and a failed attempt at a colonoscopy, we ruled out a gallbladder issue and found Celiac Disease. (FYI Golytely hates me) For those of you who are familiar with my family , my sister got diagnosed with celiac in her early 20s so we weren't all too surprised to find it. Honestly, it's not a fun change but of everything it could be, this is manageable and not near the worst it could be so I'll take it! I'm just excited to start feeling better!

Boccias with Grandpa Clegg Ella and cousin Dylan

On Labor Day we went to Toads in Ogden! SO MUCH FUN!!! Jaden has been begging to go golfing ever since Shawn and his dad went this summer so we decided to take him miniature golfing, and he loved it! They also have a fun little arcade that he got a kick out of playing games at!

Daddy showing J how it's done!

Taking a break!
Ella just enjoying hanging out!
We have been loving playing outside in the fall weather! Jaden does a great job at entertaining Ella while mom and dad work on projects...there are always projects....
Hehe, Look how studly this little man is on his way somewhere or another!

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the kids together in their BYU gear, but I guess there is still time. For now...here is Ella cheering on her team! Win or loose, we are true blue...

Jaden's imagination has been growing like crazy, I love finding him doing little creative things like this or bringing me all sorts of things and saying, mom lets use this to make a project!!

I also recently got called as the Beehive advisor in Young Womens and am absolutely LOVING it! I wasn't sure how I would love the beehives, but I honestly feel like it a PERFECT fit! I have such great girls in my ward and the presidency is fantastic! I hate being gone from the kids multiple nights a week at times, but the kids don't mind because they have a KILLER dad who is so much cooler than mom and when mom is gone it's a daddy movie night!

We also FINALLY got family pictures done and I LOVE them! My cousin Brianna took them and I can't thank her enough for how awesome she is!!! I put most of my favorite on here on the descriptions and headers, but here are a few more that rock!hehehe...this Totally caputes Ella's feelings about pictures that day!

Lots of things happening, but lots of fun things and we feel truly blessed! I will upload pictures of the new basement as they come and pictures of the barn because as of tomorrow it will be red!! Wish us luck!!!

Summa Fun!

This summer has been so much fun! Whether we have been hanging out at home or out and about, we really have enjoyed ourselves and it is so sad to see it end! Jaden starts preschool in a week and I am having mixed feelings! So very excited for him but so so sad my baby is growing up on me! I think he will love it though! Anyways here are some pictures of a few things we have spent our summer doing that we haven't blogged about :)

Oh the joys of the hose! Jaden plays in the back with the hose almost every day! I love it! He tends to either play "making a river and lake" ; "car wash" ; or spray Dukey!

Ella has been eating EVERYTHING she can find! She is my mischievous one for sure...wish me luck!

We have also been enjoying the boat quite a bit this summer!

Sometimes with our friends...

Sometimes with our family! Either way its been a blast!

Ella Bug is pretty hot and cold on the boat...just depends on the day...but she LOVES the water!

She has no trouble getting to anything she wants and INTO anything she wants!

We have been to the zoo with our friends!

and enjoyed the awesome dinosaurs there!
We hit the weber county fair!

The kids LOVED the petting farm and shawn picked out the cows he wants someday!

The goat loved Ella...she wasn't so sure!

Jaden loved all the animals!

I am sad to see the summer end but excited for the cool down of the fall! We have also spent A LOT of time in the yard this summer, and we still have A LOT to go, but we love having our own little plot of land and feel very blessed!

Staycation 2011

So with the purchase of a home and all we decided that a big vacation wasn't exactly needed, so we decided to have a staycation of sort instead! It was so much fun and I would definately do it again :) Shawn had the whole week off and we fit a lot of stuff in!

Monday ended up being kind of our prep and errand day, Shawn spent the morning helping a friend clean up a flood and then the rest of the day we spent getting ready for the week!

Monday night Shawn's parents drove up to spend some time with us! Tuesday morning we headed to Lagoon. I was kind of nervous about how Jaden would like it, but we thought we would give it a shot!

This was the hit ride of the day! Also the bumper cars, we went on them over and over and over, but we didn't mind Jaden was loving it and was hilarious in the bumper cars....remind me to never let him get a license!

This was definately the LEAST favorite ride! The little boy in the front kept making the plane bounce...after that Jaden was very particular about what he would ride! We probably could have pushed him to go on more but just wanted to enjoy ourselves!

The train was also a big hit! I had no idea there were lions and tigers and all sorts of animals at the zoo!

We ate lunch and swam for awhile at Lagoon a Beach. It was nice for the kids to cool down but wasn't really our favorite so we didn't stay there too long! After that we rode some cars some more and then adults went on some rides too! Shawn and his mom were the big riders! Jaden also won a few prizes playing a few of them games which he thought was pretty cool!

Wednesday Shawn went golfing with his dad and Karen and I just hung out with the kids and then when they got back we took the boat out for a quick pull and I must say it was glass! Shawn got some killer air and nailed his back flip...ya, that's MY husband :)

Karen and Kevan headed home late that afternoon and we went to bed early to get ready for a full day of boating with my family!

The J man and his snacks!

Wake surfing with Daddy!

Shawn took Marissa out on the wake surf as well and she loved it!

The kids on the tube....

Lets be honest, Auntie Sarah the favorite aunt, all the kiddos adore her, with good reason!

The next Day we headed up to the cabin. YOu may think we are crazy to drive to the middle of nowhere when we already live in the middle of no where...but it was SO fun and nice to get away!

Here are the kiddos having a picnic at the lake!...Ella spit up all over Jaden (kinda hilarious) so he was red necking it!

I was nervous for Ella to go on the 3 wheeler, but she loved it and with good reason, she loves her daddy!

Duke was HILARIOUS at the lake!! As soon as he saw the water he walked right in and didn't spend much time out of it! Shawn played fetch with him forever but even when they stopped Duke would just run and jump into the lake...love it!

Look at this cute face!!!

Sarah and Doug came up to the cabin with us and it was SO fun! We stayed up late playing card games and just had a lot of fun hanging out!

We headed home Saturday afternoon, picked up a pizza and just had a fun family night at home! Then today we headed to Bountiful for Baby Gavin's blessing ( I should have taken pictures...but I didn't).

It was a very busy and crazy week but a lot of fun! We are all recooping and ready for a low key week at home with lots of laundry :)

I am so thankful for my family and love spending time with them...it was just what we all needed! I can't believe summer is almost over, we better get as much as we can out of it!