Deep thoughts by rachel

So the other day I was out doing yard work and noticed something starting to grow by my kids swing set. I thought it looked interesting and so I left it alone. It kept growing and at one point I thought it may be a weed and thought about cutting it down. I decided to leave it thinking it may be a sunflower. I gave my kids strict intructions to leave it alone and not touch it. I still thought it was a weed because it didnt look like the sunflowers I had seen before, but still wanted to leave it alone.Well a couple of days ago I went out and imagine what I saw! It was a beautiful bright sunflower. It is so strange because we didnt plant it and the location of where it is growing is unusual. I guess a bird dropped the see or something.
I have been a little down lately with things that have been going on around me. I am sure it is partly hormonal and part because of the realness (if that is a word) about what people I love are going through.

I know so many YOUNG people that have cancer. I found out today a distant cousin has brain cancer. It is so sad and tragic to me because they all have young kids. Others that I know are struggling in their marriages while others struggle with addictions. It troubles me mostly because I wish I could help in some way. I guess this whole sunflower thing has brought me comfort knowing that there is a God who loves us and watches out for us. If we look and decide to do the best we can he will show us something beautiful in return. If you give up before the challenge is through you could miss out on a great experience. I could have cut down what I thought was a weed at one point and then what would I have got? Nothing..

So the moral of my deep thoughts....while the challenges that we are all going through are different and may seem like weeds....If we look really close they may turn into something beautiful in the end. I am thankful for moments like these that help me realize that God has a plan for each of us and that while I may be sad at times there is beauty all around me to help me be happy! We should take the time to be thankful for all we have been given even if we are in the midst of hardships. After all "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it" I know, I know my mind is really running wild, just trying to stay in touch with what matters in life. Deep thoughts by Rachel......lol...

Our on-going project

Can I just say I really don't like computers?! I have tried to post all day with nothing but frustration. I hope this finally goes through!
So Rob and I have been discussing for quite some time how we could add more storage space to our house. We came up with turning our hall closet into a walk in closet. For some reason they didnt' maximize the space there and one part of the hallway is a little bigger than the side where the closet is. It is the highest peak of our house so we decided to use the height and make horizontal shelves that angle a little bit for all of my food storage cans. We figure we should be able to fit at least 12 cans if not more on each shelf. We are hoping to have 10 or more shelves. We won't know how many we are going to get until we start making them. I am so excited because I have food everywhere in my house. It is in almost every room and I am tired of seeing it everywhere I go. So on the other side we are going to do shelves all around it for extra canned items, pool towels, games etc. I can hardly wait for it to get done! If you look a the picture that shows the floor, you can see a darker line that shows where the old closet was and how much more room we will gain.

We started this project a couple of months ago and as you can see not much else has been done since the demo. Rob and darin did take out the rest of the tile and put up the boards you see but that is it. I want to get it done before all my food that is in the garage goes bad. It is starting to warm up a bit and it makes me worried. Rob is supposed to work on it tomorrow so I am hoping that is the case! I am always amazed at what rob decides to take on. He is such a handy guy and we are very lucky for that! With any luck I will have more pictures (the finished product) very soon!

These past few weeks have been eventful and challenging for me! I feel like I am always so busy and on the run. I am so looking forward to a day with NOTHING planned, just stay home and do nothing not even cleaning. I have been to the doctor, dentist, track meets both high school and junior high, new beginnings, basketball meetings, work,dentist again with kids, ward council, more track meets. The list goes on and on plus the never ending job of cleaning, laundry, carpool etc. Patty reminded me that a coworker asked me awhile back at work what I do with all my time at home. I was offended at the time thinking does she just think I sit around and relax? Maybe I should have her read my blog....But with everything so busy I think the worst thing has been that we took Kaden's pacifier away. Rob had a big talk with him about being a big boy and when I came home one night Kade had thrown them all away in the garbage. I was shocked. I was motivated by jaymi's blog to just take it away so I had talked to rob about it and he took it upon himself to get rid of it. I think it has been harder for me than kade. He has had a difficult time going to bed and yesterday wouldnt take a nap, which is not a good thing. He needs his sleep! I just put him down a few minutes ago and pray that he falls asleep. He was a handful yesterday. We went out and bought him a new truck and trailer for being a big boy. So he came and told me a bit ago that he was ready for bed but insisted that he have his truck with him. At least he hasnt been screaming! Now I can go start the fun....cleaning! I can't really seem to get things done while he is awake because he wants to be too helpful. I never thougt I would gripe about that. He is really independant. So I end up doing things like laundry where he can put wet clothes in the dryer, loading the dishwasher etc. So now I of off to do toilets. I have some pictures to post, but have to wait for rob because I cant seem to find the pictures that I thought I downloaded. I still am learning how to be computer savvy. So maybe later I will post the pictures!

old dune trip

When I had rob load the pictures from his camera I found a bunch of older pictures on there. I am going to post a few of them. These are pictures of another dune trip that we made with robs family. I really didnt take too many pictures mostly of kailey and kaitlin. They dug this giant hole in the sand. It was so deep that they could stand in it and you could barely see them. When they were filling it up they buried themselves. They are so silly....cute but silly. The other pictures are kailey and her cousin rachelle and of course kaden.

So we had a surprise 16th birthday party for kyle. Towards the end I started thinking that he knew something was up. But...he really was surprised. Rob took him out for the day while the other kids and I set everything up. I was excited because my older brother fred brought his kids down for it. Kyle and Lawson are really close and I knew Kyle would be so happy. Kyle's friend Traci helped me pass out the invitations. There were a few people that weren't able to come but we had a great turn out. We ate pizza and junk food and played bunco and a few other games. Bunco was the real hit though, they played it for hours and hours. I guess I only took pictures of the kids playing bunco with the digital camera. I know I took more with my other one because I wanted to scrapbook them. It was a fun night and I am glad that we were able to pull it off!

Spring break

We took the kids to the sand dunes for part of their spring break. We had a really good time. We invited our friends the lamberts to go, as well as the carlsons and morgans. We had a good time hanging out and enjoying eachothers company. The only down side to the trip was the heat. By the end of the week it started getting really hot. Thank goodness it cooled down in the evenings and made it a little better. One of the days we drove across the border to Mexico. We had fun with the big kids. They all bought sombreros. I bought a couple pairs of sunglasses and a bag. We had a good time.

Makenna, Spencer and Graham loaded up ready to go home.

Graham patiently waiting his turn. It was so hot, but he didnt want to take off the helmet while he waited his turn. It was pretty cute. His hair was a big sweat ball after we finally got it off his head!

Bob in his sand rail. Bob and Rob came driving over and asked my friend Kim if she wanted to go for a ride. I had just got done telling her that I hated when I rode in it with rob that he was just too crazy. Well after they asked her she said I'll go if Rachel goes. So needless to say we hoped in and went for a ride. It was the first time I had ever gone out in to the dunes. I screamed the whole way, it was a combination of screaming and laughing. Of course kim was calm and collected and just sat there holding on while I screamed my head off. Bob was a really good driver and I felt safer with him then with rob driving. It was fun but intense. I have control issues what can I say. I am glad that kim decided to go or I never would have experienced that. I still am shocked at the hills and drove up and rode down. It was scary to not be able to see what was on the other side. The guys mocked me a little for screaming so I tried my hardest to keep it quiet on the way back.

Kailey riding the morgans odyssey. She loves it!














Graham and Kaden hanging out.

Dallin and Kyle in an intense game of chess. I was told that it was a tie. Notice the sombreros!

Kaden riding his little quad. He loves it. Rob still has to run behind because kade gets so wrapped up in riding that he doesnt even look where he is driving. He just buzzes around. He loves it. Like father like son!

Kyle

So I figured I better post a picture of kyle since the last pictures I posted he had his back turned to the camera and you can't really see him. He is 16 and a pretty great kid. My sister was in town this weekend and we were reminiscing about a time a few years back when kyle was known as the "River Dancer". The young men in our ward decided to feed the elderly and put on a talent show for them while they were eating. So kyle and a few others decided to River Dance. They all wore white shirts and headbands and did this group dance and then I guess at one point they all backed off and kyle was doing a solo dance. I can't tell you how many people came up to me that night and was like when did your son take lessons. I was shocked asking them what they were talking about. I wasnt there since it was a wednesday night activity. But everyone told me how impressed they were and that his dance was amazing. Boy would I have loved to be a fly on the wall. Even all the young women were in awe with him. The bad part was no one recorded it and we begged and tried to get him to show us what he did but he would'nt. Oh well...I guess I will trust everyones word that it was good. But kirstin and I were chuckling about it and the funny things our kids have done. I am sad to think that I only have a few more years with him before he is on his own.

Our poor house in St. Johns

So it has been a little while since I last wrote. My life has been really hectic these past few weeks. Here is one event that happened.

A few weekends ago we were really excited because it was our stake conference and we actually had an Apostle coming to speak with us, Elder Robert Hale. So rob and I were getting ready for the adult session when rob for whatever reason opened up some of our mail. (side note--We bought my uncle Denny's home in St. Johns last summer and have been so excited about it!) So rob opened up the city water bill from St. Johns and it was like $846. and some change. He started freaking out and called my brother in law Spence. So spence drove over to the house and when he went in the house had been flooding for quite sometime. In fact the water was still running when he got there. We were just sick. I convinced rob to wait until the next morning to go so that we could still go to the adult session of conference. We went and really enjoyed the speakers and what was said. Sunday morning Rob left and went to St. Johns to check out things. It was really bad. We are ending up having to gut everything on the inside of the house. The floors were like buckled 2 ft high and water had washed away some of the adobe walls. So now we have hired my brothers and they are trying to take care of getting all the wet out of the house so that mold doesnt start growing. All I can say right now is THANK HEAVENS FOR BROTHERS AN BROTHER IN LAWS! They really pulled through and were so willing to help us no questions asked. I will post some pictures as they come in. So that was the start of my last week.

Beach pictures

Our Family

I am so excited to start doing this! My sister in law has been telling me I should and after checking hers as much as I do I decided to start my own. I talked it over with rob and since we don't live by any of our family we thought it would be a great way for our families to see what we have been up to. So here goes....a little information about us. Rob is still self employed and loving it. He works really hard and LOVES to work for himself. He still loves his toys and bought our family a new toy hauler last year and takes the kids once a month to the dunes. I tag along to if my schedule permits. He has created a ton a great memories for the kids and I am thankful for such a great husband and dad! Kyle just turned 16 and is a sophmore at Red Mountain High School. He still hasnt gotten his permit or drivers license if you can believe that. We have stuck to our guns and said no driving until he gets his Eagle in Scouts. He really only has the project plus 1 more merit badge until he is done. We really want him to finish especially since he is almost done! We even got a car at Christmas to encourage him along. He is running track and taking on a lot of harder class this year. He is a great kid and so far his teenage years havent been too terrible. Kailey is 15 and in 9th grade at Fremont Junior High. She is still really in to sports. This year she decided to try Cross Country. Wow...little did she know it would come so natural to her. In the city meet she ended up coming in 7th out of 122 girls from mesa. She of course still loves basketball. Her team took 3rd this year and now she is running track, long distance of course. She is such a nice beautiful girl and we are happy she is in our family. Makenna is 6, going to be 7 in july. She is in 1st grade this year and seems to like it. She recently started playing basketball too and seems to like it as well. I guess my girls are following in their moms footsteps! Woo Hoo! Kaden is 2 and will be 3 in August. He is a handful to say the least. Always on the go. He constantly wants to be wherever you are. I think his favorite thing right now is his dad. He loves being anywhere rob is. He talks to me all day long about his dad. I love that because when rob gets home I can finally start to get things done. Now about me...this is getting long so I will make it short. I still work part-time at Banner Heart Hospital. I LOVE that I get to be home more with the kids. That is my favorite thing to do. I love being with my family. I am excited to start posting as I have lots of things always going on around here. We are very blessed with great friends, family and each other!