The Freedom To...

Happy 4th of July family and friends! I hope you have had time to reflect on our privileges of living in this great country and what freedom means to you. I am so thankful to all the men and women of the past and of today who sacrifice for our freedom, especially our freedom to worship our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Our country was founded on freedom to worship as we please. I am so blessed to live in this country!

My Niece

This is my newest niece: Katelin Sydnie. My sister was nice enough to let me borrow her to practice photography. And thanks Karalee for helping me!

Happy 30th Birthday Jase!!!

Singing Happy Birthday to him. He is totally embarrassed!

He is such a weirdo!

Jason turned the big 30 on May 31st! And to his utter surprise I threw a surprise birthday party for him. It was stressful keeping it a secret for so long and having Avery keep it a secret also. From the invitations to the way we got him there, everything had to be planned perfectly. We had dinner with our whole family at a local pizza restaurant. It was a lot of fun and it surprised Jason. I had to do something big for him. He also got a new mountain bike to go with his new helmet. Hope you had a super duper birthday Jason, WE LOVE YOU BEYOND MEASURE!!!

Kick the Ball, Avery!

Avery has been pretty busy lately. She graduated from Pumpkin Patch Preschool. So, with that came a field trip to the Pocatello Zoo (not exciting whatsoever) and her graduation program. She was so cute at her graduation by saying the Pledge of Allegiance, introducing herself, and singing the songs she had learned. I would put the video online but I cannot get the videos to work. Sorry!

She played soccer this spring, which turned out to be VERY cold and almost miserable! But she endured to the end and was really starting to play. They don't have any strategy, they just get out on the field and run around. Once and awhile both teams would end up on the next field playing with the other two teams. It was quite comical. I think Avery just liked to run around with Luke and Aiden and really enjoyed the treats afterwards (Remember those days when you couldn't wait for the snack after the game? It brought back memories for me).

She thought the sunglasses made her run faster and play better!

Here are some other cute pictures of my little princess that I absolutely adore!

If anyone really knows Avery, you know that she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES pajamas. So anytime that she can wear them, it's off with her clothes and into her PJs and snuggling in with ther yellow blanket. Gotta love her and the PJs.

I have this obsession with taking pictures of Avery's hands and feet. I guess I never want to forget the size and they always remind me of the innocence of a child. I love them because they are perfect to me!

Garden Time!

It is that time of year again! We all got together to plant the garden out at Shauna's house. It is quite the production but with all hands on deck, we got the job done in about 3 hours. Not bad! Let's hope that our hard work with pay off in the fall. When all the work was done Joe got the saddle out and saddled up Dusty and let the kids ride him. They were so excited and loved every

minute of it.

Waiting patiently for Joe to bring Dusty over

This is what happened when they had to share and wait their turn.

Okay, Shauna- Where my 1,000 bucks?

Happy Easter Everyone!

Happy Easter

Here are a few pictures of my little Easter bunny and princess. She is so adorable I had to post these pictures. (Can you tell I am a proud mom?)

This year for Easter I really tried to focus my efforts on the reason we celebrate Easter. It is because of our Savior! So most of our Easter activities were related to His death and resurrection. Avery loved the fun things we did and it was fun teaching her about her Savior. It amazes me the things that she knows and remembers. She loves the gospel and speaks often of Grandpa Randy living with Jesus. Her simple faith is inspiring to me. Here are just a few fun things we did to remember Easter.

We made Resurrection Rolls and they were a hit at my house. They are about Jesus and His Resurrection in a way that Avery understands.

-Avery was given a crescent roll which represented the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in

-Then a marshmallow was used for His body and His purity.

-Then Avery dipped the marshmallow in melted butter which represents the oil for embalming.

-Then it was dipped in cinnamon and sugar which represents the spices used to anoint Jesus's body.

-Then His body was tightly wrapped up in the cloth and placed in the tomb (oven) while it was baking we pretended that 3 days had passed.

-Then when the rolls were done, Avery opened up her roll to find that the marshmallow had melted and Jesus had risen but that the white cloth remained.

It was a great way to teach Avery about the true meaning of Easter. It was simplified in a way that she understood. The rolls were really yummy too!

We colored a little coloring book I found. It was about the 7 days of Easter. Each day of the week spoke was Christ's last week and there were scriptures that we read for each day. Avery didn't totally understand but she really liked making the book.

Of course I can't totally deprive Avery of the Easter bunny, the egg hunts, and dying eggs. So she did get to do all of those but just a few days before Easter. She had a blast running around with her cousins looking for eggs. She got WAY TOO MUCH CANDY! But loved every minute of finding them. She also dyed Easter eggs with Aiden, Ethen, and Spencer. Let me tell you, Avery is all girl. She would delicately place in the eggs in the dye so as to not splash. while the boys would drop the eggs into the cup and dye would go everywhere! She used the egg dipper so her little fingers wouldn't get colored. But towards the end, she was dipping her little fingers into the dye.

She also had an Easter egg hunt with grandma Shauna but unfortunately I had to work so I didn't get any pictures. I know she had fun and can't wait to use her Wendy's gift card.

Honoring our serviceman, Jared!

We love our service men and women, especially when one of them is Jared! We truly appreciate his sacrifice for our freedom and safety. It is also a HUGE sacrifice for Kris and little Jack. So with his recent deployment, I thought it was a neat idea to get a military service flag for Shauna to fly at her home. She had never heard or seen these type of flags hanging in windows of families that have members deployed.

Now a little history of the flag so everyone knows about it! The flag was designed during WWI,becoming an unofficial symbol of a child in service. During WWII, displaying the flag became very common. Almost every home displayed the flag indicating the number of family members serving in the Armed Forces. In 1966, the Department of Defense declared the specifications of the design and display of the service flag. The flag is white with a red border. Each blue star represents the number of members serving (one star meaning one member serving). The color of the stars is symbolic in that the blue represents hope and pride. When a service man been killed a smaller, gold star in placed on top of the blue star to create a blue border surrounding the gold star. The gold star represents sacrifice to the cause of liberty and freedom.

According to the Department of Defense, close family members should fly the flag. So parents, siblings, wife, husband, and children. The flag should only by flown during times of war.

And there is your brief history lesson for the week!

So thank you Jared for serving our country and for your HUGE sacrifice. We pray for you everyday.