Love Story

This is a late Valentine love story of sorts. And the condensed version goes something like this...

Boy meets girl.
Girl falls in love with boy.
Boy finally realizes he is in love with girl, also.
Boy and girl get married on July 21st, 2001.
Boy and girl live a great, fun, married life with no kids for 4 years...Pleasant Grove, American Fork, and then onto Louisville, Kentucky for graduate school (boy is getting closer to dream of becoming a marriage therapist).
Boy graduates from grad school in May, 2005 and girl delivers 1st son 2 months later.
Boy and girl leave Louisville in June 2006 and drive across the country to live in good ol' Hurricane, Utah.
Boy starts new job.
Girl delivers 2nd son 14 months and 22 days after the first (no, this was not planned).
Boy and girl purchase a beautiful home in Hurricane.
Girl delivers 3rd son in March, 2009.

We never know, starting out, what life has in store for us. I'm so glad that ours has taken us where it has so far.

Ephraim and I celebrated life last weekend and took a trip up to Salt Lake. We dropped the kids off at Chris and Heidi's (thank you guys) and spent a glorious weekend in the snow. Food, movies, snowboarding, shopping, more food (did I mention that I didn't have to cut up anyone else's food?)



Thank you, honey, for a blessed life. I wouldn't change a thing.

I love my town...

This is why I live where I live...

Hurricane Weather (click here)

Compare this to where I grew up (sorry mom and dad)...

Springfield Weather (click here)

(of course the rain wasn't in the forecast when I first did this post)

And the winner is...

No, I'm not sponsoring a giveaway on my blog.

We took the kids up to Cedar City to see the Harlem Globetrotters with our friends, the Clarks. And of course, the Globetrotters won!


This was my first time to see them play and it was so entertaining. Ephraim has seen them a couple of times but he said that this was his favorite! (it must have been because I was with him...)

There was dancing...


dunking (ephraim's favorite part)...



crowd-pleasing stunts...


lots of cheering (just look how captivated we all were...)



and some tired kids on the way home...


except for Andy, who runs like the Energizer bunny...


I think we may have to do this again.

My New Best Friend

Megan, meet the KitchenAid Mixer. KitchenAid, meet Megan.
And so the love story begins...with the appliance I never knew I always needed.



I have been making my own bread for a while now...hand kneading it and everything.

The plan this past year was to purchase a KitchenAid Mixer at a Black Friday sale...but my parents beat me to the punch. They surprised me with one when they came out in October. Fabulous, right? I use it multiple times a week.
And to top it off, my husband bought me a wheat grinder attachment.

I haven't bought bread in 4 months.

And now I don't buy wheat flour.

I love this machine.

On another note, I just realized my blog started doing "comment moderation" all on its own. Sorry to the comments I just discovered back from November.

This Morning

Every morning (upon waking) I go through the same battle in my mind. Do I work out? Do I start cleaning? Do I start breakfast for the kids?

This morning I woke up (before anyone else) and fixed myself a cup of hot chocolate. And a slice of pumpkin chocolate chip bread (made from 100% freshly ground wheat flour...more on that later). It felt good.

And then I worked out.

I have yet to clean and get breakfast for the kids.

I think it's going to be a good day.

Merry Christmas...a little off key

Sewing has been on my to-learn list for years now and I finally did it!...with the help of my mother and the Dixie Community Education sewing instructor. The pajamas (on the older boys) were my first sewing project. They took 6 weeks to make and I made almost every mistake possible (thank goodness for seam rippers)...but they ended up turning out OK.

My favorite mistake was when I tried to sew the front of the shirt to the back and asked the sewing instructor if it was right. Her reply..."If you're a double amputee..."

I hope these hold up in the wash......

My Boys

Bear with me while I show off some pictures we had taken of our boys a few weeks ago. The photographer is Kristie Holland, a great friend from our days in Louisville. She lives in the Las Vegas area and is fabulous! (if any of you are interested). My kids were next to impossible to photograph and she still got some good shots. Thanks again, Kristie.