Our Sanpete Adventures

While home in Sanpete, we had the opportunity to go to the Mormon Miracle Pageant performed on Temple Hill. If you have not been, you really should go. It is AMAZING. My family has been apart of the cast for years now. And although it is performed each year, and we go each year, there's always something new to learn or to realize. I love it. It strengthens my testimony that much more. Here are a few pictures:

We were able to go up again on June 29th because the next day was my grandparents 50th anniversary. They are such amazing example to me. I hope that someday Ray and I can follow in their footsteps and share our 50th anniversary with each other and have our whole family surround us. We had over 100 people in attendance - everyone of them making up their posterity. We had this blessed event at the Heritage park in Salt Lake. It was a pretty long drive, but it wasn't too bad, seeing how we slept most of the way. It was so gorgeous. Mady had such a fun time with the little kids park they had. Here's a few pictures of the fun things they had:At the park they had a little village of old pioneer houses, it was so fun to go around and walk into some of the houses. This church was one of my favorites: There was also this gorgeous orchard with a cute fence. My mom took some pictures for us, I felt like we were taking engagement pictures again. Ray looked amazing. I fell in love with him all over again.





This is one of my favorites:

We also got to spend the 4th of July with my family. We spent the day in Manti having fun with all the festivities that were going on. We got to ride the train:We rode some horses, which Mady loved:We did an egg toss - which got all over me:We then went back to my grandparents house to eat some delicious food and wait for the parade to start. While we waited, we played some cards:And slept:
After eating a delicious meal, my mom took the kids and Mady to the parade.

When it was late enough, we headed over to Temple hill to watch the fireworks. I was surprised at how well Mady took the loud noises. She loved it. The next day we celebrated mine and Ray's birthday's by going to Palisades and eating some yummy cakes!

My parents gave us some awesome gifts! Ray got a lot of his favorite snacks along with $100. I was given some cake decorating supplies, $100 snacks, and a wonderful surprise - My American Girl Doll, Molly. All brand new. When I was baptized, my grandmother gave me Molly. She has had a hard life, so it was quite a surprise when my Mom gave her to me all brand new. She will be kept safe to pass down to my daughter. Overall it was such a great trip. We loved spending time with my family and enjoying the fun things Sanpete has to offer. Thanks for letting us come stay! We love you!

Madelynn Turns 1!

Madelynn turned 1 on March 26, 2011. Its so crazy to think I have a toddler now. We celebrated her birthday on the 2nd of April. All of Ray's family and mine came down for the event and also to watch conference with us. I had this huge idea planned for her party. Her colors were pink and green and I did a polka-dot theme. Although at times it was really stressful, it was a lot of fun doing the decorations and the food. My really good friend and next door neighbor, Ada Munk, helped me so much with everything. If it wasn't for her, it wouldn't have turned out as amazing as it did. Here are some of the decorations:

POM POMs: Have you seen these? They're the new thing. And the best part is that they are super easy to make! Go HERE if you want to learn how.

The credit for this cute birthday banner goes to KayLa and my sister Kimberly. KayLa cut out the letters with her cricut. Super cute, eh? Kimberly is the one who put it all together. Pretty much amazing.
These took a lot longer than I had planned. Ray helped a lot in putting them up and hanging them from the ceiling. I blew over 100 balloons about a week before the party. I'm pretty happy they didn't shrink until after the party.The food turned out amazing. It was super good! My mother-in-law made those cute popcorn balls in the white basket. My mother made the yummy frappe stuff - oh its sooo good. People mostly serve it at a wedding. The cake and cupcakes turned out ok. I'm excited to make Ray's cake soon so I can try my hand again at fondant. We'll see how that works out.
Ada made those yummy bruschettas. I think I ate like half a plate. Oh they were so good. And then the dark red pan is little smokies. I wanted to give you all the recipes to these amazingly delicious food, but the way I make them are very different from the recipes online. So if you want a recipe, just ask.
The last item of food was fondue. We had milk and white chocolate. Super good!
We had quite the house full of people. During present time, Mady just sat not really knowing what to do.
We appreciate everyone for giving her such cute cute gifts! Barb, my mother-in-law, actually made Mady this cute lamb. Isn't it amazing! She loves it!My mother-in-law also had a cute idea of making Mady a quilt, and have everyone write on a quilt block something sweet for Mady. Here's what some of them look like:
And of course we can't forget some cake pictures! Mady just kinda sat there looking at the cake, not knowing what to do. So we had to help her a little bit. But then after tasting it, she dived right in! We are so blessed to have Mady! She always lifts my spirits when I'm down and makes us laugh all the time at the new things she is learning. We love her so much. Happy birthday Mady!

UGH........

Today is one of those days - where everything is just ugh. Not only is it Monday, but I'm having awful that time of the month pains, I'm lacking motivation in all areas.......Maybe I'm just overly excited and anxious to go home to see my family on Wednesday.

All I know is that I want five things right this second:

1. My Bed
2. Chocolate in every form - mostly these - they're my favorite
3. Rice Bags
4. A Movie - I'm craving action, love...a little bit of everything
5. But mostly I just want this guy to hold me like this and make everything better

What do you do when you have no internet?

Yesterday was one of those days where our internet wasn't working until 10:00 at night. This may or may not have been detrimental to some, but for me....it was. Having 5 classes I'm taking over the summer, facebooking, hulu, netflix, blogging.....I NEED internet. Its so sad that I have become so dependent upon it. So I found other things to do. Oh, did I also mention that I am husbandless this weekend? Ray works 40 hours just this weekend. Horrible isn't it. So he works for 16 + hours, comes home and sleeps for 6 hours and then does it all over again. Poor guy. I love him so much. He does so much just to provide for us. Thanks babe.

So Mady and I played outside for awhile. It didn't last as long as usual due to the stupid wind. So we came back in. I looked around my house, it was quite messy. So I decided to turn on some music and clean. Our computer isn't working so I tried using our mp3 player and hook it up to speakers. I started adding the songs I wanted to listen to (since Ray has over 300 artists - it takes a while to get the songs you want). I had one more artist I wanted to add, when I clicked the wrong button and deleted all my songs I had queued up. I was frustrated and gave up. So then I decided to put on a chick flick and maybe get around to cleaning.

About half way through I decided to get cleaning. I was putting some stuff away in my room when I got an idea. I should rearrange our room! It hasn't been rearranged since we moved in, but every other room has. So I started moving. I didn't think about taking before and after pictures till I was half way done. So here's a drawing of what our room used to look like:The house looked like a wreck while I was moving things around. I'm glad no one came over during my move. Here's the "during" pictures:After moving all the furniture around I was sweating so bad. I didn't think that one through. I sat down and ate a whole bunch of watermelon. Yum it was so good!But I like how it looks now. Lets just hope Ray does too. Here's the finishing touches:We'll see what happens next time our internet is out for the day.

What do you do when you don't have internet? I want to know!