Emma and Taylor Bailey, September 20, 2006 - August 10, 2010

I  know Heavenly Father has a plan for us even if I don't understand what that plan is.  You're so loved and there's a lot of us who are missing you girls an aweful lot right now.  You've changed my life and you've taught me to appreciate so many things, and I'm still learning from watching your mom and dad.  Your mom and dad are such good examples to me in so many ways.  I love your family and it's going to be hard for me to watch them miss you so much.  We love you.

Our baby girls

Abbygail - 3 months old

Baylee - 9 months old

I'm having fun dressing up two baby girls with dresses, bracelets, and hairbows.  I haven't been able to dress little girls alike until now and I'm loving it.  The girls are just 6 months apart and we get lots of weird looks when we go out into public.  One of the first questions people ask us is "How far apart are they?" and then we watch as they try to figure out the math in their heads.   

Reactions to my new Haircut

My friend Amber cut and colored my hair for me this morning.  I was needing my hair cut and colored for such a long time now and I'm really very excited to show it to you all.  These were the reactions I got from my family today.

Dane: He was with me at Amber's house while she was coloring and cutting my hair. "I don't like your hair (would walk away and come back), I don't like your hair (stares at me and Amber), I don't like your hair".    He didn't like the way I looked at all when I had the hair dye on.  In fact, he brought me a popcicle for me to open for him and wouldn't come any closer than he had to.  He was leaning back but stretching and reaching to hand me his popsicle so I would open it for him.  I must have looked really scary.

Christian: I texted Christian when I got out of the hair appointment to say I'd got my hair cut, and it was now chin length.  Here's his text word for word.  "Sweet, send me a pic of it and be topless in the pic."  So I took a picture of my hair (with my clothes on) and sent him a picture of my new haircut.  Then he said "Hey, it looks really good." 

Melody: (Picking Melody up from school)  She sees the van so runs over and hops into the front passenger seat.  She turns and looks at me and says very surprised, "Mom!  What happened to your face?!?"  My reaction..."What!, What's wrong with my face??" Then Melody, "There's something very different, Oh!! you cut your hair!!"  Oh good, so there's nothing wrong with my face.

Aaron: (7:00p.m. at night)  Aaron has said nothing at all about my hair so I finally ask him at the dinner table.  Aaron, do you like my hair cut?  Aaron says, "You got a hair cut?" 

Here's a not so glamorous picture of my hair cut.  I'll post a better picture of it later.

Melody's 8th Birthday

She had her 8th birthday party at her Uncle Kevin's and Aunt Lori's house.  We got together with family, swam, ate, and she got to open some fun presents.  Happy 8th birthday Melody!

Melody's Baptismal Dress

I got a wee bit emotional today thinking about Melody and how fast she's growing up. She and I looked at dresses for her 8th birthday and she chose one that is just perfect for her. Fits her personality and she looks lovely. Melody tried it on and we took some pictures of her in the backyard. Her daddy's going to baptize her on June 26th. Tonight is Family Home Evening and we'll be talking about the importance of baptism, making covenants with Heavenly Father, and the gift of the Holy Ghost...and then we're going swimming.

Peaches!

My sister Laurel and her kids came to stay with us for the week and we've been having a lot of fun together.  I took her and my kiddos to Schnepf Farms to pick us some locally grown peaches.  MMMMmmmmmm...fresssshh peeeeaaches.  We were pickin' them, rubbin' them on our shirts, and eatin' them right off the tree.  Soooo good.  Laurel made us some homemade peach cobbler, and together we made a double batch of peach jam to split.  The kids snacked on those peaches for a few days, then I made peach smoothies with the left overs.  It was a fun experience.  Dane couldn't reach the peaches in the trees so kept bringing me any he could find on the ground.  We met my friend Tiffany there with her kids and we had our strollers for the younger kids.  It was a fun day.  The only disappointing thing is no ninjas jumped out of the trees at us. After picking those fuzzy fruits we went over to the otherside of the farm where we took a train ride around the farm and saw other vegetable gardens, took a hayride and got off half way to feed some deer, went to the petting zoo and came into contact with some very friendly goats, rode a carousel that was built back in 1912, and played on a very fun playground with tractor trikes, slides, tractor tires, haybales, and a little house.   Seriously, if you haven't been there you should make a point to go.  October is my favorite time to go because of the chilli fest, pumpkins, and corn maze.   After Schnepf Farm we went home and jumped in our neighborhood pool to cool off for a few hours. 

How does your garden grow?

I finally planted a flower garden at my house...YAY!!! It only took me 2 1/2 years to do it. We had our ward's enrichment activity this month on gardening. At the activity we all planted a whole lot of things in our egg cartons. I planted various things but I planted a lot of sunflower seeds in one of my egg cartons. I kept it on our window sill above our kitchen sink and I'll tell you...those things grow really fast! All of a sudden I needed a place to plant them outside and I hadn't prepped anything outside. So the last two days I've been digging, and digging, and shoveling, and mixing dirt in the back yard by the wall so I could finally plant those little flowers. I bought a nice cheap border to go around the whole thing, I bought 10 packets of various flower seeds, and a few potted flowers that were being clearanced at Walmart. You can get some really nice flowers for $1.50 at the Walmart by our house right now.


Here's the pictures of what I've been working on the last two days. You can see the flowers that I purchased from the store but what you don't see yet are the tons of seeds that I threw out there that hopefully will start growing. I'll do some updated pictures later on. I can't wait to see how the whole thing fills in...at least hopefully it does. What I should have done was take a before and after pictures of this.

Now I just have to work in the side yard where I want the vegetable garden to be. I'll do some before and after pictures of that project. And just like Sis. Snyder quoted us at enrichment night..."The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

Maggie Hughes

I got Maggie for Christian for our 1st wedding anniversary.  He had been telling me how awesome he thought Rodesian Ridgebacks were while we were dating and so on.  I had never heard about a Ridgeback before and didn't ever give them much thought even after Christian would tell me about them.  Then we talked about getting a dog and I started doing research.  After reading and comparing breeds I found that the Ridgeback was exactly what we were looking for.  Good temperment, great guard dog, no high need to walk, short hair, no smelly hound smell, hardly sheds, and can be very protective of home and family.  I found a breeder in Mesa and went to look at the puppies.  They all looked exactly the same to me but they were really neat so I paid for our puppy and then left her there for another week so I could pick her up on our wedding anniversary.  I brought Melody with me to look at the puppies and had to swear her to secrecy.  All I kept telling Christian was I got him something really great and wouldn't give him any hints.  Then as I was driving home with our little puppy on our anniversary I was talking to Christan on the phone and as I pulled into the driveway he guessed!  I couldn't believe that he would guess and he came out of the house to see her.  He opened the sliding door to the van and there was the cutest little puppy dog looking right out at us.  I still think that was by far the best wedding anniversary present I've ever gotten Christian. 

Then we had Dane.  Take a look at these pictures and you tell me whose dog this really belongs to.

Often times while we're watching TV together this is what we'll see.  Dane just laying right on top of Maggie chilling out and Maggie absolutely loves it.  Dane and Maggie are very much a team and together a lot.  I'll put Maggie outside and next thing I know she's back inside because Dane missed her and wanted her back inside with him.  I had to hide the doggie-bones because Dane thought Maggie needed those all the time.  I think Maggie thinks Dane is her own little puppy.

Cleaning out the garage

Christian and I have been cleaning our garage for the past 3 days and I cannot believe the amount of junk, scrap, rubbish, and garbage we've been storing in there for the past 2 1/2 years.  We never fully unpacked everything when we moved in over 2 years ago.  So today we were opening boxes upon boxes of stuff just to make sure there wasn't anything of value in them.  Nope, not really anything worth keeping.  Why have we been storing this stuff for soooo long is what I'd like to know.  We took a van load yesterday and Christian is taking another van load right now.  I think I had somewhere around 5 garbage sacks full of just fabric.  Why? 

Deseret Industries...it's on its way!  We probably have enough in our garage to easily keep you afloat.  And it feels SO good to get it gone.  Maybe we can park 2 cars in our garage instead of just the van.  We'll be taking advantage of the DI Pod at the stake center for the rest of the week.

Aaron is being promoted!

Congratulations Aaron and thank you so much Mrs. Moore for guiding my son in kindergarten this year.  I am so happy that we got you as a teacher again.  Aaron, you are on your way to doing great and important things.  Thank you son for being a good student and getting your work done.  I think you are an excellent reader and a smarty-pants. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to.  Whatever you choose to be when you grow up, I know you'll be great at it.  You look so handsome in your promotion picture.