Emma's 6th Birthday

Here are a few pictures from Emma's birthday! Here is the birthday board:

Emma's big birthday wish was to play with her best friend, Sadie and get her hair cut. So, Sadie came with us to Emma's haircut, then the girls had lunch together and played! This is a picture of Emma and Sadie at the hair salon waiting for the haircut:Here is a picture of Emma getting her haircut!
Here is a picture of the cake. Emma just finished reading a dalmatian puppy book with mom and so she wanted a dalmatian puppy cake.Thankfully, Uncle Steve and and Aunt Lynsi and their girls came and helped us eat the puppy cake and ice cream! It was very fun! We always love their company.

And here is a picture of Emma at the end of the day with her birthday balloon and short hair cut! It really is so cute on her and she absolutely loves it!
Happy Birthday beautiful Emma Grace Lund! We love you so much and are so happy to have you in our lives and family! You are such a special, sweet person!

Lia Kate's 4th Birthday

So, now it is February 2012! Wow, how time flies... here are a few things we have been doing the last few months: Lia's birthday (Jan. 7), Emma's birthday (Jan. 23), a family ski trip to Beaver Mountain (Jan. 24), Valentine's Day, our 9th wedding anniversary (Feb. 15) and lots to look forward to in the next few weeks: Andy's birthday (Feb. 27), Kallie's birthday (Mar. 1) and Kallie's baptism (Mar. 3).

Here are a few pictures from our recent adventures: First, Lia's birthday! Here's the birthday girl! 4 years old! Doing what she loves best! She chose to swim for her birthday activity, which really suits her! She loves the water! Here she is with dad and big sisters:

And with Emma! They had a great time playing on the noodles! They pretended they were riding a horse together. It was so fun to watch their excitement with simple pleasures!

Here's the birthday board:
And the cake! Lia wanted a Rapunzel tower cake so Andy and I teamed up and made it happen (Andy did the tower, I frosted it).

Here is the view of the back of the tower, just in case you are interested:
Here is Lia and the other birthday girl, Louise (our WONDERFUL friend and next door neighbor). It is so fun that they share a birthday!
Happy birthday to our dear Lia! We are so grateful to have her in our family!

Bear Lake and the Cache County Fair

We went to the Cache County Fair in August, and Kallie was in 100th heaven! Her latest dream is to be a cowgirl and to buy and take care of a horse. Her darling friend/neighbor has horses at her dad's house and does Country Pleasure and Barrel racing competitions at the fair so we spent most of the day watching her and chilling with her parents! It was a really nice day!
We also strolled through the animal, home and 4H exhibits. Here are a few of our favorites at the home exhibit. Cutest cookie monster!Amazing quilt! WOW!

We also went to Bear Lake in August... quick trip to do some Family Reunion research and have a picnic. Dad and the girls took a little adventure in the high waters of Bear Lake, too! Here they are with showing their muscles! Fun times!

A Little Canning and Crafting

While Andy trained for his bike race this summer I tried to keep busy, too! I learned how to jar pickles (thanks to my friend/neighbor Valerie's instruction) - these are the first 6 quarts I did, made from home-grown cucumbers! So fun!
I made delicious food from Wyoma's (my wonderful mother-in-law) latest recipe book, called Our Best Bites. This is Cobb salad with grilled chicken, turkey bacon, boiled eggs, green onion, tomatoes, and olives over romaine lettuce! It was so yummy!
And I tried to do some artsy and crafty stuff, too! These are invitations to our second annual block party/ice cream social! (The ice cream on the invite is made with gift wrap tissue.) Kallie planned the kid games and different neighbors brought their favorite ice creams! It was so fun to learn new things about our friends and neighbors!
I learned how to crochet around baby blankets! Thanks to Aunt Sherma (Andy's ultra-talented, wonderful Aunt) for teaching me how to crochet! This blanket is for our Stake Humanitarian project.
Here is a close up of the stitch (you can tell it was my first one but I am so pleased!).

LOTOJA (Logan to Jackson)

Last weekend (yes, last Saturday - September 10) Andy did the 206-mile LOTOJA (Logan to Jackson) bike race! Those of you who are not familiar with how this race works... you have a support crew who meets you at different points along the ride and gives you food and drink so you have enough energy until the next stop. Me and a friend/neighbor were the support crew for our husbands, who both rode LOTOJA.

Andy did really great! His ride took him 11:33 minutes. Here he is before the race (his start time was 7:13 am).
His number - go 2136! Here he is at the starting line - the back of the pack.
And climbing the Salt River Pass into Star Valley, Wyoming! (Second from left).
And at the end! He said he felt great when he got done! You can see from the picture that it was chaos trying to get out of there, but since we weren't in a hurry it wasn't too bad!
After the race we drove back with neighbors and friends and stayed with my cousin's family in Grover! Thanks Dale and Beth Ann for treating us like kings and queens!

The End of Summer and the TOU Marathon

Kallie has a Princess calendar in her room. She has written on next Friday (which is September 23 - the first day of fall) OH NO! That is kind of how I feel too!

We have had a great summer, with lots of fun memories we can be happy about as the leaves fall off the trees! I will start with the most recent events and activities, since they are easier for me to remember, then work my way back through the summer (if I remember to).

Yesterday Andy ran the TOU Marathon, mostly for fun (and the cool moose medal he got at the end). His training for the event was one 6.2 mile run, which was part of the Spudman triathlon at the end of July! Well, my hunk of an athlete ran the marathon cold turkey in 3 hours 30 minutes! Go honey! Here he is running right before mile 22. Look how happy he is!
Here he is after the race with Kallie.
And Emma..
And me, of course!
Andy is my hero! He is an amazing athlete!

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter! Here are a few pictures from our neighborhood Easter egg hunt. A few days before the hunt Emma made a darling bunny basket out of the base of a milk cartoon, so on Friday we made two more for Kallie and Lia. Then we found the bunny ears and spring flowers and we were ready! Here are the girls together before the "hunt"!
Kallie
Emma
And Lia - she wanted a kitty basket instead of a bunny.
Of course this egg hunt was fun! The more fun, and neat, part of this Easter season was the little bit of celebrating we did each day before Easter. We used the Friend magazine this year as our countdown guide. Each night we had a mini devotional about what was happening to Jesus Christ each days, from 8 days before Easter to Easter day! It was so neat to remember what happened during this last week in His mortal life! On Easter we had a great celebration by making "He is Risen" Rolls for breakfast... here is the link if you want it for future reference. http://mustardseeds.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/he-has-risen-rolls.html

The girls LOVED talking about how Jesus's body covered in oil and spices and then put into the tomb. And they LOVED finding out that his body was gone on Easter morn because He was risen! I am so grateful for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that means for us. I also had the opportunity to speak in church on Easter. I felt impressed to speak on Pres. Uchtdorf's October 2008 general conference address entitled, "The Infinite Power of Hope." I learned a lot while studying this talk and the forty some references! If you get a chance, study it for a while! It is really beautiful!