Happy TEN! (10) year anniversary baby!

Kiley & I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on the 20th of this month. I can hardly believe it has been 10 years!

A friend of ours offered to take the kids that Friday night & keep them until about noon on Saturday. It was so nice to have the night off & be able to enjoy the quiet together! We went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner, walked around the mall (tax free weekend=millions of people at the mall), and made a stop at an anesthesia bbq. It was fun to visit with old friends & meet some new peeps as well!

This is us 10 years after the first picture! Boy have we changed!!!

I know most of these pictures won't mean anything to any of you, but they sure do bring back a flood of memories for me & hopefully for Kiley, too! The pictures are not in any specific order. Have fun trying to figure out if which ones are sooner than later! It also makes me feel so old as I post these pictures from 10 years ago to now.......

I rarely think of all that we have accomplished together in the past 10 years. I kind of get stuck in the now & how to make it through each day. But as I sat here going through picture after picture (believe me, we have thousands & thousands of pics on this computer) it made me realize that we have accomplished so many things in these short years together & we still have many many more years to come.

Some of our greatest accomplishments since 1999:

*Having three children & one more on the way! This is huge to me because being prego, having the baby, & then trying to raise them in this chaotic, evil world is not an easy feat! Not to mention, IT IS EXHAUSTING!!! Ask Kiley, living with me for 9 months while I am pregnant is anything but easy! So please pat him on the back or send him some words of encouragement for the next 5 months! Way to go babe! You have almost made it through 4 long pregnancies with me!

*Putting Kiley through BYU, Medical School, and now Residency. We have known nothing but school, school, & more school! What great memories we have from the good old BYU days. But I do have to say, I think Med School is a time that I will always cherish & every now & then, long for. We had such a simple life & great friends. We lived off of love & student loans & nothing else really mattered, well except for making sure Kiley did well in school & passed those darn tests that he would study hours for! Residency has been a whole new ball game. Nothing we had expected. So grateful we have only 1 year left! I am so grateful for Kiley's hard work & dedication to his education, but most importantly to his family. I wouldn't do it any differently than we have! Now it is my turn to go to school!

*Training together for a marathon back in 2005. Kiley didn't get to run it with me, but he did train with me up until about the 10th week of training then he had to leave for a month. It was so much fun to run ourselves to death TOGETHER! There is nothing like pushing each other & supporting each other through some major hard running.....we did a 20 miler for one of our training runs & were both ready to die, but made it together! That was a time period that I will always treasure! Let's do it again babe....well after this baby comes & when you have more time.....

*Competing in our FIRST triathlon earlier this year was a huge accomplishment for the two of us! We had so much fun & really enjoyed it! Again, this is something we'd like to continue doing, but gotta get this baby here first!

*Moving to Arizona, then back to Utah, then on to Texas. To me, moving is a HUGE accomplishment & although each move seemed so hard at the time, we made it & have survived & loved everywhere we have been! Change is good!

*Along with that, having our FIRST home built. That is a tough process for anyone & trying to agree & work together on prices, upgrades, etc, is NOT easy! But we had fun & have LOVED our house!

*Our oldest will be baptized in a few short days. What an accomplishment! Like I mentioned earlier, it is not easy raising kids these days & I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life & my little families life. We are so far from perfect, but together with our knowledge & testimonies of the gospel we are trying to teach our children to make good choices, to love everyone, and to know that our goal as a family is to be together forever. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of eternal families & am even more grateful that I can teach my children this amazing principle & blessing!

*This is always an ongoing accomplishment, but one I really want to mention-everywhere we have lived, we have met some wonderful people & made some life long friends. We are so grateful for the relationships we have, FAMILY & FRIENDS! It is so wonderful to know that we are loved & looked out for! Thanks guys! We love you all!

SiStErS!

I love my sisters! I have two younger sisters, Angela & Ashley. We didn't really do much together when we were younger, but as adults, we really enjoy spending time together! They both came down to San Antonio back in May to spend a few days with us! It was so fun to have them here & spend some good time together, especially before Ashley left on her mission for our church a month after her visit here.

We tried to do all the things they wanted to, but there were a few days the weather did not work with us! We made the most of it & have some great memories! We left the kids home one afternoon with Kiley & went to the San Antonio Temple, to the book store, & then out to an early dinner. They HAD to go to Rudy's & to Papasito's. We also spent a few days at Sea World. The first day was spent watching all the shows & going on all the rides. The next day rained & we had planned to go to the water park all day, but luckily it stopped raining just in time for us to see Billy Ray Cyrus perform LIVE at Sea World. Okay, I know you are all jealous & feel really bad that you did not get to see his AWESOME performance & even make your way up to the stage, have him grab your hand (both Ang & Ash were able to touch his hand) & to TOP it all off, we left the concert with Billys own personal SWEAT TOWEL. You heard me right, he handed his nasty disgusting towel to my little sister Ashley. It made her night!

We also went up to Enchanted Rock with our good friends Matt & Kathryn & their kids! It is just a few miles out of the cutest little German town, Fredricksburg. It was such a fun hike! The little ones did such a great job. Livy was able to climb most of it on her own. It was so amazing, a big humungo round mountain. After we ventured all over the mountain, we headed back into Fredricksburg & went to a nummy little restaurant, the Beir Garten. It was a fun day I think we all will remember!

We had so much fun with Angela & Ashley! They are such wonderful Aunts to our kids! We love you guys & are so glad we had those 5 days to play, watch movies, eat good food, be lazy, play in the rain, sleep in, work out, & make some pretty fun memories! We love you!!

At the Temple......jumping for joy!

The flowers were so pretty up there!

Dinner at Papasito's! It was good food!

Pirate 3D show at Sea World!

We love the log ride at Sea World.

Shamu, penguins, roller coaster rides, water rides......

Anxiously awaiting for Billy Ray to come out!!!

Ya Billy! Liv LOVED the loud music & dancing around!

Liv & mom having a good old time!

The TOWEL....Ashley was so excited about this nasty thing!

Making our way up Enchanted Rock!

Good times!

Fried Pickles...sounds gross, but they were good!

Are you all ready for this?????

Take a gander at the picture (sorry, not the best quality).....Is It A bOy Or Is It A gIrL?????
I have mentioned several times through out my blog, my good friend Kathryn. She is my neighbor across the street & one of my very dearest friends. She is also my OB! Pretty sweet! Any how, she was on call last night & had me come in to do an ultrasound. I went in last Tuesday & the babe would not cooperate, so I was thinking it would be the same scenario--I am only 16 weeks along, so it isn't always easy to tell whether it is a boy or girl. She is 100% sure it is what it is, but I am not purging any girl or boy stuff until my 20 week ultrasound. Still, we are dang excited & look forward to this baby joining our family in January!! Hope you can figure out what it is!!!

The Teagster is 8!

Teagen's AMAZING birthday cupcake!!!! He is having a

bday party with friends on the 11th, so that is when we

will really celebrate!!!!

I am way behind as usual on this darn blog, but I am not ready to quite give up on it yet! I will have to post the summer going ons when I have a bit more time, but really wanted to celebrate my newly turned 8 year old boy & the joy he has brought into my life thus far!

*Good times at McCallister's Deli! Had to get some wacky

pictures!

We let him chose where we were going tonight for dinner. He chose McCallister's Deli....one of our faves! He LOVES the nachos there & insists we buy a side of the nacho dip just for him! We went to Target after dinner & let him pick out a brand new bike! Pretty exciting stuff!

Teagen was born on August 3rd, 2001. He was the cutest little thing & looked a whole lot like his daddy! He was a mover from the get go & I don't think he has stopped since that first time I felt him kick me while he was still baking in the oven! :) Teagen was born in American Fork Utah at the American Fork Hospital. He was 5 days late & weighed a hefty 7 lbs. 4 1/2 oz. He was smothered with love from the very beginning. We lived in my parents basement apartment & most of my 7 siblings still lived at home, with that said, being surrounded by so many adults & teenagers Teagen talked, walked, ran, laughed & all that other great stuff pretty early on. We moved to AZ for medical school right after he turned one. I think he missed his grandparents & aunts & uncles a lot, but LOVED all his new little friends & the amazing pool we had right outside our door. When he was almost 4, we moved back to my parents house for a year. We celebrated his 5th birthday in San Antonio--we had just moved 2 days before his birthday! He has been such a trooper with all of our moves to different states. He is a lot like me & can't wait to get back to Utah for a good lengthy visit with family & friends--I think that is where he considers "home". He loves to play sports, eat, watch tv, hang out with friends, play the DS or the WII (we don't have either, so he does that with friends at their houses), ride his bike, ride his scooter, swim, cuddle, & listen to pretend stories told by his dad. He is pretty much 100% a daddy's boy & loves to spend time with him. He is a good boy with a lot of energy & emotion which can really ware me out! I love him very much & know that Teagen is part of our family for a reason.

EIGHT reasons why I love Teagen:

*He has a boundless amount of energy that I wish I could bottle up & use myself!

*His excitement for things he really enjoys & likes is very contagious! If only we could channel it to some of the things he isn't too thrilled about (school work, piano, chores!!!)!

*He has an amazing memory! Definitely not something he got from me!

*He may not like to read like his mom & dad, but I love that he thoroughly enjoys pretend stories. Kiley has been telling him pretend stories since he was 2! If no one is willing to tell him a story, he can often be found telling Brayden a pretend story at night before they both fall asleep!

*He comes off as a not so sensitive kid, but in reality, he has a very sweet heart! He broke down crying at the end of one of the Peter Pan movies, I think the second one, cause he was so concerned that the little girl didn't have a family! Hopefully his tenderheartedness will shine through a little bit more as he continues to grow up!

*I LOVE that Teagen will run with me. I love it even more that for the most part, he can keep up with me. He has always been an amazing runner & hopefully will take a liking to it just like his mom & grandma!

*I love that he adores his daddy! He is much more fond of Kiley than he is of me & I am okay with that! He thinks his dad is the most amazing person & I hope that he will always think that & that they will always have a special bond!

*I love that Teagen is always up for a hug or just a good old cuddle session on the couch. Again something that I hope he never grows out of.....except in HS when he starts dating & all that good stuff!

We love you Teagen & hope you have the best birthday ever! Thanks for being apart of our family!