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It has been almost two years since James quit his job to work for himself full time, and more than a year since he moved out of the garage and into his own shop. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone by! From when I first met James he had wanted to have his own business and work for himself. There always seemed to be a reason to stay at his job, buying a house, babies coming, etc, etc. Finally we decided that there would probably always be a reason to not go out on his own, so we better just do it. So, when I was 6 months pregnant with our unplanned Avery, he left his job and never looked back. Not only have these first two years been profitable enough to keep the bills paid and food on the table, but the business has grown by leaps and bounds. So many opportunities have come his way, and James has stayed busy, busy. I am so grateful for a husband who can provide for his family. James has always been the hardest worker I have ever known. When we first started dating, I thought it was so weird that on Saturdays instead of wanting to hang out with me all day enjoying the day off work, he wanted to piddle around the garage and work on “projects”. This piddling and project working taught him the skills he now uses to fully provide for a family of five. Wow. Since Savanna was born I have never had to work. We both felt that the only people who should be raising our kids should be us, and James has worked hard to make sure that I can be home with our children. We are right in the middle of the busy time for James, he has never been this busy! It is a good thing to be busy of course, but I know James is tired and stressed so I just wanted him to know how much I appreciate how hard he works for us. I am so proud of him and the successful business he has built, I am grateful for the work that he gets and the home, cars, food, and all the things you need to live that we have been blessed with. I do have a very good life, a cushy life. I mean, it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I am blogging while my kids nap, pretty cake. I LOVE YOU JAMES!

Look what we got from our garden!

We kicked off the summer with a wedding! James’ younger brother, Andy, was married to Melissa on June 4th in the Draper Temple. They had a beautiful wedding! I just loved the color scheme she picked out and was so happy to get new matching dresses for the girls and a nice tie for Miles! They were married in the morning then had a nice luncheon afterward and a reception that night at their new house in Lindon. Needless to say it was a long day, but my kids actually handled it better than I was expecting! Savanna was especially cute, she loved running around with her cousins all dressed up, and Miles loved the buffet at the reception. Even Avery was enjoying herself, she (thankfully!) was able to take naps at Nana’s house between the festivities which helped a lot. It has been awhile since I had been to a wedding so, even though it was a busy crazy day, I had fun. Melissa is awesome and we get along great, it’s fun to have a new sis-in-law! Congratulations Andy and Melissa! p.s. LOVE Miles’ face in the second picture.

Savanna took swimming lessons this year! Last summer we went swimming a lot, a certain sister-in-law was taking a break from employment so I had help at the pool and we were there a bunch. Savanna and Miles both wore the inflatable arm “floaties” in the pool and could handle themselves pretty well, and they loved being in the water. Well, one day we ended up going to a pool near my sister-laws-house, and they didn’t allow any floatation devices. It made me very nervous, but we were already there so we got in the water. Savanna and Miles immediately sank to the bottom of the pool. I panicked and pulled them up. They both looked bewildered as could be. I hovered over them trying to teach them how to swim without the floaties. After 20 or so extremely stressful minutes we gave up and went home. That experience taught me a big lesson, my kids need to learn to swim for real, duh. So this year Savanna took lessons and Miles will be old enough next year. At first Savanna was a little cautious in the water and when she tried to swim she mostly flailed around splashing everyone, but I could definitely see her improving as the lessons went on. After the first day she said “I can swim without floaties now mom”… okay. She did well though, back floats, bobs, all that fun stuff, and best part was the huge grin she was sporting the entire time. I was very pleased when she passed level one, on to level two next year! I am going to try to take her to the pool without the other kids a few times so we can work on the things she learned. Hopefully she can at least stay afloat and not sink like a ton of bricks.

Andy and Melissa were sealed in the Draper Ut temple a couple weeks back now. I got some nice pictures from their reception that evening and promised to share them here.

So here we go.

Yay! Summer is finally here! Although Savanna has been out of school for a few weeks now, it seems like this was the first real week of summer because it is finally warm! We have been swimming in our little pool, eating lunch outside, playing on the swing set, and just having fun. I love this time of year! I set a lot of goals for this summer and one of them is to just have fun and pack in as many activities as we can and we are getting off to a good start! Thursday was Lagoon day! Thanks to my mother-in-law and her years of serving on the Lindon City Council, we get a free Lagoon day each summer. My mom stayed with Avery this year so I took Savanna and Miles and my brand new sister-in-law (a post about the wedding will be coming soon!) came with us. It was great having Melissa’s help! My kids are still not quite big enough to move out of kiddie land, but we did get to ride the Tidal Wave, twice! The kids had a blast and I proved my age by becoming so dizzy from this crazy dragon thing! Savanna was very brave and enjoyed the craziest stuff. On every ride Miles had this very serious/worried look on his face but as soon as he got off he was screaming about how fun it was and how he wanted to go on another one! I love, love, love days like this when I can see how happy my kids are and be able to spend quality time with them and make awesome memories!

I was reading a conversation on Facebook talking about how reading Facebook status updates and blog posts make you feel bad about yourself because you read about everyone’s exciting, wonderful life. It think someone called it “the Facebook complex”. Someone commented on how no one ever posts their real problems and we never see their tears. I have to admit that I myself have suffered from this “Facebook complex”. A barrage of happy families, perfect parents, good looking people and exciting lifestyles at your fingertips every minute of every day has definitely made me question myself and what my life is like. Should I be buying all my kids clothes at Gymboree? Should I be wearing Toms shoes? Should we be taking a vacation to Hawaii? Will that make me more happy, beautiful, and exciting? I think about these things a lot more than I should. The conclusion I have come to is this: you have to do what you are comfortable doing and what works for you and your family. If that includes the things I mentioned above, then great! But if not, don’t worry about it, enjoy the lifestyle you have chosen for yourself and your family. Which, for us, does not include the above. I think posting about the positive stuff in your life is a good thing, a way to remember all the good. However, we have to keep in mind when we are reading about others it is true that we don’t see the tears, heartaches, and trials that all these people are experiencing along with the positive stuff. On my last entry I posted the pictures I just had taken with my family, I realize this is the happy, beautiful, exciting part. The positive stuff! But, let me tell you, it was not without it’s own trials! It’s not easy getting a 5, 2, and 1 year old to hold still, look at the camera and make a face that is not grimacing at the fact that they are being made to do all these things instead of being allowed to run around and explore a new place. How many times do I have to say “Fine! If you don’t smile for this one you are not getting a slurpee!” or “Ok, if you hold still and smile just one more time you will get a slurpee and some licorice!” And it’s not easy finding an outfit that will successfully hide my post babies gut and muffin top. It’s tough living life, whatever kind of life you are living and all we can do is try our best and cherish the good and get through the bad and the ugly.

Ok, so we can all admit that a blog is just a place to brag, right? So this is one of those posts, here is my beautiful family. This the first time we had family pics professionally done and I was definitely happy with the way they turned out.