Grateful

This is a picture that I took when we were at the cabin about 5 years ago on Thanksgiving morning.

We woke up to the most beautiful dusting of snow, and a whole flock of turkeys walking up the driveway! ;) We laughed as we hollered out to them, "Hey! Don't you know what today is??"

I love the picture SO much that I had it enlarged and framed to hang in my house during the Thanksgiving holiday.

It makes me so happy!

Another thing that makes me so happy is spending time with family.

Each year we trade back and forth between which family we will spend the holiday with. But this year we finally got smart and decided to have an early Thanksgiving with my family since we would be with Clint's family ON the holiday.

I loved having time with BOTH families and feeing EXTRA blessed.

We hosted my family on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and Kambriella helped me by writing these beautiful name place cards. She is so talented! (But then again so are all of my children;)

I also made some homemade cranberry sauce and recorded it on Marco Polo for all of my children to see and learn. I'm not sure if anyone watched it, but I sure had fun doing it!

There were 19 of us total. 

The food was yummy and the company was fun!

I love watching these little cousins interact with each other. ;)

Raelle is always trying to give kisses to Rodney. :)

We had this fun puzzle out for everyone to work on, but Kara was the real champ and completed at least half of it by herself!

I LOVE these little name card holders that I also found for only $1!

I went to so many Hobby Lobby stores to buy all they had so that I could be stocked up for our ever growing family...I bought 53 of them!

It was fun having everyone over, and also made me miss my family that is not with us right now.

Gavin is in the Dominican Republic serving his mission, and Kierra and her family are living in Hawaii until the summer of 2026. We miss their presence, but feel them close, and are SO GRATEFUL for the gifts and blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ and eternal families.

I am so grateful for this mortal experience that I get to share with  my people!

Happy early Thanksgiving!

 

 

Our Foundation!

WE HAVE A  FOUNDATION!!!

After 3 days in a row of temperatures that would stay above freezing, they were able to pour our foundation!

I am continually in awe of the spiritual relevance of "digging deep" and building our foundations strong, especially when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we build on Him, we cannot fall! 

We, as a family, are building our foundation upon our Savior Jesus Christ! We LOVE Him!

Helaman 5:12 

And now, my sons(and my daughters), remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

 

Santa's Reindeer

Here is an update from the foothills of Bountiful...

Forms were delivered and set!

This was a HUGE undertaking!!!

It took a few days to do this, but TODAY they are actually pouring the foundation!!!!

This is so exciting! I cannot wait! :)

(P.S. While I was up here at the property, we had 2 of Santa's reindeer visiting our backyard! They were playing around in the trees, and then ran away across the street and into the neighbor's yard. It is SO FUN to see the animals running and playing up here!)

Until next time! :)

 

A Broken Nose

On November 1st, the youth in our ward went to their favorite activity.

Midnight skating at Classic Skating!

Unfortunately for Kambriella, her night ended with a broken nose. ;(

Clint was with her as one of the leaders, and called me informing me that they were on their way to the Emergency Room. They took xrays confirming that it was broken, but said that they couldn't do anything because she would need to go see a specialist on Monday.

After arriving home at about 4:00am everyone went to bed, and Kambriella woke up not looking too bad, and wanting to go onher day activity that her and her friends had been planning for a month now for the Girl's Pref dance at the school.

She is a champ in so may ways, and wasn't about to let a broken nose slow her down or get in the way of her life!

Ironically, her and her date were already dressing up as boxers, and o the broken nose went perfectly with her costume!

I was so proud of Kambriella for being so brave. She got hurt at Classic simply trying to be kind and was moving someone else's scooter off of the track that was left there. She even said to herself, "I should probably move that scooter before someone gets hurt." Little did she know that she would trip moving it and fall into the handlebars and be the one who got hurt.

She even said, "Mom, I'm kind of glad that this happened to me and not someone else because I'm pretty tough and other people might not have handled it as well." 

True,

You are one tough cookie!

After visiting with the Dr. one week after the injury, she informed us that Kambriella would need to have surgery to fix the break.

So, we scheduled her surgery day for the next Tuesday, November 12th.

She again was a champ!

Making everyone laugh before she went under. :)

I snapped this photo of Kambriella being rolled away with the anesthesiologist Dr. Timmins because it reminded me of the same situation15 years earlier when she was a baby, and they came and took her away from me and carried her down the hall to go and have her open heart surgery to fix the holes in her heart when she was just 4 months old.

It was a nostalgic moment for me and brought many emotions.

Oh how I love that sweet, brave girl.

When she came out of surgery she was HILARIOUS!

She would flop her tongue out of her mouth very abruptly indicating to me that she would like me to feed her some of her slushie! :)

She did great in the recovery and we got to go home pretty quickly. 

She was still feeling the effects of the meds when she asked me in the car if we could take a selfie together... ;) ;)

Clint was with us the whole time and drove us home to be sure she was doing ok and breathing good.

We got her home and into bed where she was able to rest all day, and stayed home from school the whole rest of the week. I was happy for her that throughout the whole thing, Kambriella never really had any pain. (Like I said, she is one tough cookie!) But when you can't really breathe that well, it takes all of your energy, and so it was good for her to just stay home and rest.

Kambriella had so many visitors come to see her, and so many people who brought over thoughtful get-well gifts!

Mia and Sam came over a few different times.

She got blankets, stuffed animals, Legos, coloring books and crayons, chips, ice-cream-candy, snacks, flowers and more!

This girl is sure loved.

And I appreciate her friends so much!

Here is Kambriella's before and after picture. The doctor did a great job putting things back together!

Kambriella is as beautiful as ever.

She got her nose cast off, had her follow up with Dr. Sink who performed the surgery, and is well on her way to doing everything that she loves again.

We love you sweet Kambriella!

So glad you are on the mend!

 

Student of the Month

We are so proud of this little cutie!

She was nominated by her 4th grade teacher as the student of the month! :)

We were able to go to her school early today where they honored each student, presented them with an award, a pencil, a token for the token tower to get a prize, and a great feeling of accomplishment and feeling good about herself.

We love you so much Kesslyn!!!

Mrs.Crane loves you too! ;)

Speedy the Roadrunner and Kesslyn :)

Way to go Kesslyn!

Halloween

While Clint and I were in California for the World Series, Dallin and Julia took the girls to the Trickett Family Halloween Party!

I loved seeing everyone's costumes! ;)

I love how happy these two sumo wrestlers are together too. It makes me so happy to see them happy. ;)

I also love how much these two little cousins love each other!

I hope they can always be best friends. :)

And these two cuties ON Halloween!

Kambriella was Tinkerbell and Kesslyn was a cheerleader. 

I love how these two sisters also love to be together.

Family, always and FOREVER!

And I just HAD to include our neighbors from across the street! :) The Ambriz family!

Freddy Dominick, and Jackie dressed up as some of our very favorite characters!

Fred, Scooby Doo and Daphney in the Mystery Machine!

You guys nailed it! :)