Happy Birthday Honey!

Mat's Birthday was yesterday!  He is now the ripe ol' age of 32!  Man, we are starting to get old around here!

We had a laid back night, full of pizza, swimming, and homemade cake roll.  Yes, you heard me right!  I made a homemade cake roll!  It is Mat's favorite and usually I buy him a Farr's Cake Roll.  However, those are very hard to come by down here!  So, I figured I could make one!

 Here is the cake roll.  I know, it doesn't look super!  However, it tasted delicious!  It was really hard to not have it completely fall apart when rolling it up!  Mat said it tasted really good and he was surprised that it really did taste like Farr's!  I was pretty proud of myself!

 Kat insisted on adding candles and singing 'Happy Birthday'!

Mat thought it would be funny to put the candles out with his fingers!  The girls were mortified!

 Then he proceeded to blow the other candles out with his nose!  Yup, I married a winner!

 And here is one more look at the yummy inside of the cake!

 Happy Birthday hon!

I love you so much and am so grateful to have you in my life!  You are a great daddy and hubby!

I hope this next year is a better year and that you have a great time being 32!

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Kathryn's Baptism

March 6th was a very special day for our family.  Kathryn was baptized!  We have been working with her for a few months on what baptism is and why it is important.  She has a very sweet testimony.  It is simple and pure.  It reminds me that sometimes we make life so big and busy, maybe we need to remember the basics, the simple things!

Kathryn was nervous - more so for all of the people that would be there and see her get baptized!  There were two boys from our ward that were also baptized, Logan and Alec.  (Logan's family is Polynesian, so there were a lot of them - mostly little kids!  Half of the R.S. Room was his family!) 

Kathryn's Aunt Cristin gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and did a fantastic job!  We were fortunate enough to have both sets of grandparents and Cristin and Sarah come down for the baptism.  I know there were a lot of people up in Utah that were sad they wouldn't b able to see her be baptized, but I know those same people are also very happy that Kat chose to be baptized!

Thanks for all of the love, support, cards, and gifts that were sent our way!  Kathryn is very lucky to have such a large support circle in her life!  She is loved so very much, and hopefully she will always know that!

Emma was feeling a little left out!  So she snuck in a few pictures!

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Grandma and Grandpa Chugg

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Mommy an Kat

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Grandma and Grandpa Wilson

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Aunt Cris

The Wilson Clan

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I can not believe that my baby is old enough to be baptized!  It is a little bittersweet!  Sad that she is growing up, but very happy of the young lady that she is becoming!  She is my little buddy and I love her so much!  She has learned and grown so much over the past couple of years and she knows that she is a daughter of our Heavenly Father!  I hope that she will always remember this!

Mom and Dad love you Kat!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

We have a new neice!!!

Paityn Elisa was born about an hour ago!!! 6lb 5oz, 18in A tiny little thing!

Mark & Dannielle welcomed a new baby girl into the family.

Mark and Dannielle were chosen to be the parents of this special little miracle back in August. The birth mother graciously picked them to adopt. They have become very close with Elisa and her family over the past coupe of months. We are very grateful for Elisa making this difficult decision and allowing Mark and Dannielle to become parents. We love her, even though we have never met her.

We are so excited to be able to meet this little baby! We are so sad to be so far away!

Congrats Mark & Dannielle! Welcome to the world of parenthood! Try to enjoy the ride!

Shhhh.....It's not 'official' yet!

I have to give my hubby the props that he deserves! He got a promotion! Yay!!! After only being with the company since April, he is movin' on up! He will now be a QA (Quality Assurance Agent) instead of customer service.

He has been working crappy hours, and for pretty crappy pay. But he has hung in there and proven to the company that he is an asset to them! He beat out a lot of people that had been there for a while!

He gets a small raise, and better hours! YAY!!!

It is not 'official' yet. No one except the managers know, and he doesn't have his new hours yet, but I am so excited for him! Working nights and weekends has been hard on all of us, so it will be nice to have 'normal' schedules again!

We will keep you all posted on any new updates!

Happy Birthday, Hon!

Today is Mat's Birthday and he is turning 31!

I wanted him to know how much I love him

and I am so grateful for having him in my life!

Here are some of the things I love about him:
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He is still just a big kid at heart!

(No child was injured in the making of this post! They were playing around! I promise!)
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He doesn't take life too seriously! (Seriously!)

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He is my best friend and the love of my life!

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He puts up with me and my family!!! And all of our 'fun' adventures!

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He would do anything for the girls.

He loves taking them to new places an teaching them about the world.

He goes on rides that make him sick (Dumbo) and rides he wouldn't want to be caught dead on (Pooh Bear) and puts his oldest daughter on his shoulders after a long day, just so she can see the show!

And misses them when we are away from them!

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He is an amazing Daddy!


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There are many more reasons that I love him. He puts up with my moods and comforts me when I need him. He works sooo hard so that we can have a good life. He is smart and loves teaching the girls new things! He has an amazing testimony and love of the Gospel. He strengthens me when I need it the most!

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I love you, hon! I know life isn't exactly as we thought it would be right now, but we are where we are suppose to be. Thank you for all you do for me! I hope you enjoy your Birthday!

love ya!

ash

Such a sensitive Spirit

Last month when I went to the Temple, I stopped by the distribution center next to the Temple. It is a little harder down here to get Church materials, so I was stocking up on things we needed. I decided to buy the Doctrine and Covenants Stories for the girls. I figured since we are studying Church History this year, it would be great to give the girls a foundation of where the Church started and the things that Joseph Smith and the Pioneers went through.

So we started reading one chapter a night before bed as our scripture study for the girls. I am amazed at Kathryn. She has had so many questions and thoughts that I didn't know where in her little head. So many nights we end up having deep discussions (especially with a 7 year old!) Some times I don't even have the answers for her questions! She just amazes me with her Spirit and her knowledge of the Gospel already at her young age.

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A few nights ago, we were reading about the Three Kingdoms of Heaven. Mat was reading it with her and she started asking questions about how we would know which Kingdom we would get to go to. We tried to explain that as long as she does what Heavenly Father asks her to, she will go to Heaven. Then it turned into a discussion about the Second Coming and about how Families can be together Forever. Needless to say, we were all in tears! The sweet, sweet Spirit that we all felt in the room was amazing. It testified to all of us that it is true! We told Kat to remember that feeling; that even though she was crying, it wasn't because she was sad. It was because she could feel the Spirit! Her sweet Spirit felt the truthfulness of what we were saying and the things we are trying to teach her!

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Kathryn really amazes me sometimes. When we read about Satan, or about doing 'bad things', she always get emotional because she thinks she is 'bad' a lot of the time. She has told me that it's not fair that Satan can make her do bad things! Makes my heart break, but I try to hep her understand that the things she does - like be mean to her sister, or not listen to her parents - are not 'bad', that she is still learning and has to learn to make the right decisions. Hopefully, she will learn to feel the Spirit and to listen to it. Her sweet, sensitive Spirit is so beautiful. I learn things from her every day. I love her eagerness to learn and develop her talents.

I love her so much! She is a sweet girl!

Reasons I love being a mother!

Since it is Mother's day, I figured I would share some of the reasons I enjoy being a mother!
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There's never a wrong time for a Tea Party!

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An excuse to still feed the ducks!

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Christmas Mornings!

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You always have someone to snuggle with!

(Even if you don't really want to!)

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You can always send the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's when you need a break!

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Picnics in the park!

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Being an Aunt is almost as much fun!

(I love my nieces so much and miss them lots!)

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Your hubby feels guilty if he doesn't send you flowers once and a while!

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Watching my girls grow and learn!

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Hoping that my girls will someday be best friends like I was with my sis.
(There's always hoping, right?)

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How can you not love being a mother when you see this face???

Or this one???

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Watching their daddy become their Hero.

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These girls make me want and need to be a better person and a good mom.

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Realizing how much my own mom loves me.

Only when you are a mother can you appreciate how much your mom gave up, lived for, worried about, tried to be the best she could, loved....you.

Happy Mothers Day!!!

I love you, mom!