Logan's 4th Birthday

My little boy is now FOUR years old! When did that happen??? He has grown up so much this past year it's been unbelievable! And I mean that in multiple ways. Physically he has grown quite a bit. He is very tall for a 4 year old and often wears size 5 and even 6 clothes. He is already at the height that Kya was when she was 5 years old.....and Kya was very tall (still is) for her age. I think this kid has the potential to be very tall....but thanks to me being his mother, I don't think he'll quite reach his Dad's stature. He has also grown so much socially and emotionally. He is a completely different kid than he was a year ago. And yet still so much the same. O.k. I admit it, he's a LOT like me......a walking contradiction. What do I mean by this? Well, he is such a happy kid, but he is also very moody. He can be very tough (he shows this by beating "things" up - not people thankfully), but he is also so dang sensitive. (Yep, our most sensitive child is our one and only boy!) He's very energetic, but he's also laid-back. He can be such a loner and loves to be by himself, but there are days you can not disconnect him from your side! With Logan you never know what you're going to get. He keeps us guessing that's for sure!! But we sure do love that kid! He definitely makes us laugh!


He is constantly getting the girls scooters out and riding them (which they're not very happy about), so we figured it was time to get him one of his own. I think he'd be out there all day if I let him!

Peyton always has to be a part of the action and since she doesn't have a scooter of her own, she'll find whatever other transportational-type item she can find. This car happens to be one of her favorites. It's the neighbors. She routinely "steals" it out of their garage.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

We have had the absolute privilege of going to not one, but TWO temple open houses both within 15 minutes of us, and both within a 5 month period! All I can say is WOW, we are so blessed! Back in July we went to the Open House for the Oquirrh Mountain temple in South Jordan. (I think that's what city it's considered to be in.) Do I even need to say how unbelievably beautiful it was!! The thing is, ALL temples are beautiful....but there are some that just "speak" to us more than others. Well, this was one for me. The chandeliers are so cool and breathtaking! They kind of have a star-shape to them. It was just so beautiful I can't even describe it! Something else I can't describe.....the spirit that I felt while we were there. Again, just like all temples are beautiful but some stand out to you more for some reason......the same goes for the spirit felt. You can feel the spirit so strongly in all temples, but there are some temples in which you just feel a different, even more powerful spirit that you feel such a personal connection to. And this one was one for me. I have my personal, private thoughts for why I think I felt this way, but we'll just have to wait and see what the future holds.

I can't even begin to express how blessed I feel to be surrounded by so many temples. They have begun to mean more and more to me this past year as Matthew and I have made a valiant effort to go at least once a month. I have SEEN the blessings pour into my family's lives as promised to us by our prophet, by following this counsel. I have gotten to the point where I realize that I can't afford NOT to go. Our parents have been so great to take turns watching our kids so that we can go and we have been so thankful for their willingness.

We went with my in-laws and it was on the second to last night that they were doing the Open House, so it was BUSY! The kids started having a rough time while waiting in line, but then this cute little girl below started entertaining them. Peyton thought she was an "angel". Too cute!

The Fray!

Back in July Matthew and I got to see one of my favorite bands, The Fray, in concert for the second time at the same venue we had seen them in the first time, which happens to be one of my favorites...Usana Amphitheater. The show was even more amazing this time, and I was a lot more comfortable this time around.....since I was a full 9 months pregnant the first time I saw them in concert! Plus, this time we got to go with one of my favorite YW, Dani, and her friend, Chelsea. We didn't actually get to sit with them because they were up in "the pit" and we had seats, but we met up with them in between the opening band and The Fray, and then we took them home afterwards. It was such an amazing concert! Seeing them in concert reminds me why I love them so much! Next time they come to town, I'll be there!!

The opening act, Jack's Mannequin. I'm not a huge fan, but I like a few of their songs and they were pretty good live.

THE FRAY!!!

Dani & Chelsea

Me and Matthew :)

Liberty Land

Back in July we went with Merrill's to Libertyland. They had their niece and nephew staying with them off and on for a couple weeks and were looking for things to do and we got a great deal to go to Libertyland....probably because the place is DESERTED and they desperately needed customers! Seriously, there were probably only about 20 other people there the entire time we were there. There were only like 3 workers and they kept having to go from ride to ride to operate them. So even though there was nobody there, there were times that we had to wait in line for 5-10 minutes waiting for there to be an employee available to operate the ride. It was actually a really fun day, especially considering the price we paid to get in. Plus, it's just down the street, so we were able to take a break in the middle of the day to go home and eat lunch and then go back for a few more hours.

Turns out I was actually too big to have gone on this ride. Oops!

Kalun's just one of the kids!!

Turns out, Kya is an amazing climber! She climbed to the top very easily on every single one, including the hardest. A couple of the kids made it to the top of some of them, but Kya was the only one to make it to the top of all of them. Apparently the less body weight you have to pull up, the easier it is!

Halfway through the day all of us adults caught on to a little love connection going on. Zach (the nephew) had a little crush on September.....and I think the feeling was mutual! They kept wanting to go on EVERY single ride together. It was really cute at first, but after a while it started kind of freaking me out. I'm not ready for boys to have crushes on my daughters!!! I felt pretty safe though with Zach since he lives hundreds of miles away and would be leaving in a couple days!

The "lovebirds".

Fun in the sun in St. George

We invested in a timeshare back in October of last year with great intentions of traveling more. Well, life got crazy and we never got any trips planned. The kids had been begging to go somewhere with a pool, so one day on a whim Matthew and I sat down and booked a trip to St. George. We went in July. It was at a time in our lives when our family really needed a much-deserved vacation. It was such a simple trip, but we had SO much fun!

The kids got so excited about seeing palm trees! I'll admit it, so did I. That's one thing I LOVE about St. George. It's so close to home, but because of the palm trees and sunny weather, there are moments where you feel like you're somewhere tropical. :)

The second day we were there we took the kids over to the St. George temple grounds. The kids LOVED it. We told them about how their Great Grandpa Cluff used to be the groundskeeper there. They thought that was pretty cool. We had a great time just playing around on the grounds. Is that bad? I promise it was reverent fun. Can those two words exist in a sentence together?




We went over to Brigham Young's winter home and took a tour. By the time we got there the kids were pretty worn out and done. I don't think they got much out of it. I remember going on the tour when I was about 12 and I didn't get much out of it, so why would I have expected much less? However, going through as an adult was pretty cool and interesting. I learned a lot of things that I didn't know. One thing is for certain, that man was SMART for having a winter home down in St. George. When I'm older that's exactly what I want to do!

We spent the majority of the time in the pool. This was after all the point of the trip in the kids minds!

We met a fun family from Ogden. The Dad (Mark) had so much fun playing and teasing our kids and his two teenage daughters. All the kids teased him back and eventually ganged up on him. Logan took his "noodle" and kept filling it up with water and would blow one end with his mouth to shoot the water out at him. Mark totally hammed it up to make Logan feel so cool. He thought he was hilarious!


Our room had a "murphy bed" (ya know, the kind of bed that folds up into the wall). The three older kids thought it was so cool, they insisted on sleeping on it all together.

On our way home we detoured up through Cedar Mountain to stop at the Cluff reunion. On the way up the mountain we needed a little break so we stopped at Navajo Lake.

The kids enjoyed playing in the dirt up on the mountain!

What a fun and relaxing trip. I think we may have to make it a yearly one!

When life throws you Swine Flu....

There's nothing worse than having sick kids.....except maybe not being able to do much about it because you're sick right alongside them.....with one of the most horrible sicknesses you've ever had no less! That being said, there's also nothing like feeling completely miserably sick to make you appreciate your health!!!

I posted last Sunday with the hopes of getting everything caught up this week. Here we are 5 days later with NO updates, but I have a perfectly good excuse for that. I woke up Monday morning hardly able to move a muscle, feeling more miserable than I can almost honestly say I've ever felt in my entire LIFE with a little thing called (you may have heard of it.....oh, here, there, and everywhere!)....the SWINE FLU!!! These days it's about as common as well, the common cold.....but there is NOTHING common about it! It is NASTY!! If there's anyone out there who was thinking, "Eh, swine flu, what's the big deal. I think I'll catch it to see what the fuss is about, "......DON'T DO IT!!!

I can't even begin to describe the deep appreciation I now have for my general good health, not to mention all of the other zillions of blessings I have in my life. I mean seriously, the fact that I started this post with saying "there's nothing worse than having sick kids" tells you that we really do have things good. We definitely have our hardships and struggles, but at the end of the day.....LIFE REALLY IS GOOD!!! I'm loving this new lease I have on life. It stinks that it took swine flu to get to this point, but hey, even as horrible as that was, I can think of a LOT worse. Not that I want to go there, but you never know what blessings will come out of some of your most difficult struggles.

I sure hope I feel this same positive way tomorrow.....and the next day, and the next day..... If not, I'll at least have this post to remind me of how good it felt while it lasted!

And for those of you who have not had swine flu (yet!) and think I'm being a bit drastic.....just you wait. Your time will come. And when it does I will pray for your speedy recovery and hope it will give you the same new lease on life that it gave me.

Cheers to life and good health.....oh, and me getting the blog updated! :)

So much to catch up on......

There's been a few big changes in our lives the past few months that have kind of detracted me from blogging. I am itchin' to get going again, but I have so much to catch up on. I know some people would rather just start in the moment and not worry about the past. I am NOT one of those people. I will not feel complete if I don't go back and catch up. So, hopefully in the next couple days I can find the time to do just that. It's been about 3 months since I've really posted and in that time we've had: 2 birthdays, 3 family vacations, the first day of school, and other various activities. This could take a while. Stay tuned.....

He's growing up....

I have so much other blogging to catch up on, but I just had to make a quick post about the awesome event that happened in our household today.

We've been working with Logan trying to get him to be more responsible and clean up after himself. He's had the job of unloading the silverware from the dishwasher for about a year now, but we decided he was getting old enough to start handling other things.....one of which was making his bed. So I've been working on it with him for the past couple weeks and I usually have to help him a little. Today I asked him to do it and he just said, "Ok Mama," without even asking me to help him. I left the room and it wasn't until a couple hours ago that I went back in and noticed this:


I love that kid!! I thought for sure that someone had helped him, but I asked the girls and they said no and I called him up and I asked him if anyone helped him and he just beamed and with much pride he looked at me and said, "Nope, I did it all by myself!" I love how he even laid out all of his small blankets nicely. Not even I used to do that. I'd just throw all of his extra little blankets in the corner. We'll see how long this new phase lasts, but for now I'll just enjoy the moment! :)