Happy Birthday Jamie!

So obviously this isn't Jamie giving herself a shout out....this is Cort, but I didn't think her blog would be complete without a little tribute to my dear wife on her birthday. Jamie is such an amazing individual as many of you know. She is a wonderful wife, mother and my best friend! She is such a blessing to my life and the three(soon to be four) lives of our children. So here's to you Jamie on your birthday. Now you can be reminded of your birthday the whole year through. We love you.

Love, Cort, Tay, Chasey, and Tally.

Our "Annual" VanEpps Reunion

This reunion was a long time coming! I think I was like maybe 10 at the last one. Well, maybe not quite that young, but it was a long time ago and we were super excited to spend the weekend with our Vanepps family. The kids had a blast, as did we all! Taylor was so sad to say good-bye to her cousins and kept asking why they couldn't move to Herriman. Good times for sure, from building our soap box derby cars to racing them, to making the cutest crafts courtesy of Cindy, to the extra YUMMY food, the great cabins we all had to stay in, the cool old barn we met in, to the mega talented variety show, to the Sunday service we had as a family, to running around and just being together. Every second of it was fun. We love our family. Here's some of the fun pictures I got of our MOST excellent weekend together. Can't wait to do it all again, hopefully super soon.
Our lovely clean up crew, "the trashy girls."

And Marty doing his part.

Our flatulent flyer soap box derby car and the team that built it. Yes that is a toliet tank on the front of it. Red shirts people rock! (I'm just saying.)

The big race! Since I'm so big and pregnant right now, Cort stepped in for me and raced for my mom.



Hosh's talent

Logan's fire dancing

My cousins and me that I grew up with. Janee, me, Tonya and Jodi.

The guys sexiest legs contest. Hubba. Hubba.

The kids building their own soap box derby car that turned into a airplane, cause they didn't have wheels for it.

My grandparents on my mom's side who almost didn't make it, but thank goodness they did. It wouldn't have been the same without them.

Me and my grandma.

My mom's three sisters who are just as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside. I love being with them, I always feel so close to my mom when we are together. They are what I want to be.

Taylor and Rylee performing their dance that Brianne threw together about an hour before the show. Taylor still remembers it and performed it for me this morning.

Taylor couldn't get enough of the four wheeler. Thanks to Logan for indulging her! I think she rode it for like a hour straight that day, if not longer.

Chase 1, Chase 2, and Gavin. This picture cost Marty and Cindy 4 glow sticks for my Chase to be apart of it. Good thinking Marty.

My grandparents with most of their great grands. My grandma broke her ankle a few weeks before the reunion and so my Aunt Diane brought up their cart for them to get around in. I think my Grandpa wants to claim it as his own now.

The Goodman's tribute to Beyonce.

And this extra cute picture of my Talan and his dad's leg. I love this one of him so much I just had to throw it in!!

The whole crew, minus the ones who missed out BIG TIME and didn't make it.

I love my family.

Grateful

We had quite the experience coming back from our fun-filled family reunion this past weekend in Arizona. (That post soon to come.) And just so you can consider yourself warned, beware this is the LONG version. Continue at your own risk! First of all, Cort left us on Sunday afternoon, because he had to fly out of Phoniex for a quick trip to California, so I was on my own driving back all 10-12 hours, which really I thought was no big deal. I've done it before so I wasn't that concerned. Anyways, so somehow as we said our good-byes and we left the cabin I mis-read the GPS unit and started heading in the WRONG direction. I kept noticing that we were heading south and I kept saying to myself, this can't be right! But I had no service on my phone to call and ask anyone, so I just decided to go with it. However, it didn't feel right. So I said a quick prayer that if we were heading in the right direction I would feel ok about it. I never did. I should of known at that point to turn around. Well, I didn't until my phone finally picked up service and I found out that we had driven in the wrong direction for the past hour and a half!! I immediately had a good cry and then I thought of Elder Wirthlin's last talk "Come what may and love it!" And I decided this wasn't the end of the world, and we turned the car around and started heading back to the cabin to start over. So three hours later we were back where we started and we then began to proceed in the right direction. Lesson one that I learned from this was when you feel like something's not right, it's probably not, and to go with it. So we decided to continue driving and see how far we could get. At that point it was about 4:00 Arizona time and 5:00 Utah time. After a couple hours of driving, I found myself with another decision, which really at that time didn't seem like it was that big of a deal, I just had to decide which way we were going to go. We could go either the same way we usually went through Page, Arizona or we could take a less known way through Fredonia Arizona, past Jacob's Lake on a winding mountain road. I really wanted to go this way. I had never been that way and I had heard it was beautiful. However, something told me NOT to go that way. Learning from my previous mistake of the day, I decided to listen. And I'm so grateful I did. From what I understand of it that road is less traveled then the other one and like I said it is a winding road that climbs up the mountain. We passed the turn off to Fredonia and then passed Page and then it happened about 30 miles out of Kanab, I felt something. At the time I didn't know what it was or what had happened the car jerked a bit and then started making a really loud noise. I thought to myself "you have got to be kidding me!!" And then I thought I'm just going to keep going we can't be stranded out here. Then I looked out the window and noticed the car smoking. I then knew I needed to pull over. So there we were at 10:30 at night in the middle of no where, with NO phone service, with a blown out tire, that I had no idea how to change. It was then that I realized why I wasn't suppose to go the Fredonia way. The first thing we did was pray. We prayed hard. I then felt a little calmer and I told the kids, a couple times, not to worry that Heavenly Father would send someone nice to help us and we were going to be ok. I then knew I needed to be proactive. So I got out of the car and started walking around in the dark, all the while hoping that I wasn't going to run into any snakes, trying to get a call out to someone, anyone at that point! I got nothing. However within in about 10 minutes a huge truck pulled up. It was a Kane County deputy. I knew our prayer was being answered. I was standing outside when he pulled up, and I walked up to his truck and he asked me "you guys ok?" I immediately replied with a "no we are not." He got out and came over to my car and started rumbling through it looking for all the tools he needed to change our tire. I was so overwhelmed with his kindness. As he was changing the tire, Taylor hopped out of the car and came over to us. I immediately told her to get back in the car I didn't want her standing along the highway in the dark with cars zooming by. She said ok, but that she had to tell me something real quick, that she just said a prayer to our Heavenly Ftaher to thank Him, for sending this nice police officer to help us. Right then, at that moment, I felt a lot of gratitude. I felt grateful that the deputy had stopped and was so kind to us, I felt grateful that we didn't take the other way, knowing that maybe a nice person wouldn't have been there to help us out or even worse I could of lost control of the car. Which for the record, the deputy kept saying how good of a driver I am for not losing control of the car and for keeping it on the road. But most of all, I felt grateful for this experience. I know it is something that Taylor and maybe Chasey, won't forget, and neither will I. Heavenly Father is there. He is real. He does answer prayers. He is aware of our situations and troubles and He is working with us as we work with Him. I don't ever want to forget how I felt that night, as my testimony of prayer was strengthened and as my children's testimonies of it began to grow as well. It is times and experiences like these that I cherish the most. I don't ever want to forget.

Humongous

Ok, I never thought I'd post a picture of me and my big old belly for all to see, but never say never, right!? Here I am in all my glory at 25 weeks. I am actually 26 weeks today, but I'm just getting around to posting this now. We are getting so close to meeting this little one and we are all so excited. My kids can't ever get enough of their cute baby cousins Kayson and Hadlie, which I am taking as a very good sign that they are excited to have a little one of our own in our home. Talan still kisses my belly and Taylor and Chase will randomly come up to me and hug my stomach while talking to baby Easton. The other day me and Tay were at Costco waiting in line, when Taylor turned to me and started squeezing my belly, pratically hanging on it, telling the little guy how much she loves him. It was very endearing. I can't wait to meet this little guy. I just love being a mom.

Longest day of my life

Well it's official, Taylor started 1st grade today! She was SO excited to go and a little nervous I think. We made it a family affair and all of us went to drop her off. We parked the car, crossed the road, and that was it, she took off running to where she is suppose to go to wait and meet her teacher. I didn't even get a kiss or a hug, but I'll make sure I get both when she gets home! All day long, I have been staring at the clock, wondering what she is doing. We even drove by her school, during her first recess to see if we could catch a glimpse of her. She is growing up so fast and I'm so proud of the sweet girl she is. We now are counting down the hours til she gets home, only 2 more to go. I can't wait to hear everything about her day.

She wasn't that excited about me taking pictures this morning, which is so NOT like her, since usually she's my child that indulges me with my picture taking obsession, but this morning she told me I could take 3 total. I did take a couple more than that, but honestly I could of taken a lot more.

Here she is on her first day of 1st grade

Do you think they are going to miss her??

Waiting in line to go in with her class

I don't know how we are going to get through the day without her, but regardless we are SUPER excited for her as she starts this new exciting time of her life; I know she'll do great. Love you Tay!

It's tradition

Every summer since I was about 10 years old me and my family have gone to Lake Powell. I don't think that I have ever missed a summer without going since then...even when I was 8 months pregnant with Talan. It is and always has been one of my very favorite places to go and now it's one of my kids favorite places to go as well. It really has become a tradition for us. So, even though we had a crazy week last week, with a trip to California, followed by the passing and beautiful funeral of my sweet grandma and then girls camp, we just couldn't pass up the chance to go. I knew if we did I would regret it. I'm SO glad we went even though it was only for 2 days and 2 nights it was well worth it!! And needed on this end....until next year....
Here's me and the kids minus Chase enjoying the water...That's right Chase still has a love/hate relationship with the camera!

However, even though he hates having his picture taken I still managed to sneak one or two pics of my sweet Chasers.

Taylor, Chase, and Holden on the tube. If you look closely at the picture you can see that Taylor is telling us to slow down and Chase is telling us to speed up! I love seeing the different personalities in my kids come out.

Cliffjumping anyone?


Cort and baby Kayson. There are still times after 8 years of marriage, when I look at Cort and my heart skips a beat. I feel so lucky that he's mine.

Talan hanging out on the boat under the tube.

We decided on this trip that Chasers new name now is Chasey Wayne "Speedy" Welker. He really had a need for speed! Here he is with his cousin Holden and Aunt Kaykey taking a turn on the waverunner.

The Peterson granddaughters

Cousins


A good time was had by all. We love Lake Powell.

1st grade here we come!

Well, it's official Taylor graduated from kindergarten today and we now have six weeks of summer that I plan on making every day count!! Her cute kindergarten class did an adorable little program for us that I tried very hard not to sob the whole way through! I dunno maybe it's the pregnancy that is getting to me or maybe it's the fact that my little girl is growing up! Taylor had a fabulous class this year and we both made some wonderful new friends. We are both excited to see what the next year brings, besides a new brother!
Here's Tay during her fashion show. All the kids got to pick a favorite outfit to wear and she choose her flower dress from her aunt's wedding that is getting a little small for her. Like I said she is definitely growing up too fast.

Here she is getting her diploma from her amazingly cute teacher, Mrs. Craven. We couldn't have asked for a better teacher. She was always telling me how Taylor was her big helper and never had anything but nice things to say about her. Just what a mom wants.

Here's Taylor getting ready to perform with her class.

What a year it has been. Taylor has changed so much in these past short months. But however, regardless some things still remain the same. Her favorite food is still hot dogs, and her favorite color is still all the rainbow colors except black, and she is still my big helper girl. In case you can't tell, I love being her mom. Congrats Buggy Wuggy. Thanks for making our lives so wonderful.