Please VOTE!

My cute sister, who knows how much her nieces would LOVE to meet Miley Cyrus, entered a contest to meet her with a local radio station and she is a finalist. Her picture number is 42. PLEASE go to this link and vote for her. You have to verify your vote with a email. Anyone can vote even those from out of state. If she gets enough votes between September 21st and September 25th she wins.

Taylor will love you forever! Thanks so much.

http://www.971zht.com/pages/miley/

Blessings

I am not real good at showing my emotions in front of others. I usually am very private and don't put myself out there a lot. But, I guess right now I feel the need to express myself here. These past couple of weeks have been an adjustment with all the changes going on around here and being pregnant on top of it all has been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. I guess what I'm trying to say is life lately has been a bit-of-crazy. I do have to say thanks though from the bottom of my heart, to my dear friends and family who have helped ease my burden, I'm so grateful to have you all in my life. So many of you have reached out to me and my family and just so you know all that you have done hasn't gone unnoticed. I am truly overwhelmed with your kindness and willingness to serve. And I hope to be able to return the favor one day. I am so blessed and sometimes I think it can be so easy to forget that and get into the "whoa is me" mind frame. One of my adorable aunts who I admire so much posted a quote on her blog recently that I love, love, love, (did I mention that I LOVE it?) and it was something that I needed to hear in my moment of silliness. Here it is. My reason for posting it is so that I can come back and read it often.

Tragedy or Triumph?

"We don't have life experiences so that we can simply endure them. We must endure them well so that those experiences do change us. That is the purpose of those experiences. If we don't change through them, then they are simply tragic. But if they do change us then they are what I like to call "difficult blessings." They are blessings that we would never wish for, that we would never wish upon anyone else. But if we are honest with ourselves we realize that the best attributes we have, our love, our compassion, our desire to serve, to do better, to be better couldn't have come about to the same degree without those experiences. And so, while we would gladly do away with the experience we would never trade what the experience has done to us. Unfortunately, we cannot have one without the other." I don't know who the author is . . .

Chase's first day of preschool

My little boy is sure growing up fast. I wasn't sure what to expect from him on his first day. We have been waiting for this day to come for quite sometime. Last year almost everyday, whenever Taylor would leave for school, Chase would ask me when he would he get to go to school. Well, Tuesday was his official big day. And he did great! We got there, I parked the car, and walked him in, he dropped off his backpack, and then he let go of my hand and walked to the carpet where the kids were sitting. I thought "that's it??" I started to walk out the door and couldn't help myself, I stopped to look back a couple of times, but he didn't look back once. I totally teared up leaving. Maybe it's the pregnancy, maybe it's the fact that I now have 2 KIDS in school, or maybe it's the fact that I feel like time is slipping through my hands. I couldn't have been more proud of him. He is such a character and his sweet little smile is to die for. My life just wouldn't be what it is without my Chasey. We are all totally in love with him.

Here he is right before he left for school. Tay was already at school, and I tried to get one of him and Talan together, but Talan wasn't having it. I guess I should be glad I got this. Doesn't he look great?!

And here he is after I picked him up. When I picked him up, his smile couldn't have been bigger. My window was rolled down when they send him out, and when he saw me he came running smiling and screaming "mommy! mommy!" He was so happy. It melted my heart. It was such a perfect mom moment. This morning he told me "It's not fair, Tay gets to go to school everyday. Why don't I?" Soon enough Chasers...Oh, how I love this kid.

Talan turns two

All week long we have been asking Talan how old are you going to be on your birthday, and if you ask him now and if he's in the mood, he will say "I two." I can hardly believe it! He was loving the attention this year. We went over and did some swimming in the morning, and then we did a small family party with just the 5 of us that night after a much needed nap. We usually do it much bigger than that, but with Cort being gone so much lately it felt nice to just be with each other. Here's some pictures of him on his big day.

Playing with his birthday balloons

He loved us singing to him and when we were done he knew just what to do...

Swimming with some of his little friends

Opening presents.



Some of the things I love about Talan:
His sense of humor. Lately, one of his favorite things to do is to make a silly face while running away saying neener-neener-neener.
His fiestiness
The way he runs to me saying "I scared, I scared," when he's unsure about something.
The way he doesn't take guff from anyone!
The way he runs to me saying momma, momma, with a smile on his face, when he wants to cuddle.
That he thinks he's as big as Taylor and Chase. I swear he thinks he's like 5.
His smile.
That he loves to give kisses and "squeezes".
The way he LOVES books. If he's off somewhere being quiet, I have found that 90% of the time he's reading a book. (The other 10% of the time he's into something he shouldn't be into)
His face. I swear I could just eat him!
His love for animals, books, and balls. He has a real passion for each of these.
His laugh.
The way he talks and the faces he makes when he does. He is very animated, just like his brother.
His tender side. He can be very considerate of others. His nursery teachers on Sunday told me that he accidentaly hit one of the other kids in class with a toy and that all on his own he was very quick to tell his little friend "surry" and give them a hug.
That when he wakes up in the morning he lays in his crib and plays for like 20 minutes before he demands that I come in and get him. And if I don't answer him he'll start screaming for "Shase".
That he loves to be outside doing anything, from swimming, trying to ride his scooter, to jumping on the tramp, playing in the sand, to doing just about anything that his sister and brother are doing.
Some of my favorite things he is saying now are mine and no, (Well, these aren't necessary my favorite, but I'm pretty sure they are his!) me!, ball, "I do," I eat, "I scared," cracker, a baby, pop-pop meaning Popsicle similar to pup-pup which means dog, cookie, "sheese," pese, "tank you," "I wove do (translation: i love you"), car, Shase, Tay, da-da, (although he still calls Cort ma-ma most of the time), hide, surry, "I ana go", he always wants to be on the go, it doesn't matter where you are going, ni-ni (translation: binkie and blanket), cake, (his new favorite after his and my birthday, I asked the kids what they wanted for breakfast yesterday eggs or pancakes, and Talan said "I wan cake!" with a huge smile.) book, horsie, He loves horses!, cu-cu when he's all grossed out about something, with a real deep voice and his nose all scrunched up.
The way he goes "ha-ha" and shows me what he has when he has something he knows he's not suppose too.
And when I call for Taylor and Chase he mimics me and calls for them too.

Happy Birthday to our sweet little Tally Wally. We sure do love you little guy.

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.