Jackson First Bday!

Our cute nephew Jackson Carter Staley turned one on May 30th. I'm sure his mommy and daddy are saying this too, but wow, how fast that year went by. After 24 hours of labor his mommy, Heather, had to have him C-section. She says he was worth ever one of those 24 hours of hard labor and pain. How could you say otherwise to face like this? Jackson's parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents came to wish him a happy bday. Jack is the first grandchild on both sides so you can only imagine how spoiled this kid is. He got enough presents to last him until he's 15! We love you Jack! Happy first birthday!

A Work in Progress

We found our home!

As many of our family members and friends know and have witnessed, we are dedicated to working on making our house our home. We have sweated, bleed (Landon's elbow through the china hutch), laughed and cried through this process. It is all coming together now, piece by piece. One thing we have learned about being home owners is the work is never finished. You can always find something you want to changed. And another thing, which is most important, is that it doesn't have to be done all at once. There have been many who have lent a hand in helping build this dream for us. Thanks to all of you who have sacrificed your time and energy. We are forever grateful to you and love you so very much. The beginning of our home.

Couper & Kaleena's Wedding

They did it! One more eternal family has been formed! Here are a few pics of their reception. I have some beautiful pics of them at the temple, but I will have to get them from my father-in-laws computer. Maybe some day I will be able to use them for my own photography portfolio.

Destruct and Rebuild

Destruct.....the very word that describes what we do as home owners. We destroy so we can build back up and make things more our own. It's very exhausting making things your own, but it gives you a greater appreciation for them. Well, we have some great appreciation for our yard let me tell you why. We had a gigantic 40 foot pine tree in the upper corner of our yard. Landon and his dad chop it down last year. So, you may be thinking the hard work was over, not even close. Last weekend we had a few guys from a tree stump grinding company come out and turn our huge stump into barrels of mulch. It took them about an hour, using their big grinding machine, to get it all chopped up. It was already looking better. Landon and I ended up taking that following Monday off to clean up the many wheel barrels full of mulch cleaned up along with some other things. After moving the majority of the mulch to our flower bed we then found the real work. There were about 6 long, thick roots sprouting out in different directions still in the ground where the pine tree stump had once been. The tree stump company had told us we could call them if we found anything else that needed to be ground up. Well, they were about two weeks out from being able to come help us. We took matters into our own hands and started to dig. Landon did most of this work while I was working on spreading mulch in our flower bed. Here is a picture of Landon using the axe to chop away at one of the thick roots. And then here's another picture of him holding it once it was out. We had about two truck and trailer loads of dirt, branches, roots, and rocks that we had to take to the dump by the end of the day. We worked for about 12 hours straight, but there's nothing more rewarding then spending one full day in your yard getting a ton done. The final result makes it all worth while.

Feeling Free.....Our New Adventure

Landon and I went on a fun adventure last night. We'll call it our first step into feeling free. We just bought ourselves mountain bikes. We thought bike riding would be something fun that we could do together to keep ourselves active because lets face it, when you get married you get lazy. Landon got off early yesterday so were decided to take our first adventurous bike ride on the open road. I would love to say we went in the mountains on some unknown trail with slick rock, but that was not the case. We rode from our house in Layton to Landon's mom's house in Kaysville and then back. It may not sound like a hard trip, but when you haven't ridden a bike for as many years as me, that is a big accomplishment. It felt great! Its amazing what being outside being active can do for you and I'm not just talking physically. I can see already how much this will help us as couple. Yay for new adventures!

Mother's Day for 4 Mother's

All of you people out there whose parents aren't divorced consider yourselves super lucky. This not being only for the obvious reason of having your parents living in the same household, but also for the fact that when they are both remarried, divorced once again and married once again, you have that many more parents you have to find time for. Don't get us wrong; we love all of our parents, step parents and all, but wow, holidays can get a little hectic. Unfortunately, there is never enough time on the actual holiday to go visit them all so we end up celebrating ALL our holidays for about three days. :-) This year we saw Landon's step mom on Saturday afternoon, my mom Saturday night and his mom Sunday evening. Michelle still lives in Chicago, unfortunately, so we didn't get to see her. We're hoping we can talk her into moving back HOME. ;-) All of us kids went to Tom and Britt's yesterday to cook kabobs and celebrate Mother's Day. They were very delicious! Then we had left over cake from one of the two weddings we went to last week. Landon's cousin got married on Thursday and his step brother, Couper, got married on Friday. They were both all day events. So, needless to say after the two weddings and all the Mother's Day running around we are pooped. In ending this post I would like to say that we recognize one of the greatest blessings having divorced parents can be having more family. We look at it is us having more people to love and more people to love us. We love you all and hope all our Mother's know how much we appreciate them. xoxo

Fun in the Sun

Have I told you how we hang out with Brittney and Tommy about every other day? Yes, we are super lucky to have family members who are our bestest pals. I really want to post some of our cute pics from our trip to St. George we took with them so I decided to do a blog for it and give some details. After the marathon in Moab we came home for a few days then picked back up again and went to Landon's grandparents town home in St. George. On the way down there Britt and I made the backseat a moving movie theater to watch our many hours of Dawson's Creek. Yes, I did just say Dawson's Creek. Don't pretend like you don't have one guilty pleasure like that. We went to Vegas one of the nights and rode the NY NY Rollercoaster. Here we are in NY! :-) We wish! We spent the rest of our vacation lounging at the town home. Britt and I spent some time laying out by the pool getting some rays. It was perfect weather while we were there. We went to the Fiesta Fun Center and rode go carts. Brittney and I kicked the guys trash. Along with all the junk food we ate we had some delicious pizza at the local Pizza Factory. Yum! There was an old phone booth there so we just HAD to get a picture with us all in there. Unfortunately the picture with all of us there didn't turn out. This whole trip was just what all of us needed. We had one heck of a good time. When's our next trip guys?!