30 Reasons Why I Love My Wife

1-She keeps her hair long
2-She works hard to keep the house clean
3-I love her wit
4-I love her smile
5-She works hard at her job to help support our family
6-She gets up and gets the kids ready for school and lets me sleep in
7-She does all the laundry
8-She has mad cooking skills
9-She is a Cowboys fan
10-She is the only person in the world that could put up with me through hunting season
11-She got her blue card
12-On top of everything else that she does, she makes time to cook yummy dinners for our family
13-Even though she has a hard time doing it, she always owns up when she is wrong
14-She makes a hair net, rubber gloves, plastic apron, and a pair of bogs look good
15-I love when she sets her mind to something she accomplishes it, such as running the half marathon
16-When I see a guy twice my size that could probably kill me with one blow, and I say, "I could take him," she always agrees with me
17-She listens to all of my hunting stories even though I'm sure it's painful
18-I love her ability to recall food from important events (even from over 10 years ago)
19-I love her extreme fear of mice
20-She is happy living in Scipio and doesn't need to be in the city
21-She is responsible and pays the bills
22-She is my personal secretary and always knows where my stuff is
23-She puts up with me through my slight imperfections....like bringing home expensive dogs, guns, seat covers, etc, etc, etc....lets move on
24-She loves my family
25-She always has my back
26-She scratches my back
27-She takes great care of me and the kids when we are sick
28-She is a great mother and always teachers our kids the right things
29-She always has a hug and a kiss for me
30-She loves me no matter what
Amber, for all of these reasons and so many more, I LOVE you. You are DEFINITELY my better half. Happy 30TH birthday!!!

Are you Shocked?

I know it is quite shocking that I am blogging again, but it's true. Hopefully I can keep up with it. A lot has gone on the last few months. Brendan has been busy. If he's not working at the fire station then he is at the meat shop helping me. I really think I need to nominate him for husband of the year award. He also drew out for a San Juan Archery Elk tag that he is so excited for.

Braxton just finished 3rd grade. He did really good in school again this year. He did inform me a little while back that he isn't a kid anymore that he is now a teenager. I very quickly told him otherwise. This year he played flag football, wrestled and just finished up baseball.

We celebrated Kyra's 5th birthday last week. She starts kindergarten in the fall and is so excited about it. She is definately our sweet, tender hearted one of the bunch. She always tries to make everyone feel good. She will tell Brendan and I that she loves us more than her blankie. That is a big deal cause she LOVES her blankie.

We celebrated Brenna's 3rd birthday last month. She is such a crack up that loves to make everyone laugh. She does this really awesome eyebrow trick that you have got to see. I don't know what I am going to do next year when Kyra goes to school everyday cause I know Brenna is going to go crazy without her sister. It is so nice that their best friend is their sister.

And I have had quite the past few months. Back in November I was having some crazy symptoms that kind of scared me. I had tons of tests ran which did nothing for me, but a huge medical bill. But in April I had my whole thyroid removed which was a good move cause they found a couple of small cancer spots in it. I do feel like even though I have been through some health issues lately I have definately been blessed during it. I was blessed that I didn't have to go through any radioactive iodine treatment which is very rare. I also have been blessed with the best husband in the world who has been absolutely awesome during all of this.
Well like I said I am hoping to keep up to date from now on, but I am making no promises. This picture has no story I just think it is too cute not to post.

Easter Dresses

These pictures were taken in April after stake conference. At stake conference this year they had a primary choir that Braxton was a part of. A few weeks before he tried to back out of it, but I forced him to do it and he just great. The dresses the girls are wearing are the dresses that I bought for Easter. I thought they were so cute and they look so cute wearing them. Braxton did have a tie on, and I didn't notice until after conference that he wore his school shoes. Oh well!

These pictures show their dresses a little better. My friend Katie made these bows for my girls. It is so nice I took the dresses to her and then she matches them perfectly.

This one doesn't show her dress, but it does show her pretty face!

Pinewood Derby

In March Braxton had his pinewood derby. He had a really awesome car this year. It wasn't super fast but I think it was the coolest looking car there. It took fourth place.

My Little Fishies

In February we stayed in Lehi at a hotel for the high school state wrestles. Brendan and the kids took advantage of the indoor pool. My kids love to swim!

Love Brax's goggles and my cute little fishies!

Quarter Machine Mustaches!

A few months ago my mom picked the kids up to take them out to Dairy Queen for some ice cream. They not only got ice cream, but they got some awesome quarter machine mustaches!

If you know Braxton you know that he has always loved to dress in camo. Well a few weeks ago he dug out all the camoflage that he could find and they were going to go play hunting. I love it when they play so good together. I couldn't resist taking pictures cause they all looked so cute.

I love this picture!

Before Kyra would agree to play she had to make sure that hunter girls still had purses. Braxton is teaching Brenna how to shoot the bears that are in our yard.

Better late than never

My little Kyra started preschool this year. She goes to school to a little preschool in Fillmore a couple of days a week. She loves it and has so much fun there.

Kyra's first day of preschool. She thought she was pretty
lucky she actually started school two days before anyone else.

Braxton's first day of 3rd grade.

On the first day of school the families can go and have breakfast at the school.

Elder Ashton

In July the Ashton side of the family had a big family reunion up in Island Park. Brian's family and my little family decided to extend our vacation a little bit by going up a few days before the reunion. We rented this cute little cabin for 3 nights. The first day we went to Yellowstone. This morning all the kids wanted to be so helpful and help me carry things to the truck well I think I handed the camera bag to one of the girls to take out and of course it never made it to the truck so I never got any pictures of the park. The next day was a Sunday so we thought that we would take a drive up to Billings to see my brother and go to church with him. It was so awesome to be able to go and see him. We were able to sit in one of his lessons with an investigator. This girl actually got baptized just a couple of weeks ago. He is such a great missionary. We had packed a lunch so after we left the church he took us up to the temple grounds were we had lunch and visited. I am never very good at remembering to take pictures, but if I would of forgotten on this trip I would of been in so much trouble. I think my mom told me like 12 times to take lots of pictures. My parents were so jealous that they weren't able to come.

I thought this one was cute of Ty and Kyra. Before we left for our trip I told her that we were going to be able to visit Ty and I asked her if she remembered him and she told me that she did and he was her best buddy.

Ty and all of his nieces and nephews. (sorry Ty your eyes are closed)

We had such a fun day! Hopefully it will be a day that my kids will always remember.

Mini Cheer Camp/4th of July

The first part of July Kyra did a mini cheer camp that the Cheerleaders put on. She had so much fun this year. Last year she was a little stinker about it and wouldn't perform so this year I threatened her that if she didn't do her cheers and dances she wasn't going to ever do mini cheer again. Maybe that isn't the right approach, but it worked she cheered and danced her little heart out. She did such an awesome job.
Another part of the camp is they get to ride on the cheerleaders
float in the parade on the 4th of July.

After the parade we went to the park and the kids played some games and went on a couple of rides. We were so lucky that Nicole and her kids were able to hang out at the park with us.

Braydon, Jack and Braxton

Gracie, Kyra and Brenna.

When we had had enough of the park we went up to my parents house to wait for the fireworks. We had a great 4th of July, but if Brendan wasn't working and if it wasn't so blasted hot it would of been even better!

Swim lessons

The end of June my older kids had swimming lessons. They are both pretty good swimmers. Braxton liked it so much that he wants to join the swim team this year. His swim teacher said he was ready. I think it will be fun for him.

Kyra hanging on the wall waiting for her turn.
Her cousin Chaz was actually in her class, but he
was gone this day.
This is how she was most of the time. Even if it wasn't her turn she still thought she needed to go out with them so she just hung on to her teachers back.

Braxton with his class getting ready to jump in.

Kyra showing off her new swimsuit.

And of course Bna doing whatever her sister does.

Fathers day at Maple Grove

Alright I know this is way late but I am going to start clear back to Father's day. This year over Fathers day weekend we went camping up to Maple Grove. It was so much fun to get away even if it was close enough that we were able to get up and go home Sunday morning for church. When Brendan and I first got married we sort of started a tradition of on Father's day his family and my family would go either to Maple Grove or Maple Hollow and Dutch Oven and just hang out, but ever since my dad became a Bishop it was really hard to get him to come cause of meetings. This year though President Monroe said no meetings so my parents, my aunt and Brian and his family came up Sunday afternoon.


My mom and Brenna. My kids are so stinkin lucky to be able to hang
out with both of their grandparents almost everyday.
The adults playing horseshoe. Lets just say horseshoes is not our best game, but I think Brendan and I won both games. If we played it in a horseshoe pit Brendan said we would of got creamed.

The kids had their own game of horseshoes going on.

Chaz and Braxton just hanging out.

These two little girls are the best of friends. Our camp was right by a

creek. They had so much fun throwing rocks in it. It was pretty cold,

but they didn't care they all ended up getting wet by the end of the night.

Family Pictures

So I have been a total slacker lately. We have had a pretty fun and busy summer, but I just think I have put it off for so long that I am kind of overwhelmed at the thought of catching up. So for now I am just going to post our new family pictures, and then hopefully take it one day at a time. Right before Tara's wedding Nicole hurried and snapped a few pictures of us. It was long overdue our last family picture was done the day when we blessed Kyra.

Braxton's buzz

Braxton has really thick hair that grows like a weed. During the school year I feel like everytime I turn around he is needing another hair cut. I couldn't wait for school to get out so we could buzz his head. This is probably the third Summer that we have buzzed his head.


Before with all his hair
Brendan is usually the barber in our house

Brendan had a little fun making some crazy hairdos.

After Brendan had done this old man hairdo he told him he was done. It was so funny cause he really believed him. He didn't think that was such a funny trick.

Yeah, nice and cool for the Summer.

Kyra's Salon Day

Brendan's sister Tara is going to hair school up North and last Monday she wanted to take Kyra up with her. Kyra knew this was going to happen for a few days and she was so excited she kept telling everyone that she was going to have a special Kyra day and Tara day! She had her hair curled,

she had a manicure,
and a pedicure.

This is the finished look. My beautiful little chick!!