Baptism Photos

 With R turning 8 soon and being baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we needed some pictures for her invitations. We decided one Monday to run and get some nice shots! R wanted to go to the new Payson Temple for her photoshoot! So we curled her hair and got her dressed and raced down to Payson before it got too dark!

To our disappointment and surprise the temple(which I knew) AND the temple grounds are locked on Monday nights for family home evening. To say I was bugged wouldn't be enough. I was ANGRY! We decided to just make the best out of it and take some pictures on the outside of the gates, and if they didn't turn out we could try again later!

These are just a few of what we ended up with.

 I think they turned out alright!

this is one of my favorites

A few silly ones!

I saw this on pinterest and wanted one. 

It's R with her in her baptism dress holding her blessing dress! 

See we were on the temple's grounds! :)

Then we headed over to a hill for pictures with the temple behind! 

This is what her invitations ended up looking like

(minus the smears that I did for the blog)

I'm actually REALLY happy how they turned out. 

I ended up designing and creating EVERYTHING! 

I was pretty proud of myself and my hidden skills!  

I can't believe that my baby girl is growing up so fast! 

She is turing into such a beautiful young lady both inside and out! 

I love her SO much!

Camping

 Jared had been itching to go camping for awhile. When his schedule allowed it, we decided to run up the canyon for a night of camping. We invited our niece and nephew Sydney and Damion to join us!  We set up camp, and headed straight for the shooting range. This was the first time my kids shot Jared's gun. I know, crazy that it took this long for my kids with Jared as their dad.  Either way, we were VERY cautious and Jared took each kid by themselves and talked them through what was going to happen and how to be safe. 

Jared started with the youngest! 

Cute little man!

 He was so excited to finally get to shoot "dad's gun"!

 Then Sydney's turn.

 Then my little lady!

 She actually made me laugh. 

Jared would explain to all the kids how to aim, and shoot. 

R was VERY inquisitive. She took the longest to take the first shot because she had so many questions, but it actually paid off because she hit the target!!!!! Jared was a VERY proud dad!

 Then Damion's turn!

 The kids that weren't shooting had to stay back by the car. They kept entertained by finding treasures!

 These were the "treasures" they found! 

 Then it was round 2 for those who wanted to. 

I LOVE P's face because he actually hit the target!

 Then it was Jared's turn to "play"!

I'd like to mention that I did shoot the 22 and was AWESOME!!!! 

R and I both out-shot Jared. He was proud, but a little mad!!!

 So he pulled out his shot gun and went to town on some old boxes and targets!

 It was a great day for shooting!

 Then we headed back to camp for dinner. 

Hot dogs over the fire!

 I LOVE Jolly's Ranch camp ground. 

It has a playground just outside the campsites, and it is a prefect place to run the last built up energy out of kids before bed!!!

 Then we headed back where Jared had started our dessert. My kids aren't a big fan of s'mores (crazy, I know) so we decided to try a new treat! Homemade cinnamon sugar donuts over the fire. 

 They actually turned out REALLY tasty!! 

We all ate them up pretty quickly!

 Then it was bedtime! 

I had told Jared that I would go camping if we could have 2 things. First was a bathroom close(we were right across the road), and bring my parent's trailer up so I wouldn't have to sleep on the ground. Being pregnant sleeping on the ground didn't seem like the best idea! So we pulled the trailer up and had a GREAT time!

I only had to go to the bathroom once in the middle of the night, and you bet I made Jared come with me! We woke up and had yummy eggs and sausage for breakfast!  It was a great camping trip, and I can't wait to go more once I'm not sporing this huge belly around!

Art City Days

 The Friday before the "BIG" day we decided to wake up early and go to the balloon festival. 

Last year the balloons weren't able to fly because of wind, but this year we were in luck!

Yes I know, R looks completely homeless. 

It was really early, so give me a break! :)

 R LOVED trying to go under each balloon during takeoff because they would drop candy. 

There were SO many kids she was super happy with the few treats she ended up with! 

P was content sitting on the blanket with me, watching them takeoff!

 I decided to take P over to a balloon, and show how they fill up the balloon first. 

He thought it was pretty cool. 

 Then the owner of this balloon said "lift him through the ropes for a pic".  So he climbed through and was able to stand inside of this hot air balloon! He felt SOOOOO cool!

 He now had a favorite one! 

This is P with the balloon and his card that he got!

 Then we went to the Children's Art Festival. It is ALWAYS super busy. 

 We tried to be one of the first, but I think that was a lot of other peoples idea! 

We started off with the most popular(which wasn't too busy at this point) the sunglasses! 

 The kids each got a pair of white sunglasses and colored on them with sharpies. 

 Then a few more crafts.

 It was a VERY hot day, but the kids had fun!

 Then Saturday. The "BIG" day. 

First was the parade...

 ...which R was a part of again for her cheer leading.

 Luckily they put them in at the beginning so the parents could pick them up 

and watch the rest of the parade!

 R and her best friend Juliet, but the girl in the front totally steals the shot! 

I laugh super hard at this picture, because I could hardly get a smile out of R because she was so serious about saying her cheers OVER and OVER again! Yet, this girl in the front is so completely bored!

 I went and picked her up, and brought her back to finish watching the parade with everyone! All the kids were always ready for the race to get the candy that was thrown from the floats!

 I love these 2!!!!

 Then the kids and I (Jared was working) attended my 15 year class reunion! 

This is a picture of the classmates that could make it!

 This is everyone with spouses and kids! 

My little family at the reunion!

It was a great time to see so many people I hadn't seen in years!

Then that night we walked down to the high school to watch the fireworks. We sat on the field that we usually do, but this night the school forgot to turn off their sprinkler! It was pretty exciting. Luckily we were just out of reach, but my dad had to sit next to sprinkler head turning it so it wouldn't spray us! It was a funny way to end the wild and crazy celebrations!!!!