4th of July

we had a great 4th of july this year full of family bbq and awesome fireworks. the kids seriously loved watching the fireworks and i love some of their expressions in the pictures. it's so awesome to have so much family right here.

Easter

I'm way behind on my blogging :)

Birthdays

My beautiful babies have birthdays only 11 days apart so we always get to celebrate a lot in April. I really enjoyed doing Kayhlen's "plex" cake last year so i decided again to really try and go all out and work hard on their cakes. Dax's lightning mcqueen came out ok but i was really proud of the smurf cake i made for kay. they are difficult but really fun to do. dax turned 2 this year and got a new "car" to ride in and kay got a big girl bike for her 4th bday. we love our babies so much and it makes me so sad that they're really not babies anymore. :(

for kay's bday we went to classic skating and got to roller skate, play in the jungle, the bouncy houses and the arcade. we had a lot of fun as a family.

GA Trip

We planned a trip to Georgia to visit all the family a long time ago and the date finally arrived. We did it a week before Dax's 2nd bday so that he didn't have to have a plane ticket. thankfully, my mom went too so she sat with us on the flight and that was a major help. all in all i think the kids were pretty darn good all things considering. it was so great to spend time with our georgia family. the kids absolutely LOVED being there and playing with all their cousins.

2 and 1 days to 30

wow. tomorrow is the big day. how quickly 30 years go by. i don't feel mature enough to be 30. i remember when i was a kid that my parents were in their 30's and they seemed so old :) how can it be me already. the circle of life continues and stops for no one, not even me :) it's been nice to go back and think about some of the key components of my first 30 years. there's no better way to end than to give a shout out to my 5 amazing siblings. i feel so fortunate to have been raised in a family where i had brothers and sisters surrounding me at all times. holidays were awesome. i absolutely loved our tradition of all sleeping in the same room on christmas eve and staying up really late watching movies and playing games. i loved the sibling gift exchange on christmas day. we would play baseball in the basement using socks as the ball and a rolling pin (the same one my mom still has) as the bat. of course there were fights. carrie, missy and i would fight about taking each others clothes ALL the time. i have a great memory of trying to leave for school with missy driving and me in the passenger seat and trent coming out and sitting on the hood, refusing to get in the car until i got in the back so that he could sit shotgun. since me, troy and kiley were the "2nd round" we got to go on more trips together than the older kids did. we have the great 1994 wardwell family vacation on video and it's a classic and really captures the spirit of our family...lots of laughter and sarcasm is how i would describe us. we truly were lucky to have each other and i can only hope my kids are as fond of their siblings when they're adults as i am. trent-the oldest so he was the first to fly the coop. he was such a great example as an older brother. he left to serve his mission so willingly and he would write all of us individual letters consistently throughout his mission...that meant so much to me and i still have those letters. he's the rock. missy-she is the laughter. she's always been the most sarcastic and the one to crack all the jokes. i totally idealized her as a youth and thought she was so cool. she has a good heart. she knows how to lighten moods and bring smiles to our faces. she's got the most famous line in wardwell history..."we've been through rain, snow, heat" "dad" no one else will understand that but all of us will and we'll all smile when we read it. carrie-she is the quiet and steady one. she's always been good. she's never faltered. she's fun and serious. she's the best example of a mother. before i had kids i always said i want to mother them the way carrie does for hers. she's the picture of steadfastness and takes all the bumps that life throws her and continues strong. troy-we call him the "chosen" one. i'm not really sure why that started but it just kinda did. we all joke about how he's mom and dad's favorite. :) troy is a great combination of all our personalities. he's serious and strong but he's also hilarious and sarcastic. i loved how our relationship strengthened as he and i both got older. he's always been a great example to me and he's one of the reasons i decided to go on a mission. he's the one mom and dad NEVER had to worry about. kiley-she's the selfless one. she's the one that would drop anything to help any of us. she is truly amazing that way. she never asks for anything in return. it's only fitting that she was the one who had to make the most selfless decision that anyone could ever do in this life and she did it with courage and strength and all due to her love for another. i loved being able to watch her play her high school sports and follow her career. i love them all so much. i've been so lucky. happy 30th to me. i only hope my next 30 years bring as many blessings and happiness as the first 30 years have.

5, 4 and 3 days to 30

i've missed some days but this will be a big post so we'll all get over it. as previously mentioned, my family moved around a lot. i spent junior high in indiana and then high school in georgia and then college in idaho and virginia. i hated moving a lot when i was younger, of course. it was always so hard to leave all my friends but of course i was always able to make new friends. as an adult, obviously, my perspective has changed a lot and i consider myself very lucky to live different places but also to have so many different friends. i have had so many different great friends at different times and all of whom played great roles in my life during that particular time period. it was always hard to move on but i absolutely love the memories that i have with all of them. here's some of the incredible friends i've had a privilege of knowing. Indiana (lived here from 4th-9th grade) and had a great group of close friends and we all played basketball and softball together...it was awesome. these friends helped get me through my "awkward" years of junior high...man i struggled finding my "look" ha ha it's hilarious to look back on now but i do wonder sometimes how my mom let me out the door. i went through the grunge stage and then trying to be preppy and just took quite a while to get it right :) these girls were so fun. i have good memories of tubing on the lake and driving golf carts around and mostly of playing softball and basketball. rachel, jyl, lindsay, laura, emily

lindsay, rachel, katie nicole

caitlin, rachel

I lived in Atlanta during my ever important high school years. moving there was really hard because i had such great friends in indiana that i'd had for a long time. the first people to really reach out to me were the kids in my church ward and they really stepped up and befriended me and it meant a lot.

After time i started to make some great friends and first and foremost was susie shelnutt. we played bball and softball together and we really clicked. she still makes me laugh like crazy. i actually got to see her a few weeks ago and she's the friend that we can go years without seeing eachother but then when we're together it feels like things never changed. then there was kim noah who was by far my best friend for a few years. kim and i were those friends that were just always together. we just made sense. we did everything together and we stayed close through our first years of college but then drifted apart. it's been so many years but i still think about her all the time. she meant so much to me. she was truly my best friend. i told her everything and we shared everything. i still miss her so much and i hope she knows how big of a role she played in my life. these 2 were the most influencial people during high school but i was so fortunate to have several really great friends. amber, kim, meghan, jenny

kim

kim and susie

susie, kim, maureen, morgan and sarah

my first year in college was at ricks in idaho. i had some great roommates and they really helped me get through that rough first year of being away from home. britni, annalisa, court and shelly

my other college years were spent at svu which i have posted about and made my feelings about very clear. i made lifelong friends at svu. i am so excited to get together with some of these girls in the colorado mountains just 2 short months from now to have a "reunion" of sorts. carlie wiechman was my best friend and she was the ying to my yang :) she is quite possibly one of the funniest people i've ever met. living with her was the most fun year of my life. we did everything together. we loved the same movies, tv shows, music...she was so great and i'm so glad we're still friends now that we're both old moms :) svu truly gave me some great friendships. some great girls that i'm meeting soon in colorado. diana, brindi and jessie

diana, carlie and shae

diesel

carlie

diana

kim, susie, carlie, stacie, jeanie, tania, heather, boo