Patriotic...

4th of July has always been my favorite holiday! We went to Cedar to celebrate with Jeff's family on Saturday, and then found out the city wasn't celebrating until Monday (after we were leaving!) It was kind of a bummer to miss out on the activities in Cedar and Orderville, but we had a great day anyway.
We took the kids to the Discovery park and had a great afternoon with them! We haven't been to that park in a long time, and it was a perfect place to go! I think it's my favorite park ever...

Then we had a great BBQ with Jeff's family, and ended up driving over to Parowan to enjoy the fireworks over there.

Then on Sunday, the real 4th, we went to our friends' house- the Roses, and had a fun party with them and their families-

BBQ, Lemonade, Apple Pie, Ice Cream, Sparklers...
All American! :)
Just the way I like it!

(Dallin picked out his outfit by the way- he was 4th of July Mario...)

PROUD to be an American.
Home of the free, BECAUSE of the brave!

Anniversary! :)

I can honestly say that I

DON'T
love my husband as much as I did when I got married...




I love him 10 times more...



We celebrated our
5 year anniversary
on June 24th.

It's been 5 years of ups and downs...
one town.
one darn hunky husband.
two homes.
two beautiful kids.
5431 diapers
a few "disagreements" here and there.
And over-all...
a BEAUTIFUL life.

Thanks for everything My Honey!
It's been a great 5 years.
Here's to an eternity more!


Fun anniversary dinner at home:

Our Anniversary Suite:
(Thank you mom for our first night alone in 4 years!) :)

Pre-School Grad!

My cute little man is a pre-school graduate!

Doesn't he look super cute in his little hat??

Dallin's graduation happened to fall on my birthday! So it was a great end of a day. The kids were so cute! They memorized some parts of a poem. Dallin had his memorized before he even brought it home! (This kid has a thing for memorizing!)

They also sang a few cute songs. Dallin didn't sing this one there, but he still gave a good show:

They had a slide-show of pictures from through out the year. It was kind of crazy to see how much he's grown in just a few months. Then he recieved his diploma and the families had root beer floats afterwards. Miss Suzie does a great job with teaching the kids! She has lots of fun activities! Dallin just loves her.

Love you buddy!

2.4.

"Maayyy 17..."

I had a boyfriend in high school who wrote me a song for my birthday.
I don't think I'll ever be able to say my birth date without having this song come into my head. :)

I had a wonderful birthday. I have so many people who are so good to me!

~My friend Autumn threw me a surprise party the Saturday before and invited a bunch of friends over for a steak dinner~
~My mom and Darrell came out on Sunday and brought ALL of my favorites for dinner and dessert. I love that she knew what all my favorites were without even asking. I love my mom :)~
~Monday, my real birthday, Dallin made me breakfast. He was so cute with the waffles~
~Jeff picked up my favorite pizza and dessert pizza from Kanab that evening, and we had a really fun little family dinner- He always knows the way to my heart...~


(I think we blew out that candle about 17 times between all of us) :)

~My friend Ann also took me out to lunch a few weeks later for our birthdays!~
I had lots of phone calls, wonderful cards, facebook shout outs, gifts, and neighborly love all day (and after)! :)

I never thought I'd be where I am now when I was back in high school.
Never thought that at the age of 24,
I'd be a mom of two super cute kids,
have a wonderful husband,
Own a home...
in ORDERVILLE!
:)
I'm so glad things don't always go as planned.

Thank you for the wonderful birthday everyone! :)

Scotty Wotty...

My brother is all grown up! He's always been my cute little baby brother, and now he's off to college, and soon- a mission! Totally weird...I love him to death! He's such an awesome kid! He has had tons of Scholarship offers to tons of colleges, Won Senator at Boys State and traveled to Boys Nation, Won Southwest Sterling Scholar in Science, Exec Council, rocked cross country and his fohawk, German Club pres, Made the lead roll in the first play he ever auditioned for, busted out this great voice that nobody knew he had... He's just a great kid! He's hysterical! Love him bunches!

My mom threw a big party for him with everyone in our family. There was great food! :) I made some little pictures to put in all of the sandwiches, and my Aunt Kate made these super cute cupcakes (although she thought our colors were red and gold- haha).

Kellie made this awesome video that she's been working on forever! It had a ton of clips from all of the talent shows and plays he sang and danced in, prom theme song he sung, and fun times with his friends. Also a ton of pictures! It was really fun to see his whole year kind of collaborated into a few minutes. I also made him this album with a poem talking about all the stuff he did over Senior year.

Look at how decorated this kid is! :)

With my parents:

Awesome Hefley genes we got there...


I love you bro and am so proud of you!
The whole family is!

So... P.S.... This picture was taken after Scott's musical in April... I totally think we all look so alike in this picture! Look at our chins! Crazy! :) Love both of you guys!!!

Traditiiiiooooooonnnn! Tradition!

Our family accidentally started a new tradition this summer. :) We have so many beautiful places all around us in the Valley that we have never really been to, or have never been to together as a family. We also just got a little subway a few minutes away...

So we have started our "Subway Escapes"!

A few weeks ago, I was just itchin' to get out of the house, so we decided to take a drive and ended up at Subway. I was sort of busy with tourists, so we decided to get our food and keep driving. Well- we ended up out by the Sand Dunes in between Valley and Kanab. We had a fun little picnic in the back of our van and then found a fun little spot with TONS of that beautiful red sand! It was so much fun!

So now, we have decided to make it kind of tradition for every few weeks to go on a new "Escape". We went on one today in fact! But my camera died... It has been a lot of fun though!

Fieldtrippin'...

Do I really have a son old enough to go on a field trip??

Apparently I do!
For the end of the year party for Dallin's preschool class in May, a few of the moms went with the kids to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.
They had a great presentation set up for the kids, and they loved it!
For anyone that lives close by, I'd definitely recommend taking the tour with any of your animal lover kids!
We went over to the Kitty Houses first. Each room had a certain color assigned to it with tons of kitties everywhere

We also went to the Dog house, where Dallin was excited to know that they have "Puppy Preschool". :) We found a cool place to have snack, and they brought out a great bird who was very fond of talking and dancing. Dallin got to hold the bird on his arm too! He thought he was pretty cool! :)


We went and looked at some more animals and had lunch in a beautiful canyon park in the middle of the sanctuary. A lady there did a great presentation with a book about the right way to treat animals and the proper way to approach a stranger dog. The kids really loved it!



I know that this is the start of MANY field trips to come! I loved being able to go and spend that time with him and his friends! I sure have a cute little guy! :)