Happy Birthday Nathan!

Oh Nathan, you make me smile!

First an foremost you are my sweetheart forever and always

You are a hard worker at the office and I appreciate all you do to

provide for our family. You are very good looking, I might add!

Fun old picture of you! This is the guy I met many years ago!

So very cute (I know you hate that word)

Here you are caught in a rare moment of relaxing. You have a hard time doing that!

Nathan, you are a very wise person, and a deep thinker too. You have

your priorities straight and for that I am ever grateful.

You are a GREAT father! You are so good at teaching the kids.

I learn a lot from you when I watch or listen to you teach the kids.

You have so much love for our kids and you can just see it in your face in this one.

Still a goofy kid sometimes! I love it when you get goofy.

Here is our beautiful family! We have come along way and I look forward to

growing old with you. (but not too fast)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

NATHAN

Christmas 2011

Here are some of the pics taken in the last few weeks. They are not in order, but oh well!

Christmas morning, before all of the kiddos came upstairs.
It always looks so neat. Then the excitement happens and it is very fun chaos!

The famous stair picture

Games on Christmas eve at G-pa and G-ma Black's

Zoo on Christmas eve. My brother Jon was able to join us and it was so fun!

Mother and son with groovy sunglasses

The Giraffes are not in view, so you'll have to take this good
lookin group of boys!

Grace with cousin Lily. They love to be together. Unfortunately, I didn't get
a picture of Lily's cute face.

Cute pregnant Liz. You would never guess that she is 7 months pregnant!

Uncle Matt the photographer.

Cute Ian

Adam

We always go to the cemetary on Christmas eve and visit our sweet Andrew's
grave stone. We sing some Christmas carols together there too! We know it is because of Christ, whose birth we just celebrated, that we will be with Drew again.

Temple square to see the lights. (These were taken with a phone, so they are
not the best qualily.) Nathan and I. Love birds indeed!

Grace looked up and could see the statue of Christ from outside.
She said, "look, there is Jesus! And look at the monkey's" We busted up laughing and looked up
to see children jumping on the benches. She could see the tops of their heads and thought
she saw monkeys. I love kids!

Party with our dear friends
Gooches and the Walkers

We have had hardly any snow so far this year. It did snow one day of the break.
There was enough to build two snowmen. One big, and one Gracie size.

Ian had fun dressing this handsome snowman up!

"You know Dasher and............"

We want you to meet "Dasher", the newest addition to the Black family. He was an early Christmas present this year. We found him on Dec. 1st at the Humane society. After looking and looking and looking, we found him and I knew he was ours. They could not hold him for 3 1/2 weeks and we didn't want to move him around from place to place. He just needed to come home. The kids love him and he is such a good dog. He is about 2 years old. He is young, but not too young. He is trained and doesn't have those puppy tendencies to chew things and be wild. He is very calm and very loving. It has been fun to have him around. I admit that I was not a dog lover at all. For years Nathan and the kids have wanted one and I have been the one holding up the show. I admit that I love having this dog around. He is very cute!

Grace loves on this cute dog a little too much sometimes! She loves to sit and lay with him in his bed. I found her reading to him in his bed the other day. She picks him up and carries him around everywhere. Dasher is very patient with her. He has not once nipped at her.

Adam snuggling with Dasher on Christmas eve eve.

The night we brought him home. December 1st
Isn't he sooooo cute?

Ian loves Dasher too. He is always hugging him and telling him that he loves him.

"fix" the food

Okay, I just have to share a cute little Grace phrase that she uses in almost every prayer. Grace will usually say ...."and please bless that mommy can repair the food". I know she is trying to thank the Lord that I have prepared the food, but I have to admit, I hope that the "amens" by the other family members aren't really saying amen to THAT!

I actually can cook everybody! And pretty darn good too! If I do say so myself!

Quick summer wrap up!

Here are just a few more things that you could have found us doing this past summer. We had a great one, although I do have to say I am excited for fall!

Grace and bubbles!

I love that sweet face!

These red barstools make me happy!
These are the barstools I sat on growing up. They have been in my parents garage for years and when they were cleaning things out before they left on their mission, we found them in the pile going to the dump. Nathan thought we should take them and clean them up and use them until we found some we liked. Little did I know that I would be inspired to do something cute with them!

I am so glad Joseph gave me the idea to paint them red! I love them and think they turned out very cute! I figure that I only spent about $8-$10 bucks refinishing them.

Finishing my cute curtains are the next project!





Boys and bugs! Need I say more?

Here are a few shots of the kids playing with the hose. They thought it would be fun to stick in in their shirts and see how long they could take it! They were laughing and screaming from the cold. It was pretty entertaining to watch! Grace was not interested in joining in. She just stood on the outskirts and got sprinkled.

Nice hair!



15 years of marital bliss

This is the little bed and breakfast we stayed in (A Midsummers Inn). We went to the Utah Shakespeare festival in Cedar City for our 15th anniversary this last July. We were able to see 2 plays. We saw "Romeo and Juliet" which was amazing, and we saw another farce called "Noises Off". We had such a great time just visiting in the car to and from and just talking about memories and also plans to better ourselves and talked about the future. I love being married to such a great man. I love him so very much!

This is the "amphitheatre" up at cedar breaks. It was a great hike and beautiful views! The best part, was just being with the one I love!