Beagley Christmas Party

We had a big party at our house on Saturday with Kyle's siblings and their families and his parents. We had a nice lunch at our house with a big long table stretched from one end of my living/dining room to the other. It was so fun to have the family here but we missed Judd and Keiauni :( Little Avey is sick and we hope she is doing better! After the lunch we went to the Huntington Elementary and played hockey, basketball, and tons of other games with the parachute, balls and rolly carts. And we opened our gifts from grandma and grandpa and did the Nativity play. (Don't you love the hockey stick staffs for the shepherds?!) It was a great time!

New Blog

Hey, I just created a new blog. I am such a dork, you would not believe how excited I was while I was making it! Come check it out. It is called Tips, Tricks and Recipes.

The Macarena is Alive and Well...

The Macarena is alive and well and living in Emery County! If you want to see it, just come to a stake dance and prepare to be awed and odd! Anyway, Kyle and I participated in a floor show at this dance and no, we did NOT do the Macarena. LeAnne was asked by the 3rd ward if she would teach them a floor show number. I came up to help her and asked Kyle to drop a CD off on his way home from work. He brought the CD and I thought he would promptly leave so as not to be roped in to doing any form of dancing. But, to my surprise, he stayed and they asked us to do the floor show with them (for those of you who don't know, we are in the 2nd ward so it wasn't even our ward). We had tons of fun doing the Cha-cha with them.

The top picture was taken at Kirsten's birthday party. We went down to Tropic to spend Thanksgiving with Kyle's dad and sister, Trista. Then Kirsten's b-day was the 28th and I had made her this butterfly cake. She loved it! Now she wants me to make a ladybug cake too. I also had a pic of Jannika learning how to play the piano. Steve's wife, Deann, teaches piano lessons and gave Jan her first lesson. She really caught on to reading the music and learned to play "Jolly Old St. Nicholas." We hope she can start piano lessons soon up here!

I just had to include this picture because I love it so much. We took some pictures of the girls but I could not get one of all three kids smiling at the same time and Kirsten refused to be in some of them...oh well.

Addresses

I want to send out a Christmas letter but I know I don't have a lot of your addresses. Please e-mail me at kjbeagley@hotmail.com and give me your address and I will also respond and give you mine if you are sending out a card too. Thanks!

Thankful

I am so thankful for my little family and that we are an eternal family. The gospel plays such a wonderful role in our lives and I am so glad that I was raised in a home where we were taught the gospel.
Now some really random things I am grateful for right now:
Afternoon kindergarten. Sorry but I really don't like getting a child ready for school at 7 in the morning. Next year it will be even harder with 2 kids (Kirsten will be in preschool). So I love afternoon kindergarten for that reason!

The fact that my baby is finally being able to keep herself entertained. I am one of those moms that really needs to be able to take care of the baby's needs and then have the baby play in the high chair for a while. This particular child has not been this kind of baby and that has been very frustrating for me. I am soooooo times 100 glad that she is getting to that point! I also love these little crackers called Mum Mums found at Wal-Mart that she can eat by herself! Hooray for her doing some things by herself!

I am thankful for Kyle's jobs. He has always had good jobs that allow him to have holidays off and to be able to take time off when he needs to. We have also been able to use some thing from his work like an enclosed trailer to move etc. Those have been nice perks! I am also grateful for my job. It isn't a very hard job and it gives me some Me Money, which I really like :)

A new kitchen in the house where we live now. I was very sad to leave my beautiful, newly finished VIRGIN kitchen (virgin because it's never been used LOL). But I am so grateful that some previous owners of this house put in nice new cabinets.

Most of all, I am thankful for Kyle, my mom and LeAnne right now. They have been so helpful to me during the last few months when I have been really down. They will never know how much I have appreciated their help and most of all their listening ears. Love you!

Kidisms

Some funny recent kidisms:
Jannika: Mom, where does Quarter live?
Me: (extremely confused) Who is Quarter?
Jannika: Remember, she is the nice lady we met at Church.
Me: (a light turns on as I realize she is talking about a lady in our old ward whose name is... Penny!)

Words Kirsten uses
Kiss-idea: a kiss (the day after I made her a quesadilla) ie: "I need a hug and a kiss-idea!"
Shoe: This is how she used to say "sure" but today she asked if I wanted to go downtown and I said "shoe" like she used to and she corrected me, "Mom, it's 'shore'"!
This is not great: said any time anything is not going her way (which is a lot of the time!)

Clarissa obviously can't talk yet but she is getting up on her hands and knees and Grandma has been feeding her prunes every day to keep her "regular". She is a lot happier when she poops! And when she has 2 naps a day.

Yesterday, Kyle and and my sister, LeAnne, planned a surprise party for me for my birthday. Kyle accidentally spilled the beans but it was a really fun party anyway. Thanks Mom, Nan and Kyle for the party!

Halloween!

My kids and 2 of my brother, Mark's kids, Matthew and Hannah.

We continue to paint and try to get things settled at our new house. Hope you all have a happy halloween!

Technical Difficulties

Well, I have some cute Halloween pictures of my kids(from our ward's trunk or treat)... but my mom's computer won't recognize my camera and we don't have Internet yet. Incidentally, we have made the move over to Castle Dale but we are currently staying with my mom until we have appliances. We still have odds and ends stuff at our old house. GRRR. I hate the last part of moving where you just throw all the rest of your crap into boxes and think you will sort it later and you wish that you could just go and throw it off a cliff, and you probably would because you are so sick of moving stuff except that there might be something useful in one of the boxes like your can opener or something.

Anyway, I'm glad that my mom will let us hang out here and I'll try to post some pics soon!

LeAnne's Photo Contest

My sister, LeAnne, entered a photo contest and won for Emery County! Each applicant submitted a picture that represented their county. Check them out here. (Her picture is of the Power Plant which is an icon in Emery County.)

Kyle's Deer

Here is the hunter and his deer! Kyle and his dad went up on the mountain this last weekend and hunted with my brother-in-law, Tim and his boys. Kyle and his dad both shot this buck. It's a pretty nice one! Sorry Bambi...

Conference and the Kitchen

What a neat general conference. The overarching theme was really something that I needed to hear. I have found myself often getting disappointed lately and some of the talks given really helped me realize that I just need to apply myself more dilligently to the things I know I should be doing and everything will be okay. I love coming away from watching conference with new goals and a new outlook. One of my favorite talks was Elder Wirthlin's talk in the Saturday afternoon session. His theme was something that I really need to remember: "Come what may and love it." All of the points he made were things I needed to hear and I am so glad that we have conference two times a year so we can receive these insights from our leaders.

Well, the kitchen isn't all the way done but I am pretty stoked about these before and after pictures anyway. So here's the before (ie: old cabinets, wallpaper, pizza hut light fixture)

Drumroll please...

Here are the brothers who worked day and night all last weekend to put in the cabinets, countertops, electrical etc. Kyle's dad also came on Saturday but had to go home that night. These are some awesome guys and a beautiful kitchen. Thanks Judd and Keiauni for all the work you did!

Lately

I just wanted to post these cute pictures of my babe in her tutu made by Aunt Megan. I love how her lips are making an "Ooo". That is how she usually looks when you are holding her and she is telling you a story with "Ooo" sounds!

The Beagley/Hill women went to the Gun Show, I mean, Scrapbooking Expo this last weekend! (Tamee couldn't come because Derek was sick). We had a great time and got some awesome deals on scrappin stuff. We stayed the night in Park City and went shopping at the outlets the next day. A tip about the outlets: always go to The Children's Place outlet because it really does have great sales. (Keiauni, I went there in the afternoon and got a few shirts and then went back to Carters and bought that cute purple dress!) The other pic is a cool double rainbow that we saw in Park City.

Free Fishing Day

Yeah for free fishing day! Our kitchen project is currently at a standstill because someone is interested in buying it but she may want to make some changes to the plan for the kitchen so we didn't dare do anything else. So, we decided to go fishing! The kids had a great time. Kirsten caught weeds and moss but Jannika caught 4 fish and they were all pretty big!

Clarissa cooperated by going to sleep and we all had fun!

Happy Blogversary??

It was around this time last year that I first started blogging and I would like to mimic my cousin, Christina, and wish myself a happy blogversary but... this hasn't exactly been the "happiest" year of my life. I have enjoyed blogging despite the sadness of some of my posts. I could list all of the unhappy things that have happened in the last year but most of you know about almost all of them and I don't want this post to be too much of a downer so I will just tell you about some recent happenings:)

My oldest child is going off to school. This is bittersweet because I want her to go to school because she Loves learning and being social and I want to encourage those tendencies in her. I am sad to see her go but I know she loves it and it also gives me some time with Kirsten and the baby.

Kirsten has been okay with Jannika going to school. I thought she might have a hard time but even when we walked to the bus stop on the second day of school and put Jan on the bus, Kirsten just smiled and waved to her. When she gets off the bus at the end of the day, Kirsten gives her a big hug and says, "I love you, Jan" every single day!

Clarissa has been doing better. Our doctor gave her new medicine so she is on Pepcid now and I don't know if it is the medicine that has helped or just the fact that she is getting older and growing out of her reflux a bit. She still spits up a lot but she is a little happier and has actually started to go to bed at about 10:00 to 10:30ish. Hooray! I have also stopped nursing her which is also something that is bittersweet. I really liked nursing my older kids and did it until they were around a year old. But, for my own mental health, I decided to stop nursing and it has helped me a lot. I know, I know, I might get fired from my job because of it:)

I have had a horrid sinus infection for the last two weeks. Why has it gone on this long, you ask? Well, because I was an idiot and thought that it would just go away by itself and so I waited for that to happen. Meanwhile, I was dizzy all day, had horrible headaches that would change places in my head and my stomach didn't feel great either (hence, no blogging). I guess the reason I didn't go to the doctor (besides my upbringing that shuns medicine and encourages being tough) was because I didn't have a horrible cold and so I didn't know what was going on and truly did think that it would just go away. Anyway, I got some antibiotics on Saturday and they have kind of been working although I still feel a bit dizzy and have a headache some of the time.

We have put our house up for sale. We just thought, man, it has been over a year since we moved and we just want that wonderful experience again...right. Anyway, if you know anyone who wants a large, old house in Price, Utah, send them our way! We are entirely re-doing the kitchen (including removing 10 layers of wallpaper, a wall, old cabinets, carpet and linoleum etc) and putting in new stuff. Yeah, we'll get it just how we want it and then sell it! Oh, well. We are moving back to Castle Dale to help with the farm and just be close to my mom. We will be living in a house that is just through the block from my parents' house that they own and have been renting out.

Oh, and I just painted the kitchen this morning and am trying to find a new word to describe the yellowness of it. Have you ever heard of "shocking yellow" or "extreme neon yellow"?! I shall have to remedy this situation. Stay tuned...

My Parents' Anniversary

About a month ago I was thinking about doing a tribute to my parents for their 45th wedding anniversary which is today. I wrote out some things about each one of them that I wanted to share with all of you. Now, with the passing of my father, this tribute will be more heart wrenching than I had meant it to be. I hope that it is still appropriate and will make you smile.

Dad
He was born in a house where the clinic now is in Castle Dale (both of my parents were born at home)
He used to be called Monty when he was younger
He was a very adventurous little boy and was pretty much set free every day to do what he pleased. He had a million stories about swimming in the canal, making rafts, going up to the sheep camp with his dad, working on the farm, etc.
He always looked out for the “underdog”. When he rode the bus to school in Ferron, there was one boy who got on the bus and no one would let him sit by them. My dad always scooted over to let him sit down.
He always picked up hitchhikers and helped people around town
He was student body president in high school. He came into the school one day and some girls had made election posters for him and had put them up around the school. I guess that was when he decided he was running for president!
He participated in every sport in school and was especially good at track and field and basketball
When he graduated from high school, many of the other students wanted to get out of Emery County, but he always wanted to be able to live here and run the farm.
The farm was one of his favorite places to be. He loved being there, growing things, irrigating the fields. He loved everything about our farm.
When he decided to go to BYU he hitchhiked up to Provo the week before school started, signed up for classes and found a place to live in one day!

Many people might think of him as a serious guy but he loved to laugh and was quick with a smile
He kept a daily journal and wrote several books even though he said he wasn’t a very good writer when he was young.
He was a wonderful dancer. Some of my fondest memories are of him teaching me how to dance on the hardwood floor in our house.
He truly loved his children and always encouraged us to do our best in whatever we were doing.

Mom (picture above is her participating in the Miss Ricks pageant, she is third from the right in the white satin dress)
She loves old movies like Casablanca
She is a wonderful listener and never judges you about anything
She likes Chinese food
Her favorite color is blue
She loves flowers and puts a different arrangement on her filing cabinet every few days
Her two favorite stress relievers are cooking and playing the piano
She is one of the few people who knows almost everything about me and she doesn’t hold it against me!
She is a great seamstress but refuses to help you make something that you think you can make without a pattern
She used to be called Kathy but is usually called Kathryn
When you try to tell her how to do something, she says, “I was ___________ before you were even born!” i.e.: “I was driving before you were even born!”
I have never heard her raise her voice at anyone (I’ve already blown that one with my kids!)
She secretly likes dark chocolate and keeps a stash of it
She likes to collect quotes and poems
She read to us a lot when we were little and used to read books to all of us like “Where the Red Fern Grows”
She remembers detailed things like everyone’s phone number and who’s related to whom. (It’ a little scary that she can tell you how closely related you are to your prom date…)
When she was little, she had the cutest way of cocking her head to the side in pictures (see photo below)
She has an endless capacity to sing you to sleep at night
She is the best mom you could ever hope to have and we love her!

My parents met at a dance at BYU in January of 1963 and were married in the Idaho Falls Temple August 27, 1963. They had 7 children, 6 girls and 1 boy. They have been wonderful parents and I love them with all my heart!

My Dad

(The new songs on my playlist were some of his favorites)
Wow, I don't even know how to put into words the things that have been on my mind during this past week. I guess I'll start by saying thank you for all of your kind words and gestures. It really does help to have the support of your family and friends during such a hard time. I love my dad so much. He was one of the most amazing people I know. My brother, Mark, spoke at the funeral and asked each of my sisters and me to write down some thoughts about my dad. I will try to sum up some of what I wrote:
"Our dad had many different roles in the community and was very well-known for his role in the Pageant, in Sons of Utah Pioneers and other community events. But we knew him simply as our father. Some of my favorite memories are of him telling me stories of his childhood at bedtime, sitting around the dinner table talking and saying our nightly family prayers. He was a very loving father and always greeted me with a hug even when I lived right next door. I loved going to the farm with him as a little girl and my daughter, Jannika, had many fond experiences going to the farm with him just in the last few years."
My sisters and Mark also had heartfelt memories of my dad.

The casket was handmade out of white pine by a friend of ours. It was very simple and Kyle put our brand on it and LeAnne, Karla and Fawn (my sisters) made the spray of sagebrush for the top. Flags lined the street from the stake center up to the cemetery and our caravan was led by horseback riders carrying the flags of each branch of the military. My dad was not in the military but he was very patriotic and he loved the first part of the pageant where we have the riders come at a gallop down in front of the audience with their flags. Some family friends helped with bringing the covered wagon from the pageant to carry the casket and also brought a buggy for us to ride in.

He was not a perfect person but I know that he loved me and he loved all of his family members and he will forever be in our hearts.

As some of you may know, I have some very sad news to report today. Early on Tuesday morning, as some of my family members and friends were heading out from Fairview on a re-enactment trek, a truck couldn't see them because of the glare on his windshield and he hit them from behind. A 14 year old girl (a friend of our family) was killed and so was my dad. He was a wonderful father and had a place in many people's lives. You can see more about the story here.
Thank you for your concern. I will surely write more about him on a later post.

The Kiddos

So, I just thought I'd give you an update on what my kids are doing lately. Claire is ever the unpredictable baby. Honestly it drives me crazy sometimes! I never know if she is going to have a good day or a bad one (bad meaning fussy and squirmy). She is a beauty, though, and I LOVE her sweet little smile and the personality that I can see coming through. She is four months old today and loves to eat...and eat...and eat. I am still nursing her but I give her 3 or 4 bottles a day. You would think that the bottle would be the feeding and that she would be happy. No. She requires a bottle and breastfeeding to be satisfied each time I feed her. Anyway, when is isn't eating food, she likes to eat her blanket and try to sit up as shown in the second pic of her. She also loves her swing and it is my lifesaver because it puts her to sleep. What is more angelic than a sleeping baby?

Miss Kirsten is growing up sooo much. We forgot her glasses the morning this pic was taken at the parade in Castle Dale but she still wears them and gets her good eye patched for a few hours a day whenever I can pin her down! She has a mind of her own and refuses to eat breakfast, except for eating the cream cheese off a bagel or one bite of a granola bar. Does that count?! She loves to sing and one of her favorite songs right now is "I Love to See the Temple." She sings most of the words right but at the end she says, "This is my sleeping beauty"!(instead of sacred duty). She says thank you for everything. One night she came into our room and Kyle was carrying her back to her bed. She was half asleep but she said, "thanks, dad, for opening the door," and "thanks for putting me in my bed." Each time we go to the pageant site, as we are getting in the car to go home, she says, "thanks a going to the mageant site." What a sweetie!
Jannika is just having fun being outside all the time. She plays in the gutter and rides her bike a lot. The other day, we were on a walk and she was riding her bike and we heard a loud pop. We looked around and realized it was her bike tire! She had riden it so much and skidded on the brakes that she had worn a hole in the tire! One day we were driving into our neighborhood and she asked me, "mom, where does quarter live?" I was baffled. I asked, "what on earth are you talking about?" She said, "you know, that lady at Church that is so nice to me?" Then it dawned on me, there's a lady in our ward that all the kids love and her name is: Penny!

We went to Kyle's 10 year high school reunion last Saturday. It was fun, but sorry, I didn't get any pictures. Anyway, he was telling someone that has two boys that we have three girls. They were kind of laughing about it and then Kyle said that he wouldn't change having three girls and he loves it. I am so glad he feels that way because I do too. We love our girls!

Me and the Munchkins

Kyle took Jannika to Salt Lake to the Days of '47 Rodeo so I'm here with the two littlest munchkins. I sure am going to miss Jannika when she goes to Kindergarten. I had been looking forward to her going because I know how much she loves to learn and socialize. Preschool was so good for her these last two years. But now I'm not so much looking forward to my sweet girl going off to school ALL day. For one thing, I've actually realized that she keeps Kirsten out of

trouble. I always thought putting two kids together meant more mischief but Jannika is a good kid and keeps Kirst occupied and tells her when she's out of line! When I'm just here with the littles, I don't know what to expect when I check on K!

Here's some of the latest stuff that's been going on: We've been driving over to Castle Dale a lot lately for Pageant practice. The Pageant starts next Thursday July 31 and goes through Aug. 9 if any of you are interested in coming. We would love to have you stay at our house if you come! We also got a new laptop computer. We had been borrowing my mom's laptop because our old computer just wasn't doin' it for us anymore (it is super slow and doesn't have a modem so we couldn't get the internet on it). So we saw a killer deal on laptops at Wal-mart and we snagged one. I think the deal is still on: $398 if any of you are in the market...

Kyle also hit me with a surprise and told me that a guy that he works with is looking to buy a house and so Kyle wanted to show ours to him and his wife. So I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned yesterday and this morning to get it showable so here are some of the results:

This is my new bedspread that I had to show off that matches my favorite rug below. It also goes with our shower curtain (three pics below).

You can just barely see my paint job in this pic but last year I tore off all the wallpaper in this bathroom and textured and painted the walls all by myself and then found the shower curtain and valance on clearance at K-mart. Gotta love clearance! Our house is still very much a work in progress and we aren't sure what we will do if they are actually interested in buying it! We would like to work our way back over to Castle Dale sometime. Maybe we are just getting restless because we have moved somewhere every single summer of our marriage and we just don't know what to do since we aren't moving! Ha!

Jessica's wedding

Sorry, I'm a dork and didn't get a good picture of Joe and Jessica at their wedding so here's a pic of their invitation on my fridge! Jessica is Kyle's step sister. It was a beautiful wedding in the Bountiful temple. I made their cake and it turned out really well. I stressed about it, of course, but once you have figured out how to do fondant it usually is pretty easy.

We almost decided not to try to attend the sealing because of the baby but I am so glad that we did (thanks to Jacqueline for watching our baby). I love attending sealings. It always reminds me of the day that Kyle and I got married and how we must have looked to the people who came to ours. They are just so young and naive! Just kidding. But it does make me think about the fresh start they are making and the things that I could do to make fresh starts in my own marriage. Here are some of the best pointers that the sealer gave them that stood out to me. He started by telling Joe to stay worthy of the priesthood so that he could always be able to give his wife a blessing and that he should give Jessica a blessing in the next 24 hours. He told them both not to judge, to let things go, to smile and be positive. He said to go to the temple often and participate in sealings and listen closely to the words in the sealing prayer. He also told them not to get into debt and that things just get in our way. It is always good to be reminded of the things we need to be doing and be reminded that the temple is where our Heavenly Father wants us to be.

Happy 4th!

So, I don't know why I never really made smoothies before but I have been doing it lately and we have loved it! Here is Jannika enjoying a blueberry passion fruit smoothie (made with frozen blueberries, Hawaii's Own brand of passion fruit juice and lots of ice). Kyle actually gave me a smoothie maker a few years ago for Christmas and I have used it to make orange julius and other various things that you use a blender for, but only recently did I start putting in real fruit and making actual smoothies. Don't even ask me why I didn't do it before now! I have had to get a lot more creative with my breakfast menu because of my trying not to eat dairy so I add juice instead of milk/yogurt and they are still really yummy and a wonderful way to get your kids/husband to eat fruit!

We have been up in Tooele and Taylorsville this weekend for the 4th and the Beagley Family Reunion. We headed up to Tooele on Friday and watched fireworks in Grantsville with Kyle's brother, Judd and Keiauni and family. Then on Saturday we went in to Taylorsville to the Family Reunion. There were some water games, traditional candy sling shot, and we found out how talented Judd and Keiauni are at doing face painting (on faces, arms, ankles and farmer's tanned biceps!) I'm sure Kyle's mom will be so proud to know that Kyle wanted a tatoo with MOM written on it! Jannika was especially enamored with the face painting and got a hibiscus, a heart, a butterfly and a watermelon. I think I better watch her pretty closely when she is a teenager...

Summer Fun

We got to see our friends, Brian and Lexie, at the first of this month (They live in Michigan and are visiting their families this month). We met up with them in Provo and went to lunch and the park and just hung out all afternoon. It was so nice catching up with them. Then we stayed the night in Tooele with Judd and Keiauni and went to the zoo with them the next day. Thanks for the free passes, guys! It was fun to see the animals and Kirsten still talks about going to the bazoo!

One of Jannika's favorite parts of the zoo was getting to touch a real live snake!

My kids have also been practically living outside. Kyle has put up the tent two different nights so they could "camp out", they have been riding bikes and swinging and they love playing in the kiddie pool. Kirsten wants to wear her "suitcase" (that's what she calls her swimming suit!) all day.
The baby has been doing better at night. I hope I don't jinx (sp?) myself by saying that! She has started to actually go to sleep at about 10:30ish where before we usually couldn't get her calmed down until at least midnight. I think that my cutting out dairy has helped a lot but I guess I can start to add things back in to my diet in a few months to see how she does with them. Incidentally, if you're wondering, this isn't a sure sign that she is lactose intolerant. It is the milk protein not the lactose that tends to upset babies stomachs. We just keep hoping that she will continue to do well!