Saunders' Family Reunion

At the end of July all of my husband's brothers and their families got together for a family reunion. We had a wonderful time spending time together. Here are a few picts.
This is my sweet husband getting beat by his nephew in a wrestling match. They do this about once a year, and our sweet nephew beats him every time....dispite the size difference! Chris is very strong for his size!

Each family was in charge of an activity. We made rockets. This is a photo of some of the launchers.

We were also celebrating my in-law's 50th wedding anniversary. Here they are giving each son a pile of photos of their wedding day, and some other fun picts to have for geneology reasons.

Here are some of the kids making their rockets for our activity.

A bit behind

I have been sooooo busy that I have not had a chance to sit here and blog. We have had two family reunions that were so wonderful, I can't wait to tell everyone about them. My kids are growing up too fast, and guess what? My little Scrubba is going to 1st grade in a couple of days. Honestly, who is going to help me with the two little girls while he is gone? He is the greatest little boy in the world. I promise to find a few minutes to show everyone how wonderful my summer has been. Until then, just know that I am just chasing time, and three little ones in circles!

Our newest princess...

She is finally here! And I have to say, I am just getting used to the fact that she is a SHE! She was 6 lbs. 7 oz. and 18 1/2 inches long.

We didn't find out the gender of our baby until the day she was born. For some reason I thought we were going to have a boy....I guess mother's intuition is not as reliable as I would have guessed! When they told me it was a girl, I was so shocked. It took me 2 days to name her because I had not REALLY thought of girl names, because I thought I was having a boy!

We finally came up with a name by the 3rd day, but we didn't put it on the birth certificate until the day we left....just in case! I am so excited that she is a girl because it gave me the opportunity to name her after my best friend, someone I look up to, someone who is beautiful in every aspect of her life, someone who makes me want to be a better person myself. We named her Kaiya Braumlee Saunders, after her Aunt Braumlee, my younger sister. In the picture above, Braumlee is holding her namesake. I know that Kaiya will be proud to be named after such an amazing person.

We are loving every second of this beautiful little girl. She already has found a special place in all of our hearts. Now, if she could just figure out that we sleep at night and play during the day!

It's a GIRL!!

Yesterday our newest addition came into this beautiful world. Our daughter was born at 8:42 in the morning. She was 6 lbs. 7 oz. and 18 1/2 inches long. She has dark hair and she looks a lot like our little KK! We are still working on a name for our little princess....I have been very indecisive in that department. We are so excited to have her in our family. There will be pictures to come!

Counting days...not weeks!

I can't believe that I am now counting DAYS until this baby is born, and not how many weeks I am along! In 12 days I will be holding our new baby! I am sooooo excited! I am feeling great, however, people look at me like I look horrible. I think it has something to do with the swollen feet and the nice waddle that I have perfected. It will be nice to have my own body back again. It will be amazing to finally meet our new baby.

Eight and so much more!

I wanted to put one more thing in my last entry, but I ran out of time....I am guessing that one of the kids needed me or something, but I have a minute so I will hurry and try to finish it. I wanted to make a list of 8 things that have changed in my life because of my sweet husband. The hard part is narrowing it down to only 8 things. If you know my sweetheart, you can probably understand. He is such an amazing person! Our lives have blended together so wonderfully, it is like the perfect combination of ingredients to make the most amazing dessert that you would want to enjoy over and over again! I am truly blessed by this incredible man. So, here is my short list:

1.) I now eat onions. I never loved them, in fact I almost hated them, but his family puts them in EVERYTHING! I can now say that I enjoy a good onion, with most meals!

2.) I know how to and enjoy jeeping. My guy loves the outdoors in a different way than I do. He likes to take his Jeep up the mountains, and I like to hike up the mountains. We each have learned to love what we had not done much of before we got married.

3.) I have a very strong example when it comes to religious matters. He blesses our family with priesthood blessings, with FHE, family prayer, church on Sunday etc. I have always had religion in my life, but not as constant as he has maintained it.

4.) Softball. Yeah, I have never played, and because of him, I have learned to LOVE it! I still play like a girl, and I am probably the worst one on the team, but it is sooooo fun to play on our co-ed team.

5.) Gardening/Canning. His parents have three HUGE gardens that they share with us. We try to get up there to help when we can. I remember having a garden when I was really young, but I can't remember anything about it except weeding it! I have learned some new things, but my favorite is how to bottle what we grow! YUMMY!

6.) KIDS. We have 2 8/9 kids. Our third will be born next month. They are so amazing! And the best part is that my husband fits right in with them. He is just a big kid himself!

7.) Reaching my potential. My husband has proved to be the best in helping me to accomplish more than I ever thought I could. He is my biggest fan in all that I do.

9.) Grilling/Dutch Oven cooking. Because of him, I have learned to do both fairly well. I will have to admit that my husband is an amazing cook, and I will never surpass his abilities in these areas. In fact, when it comes to breakfast...he will always have me beat!

I love you sweetheart. I can't wait to see what the rest of eternity brings for us!

Eight Wonderful Years!

My sweet hubby and I have been married for 8 wonderful years today! We were able to go to Portland, Oregon together and spend a few days alone before our new baby comes. We have never been to Oregon and we were so excited to see some wonderful things. When we flew in it was BEAUTIFUL! On our honeymoon, we were actually staying on the coast up by Washington and we saw some whales, but not very close. Our friend told us that we could see some whales off the coast by Portland as well....we were so excited! The drive was long, but gorgeous. Right when we got to the outskirts of the coast town that we were going to we realized that our beautiful day had turned to FOG!!! We REALLY wanted to see some whales, so we looked into a charted boat/tour guide sort of thing. The guy was really nice when he said that they would not have any boats going out, and that honestly, we were the only ones who have even asked....go figure! So, long story short, we ate a great bowl of clam chowder and some amazing calamari, took a picture to remember our efforts and headed back to Portland!
Just outside of Portland, there are some beautiful falls called Multnomah Falls. It is the second largest year-round waterfall in the US. It is around 620 feet tall! It was still beautiful in Portland, in the mid 80's, so it was nice to be by this amazing waterfall. The force of the water falling made a wonderful breeze, and a lovely mist as well! I love this picture of the bridge. The two people are a mom and her daughter....I just thought it was sweet.

We walked the .2 miles up to the bridge and decided to do the whole mile up to see the view from the top. The picture is taken at about 1/2 way. I had to laugh at people's reaction to me as they walked by. They all looked at my face, then my belly, and then quickly diverted their eyes so that I didn't see their next reaction! One guy told me I was an inspiration....yep, that made my day!

Here we are at the top. It was beautiful up there, but you couldn't see much of the falls, you just got a great view of the river. I was starting to swell...my fingers, toes, and ankles didn't enjoy the hike as much as I did!

Still at the top, you can see the river behind us. Really, it is worth seeing! Portland is a beautiful place to visit. The hike was so wonderful for me for lots of reasons. I like to hike, I love the color green (and you see lots of it), my legs miss exercising, and last but not least, everything is so much fun with my sweet husband!

Here is one last photo of the falls. It is hard to do it justice just because it is soooo huge. Anyway, after we saw the falls, we made our way to Boise. My brother and sister-in-law live there and we were able to spend a fantastic day with them. We had amazing snow cones, at dinner at a great restaurant, and watched a darling movie together. Today, we are swimming and shopping and just enjoying our time together. Tomorrow we head home to get our kids....they are the most wonderful thing that has come from the last 8 years. I love you sweetheart!