A Saturday of mixed emotions...

Saturday, 9/3, was a very emotional day. Sweet Jaxon Payne in my ward passed away on August 30th and on Saturday we laid his sweet tiny 3 year old body to rest. The funeral was beautiful and the Payne family is even more beautiful on the inside and out. Such an amazing and sad experience.

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Jaxon was laid to rest at the same cemetery as David's Dad. We loved visiting him that day. These pictures came from my camera phone so they are really distorted.....but at least I even have these!

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Grandpa Pew with Daddy and Kylee...

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Grandpa Pew with Mommy and Kylee...

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Grandpa Pew with his sweet baby grand-girl Kylee...

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I've only heard wonderful and amazing things about this man. I can't wait to meet him one day and to thank him for giving me his sweet son David. Families are forever!

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Later that day we took our nieces (Madeline and Sydney) to the Diamondback's game for their birthdays. Their birthdays are a day apart. This day was Madeline's actual birthday and Sydney's was the next day. This was Sydney's first professional athletic game ever. We had lots of fun!

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Madeline, Sydney, and me...

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David, Madeline, and Sydney...

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The "chaperone's"! We haven't been to a game together in a couple years, so it was fun to go!

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Crazy birthday girls....

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No birthday celebration is complete with out a "cake"! I present to you......the birthday snickerdoodle!!!

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Comes complete with 2 straws! Bet you didn't know that you can still make a birthday wish and blow out a straw and have that wish come true! Haha!

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I love these girls! They are amazing young women who are absolutely gorgeous on the inside and out.

Pre-wedding FUN!!!

It's now 10 days until my sweet sister gets married!!! Can't believe it's already here!!! We've been busy....that's for sure!

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On Saturday, we had her bridal shower. It was amazing and a ton of people showed up........no surprise though considering Natalie knows 1,000 people!!!

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The Montez girls!!! LOVE!!!!

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Last night was Natalie's Batchelorette party. We know how to live it up!! Hahaha! It was more like a dinner party than a batchelorette party. But we had a ton of fun and it was good to see some of Natalie's friends that I haven't seen in a while. Not to mention MY good friend Christina!! Miss this girl!

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Christina, me and Paralee

More LOVE!

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The whole gang! Fun night....good times!

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My sister.....my best friend! LOVE HER!

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Can't take enough pictures with these girls. They are my most favorite girls in the world......well, other than Kylee of course! :)

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Bridal shower....DONE! Batchelorette party....DONE! Next up......THE WEDDING!!! Woo hoo! Can't wait! Natalie deserves all the happiness in the world and I can't think of a better man and a better family for her to be joining. Love you Natty! Now I'm off to find my dress! Ugh!

Kylee's 5th Birthday Party!!!

My baby girl may have had her party yesterday, but she isn't 5 until Monday!!! So I still have one more full day to keep her my baby!!! But who am I kidding?? Whoever knows Kylee knows that she just can't wait to grow up. She is always trying to act grown up and she always wants to hang out with the big kids, because she wants to be a big kid! She is so excited to be 5!

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Her party was a huge success! Every single friend she invited was able to come! She had an absolute blast! When I asked her what kind of party she wanted, she said she wanted a water slide (again) but to make sure she had pink princess decorations and plates and cups. She was adamant about that! So here is what her decorations (on a budget) turned out to be...

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Princess cups, plates and napkins just like the princess herself ordered! Of course there is Toy Story stuff too because I wasn't about to make the boys at her party eat off of silly girl stuff!

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Yes, I made these myself! Don't go taking orders now because I'm not going to turn this into my business! Hahaha!

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Blowing out the cupcake candles with her friends at the first portion of her party...

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Blowing out the candles on her cake for her second party with her cousins and family...

She was such a lucky girl to have a 5 hour party!!!!! It was broken down into sections though because Mommy couldn't handle having a gazillion people in her tiny house!
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All her friends (and the Montez cousins)...

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WATER SLIDE TIME!!!!!

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Kylee's party was awesome and I'm pretty sure David had more fun on that slide than all the kids did put together! Haha! Kylee got a ton of great presents from all her family and friends! She got a cool make-up kit from her Grandma Dede and couldn't wait to use it on me! Aren't we just beautiful?!!

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As tradition would have it here on my blog, I have to post my picture update of my growing princess! I do this every year and it never gets old looking back and posting pictures of her throughout the years. I wish so bad that I could just hold and cuddle this baby one more time! She was the cutest baby!!!!! I'm so thankful that she is still a cuddle bunny because I get to hold and cuddle her anytime I want!

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2 weeks old...

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1 year old...

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2 years old...

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3 years old...

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4 years old...

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5 years old...

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Happy birthday sweet princess girl! I don't know if you will ever realize just how much I love you. You are my everything! Your daddy and I thank our Father in Heaven every day for giving you to us and blessing our lives to the fullest! We don't know what we would do without you in our lives. You make our struggles and trials seem so small. You make us laugh everyday. You keep our hopes and dreams alive and you always know how to melt our worries away. With every year that you grow and change, you enrich our lives even more. We are so excited for you to start Kindergarten and can't wait to watch you learn and grow. Happy birthday sweet princess! We love you so much!

California 2010 - BEST VACATION EVER!!!

I'm proud (and sad) to say that the Pew's have officially taken their first REAL vacation! All of our vacations so far have been weekend trips (3-4 days MAX) with family and just hanging out. Not to say that is a bad thing because we love spending time with family at their houses and just relaxing. But this year we had something bigger in mind. When my sister's and I took our beach trip in 2009, we decided then and there that our family needed an annual vacation together. So we started planning out a beach house trip from then on. It finally happened and it was AWESOME!

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With David's schedule, he only had to request 4 days off of work and ended up having 10 days off in total. So we took full advantage of those 10 days and headed to California. We stayed with his parents in El Centro for the first 3 days. No El Centro trip is complete without playing hours and hours of card games until our fingers bleed. We LOVE it!

David and I took in a movie and saw "Knight and Day" while we were there. Cute movie!

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Then we were off to Newport Beach for 7 days in a beach house right off the sand! It was awesome! Right across from our house on the bay side was a few rides. Here is Kylee, David and Kyrstin riding the ferris wheel.

*Also on the bay side was a ferry boat tour of the bay. Kylee, Kyrstin and Dylan!

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BEACH TIME! Yes everyone......this is my lovely husband for all time and eternity. Aren't I lucky?!!!!

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My little beach babe!


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Dylan, Kyrstin and Kylee catching sand crabs...

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The first day we were there, Kylee got demolished by a huge wave! Needless to say, our little fragile princess refused to go back in. But David tried and tried to pep talk her into going back in........as you can see in this picture below. It didn't work though! She refused to step foot in the water for the rest of the week!

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My beach babes!

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Beautiful Princess Tiana dresses that Kylee and Kyrstin got at Disneyland. They never took these dresses off!

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Waiting outside the Crab Cooker. Natalie and me!

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All the girls waiting outside the Crab Cooker. Most of our other family members had left by this time.

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The WHOLE MONTEZ GANG hanging out at the beach house. We are a crazy bunch! Love them all!!!

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The Montez and Pew family taking a bike ride. Fun times!

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Olivia and I before a refreshing and AMAZING run on the beach. I lived for that each morning I was there. So awesome!!!

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Kylee and her cousins Libby and Maddie. They live in Newport Beach. Lucky girls!

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Tera and me getting tan! I love my sisters!

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DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!

This was the first time Kylee had been to Disneyland. We were so excited to take her and to see her reactions to everything there for the first time. Here is Kylee and Kyrstin eating a churro! Can't go to Disneyland and not eat one of these! Mmmm!

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Splash Mountain! Kylee was a trooper and rode all the rides!

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Kyrstin and Kylee on the merry-g0-round!

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She missed out on the Matterhorn because this is what happened as we were waiting in line!

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Our "navigating" boys! Yes....we needed a map! Haha!

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The PRINCESSES!!!!! Not gonna lie.....Kylee was terrified of all the characters walking around the park, including the princesses! I thought she'd LOVE them and want to stare at them and talk to them all day long. But she was terrified! This picture took some convincing!

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Kyrstin and Kylee on "It's a Small World After All". This was the first ride of the day!

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Taking a rest on Daddy's head! Sweet girl!

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Typical Disneyland family picture at the front of the park. I think David is a LITTLE excited to be there! Hahaha!

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After the first picture with Princess Tiana, the only way Kylee would take pictures with the rest of the princesses is if I went with her. But I'm glad she made me because I got to take a picture with my favorite Disney Princess (Jasmine)!

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One happy family at Disneyland!

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I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go on this vacation. It was amazing and just what our little family needed! We will hopefully be doing this every summer now with my family. Next year will be Sea World! We can't wait! Gotta start saving now! :)