I Love My Family

This post is dedicated to my family. If you're not related to me, this post may be quite boring to you. Lately, I've been thinking about how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family, and I wanted to express that in my blog. So if you aren't or never have been a Heyborne or a Paulsen, I won't be offended if you skip this post.

Recently, my friend lent me a book called "Mitten Strings for God." The basic idea is that it's not the expensive outings and exotic vacations that are the most important things in our childrens' lives. It's the simple, everyday things that make the huge difference.

Lately, Jacob travels about 3 out of 4 weeks of the month. Because of this, we rarely travel as a family, but try to make every moment count when we are together. This has made me realize how much I love my family and how important they are to me.

My most common family grouping, is me and Simon. With Jacob gone so much, Simon and I have to find creative things to do, especially in the evenings.

Here, Simon and I decided to make cookies with every cookie cutter we had. I love cooking with Simon. Making cookies has become one of our favorite activities. Though so has eating them...

The most important family to me is the three of us (me, Jacob and Simon). One of our favorite, FREE activities to do as a family is to go Geocaching. If you've never tried it, visit http://gogeocaching.com/. This is a GREAT family activity. Here is Simon retreiving his first Geocahce.

We're always looking for a way to spice up walks, and Geocaching is a great way. Tonight we'd planned to go walking by the Provo Temple for Family Home Evening, but Jacob is a bit sick, so we decided to try to build the temple out of blocks instead.

Simon was heart-broken when he accidentally knocked part down, though that did begin a whole new game of building towers and knocking them down with his excavator.

Next, I am blessed to have such wonderful parents and parents-in-law. I know I can count on them for anything and I'm so thankful Simon has such amazing grandparents. All four are such amazing examples to me of good parents and good people.

Then of course there are my siblings, who I don't get to see as much as I'd like, but I know are always there for me. I feel so blessed to have been raised in a household that emphasized the importance of family. Because of this, we continue to be a close family, even though we're far apart. I know I can always turn to my brother or sister for advice and I know they'd do anything they could to help me.

And then of course there is the family I married into. I have great brothers and sisters in law. We have so much fun when we all get together. I not only enjoy Heyborne Family gatherings, but Paulsen family gatherings as well. I of course have to mention my sister-in-law Shannon. Not only is she the best friend I've made since I moved to Provo, but she's the person I count on the most here outside of Jacob. This is the closest thing I have to a picture of me and Shannon. Shannon, we need to take a picture together. Especially since we both have huge bellies right now.

I love you family!! Thank you for EVERYTHING you do for me.