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We are thrilled to have our house and look forward to making it our home filled with love, laughter and memories!

BIG news!

Perhaps the biggest news is that we are expecting a 5th child the beginning of June. Words cannot express my gratitude at being given the opportunity to have another sweet child in our family, something I have fasted, prayed and hoped for for many years. So grateful that Nate is willing to take this leap of faith with me! We SO look forward to meeting her!

My message to Nate.  I sent this to him and videoed his reaction, priceless!

Our announcement to family and social media. At the bottom it read, "And now we think it's time for a change.  Baby Peterson #5 due June 5th."

Our Christmas card announcement.

Our gender announcement.  It's a girl!

Fall Sports 2014

Fall of 2014 brought with it lots and lots of sporting events.

Mac played competitive soccer with Utah Storm and also tried his hand at flag football -- both sports were a huge success!  It made me smile when I went to one of his football games and overheard a boy on the opposing team keep repeating, "Oh my gosh, we don't stand a chance.  Mac is on their team and he's the best athlete.  We don't stand a chance, they have Mac!" Mac's football team did go on to win the the whole league and his soccer team did well enough that they are being moved up to the next highest division for Spring league.  Mac is quite the athlete and loves to play sports all day every day.

Jillian also tried soccer this year.  She did a great job and loved being on the same team with her new best buddy, Brynlee.  She played a little shy and not very aggressive, but she is fast and loved being out on the field.

Beckam had a great soccer season and enjoyed being on the same team as some of his best buddies.  He's just happy to be out on the field running and rolling around on the ground in quite a dramatic way.

Jaxton also played competitive soccer and made it onto the A team, which we were all thrilled about.  He also played flag football and was the quarterback most of the time.  He's already begging us to let him play tackle football next year, but I don't think I'm quite ready to suit him up in pads and a helmet yet.

School is Back in Session!

We were so busy playing all summer that school snuck right up on us. It's always amazing to me how quickly time passes by. 

The Monday before school started, we held a special Family Home Evening . Nate gave each of the kids a beautiful father's blessing -- how grateful I am that he is able to do this for our kids. I provided a back-to-school treat, which the kids loved.

Mac is entering the 5th grade.  His teacher is Mrs. Bradford and he is thrilled to have a couple of his best buddies in class with him.  A month into school I received an email from his teacher saying, "Mac brings so much energy to class!"  Uh oh! But then I continued reading, "I have enjoyed his personality and the little jokes we trade between us!" She also said, "About a week ago I was on bus duty outside and I noticed the sweet way he helped his younger brother after school.  I told him that said a lot about the way he valued his family and that was something I thought was very awesome about him! I am so glad he is in our class and I hope he is enjoying fifth grade." How grateful I am to teachers who choose to see the good in my kids!

Jaxton is in 3rd grade and has Mrs. Sandberg for a teacher.  She does a lot of rewarding with treats, so it's nice to know that she speaks Jaxton's language.  This year Jaxton has been working really hard on making not just friends, but GOOD friends.  He is very aware of how people treat him and others and considers that when he plays with others.  I love that he is trying hard to make good choices.

Beckam is in 1st grade and Mrs. Northcutt is his teacher.  I spoke to his teacher the other day and she said, "Beckam is one of those kids that I only have to teach him something once and then he just gets it and can apply it."  He has a lot of kids from his Kindergarten class in this class and has enjoyed that.

My baby, Jilli, is in afternoon Kindergarten with Miss Anderson.  She loves school and takes it very seriously.  Every day she comes right home, opens her backpack and sits down to do her homework.  She's learning tons and making lots of good friends.  She seems to be especially popular among the boys.  When I take her to soccer there are always several boys who are yelling out to her, "Hi Jillian!"  Her favorites seem to be Brandt and Henry.

Here's my sweet fellas ready to go on the first day.  What a handsome group they are!

Hoping this year continues to go well and that my kids find success and happiness all year long.

FaBuLoUs and FIVE

Hard to imagine that my baby girl is five years old. Boggles my mind, really.

Here she is on her birthday morning, waking up as an official five year old.

Jilli had been on the countdown to her birthday for months.  I'm not sure how many pics I took of her inside a store holding a toy that she didn't want me to forget to get her for her birthday.

And while she didn't get everything in all those pics, I don't think she was disappointed.

Since Nate had a family work party that we all had to go to that evening, we did cake and ice cream with the family the next day.  Jilli had requested a pink princess cake, so I did my best to deliver.

Birthday selfies with my girl.  Love, love, love her!

A couple days before Jillian's birthday I took her out for mini photo shoot.  It only took about 5 minutes, but I got some great shots of this beautiful girl.

She's full of sass,

beauty,

sweetness,

and pretty close to perfection!

Happy 5th Miss J!  We sure do love you and thank the heavens that you were sent to our family!

*On a side note, weeks before Jilli's birthday we all kept saying things like, "Oh, I can't believe Jilli's going to be 5" and "I remember when she was just a baby" -- apparently she was getting fed up with it because just a day or two before her birthday Mac said, "Jilli, don't turn 5, just stay 4 forever," to which she quickly replied (quite annoyed), "You said the same thing when I was 2 and then 3 and then 4 but you still always liked me and I'm sure you'll still like me when I'm 5!"
Point taken.

Summer Fun, Part Two -- the exciting conclusion

Jilli took summer tumbling and did awesome! She moved up two levels during the summer and was praised for ability to catch on easily, pay attention and listen. If was fun to see her excel at something new.

The Smith family reunion is something that I have missed out on for many years since we lived in NC.  I was so excited that I would be able to attend with my kids this year.  Many of the Smith crew gathered at a privately owned wooded area, complete with a multi-level tree house, and spent three days together exploring, getting wet, paint balling, eating, visiting and sleeping in tents.  It was awesome -- all except for the last night when half the kid campers were throwing up all. night. long.  Amazingly, though, not even that could put a bad taste in my mouth (get it? haha) -- I'm already looking forward to getting together with these great people again next year and doing it all over again (minus the sick part).

I love getting together with friends and reminiscing about old times.  Katie and Camille are some of my all time favorites and I'm so happy that I got to catch up with them.  Hoping a lot more reminiscing is in my future with more good friends that I haven't seen in ages!

And a summer just isn't complete without a trip to the Merrill's cabin and Bear Lake. How grateful we are that they allow the entire Olsen family to take over/enjoy their cabin for a few days.

I love July 24th.  Here we are enjoying a firework show from the comfort of Beth's backyard.

But I mostly love Pioneer Day in Mendon!  I love the races, the parade, the food, the entertainment, the ball games, the firework show -- I love it all!  At the end of the night, even Nate admitted, "Now that's a great city celebration!"
Nate and I ran a 5k early in the morning and the kids each ran races in their age divisions.  All of them did well -- Jilli took 2nd overall in her bracket, Mac and Jax took 3rd in their different ages and Beckam followed close behind Jax in their race.

Hiking the Y is always a fun and tiring activity.  Glad we could do it in the company of Bethany's family!

We spent lots of time at parks, especially Jilli, while we waited for the boys' practices to be over.

Since we are locals again, I was adamant that the kids needed to experience the Cache County Fair.  We were only able to stay for a half day, but it was great while it lasted.  It was country livin' at its finest!

Bert had planned a trip to his home town of Boulder, UT to show us all the sites and history of that town.  Only 100 people live there year round (200 in the summer), but the beauty of this town was awesome!  We all loved seeing firsthand, the place that is clearly very dear to Grandpa Bert's heart.

Way back before we moved to UT, but knew we were moving, I bought 7Peaks Pass of All Passes.  While in the beginning it was a pain to set everything up, in the end we loved and used those passes over and over at the water park and fun center.  I swore I'd never buy them again, but I may just have to eat my words next year.

We attended the BYU football scrimmage, but didn't last long -- between the family behind us who continued to kick our chairs, the heat and the kids' constant complaining that they were hungry/thirsty, we were lucky to make it through the first half.

And nothing says "summer" like late nights, sleeping in and sleepovers.

We squeezed every last minute of fun out of this action-packed summer, but some of my favorite times looked like these -- just playing together in the backyard.

I do love summer and this crazy little family of mine!