The Climb

I'm not really a big fan of Miley Cyrus, but I did like the words to her song The Climb, because it what I feel like I'm always facing, and feeling.

Miley Cyrus

I can almost see it,

That dream I'm dreaming

but There's a voice inside my head sayin,

You'll never reach it

Every step I'm taking,

Every move I make feels

Lost with no direction

My faith is shaking

but I Got to keep trying

Got to keep my head held high

There's always going to be another mountain

I'm always going to want to make it move

Always going to be an uphill battle,

Sometimes I'm going to have to lose,

Ain't about how fast I get there,

Ain't about what's waiting on the other side

it's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,

The chances I'm taking

Sometimes they knock me down

but No I'm not breaking

I may not know it,

But these are the moments

that I'm going to remember most

yeah, Just got to keep going

And I, I got to be strong

Just keep pushing on

Cuteness!

The other 2 Elsmore Kids!

Here are my handsome nephews and a few of the brothers together and sisters together. Cute Kids!

Pray, Aim, Focus

Here is a little, simple story I found about the value of prayer and listening to God. I hope you enjoy it.

Pray, Aim, Focus

By Vickey Pahnke Taylor

Today I want to share with you the story about three bullets. I wish I knew who wrote this little piece so that I could give them credit. You will appreciate the moral of the story of this old adage:

Three Bullets

There once was a man who had nothing for his family to eat. He had an old rifle and three bullets. So, he decided that he would go out hunting and kill some wild game for dinner. As he went down the road, he saw a rabbit. He shot at the rabbit and missed it. The rabbit ran away.

Then he saw a squirrel and fired a shot at the squirrel, missing it. The squirrel disappeared into a hole in a cottonwood tree.

As he went further, he saw a large wild 'Tom' turkey in the tree, but he had only one bullet remaining.

A voice spoke to him and said, "Pray first, aim high and stay focused."

However, at the same time, he saw a deer which was a better kill. He brought the gun down and aimed at the deer. But, then he saw a rattlesnake between his legs which was coiled and ready to bite him, so he naturally brought the gun down further to shoot the rattlesnake.

Still, the voice said again to him, "I said, 'Pray, Aim high and Stay focused.' So, the man decided to listen to God's voice.

He prayed, then aimed the gun high up in the tree and shot the wild turkey. The bullet bounced off the turkey and killed the deer. The handle fell off the gun and hit the snake in the head and killed it. And, when the gun had gone off, it knocked him into a pond. When he stood up to look around, he had fish in all his pockets, a dead deer and a turkey to feed his family.

The snake (Satan) was dead simply because the man listened to God.

I love the concept of “pray first, aim high, and stay focused.” It is good advice in all our endeavors! Looking at these three action items may strengthen us in our resolve to do our best

Gorgeous KaChele!

This is KC and I love the fact that I get to Claim her and her sister as mine. They are gorgeous and I love taking pictures of them! You can see my other gorgeous niece if you scroll down a little further on my blog!

Park's Family Pictures

This is the Park family and they are my next door neighbors. It has been great to live next door to them. As you might be able to tell from the picture, their 4 kids are the same age as my four oldest. As of right now they all still get along too, bonus!! We have been able to be a great support and help for each other during the 2 years I've live here. I haven't had a chance to really go through their pictures yet, but I wanted to get a few done for RoAnn to look at before I take off to CA tomorrow, so here is a sneak peek!

I absolutely love this one of RoAnn and Troy, because if any of you know Troy, he is pretty shy!

General Relief Society Meeting

Saturday I got the opportunity to go to the Conference Center in Salt Lake to the General Relief Society Mtg. This was my first chance to be inside the building. It was so huge and amazing. It wasn't completely full, but there were a ton of women who got to experience this evening with me. It was a great spiritual night. I love to listen to our leader and hear the messages that they have for us. Our stake got 3 buses to take us all up. There was a lot of silliness when you get a huge group of women together without kids. It is was great fun and we also got to go eat at the Lion House before the mtg. started. Another fun thing about this evening was not only did I get to share it with some amazing women from my ward, but I also got to go up there with my two sisters and my mom. We don't get to do many things with all 4 of us.

Here are some pictures from the day!My mom, 2 sisters and me!

Here is a picture of most of the women for our ward. We are missing 4 of them! When we were taking this picture, a photographer working for the Ensign asked to take our picture. Even though Audrey really, really doesn't want it to end up in the Ensign, there is a tiny, tiny, tiny chance that you could see our angelic faces in the November issue.

Happy Birthday Stephny!

My sweet niece Stephny's birthday is today. She turned 17 and is now a senior in High school. It is so weird for me to have so many teenage nieces and nephews, it's started to make me fill kind of old. Stephny decided to give her mom a break from cooking the birthday meals and asked me to fix her some of her favorites that I like to make. So I got bust yesterday and baked her a Tres Leche Cake and 2 dozen homemade Tamales. Lucky girl. I wish I had someone that would cook for me on my birthday! I love you Stephny and hope you had an awesome day today!


We took pictures of Mindy's kids last week, so in honor of Stephny's birthday I'm putting up a slide show of some of her adorable and gorgeous pictures!

Sweet Indian Lady

So my Sister-in-law asked me if I could draw a picture of her I think her great aunts mom, or something like that. I really love to draw Indians, so I said yes. I took these two pictures and combined them. They wanted to make sure the picture had the scarf and the necklace, but that one had so much shadow on the face, so I took the face off of the other one. I still hope to get much better at my drawing as the years go by but I think it turned out pretty good. I hope they like it, and aren't disappointed.

Family Pics!

We got our family pictures taken last week, by the most amazing photography. She is very talented and she made getting our pictures taken, a lot of fun. If you are in need of a photographer you can look up Mandi's work on her Website www.nuttallphotography.com. We learned about Mandi, because she happens to be Todd's lovely and talented cousin. Thanks Mandi for taking our pictures!! You're the best.

Sorry for the picture overload, we just couldn't decide which ones to show off. We just think our kids are dang cute, and it's hard for us to narrow them down. I guess you can be glad we didn't put them all on.

I hope you enjoy Jim and Gayle, but don't print them off of here, they are low resolution and we will be sending you some soon!