Graduation!!

My graduate...


Receiving his diploma...


This is Silas's favorite professor, his advisor and I would say, mentor. He has done SO much to help Silas the last few years of school. He is awesome!


Our little family...so proud of Daddy...


My parents with me and Silas...


Deruchette and Brett...yea for bosom friends...


Selissa, Silas's sister, and her family came down from Logan. Here they are being crazy Aitchison kids...


The boys, sporting their SUU shirts. (Grant is wearing the one that Cleod wore when I graduated!)


Our graduation party, combined with two of my cousins...


Basically, we had a GREAT weekend with lots of support from family and close friends. Silas worked so hard and deserves every good thing that's coming his way. We are both EXTREMELY excited about the time we will have as a family that we have basically never had since one or both of us have been in school since we've been married.

Thanks to all of you who supported us! When I get the other photos from others, I will post more!

Sometimes I'm domestic...

I love to can, as most of you know. I also love getting a good deal on groceries. I have used Bountiful Baskets a few times and I really like it. Recently, I bought 12 pounds of strawberries from them for $8. Screaming deal. I have lots of freezer jam from last year, so I decided to can some. We already opened one of the half pints and it is yummy!


This is a glorious meal we made a few weeks ago. Sweet Pork (Costa Vida copy cat-Thanks, Tina) with black beans, rice, homemade mango salsa with cheese and sour cream. Yum! We also made a yummy fruit salad (Thanks again, Tina) made with jello and cool whip with strawberries, grapes, pineapple and mandarin oranges.

Farewell, Westover family

So since they got married in December 2004, Silas's sister Kizzie and her husband Andy (Westover) have lived in Provo. Provo is only about 2.5 hours from Cedar so every few months we go there, or they come here. It's been great, especially since a majority of Silas's family is in the midwest and we don't see them often.

Alas, the Westover family is moving on to bigger and better things. Andy got his Masters from BYU this week and they are moving back to Missouri. Fun for them. Sad for us.

Two weeks ago on their way to and from Disneyland, they stopped her to spend the night. They have two boys and so it was crazy and fun! Actually, they were really good.


We love you guys!

(P.S. Kizzie taught me about scheduling blog posts, which is my new favorite thing. Yea!)

Grant = 18 months

Grant doesn't talk. He's stubborn and just doesn't talk.


Grant is going to be a soccer star.


Grant loves to dance, especially with his brothers. (Click HERE to see more dancing from Grant.)


Grant is very loving. He gives hugs and kisses frequently.


Grant is very friendly. Taejen is his best friend.


Grant LOVES playing outside. Seriously. If the door is open a crack, he will try to escape.


Finally, Grant is a menace. He gets into everything and makes me tired. Here he is on the table, a place where he attempts to climb onto constantly. (Photo taken by Cleod.)


We are so lucky to have Granty!

Silas is the man!

When we were dating Silas used to write, "Silas is the man" on my stuff.

Now it's true!! ;)

Last Thursday, Silas and I went to a awards banquet for the College of Computing, Integrated Engineering and Technology at SUU. Silas was one of three students in his department who received an award that night. His award was the "Computer Science & Information Systems Outstanding Research Assistant." This semester he's been working for the university creating doing a new program that will help display the CIET college's information on a ginormous flat screen in the ELC, the building that has most of the computer-nerd-type-things.

Anyway, I am pretty proud of him.

Here he is, with his favorite professor.


Then yesterday, his department (Computer Science & Information Systems) had their own awards thing where he got a Certificate of Appreciation and a good bag with an SUU mug, an SUU tie and some other stuff.

Yesterday was his last day of class (EVER) although today he has a presentation to give. Next week he has three finals which will be done by Thursday night. This time next week, he'll be home free!

Life is precious

This week, our family was reminded how precious and short life is. Silas's cousin's husband died Monday, April 6, 2010 in a work related accident. Silas's cousin (who is basically my age and who I've known since I was 15 or so) is left with 4 kids under 7 and, of course, no husband. When Silas called me with the news, I almost lost it. I cried and cried and wondered what my sweet cousin was going to do. I prayed, "Why?" over and over again.

Then I started to think of Silas and I. Would I be happy with the way I acted the last time I saw him? What would I do? I realized again that life is so short and I cannot continue to dream of the future. I can't spend my time planning when I should be savoring the present.

The knowledge of the Plan of Salvation is a blessing in my life at times like this. Although this was an unexpected death, making it more tragic and hurtful, I feel the same peace that I did three years ago when my brother Ryan passed away from complications of MS and when my Grandma died of cancer. I KNOW I will see them again, if I do what's right. I KNOW that we came to Earth to gain bodies so we could become more like our Father in Heaven and that after we die, our spirits return to Him who gave us life. I KNOW this because I have felt the impressions from the Holy Spirit over and over again.

I am more thankful for that knowledge than anything else in my life. I know that I will be with Silas, my boys and all of my family forever, if we try our hardest to follow the example of our Savior.

Catching up

The last month or so has been fun and long. If you haven't figured it out yet, Silas is FINALLY graduating and the more I anticipate it, the longer the days seem.

These are some things that we've been doing to pass the time:

1. Reading. Cleod is a reading maniac and most days I read a book or two to the boys. Our new favorites are the Mo Willems books. If you've never read one, you need to...especially the Gerald and Piggie ones. They are hilarious and Cleod reads with such expression when he's reading these.


Silas's birthday was March 28th and we tried to make a big deal out of it. It was on a Sunday so Saturday we did some shopping for him, got pizza for dinner and just enjoyed being together. It was a great day. Sunday we had some friends over for cake and ice cream which was lovely as well.


I like to try new recipes although sometimes they don't turn out as planned. For St. Patrick's Day I made green eggs and ham. The green eggs had spinach in them and I thought they were delicious, but I was the only one. Oh well. I made some granola bars last week and they were really good and easy. Ryan especially loved them.

We've been doing pretty good at having Family Night lately. With Silas's crazy schedule we knew that it needed to be a priority. Speaking of priorities, last week we talked about the idea of things being good, better and best for us and that we need to focus on the best things first. This idea came from a conference talk a few years ago by Elder Oaks titled: Good, Better, Best. It was fun to have the boys tell us where each activity should be.



Friday before Easter, we hung out with the Warby clan. The kids dyed eggs, frosted cookies and had an indoor egg hunt due to the snow on the ground.


Grant's first egg hunting was so cute. He really enjoyed it. This is Grant after showing Ryan his eggs. Too cute!


Saturday, my brother Dane and his wife Ang who were visiting family in Vegas for Easter came to St. George to see our grandpa who lives there. We went down for a few hours to see them. My mom came too which was nice and Dane's one year old, Parker (who we really went to see) is adorable! After visiting with Pop (grandpa) and Grandma Jane for an hour or so, we got lunch and headed to the park for a little while.


We got back to Cedar just in time for Silas to go to the Priesthood Session of conference and for me and the boys to go to Deruchette's for our traditional s'more fiesta. It's the third conference we've done it and the kids love roasting the marshmallows, but they don't really eat them, or the s'mores, so we may start a new tradition in October.


Sunday we got to relax and enjoy watching conference. (We got a new comfy sectional about a month ago that made it extra relaxing!)


The Easter baskets came out late this year, but were happily excepted none the less. We got the boys the Toy Story DVDs (I had a $10 off coupon for each and they have codes for free Toy Story 3 movie tickets. Woot!) and these funny toys called Bakugans. They discovered these from some friends of our and I thought they'd like them. They LOVE them, even Grant. Oh course, one got broken that night. One word: Ryan. He's such a good boy, but sometimes a little crazy. He did tell Cleod that he would save up and buy a new one for him. (By the way, Ryan has had a cold. His nose looks awful, I know.) Oh, and they got underwear. Don't you love how excited they are?


Brett and Deruchette came over for dinner that night. We were playing a game after dinner and Der's baby Taejen was whining on the floor for several minutes. Then suddenly he stopped crying. Ryan had gotten his bear (which was his Uncle Ryan's) and put it next to Taej and he immediately fell asleep. It was the cutest thing ever and Ryan was so proud of himself.