September Birthdays!!

RONDA LOU BENSON WELCH aka MY MOTHER :) 

September 12th

Happy Birthday to my BEAUTIFUL momma! We celebrated her birthday on Sept. 12th and had a blast! Shopping at Nordy's and lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Yum! Man I love these ladies :) Mom you are amazing and I am so blessed to call you my mother! Thank you for all you do and your sweet example. You are an angel on earth and my best friend. You embody everything it means to be a mother and are so selfless and giving. You truly inspire me! :) I hope you had a fabulous birthday! I know I had a blast celebrating with you! ;)

 (love this picture of these three! so beautiful!!!)

After shopping we went to visit my Nana and we had delicious German Chocolate cake and sang happy birthday. This is Elle helping my mom blow out her candles. So sweet :)

BRITTNY WELCH

September 18th

Sister Brittny Welch is out serving in the Netherlands and speaking Dutch! She is a superstar and one AMAZING missionary! She currently got made senior companion and has been doing great! She got put in as a senior companion really early on in the game and was a little nervous, but if anyone is up for a challenge she is! She has always risen to the occasion and can do anything! I am so proud of her and love her so much!
Brittny I hope you have a wonderful birthday!!!! We all love you and pray for you daily! Thank you for your example! Just know we are all thinking of you back home and hoping your day is fabulous. Eat lots of cake or German/Dutch goodies to celebrate ok?? :) And watch for our packages! They will get to you soon! ;)

This is the outfit Brittny sent Presley! We just got it yesterday! Isn't it darling?? We love it and so does Pres. THANKS Britt! You are so thoughtful! She wore it to church today and everyone loved it :) nice works sista. And again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

DAVID OLSON WELCH aka MY FATHER :) 

September 24th

And last but surely not least is my daddio's birthday on the 24th. Man September is totally a party month for our family! A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dad! He is so amazing and such a good father! He has always worked so hard and always sacrificed for our family. I am so lucky to have such an awesome father and friend. He is so reliable and so sweet. Thank you dad for being the man you are. I am so blessed to have you in my life and call you dad! Can't wait to celebrate your birthday with you this weekend! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYONE!!!!!! 

 I love you all SOOOOOOOO much and hope you each have a very special day. You all deserve it! 

love always & eternity,

Chan

2 Months Old!

Things about Presley:
-She loves to snuggle with her momma
-She loves when you play with her hair
-She is starting to giggle and babble and she loves to hear her own voice
-She is VERY smiley :) and I love it!
-She loves to go on walks with her mom and dad
-She likes to stand up and show off her strong legs
-She loves her binky
-She will definitely let you know if she wants something!
-Her hair is long enough to put in a little pony (as demonstrated in the picture above)! :)
-She rolls over
-When she doesn't have her binky she sucks on her wrist or hands (hopefully she grows out of that before high school) ;)
-She is sooooooo much fun and we love her to pieces!!!

Red Rock Relay

I'm on a roll! This is blog post number two and it's only been like 2 weeks!  So Friday and Saturday the 9th and 10th I ran in the Red Rock Relay in Southern Utah.  For those of you who don't know what the Red Rock Relay is it's basically the same as Ragnar and if you don't know what that is I will tell you briefly.  It's a relay race over the course of 185 miles in Southern Utah, starting at Brian Head and weaving its way around down to end in Zions Park. Teams are made up of 2 vans with 6 people in each van and each person runs 3 legs during the course which takes a little over 24 hours to complete.

The race was a blast! The only down side was having to leave a wonderful wife and my beautiful newborn back at home :( I wish they could have come with me. Oh and I guess the other downside is running all those miles all day and night! :) There were multiple times when my knees felt like they were going to explode that I would ask myself, "why am I paying to do this!!" but really I loved it, it's just a major mental mind game when your out there running.

I had a fantastic team that was made up of a girl I work with, Kami, a few of her friends, and one of my friends.  We still haven't received the results back to see how we did but we are anxiously awaiting (although I don't know why cause we definitely didn't win anything :) ) 

Just thought this showed the Red Rock in the background pretty good.

This is me in the chute getting ready to run by popping my headphones in! 

This is our amazing limo van! It doesn't look special on the outside but the inside has leather wrap around seating, sweat colored lights, a TV, and even a place chill our champagne that we don't drink :)

No comment, I should probably just remove this picture really.

We started to get creative in our methods of encouraging each other on. This is Mike dancing on the van cheering on Lyndie!

This hill was literally as steep as it looks! Only 1 mile in my 5 mile leg and I was probably only still running because I'm sooo competitive and had to pass that girl in front of me... And I did :)

This is my friend prepping for his night run at around midnight! We ran  until about 3 a.m. then got 1.5 hours of sleep before we were back pounding the pavement! Great times, makes you question why you pay money for things like this :)

Luckily we had a house to sleep in.  But this is a church at one of the exchanges with probably a minimum of 300 people spread all over trying to get some rest in their sleeping bags.

These are Nate's shoes at sunrise! We could literally see him coming from 1/2 a mile away!

This is the beginning of my final leg, I really had no idea whether or not I would be crawling to the finish line :) During this leg I'm pretty sure I tried to jump on the side of my van for a ride, asked another van for a ride, and asked a lady riding a horse for a ride :) All 3 attempts at cheating failed. 

This is our whole team crossing the finish line! Both Van #1 and #2

This is all my runnin mates from Van 2! They are pure champs!

Party with Presley

These are the many faces of Presley Robbins! haha. She is a hoot and we have so much fun together! She is 8 weeks already!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!? Where did the time go! I know, I know, all mothers say that! But seriously, I can't believe how fast she is growing and how much more aware she is of her surroundings. She is so observant and is soaking everything in. She is such a smiley baby and is even starting to giggle a little bit! (it kind of sounds like a cough/laugh/scream all at the same time! hahaha but it is the cutest thing ever!)

Her neck is getting so strong and she is great at holding it up and keeping it stable all by herself. She has already rolled over several times (the first time being when she was 9 days old). She has way strong legs and can totally stand up and hold herself up with me just stabling her and helping her balance. She holds all her weight! She is a rock star :)

She is definitely a little homebody! She likes to be home with mom and dad and gets a little overwhelmed when there are lots of people (we found that out on her blessing day, poor girl!) But that is totally normal when you are just used to hanging out with two people all the time and then get passed around and held by people you aren't familiar with. I would probably freak out too haha.

Presley and I get to party all day with each other. I love it! I wouldn't rather do anything else. She is my world and I feel so blessed to be her mom! I am so grateful to my amazing husband who works so hard so I can be a stay at home mom. It is so important to both of us and I don't take it for granted for a second. I love being with her and devoting my time to raising her. She is my little sweetheart.

Love you Pres! Don't grow up too quick on me :)

Presley's Blessing Day

What a special day! Presley Claire was blessed today in the Kingston Ward by her father Joel. It was such a neat day and Joel did a great job! She is lucky to have him as a daddy, he loves her oh so much and gave her a beautiful blessing. It was so awesome to have family and friends there with us today! It meant so much and I'm so glad that they made it out! So a big thank you to all who made it!! You guys are awesome! (This picture was taken at the end of the day and needless to say she was pretty exhausted and not the happiest camper on the block! She is just used to mom and her at home so she had a little bit of a people overload. haha. But aren't all babies like that?! I don't know :) but she was today haha.)
My mother made her the most BEAUTIFUL blessing dress! She truly is so amazing and so talented!! Everyone kept asking where I got her dress and I got to tell them proudly that it was custom made by my mom :) Thanks mom! It is stunning and she will love it forever!(As will I!)
Baby girl and I right before we got in the car to head to her blessing!
My daddy and me! Oh I love him so much! He is the best!
This is my sweet grandpa, Gordon Clair Benson. This is the grandpa that Presley is named after :)
Grandma and Grandpa Benson. So glad that they made it to her blessing!! It meant so much to us and I was so happy that my grandpa Benson was able to stand in the circle when she was blessed. Thanks you two! Love you loads :)
The 4 generations picture! My beautiful mother, me, Presley, and my beautiful Grandma Benson.

Liza and Presley both had a big weekend! Liza was baptized on Saturday and Presley was blessed on Sunday. I had to get a picture of them together in their beautiful white dresses. These two are very similar! They both had similar birth stories and were quick labors, they were both little 6 lb. babies, and they both have beautiful blue eyes and brown hair! Can't wait to see them as they grow up together. Her cousins sure do love her! Harley and Liza are always the first to have their hands and arms scrubbed up to their shoulders so they can hold her haha. And sweet Tayia and Bergen always want to hold her as well. I wish we lived closer to them so they could see her more and get more holding time! We will just have to go out and visit them more often!

Thanks again everyone for sharing this special day with us! We love you all!