I wouldn't trade this for anything

You know, my living room might be a mess but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Especially when this is the face that comes with it

Yep, that's my 1 year old sitting all propped up with pillows, drinking Country Time lemonade, watching t.v., with her blankie. I want to remember these moments and enjoy them because I know all too well they will be gone in the blink of an eye. I love you Breag.

I chose my winners!

Thanks everyone who entered the drawing! It was really fun to see the nice comments everyone made! Thank you! So, here are the WINNERS:


Believe sign- Stefanie (and she just had a baby, Congrats!)

Flower decoration- Mom

Picnic Set- K'Brina

Candle Cubes- Brenda


Thanks again for entering! I had fun doing this and I will get everyone their things ASAP!

Fun Giveaway

So this morning I was standing in my kitchen and caught a glimpse of the hot air balloons flying around outside. It got me thinking that the 'Eyes to the Sky' balloon festival was one of my very first posts! And that was 2 years ago!

I've had some cute things just sitting at my house so I decided that for the 2 year anniversary of my blog I would do a fun giveaway. Who doesn't like to win stuff, right???

So to enter, all you have to do is send me a comment with your name and why you read my blog. Nothing too hard! And then I will use the random number generator on random.org and will choose some winners. Anyone and everyone can enter!  Here are the things I will be giving away:

I will pick a winner on Monday June 21 so enter now! Good Luck! :)

7 Years

It's truly amazing what happens in 7 years time. Graduations, weddings, babies.... So many things and it seems like they all happen in the blink of an eye. It was 7 years ago on June 4th that Grandma Bonnie passed away. Even though it's been that many years, it still feels like yesterday.

We never thought that we were going to loose her that soon, but as the EMTs got her ready to transport her to Utah Valley hospital, the reality of the situation began to set in.

There are some things in life that you never forget. They might be things that you want to, but you never will. I will never forget trying to feed my Grandma while she lie so sick in that hospital bed. I kept telling her that she needed to eat if she wanted to go home. But all she wanted was the ice chips. We had to keep putting lip balm on her because the oxygen was drying out her lips. 

It was a Sunday, and the Priesthood holders brought around the sacrament to each of the patients that wanted it. I remember taking it with Grandpa George and Grandma Bonnie not realizing that soon she would be visiting our Heavenly Father. 

It was too soon for her to go. 62 years is not enough time to be on this earth. She was a spiritual, loving, caring, funny, beautiful woman. I'll never forget the Thanksgivings that we took dinners to the people who didn't have families. (All the cousins remember 'Bertrum' :) She was so giving and that is one of the many wonderful things that she passed down to us.  

To this day she is greatly missed. I don't think that pain ever really goes away, you just learn how to deal with it.

I love you so much Beast. Thank you for all the memories. The sleepovers, playing with the cousins at your house, driving around looking at houses, my love of reading, EVERYTHING. Not a day goes by that I don't think about you and miss you.

Love you,

Ashley Nickle

Vacay....

So my mom is getting a little 'Bent' about me not posting any pictures, so I am going to indulge her now. :) (Love ya mom) We went on a trip to Branson, Missouri with Chandler's mom and dad at the first of this month. We had a lot of fun! It was nice just to get away. Here are some pics of the trip:

Me, Breagan, and Chandler on the Branson Belle. It was a boat that we saw a cute show on and had a nice little lunch. Breag wasn't too sure what to think...

This was at the Little America in Salt Lake the night before we left. I couldn't sit by the side of the tub to bath Breagan, so I just had to get in!

This kid is F A S T.... Turn your head for 2 seconds and this is what happens.

Breagan's first time eating pizza. Chan was pretty proud! :) She absolutely was in HEAVEN.

Breagan liked helping Grandpa Jim perform routine maintenance on the scooter.

It was really nice just to chill.

This was Breag's 2nd time swimming. The last time she went was when we were on vacation last year and she was only 4 months old! She had a BLAST! She loved the water and swimming around in her floaty.

We think she's kinda cute.... :)

Waiting like a big girl in the car. We went to a place called Lambert's for lunch the last day we were there. Our dr. told us about it because he did his residency in Springfield which is about 40 minutes outside of Branson and he absolutely LOVED this place and said that we needed to go here. It was a lot different than most places that you go to. They throw your rolls to you and they bring around TONS of different sides for you to try. The portion sizes were huge and we had a good time! Thanks Dr. J!

You even get to drink out of giagantic mugs! Sweet!

And what trip would be complete without a visit to the ER!?!?! Yep, we ended up at Skaggs Regional Medical Center in Branson the MORNING we were going to leave. Luckily it was at 4:00 in the MORNING. Breagan got a cold while we were out there and unfortunately it came with an awesome cough, and she woke up about 3 that morning having a coughing attack. The nice doctors at Skaggs diagnosed her with croup. They gave her a shot of steriods and a breathing treatment then sent us on our way.

All in all though, we had a pretty good time. The plane ride was, how do I put it nicely, HELL, but other than that everything went well. It's not easy having a VERY active one year old restricted to a small space, just let me be the first to tell you. And especially when they are not feeling well!

Don't mind me, I just ROCK at gardening

A couple of weeks ago, Chandler was cooking Sunday dinner for us and he wanted some fresh Oregano. Well, I searched the state over (okay, like the Northern half of the state which included Sam's Club, Macy's, Smith's, and even some random health food store in Utah County) and needless to say, I found none. So my mission has been to grow us some. I got an herb garden kit for a white elephant gift at the Barrett's Christmas party a couple of years ago (what a sweet white elephant gift, right??) so I decided I was going to grow some herbs. Oregano was not part of the kit, so I bought my own seeds and started planting.

Keep in mind, this is how my plants usually look:

So, I was a little weary about trying out this new venture. This is how things started out:

(No project is complete without a mess on the floor)

And, ta da, final product!

But of course, something always has to go a little bit wrong when it comes to me:

Yep, a LARGE jar of baby food fell out of the cupboard and this little guy just happened to be in the way. I did not think that these seeds were going to make it because they spilled all over the counter and I figured they wouldn't be in the pot right, so I had very little hope for this one.

But again, TA DA, something went right for me:

You might not be able to tell, but the little white dots are actually the sweet basil growing! YAY!

These are some flowers that Aunt Amber gave to Breag, and they went from this:

(Which is actually only about 3 days after they were planted)

To this:

And this is the progress of  my herbs:

So I'm pretty much stoked right now that I can actually grow stuff. Chan just keeps laughing cause he thinks that it's funny how excited I've been getting over these little plants!

Other than my gardening adventures, things have been pretty slow around here. Chan came home today at lunch and told me that he wanted to give me my Mother's Day present early because he really didn't want to wrap it. Um, okay. But after seeing it, I realized why:

I'm pretty sure that I have the best husband in the WHOLE world. It's a wireless printer/scanner/fax/copy machine! I'm so dang excited! I've been printing off a lot of stuff lately for Primary and our printer, as Chandler likes to put it, sounds like it's 'puking parts' (because one day it literally was!) So thanks Chan for my early Mother's Day gift! You're the best!

And no post would be complete without a super cute picture of my happy little girl!

She's got a mouth full of teeth now (okay, only like the top 4) but it seems like a lot when she decides to bite! I wonder where she gets that from........ No comments please, M O M! :)

Just some random pictures

So I finally got to go to the Menagerie to take some pictures. The first day I went, I only got 5 or 6 pictures and then the battery on my camera died (of course). So today I talked Chandler into taking me back up there so I could get some more pics. Here are just a few of my favorites. And keep in mind, these are just the animals up there, I'm not sure any of them are up for adoption.

This horse was the sweetest! He even did an amazing job posing for me too! I love the side-swept bangs!

And this sweet kitty would have been coming home with me if I didn't have two cats at home already! She was such a sweetie!! She is so fluffly that I just wanted to hug her!

Breag didn't quite know what to think about all of the animals, but she definitely was interested.

Talk about mama instincts, this goose (I think it's a goose, but my mom told me it was a duck, so we'll just go with bird I guess) was not exactly excited about me trying to take pics of her. She hissed at me!!

Daddy and Breagan enjoying his day off with a trip to the hills.

Mom's hiking shoes.... Yep, that's how I roll.

Even on the bumpy roads, Breag still fell asleep.

Yep, we drove through it.