In Memory of Sweet Ashleigh

The past month has brought about a whirl wind of emotions that I don’t even know where to begin. The week before school began we received word that our friend and neighbor Ashleigh Farnsworth had abruptly been admitted to the hospital and was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Over the course of a few weeks things kept progressively getting worse and we all fasted, prayed and hung onto hope. On September 28th 2009 our sweet Ashleigh Marie Farnsworth returned back to her Heavenly Father. In her short 28 years on this earth she accomplished and did more than most do in a lifetime. She was a devoted wife and mother of four beautiful children, Sarah 6, Alex and Lucas 3 and Aubrey 2. I will be forever grateful for the life lessons she taught me during this trial of cancer. Ken and I had the special privilege of visiting her in the hospital during the last few weeks and days of her life. What a blessing it was to be with her and meet her amazing family which felt like we have known for ever. Ashleigh, we miss you dearly and can’t wait to see once again. Till then we will be there for Jeff and your sweet children. The knowledge and testimony of the everlasting gospel is priceless especially during times like these. May we all continue to press forward in faith, faith in Jesus Christ, it is through Him all things will be made whole again. Ashleigh did all that she was asked to do by God and truly returned home with honor. We love you Ash.

BIG TWO

Ethan is our big two year old with lots of personally and love. He was so much fun on his birthday. Ken and I had been gone a lot with everything surrounding our friend Ashleigh that it was nice to spend the day with him as a family and watch the excitement on his face as he opened his birthday present and blew the candles out on his cake. Ethan is a wonderful little boy and is a complete joy to have in our home. How grateful we are to have little E.E. around. We love you son!!!

At last... Ella's first day of DANCE

Ella has waited two long years watching her older sister attend dance class and now it was her turn. Her face lit up like Christmas as I put on her new dance clothes and ballet shoes. “Now I am going to be like Rachel” she said. Rachel was excited about that too. Now the Albrechtsen family has two dancing princesses.

Rachel's First Day of Kindergarten

Where has the last five years gone? I can’t believe our sweet Rachel is on her way to Kindergarten. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going get all teary eyed about her going to school because she was so happy to start going to the big kid school but that didn’t happen. I couldn’t hold back the tears when I saw her walking up the hill all grown up on her way to school. I wasn’t the only one sad that she was going to school, Ella and Ethan didn’t like that their big sister wasn’t going to be around to play with, but thankfully Kindergarten is only a few hours a day. Rachel loves school and her teacher Mrs. Jones is amazing. She is learning so much and well on her way to being a good little reader.

Gardening, Canning & Gardening, Canning

In my spare time (what spare time) I can This year I canned green beans, corn, salsa, peaches, pears and freezer jam. After my seventh batch of salsa I called it good for the year. Good food and eating healthy takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears literally. This pic shows a few of the many, many jars I canned. I lost an exact count but I canned over 250 pints of various fruits and veggies, half of the number of pints were salsa!!! YUM!!!

Getting SO BIG

Ethan really has grown up into a little boy lately and along with that comes more cuts, bruises and injuries. In one weeks time Ethan hit his head really hard three times. One of which he split his head open and could of used a couple of stitches if it weren’t for our friend and neighbor nurse Len. With one phone call she came over and brought medical superglue and helped us close up his wound. Thanks Len for helping easing the pains of growing up.

Making a Splash

Swim lessons this year was a BIG hit for Rachel and Ella. We enrolled the girls in private lessons at a home nearby us and it was wonderful to have their lesson so close to home, plus small class sizes. Every morning the girls would wake up, get their swimsuit on first things and eagerly wait for the lessons to start. Both of them were little fishes and weren’t afraid to put their heads under the water at all. It was Ella’s first experience at swim lessons and it was amazing to see how much she learned so quickly. Rachel did a great job too. Ella did have a bit of a scary moment when she was playing around at free time and drifted towards the deep end and couldn’t bop back up to the surface of the water for several breaths. Her Dad luckily enough was watching and ended up jumping in(clothes, shoes, cellphone and all) to rescue our little Ella who was in trouble but didn’t know it cause she told her dad he shouldn’t jump into the water with his clothes on, teacher said ! 