Chelsea's baby blessing

This past weekend we blessed our little baby girl, Chelsea Kaye Hegsted. There was a lot of family, friends and neighbors that celebrated with us on our new baby girl. The dress was made specially for Chelsea by her Grandma Lawson. It was so beautiful with a lace over lay jacket and hand stitched roses on the bodice of the dress. We were able to fit everyone in the house for a light dinner at the house.
The boys also had their Primary Program on Sunday, which was so great to have my kids sing so loud to where you could actually hear them. It was definitely an emotional roller coaster...trying to hold back the tears was not easy, but they were happy tears. I am grateful to have a wonderful family and an amazing husband to share all the great moments with our children.
Our Happy Family!!

Chelsea in her beautiful blessing dress.

Jaci's 3rd Birthday!!!

For Jaci's Birthday we woke up early and took her to breakfast at the Three Forks Cafe where the kids got Mickey Mouse pancakes and scrambled eggs. It was delicious. Before we could go, she had to ride her new Princess Bike, no matter how cold it was outside, but she didn't care and loved it:) Later that morning, she was out on her bike again and wouldn't come in for nothing; all bundles up in her gloves and warmest jacket, even it was only 30 degrees outside.
That night we had chicken fettuccine alfredo with carrots and strawberry applesauce. Her request for her birthday cake was a Tinkerbell cake, which she got and was decorated by her wonderful mother. It was strawberry flavored and was so yummy. She loved opening up her presents from us and grandparents and loved being sung to all day long from many aunts,uncles and cousins. They best part was that she thanked everyone for having a birthday and loved that now she is officially 3 years old.....where has the time gone?? My little baby girl is too big to be 3, yet she'll also tell you that she is turning 16. (well, do I have my hands full:)

Jaci excited to open all her presents!

Tinkerbell strawberry flavored cake made by andy...it was yummy!


Jaci riding her bike in the frigid cold morning, but she didn't care one bit...just excited to ride her new bike.

Chelsea is Born!

Chelsea Kaye is here! She was born yesterday on 9/18 just before 5 pm. She was 7 lbs 3 oz and 20" long. She is a beautiful girl and very happy. Andy was amazing! I can't say enough about her sacrifice and hard work in bringing this baby into this world. I felt so incompetent just cheering her on wishing the whole time that there something more that I could do. They are both very healthy and they both came home tonight. Thanks for all your prayers and well-wishes!

Belgrade Splash Park

Yesterday, I took the kids and we went with our naighbors to the Splash Park in Belgrade. All the kids loved it, especially Jaci. We took lunch and hung out for about 2 hours, by the end of the day, all my kids were wiped out, but it was fun to see them do fun and silly stuff in the water....this is my kind of water park.

Dylan's 5th Birthday!!!

This year for Dylan's birthday (on the 19th), we were able to go to Colorado and celebrate it with his grandma and grandpa in Colorado. (andy's parents). It was so much fun to see him grin from ear to ear with his Star Wars Birthday cake and all the presents that he got. His brother has been able to celebrate his birthday in Colorado a few times and Dylan wanted to do the same.
For dinner, he requested a hot dog in a bun, mashed potatoes and gravy, strawberries and bananas in a bowl, red jell-o, and broccoli. It was delicious, Thanks Grandma.
Justin wasn't able to be there since he had to run things here in Montana, but he could tell that Dylan was very happy and it was hard to decide who was more excited about his presents, Brayden or Dylan.

Dylan getting ready to blow out his candles.

Dylan enjoying his marbled Star Wars cake that had Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker on top fighting, with light-up light sabers.

A green scooter, so he can ride around the neighborhood and everyone will know that one is Dylan's.

Happy Father's Day!

For Father's Day weekend, I asked to have a family trip to Billings to play with the fam. We stayed at a fun hotel that has a great kids swimming pool. We swam and stayed up and watched "Chronicles of Narnia" with the kids for the first time. Saturday we went to the new Cabela's, and the mall, and the zoo. The following pics are from the zoo. The bear was the best. Bruno the Grizzly was active and playing in his pond. The sign said he was in mating season. Since he was "frustrated" to not have a mate, he paced and played all day trying to get rid of his energy. It made for a good show anyway. The kids enjoyed it.

I wanted to let my dad know that he is a wonderful father. He has always worked so hard at being the best example possible. It's amazing to see that he is working still on being an even better example to me and my children. Have a great day! We love you!

Jaci loves to sing

Last T-Ball pics and Grandparent's Visit

We need to catch up a bit. I'll cheat and use a slideshow. The kids had fun with the Grandma Paula and Aunt Jenna and Krissa. They came up to see Brayden's last t-ball game. They also went to Virginia City - an old ghost town not far from here that has been renovated complete with a train. They had a lot of fun!

Grandpa and Grandma Hegsted Come to Visit

We were excited to have my parents and sisters up for the day. They came to visit Tuesday night and we had dinner at Famous Dave's in Bozeman (always a favorite of mine). After dinner they came back to our house to play and visit. The kids put Grandpa to work. Today, Dad and I went to work while everyone else played. They drove down to Virginia City and had a lot of fun. They rode the train, had ice cream and a picnic, and saw some old-western history. Thanks for coming up and playing. We had a ton of fun!

Training wheels follow-up w/ Jaci

I thought I would add this one too. Jace was cute trying the ramp with her trike. She is a determined little girl.

Look Ma, no training wheels!

The boys got brave this week and tried the neighbors little bike that doesn't have training wheels. After Dylan figured it out, I took the training wheels off his own bike and he was off. Brayden couldn't be out done. So Brayden proceeded to try on his own and finally figured it out. Unfortunately, they did it all on their own so no cute pics of me running behind them with arms stretched to the sky celebrating as ride off into the sunset. I am proud of them either way! They are still trying to master the bike jump though. You'll notice Jace has to keep up with her brothers too.

Brayden's Spring Concert

The Three Forks Elementary put on their annual spring concert this last Monday night (5/11). All the grades from K-5th performed few songs they had learned over the school year. It was fun. The kids were very proud of their work. Watching the video back, Brayden tells me who in the video he can't hear singing. Everyone's a critic!

May 8th Temple Trip

We took a temple trip to Billings this past Friday. We found out that some friends were staying at a hotel with a pool and a slide. So we got a reservation and headed over there right after work. Once we got there the kids had to get to the pool as fast as possible. The kids took some time to get used to swimming. By the end of the night, Dylan was paddling around the pool and swimming from side-to-side. I took Jaci on the slide. She told me know the whold way up. After we made it down she said "again daddy". She finally got brave enough to go down by herself while I caught her at the bottom.

The next morning, I went to the temple with John Blanchard and Brandt Peterson. We enjoyed our session and then took our turn with the kids. It was a good experience planning a temple trip. We took the temple for granted in IF. It feels good to plan time to travel to Billings and sacrifice more of our time to visit the temple. We hope to make a good habit of going every month.

A Day at the Museum

We also ventured over to Bozeman on a Saturday afternoon to visit the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University. Montana is a very active place for finding dinosaur fossils, which is the focus of this museum. They have tons of bones of Triceratops and T-Rexes. They had a Montana history section and a hands-on section for the kids. It was a lot of fun. We got a season pass for the family, so we will be making a few return trips.






The last one is the kids with "Big Mike" the greeter outside the entrance.

Feeding the Neighbors

I don't know where we have been on this blog, but we have been slacking. We are loving Montana. Behind our house is a large field with 3 horses. One night during dinner about a month ago, I noticed they were close to the fence. I went out and fed them a couple of carrots and man were they excited. The kids grabbed some more carrots and came running out. We also fed them apples on a separate day. They have since become our buddies.

Evolution of My Bruised Knee!

It's kinda neat to keep track of the bruising. Each day it looks a little worse. It doesn't hurt as bad as it looks. I only took one hydrocodone that the dr prescribed me this whole week and that was on the first night. Thanks for all of the well-wishes from the comments on the last post!

Wednesday, March 18th


Thursday, March 19th


Saturday, March 21st

Safety Man goes down!

So much for setting a good, safe example for my employees. On Tuesday afternoon (3/17), I had a little accident. Our nailing machines that build the pallets have a set of rollers that are about 2/5' off of the ground that the stack of pallets rolls onto when they are complete. Well, me being the past safety manager and all, I decided to step up on the rollers on pull a bad pallet out of a stack that had just come out. The plan was to set it on some lumber nearer by and closer to the operator. That didn't happen.

As I carried the pallet and took a few steps, out of no where I fell through the rollers. Apparently there is a roller missing toward the end that I hadn't noticed was gone and I stepped right through the hole. I ended up forcing my in between two rollers that are narrower than my fat knee. Needless to say, I was in a lot of pain and feared that I had torn something in my knee. My good neighbor, Dave Boyd, took me to Belgrade Urgent Care. The assessment was just a sprain and some bad, deep bruising. It appears I have gotten off lucky this time. Here's what it looks like.

Announcement, Announcement......

We would like to let all our friends and family know that we are expecting baby #4 at the end of September. We couldn't be more happier and all the kids are hoping that it is another girl, which would be fine as long as she is a little bit more mellow than her crazy sister. I just went to the doctor and heard the heartbeat and everything is going great. I am just about at the end of my 1st trimester and glad to be almost done. I have been a lot more tired this time around, but I think its just been crazy with moving and getting everything settled here in Montana. We will keep you updated and let you know what we are having in about 8 weeks.

Happy Birthday Justin & Brayden!!!!

I just wanted to say "Happy Birthday" to my wonderful husband and let him know that I would not be able to do the things I do without him. He is my rock, my support and the love of my life and I hope that he has a great birthday and knows that we are one lucky family to have him as the head of our great family. (by the way, he is turning 29:)

I also would like to wish my oldest son, Brayden a happy 6th birthday!!! I took rainbow cupcakes to his class today and the neighbors that we made friends with came over for some batman cake and ice cream. Where has the time gone since he was born just a few short years ago? I feel so old to have a 6 year old, but I would not change anything different about the few short years that he has been in our family. He really is so friendly and always makes friends with everyone. He cares about everyone and is so concerned about other people. He is always so eager to learn and is so good at it too.

Happy Birthday to my 2 best boys, Justin & Brayden

We're finally settled.....

Well, at least for a little while. We made it up here to Montana with many neighbors and ward friends to help us unload the uhaul and trailed. IT was pretty fast. Justin's stuck around for a few more hours and helped unpack and put things away the best they could....I really didn't even know where to put half the stuff, anyways.
We are lucky to have 3 neighbors across the street that are members and have children that are the same ages as my kids. We attended our new ward and it was great to meet all these new people. I got invited to go to girls night out with a few of the ladies to hang out and watch a chick flick. However, the ward boundaries are pretty big, so it took us 20 minutes to get there. Crazy, huh?
We have also been so busy traveling to Utah to be a part of my twin sisters baby blessing, Kaden. Who is so adorable and cute:)
We are here till Wednesday, then were off to Colorado to surprise my dad for his 60th birthday.....Happy Birthday, Daddy. We will be there for 5 days, travel back to Montana....then back to Idaho for Justin's cousin wedding.
I am sure that our ward thought we were an active family, but it appears that were not. I really just want to stay home and stop traveling, but we made these plans months ago and they seem to folow one right after another.
If you want our address just leave us a comment with your email and I'll send it to you...by the way, we don't have mailboxes, just a p.o. box since we live in such a tiny, little town, oh, how cute:)

Our new journey begins.....

To montana that is!!! Yes, we are being transferred with Justin's work to go live in Three Forks, Montana. Many of you know that Justin has been traveling there for quite some time and the distance between him there and me at home has now come to an end and we will all be together everyday, YEAH!!! We leave the 31st of this month and are desprately trying to pack and clean and do it in an orderly fashion, but it is not easy.
We did find a house to rent about a 1/4 mile from the plant, in fact, I can hear the plant running when I step outside the front door.
So, a little bit of knowledge about Three Forks, MT. The population is nearly 2,000. There are 7 different churches and 6 bars. The LDS ward is smaller than our ward here -- there are 50 kids in the primary there compared to 50 in our nursery alone here. The school is a k-12 all in one and the kindergarten kids go all day! WE did find a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house that is on a quite street. We already met one of the families, the Baczuk's, Aaron and Mindi and I know that we will get along great and so will our kids.
This is a lot for us to take on, but we are hoping for the best in Challenger to succeed to continue to grow and prosper.
We also want to let all our neighbors and friends here in IF know that we will never forget you and we hope to remain in contact. Please know that you made us better people and we are sad to leave, but we will visit often. Don't be shy, if you're driving through Montana, stop by and visit. Our home will always be open to visitors.