Hi – Delle here again, telling you a little bit about my family – my greatest creation!!!
I met this cutie back in 1988 and we were married in August 1989 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Being married to your best friend really is the best thing ever – not to say there haven’t been trials and challenges along the way, but you just gotta hang on and enjoy the journey!
Our first daughter arrived in 1992 and they kept coming until 2009. When people would ask us how many kids we were planning to have, we’d always answer, “No more than twenty-four.” We were blessed with seven girls who we think of as our “Seven Wonders of the World”. From the youngest to oldest we have Mac, Kat, Jen, Lee, Jo, Min and Elle. The picture above was in 2010.
Our oldest daughter got married in 2012 and the strangest thing happened: we got a son! It was kind of funny for the younger girls to adjust to having a guy show up to family events and be a big tease. They’d say, “Is this what it would have been like to have a pesky older brother?”
Throughout all this time of raising our family, we’ve built three houses, doing almost everything on them ourselves. Let me just say that is hard work and takes a ton of time. So glad our girls are good helpers and hard workers. We’ve also spent tons of time following them around to their various extra-curricular events, mostly volleyball, basketball, softball, dancing and band.
In 2013, our second daughter, Min, chose to be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She was privileged to serve in the Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission for 18 months, teaching the gospel in the Spanish language. This is her on the Pyramid of the Sun. As much as we missed her, it really was awesome to have a missionary.
In 2014, a crazy thing happened: Elle and her husband had a baby! Which meant that I became a grandma! I felt like I was way too young for that to happen already – probably because my own baby was only four years old and still in a car seat. But it happened and Addi is the cutest little granddaughter ever. People always said grandparenthood is the best, and it really is!
And then an even crazier thing happened in 2016, Elle had her second baby – a boy!!! We were all kind of stunned and didn’t know what to do with a man cub after so many baby girls! But little Matt is such a lovable little guy and he’s quickly worked his way into our hearts.
We woke up on Thanksgiving Day in 2016 to find a dump of snow. It sure made a nice background for our family picture though! Now we only have three girls left at home – Jen, Kat and Mac. Jo left home and is attending college and enjoying young single adult life. Lee left home and worked for a year and decided to serve a mission also. She left in Nov 2017 and is currently serving in Germany, teaching the gospel in the German language. She loves it there and says she is living in a postcard! (She’s the tall one.)
In 2018 we added another son to the family when Min married Kurt. They are the cutest and happiest couple and we were so happy for them, even if we had a severe snowfall warning for their wedding day, and it certainly did snow all day!
My life revolves around my family and my church, and most of my creating does too – whether for the home, gifts, weddings, church assignments, meals or a myriad of other reasons, creating is a huge part of my life. When you think about it, we all create multiple times every day, even without meaning too!
PS – I just wanted to include this picture because, well, two things: 1) when I tell people I have seven daughters they usually respond with something like, “Oh wow – think of all the weddings!” and it just makes me want to rub my hands in glee when I think of the weddings and all the beautiful creating that involves! And 2) can you just imagine all the hairballs we get in our house?