The Burton Family

Our Sweet Jalidia Burton 11/13/94 - 3/13/10

2010-03-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

Posted and written by Jessica

My beautiful little sister, Jalidia passed away unexpectedly on March 13th, 2010, she never woke up that morning. Jalidia was only 15 years old. The past two weeks have been so terribly difficult, I miss her and want so badly to just hold her in my arms and tell her how deeply I love her, and how grateful I am that Heavenly Father made us sisters, I know she knows how I feel but I wish I could tell her again.

Jalidia was born September 13, 1994 in the country side around Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She was abandoned as a small child, and was taken care of by various neighbors until she entered an orphanage in Addis Ababa at nine years of age. Jalidia was 11 years old when members of my family first met her in the orphanage, and fell in love with her, and knew she was meant to be in our family. My family immediately put all of their energy into efforts to adopt her, and brought her home just before her 13th birthday.

Most of us who were blessed to know Jalidia knew little of the pain and the heartache she experienced as a young child alone in the world in Ethiopia. She experienced so much pain in her short life that it's hard for most of us to even imagine, or comprehend. But what I will always remember of my sweet little sister is her beautiful smile and happy eyes, she could light up a room with that smile, and I will always miss it, and her cute little giggle and sense of humor. She was kind and loving to all those around her, and would reach out those around her who needed extra love.

Words are inadequate to express my deep love and admiration for my little sister. All I can say is, I love you Jalidia, I miss you Jalidia, and I look forward to the day that we will be together again.

God be with you until we meet again Sweet Sister, I love you from the bottom of my heart.

This picture was taken last summer, the last time we were all together as a family.

How grateful I am for a loving Heavenly Father who gave his Son, Jesus Christ so that we can all live again.

I know that I will see Jalidia again one day, and my family will be together again,

whole and complete,

FOREVER.

I Love you Jalidia.

Loved you yesterday, Love you still, Always have,

Always will!

~OUR SWEET JAYLAS BAPTISM~ JUNE 24,2009

2009-09-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Everyone was so happy for Jayla that she finally got to get baptized; that they all put on their sunday clothes just for her!

Daddy's beautiful little girl....He was so happy that he finally got to baptize his sweet Jayla!

I love my Jayla with all of my heart, she hasbrought more happiness into my life than I can ever express. I love being your Mommy my baby girl.

Daddy and Jayla in our front yard all ready to go to the church for her special day.

~JAYLA MELODY BURTON~

9 yrs. old

All pretty and dressed in white.

She was so happy and so excited to finally get to be baptized and become a member of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Congratulations on your wonderful Baptism Jayla....

We all love you so much!

LITTLE DANE'S BLESSING: JUNE 7th 2009

2009-07-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

Such a handsome little guy on his special day. We love you Dane!

Grammy, Jessi & Dane

Grammy with my second adorable grandson!

Gramps and Cooper are such awesome buddies!
Cooper LOVED waveboarding with Gramps!

Our sweet little Duff family of four just keeps getting cuter and cuter!

We love getting to be Cooper and Dane's Grammy and Gramps...We feel so blessed to have two such fun little grandsons! We were so happy just Ted and I got to fly to Las Vegas for the weekend for Dane's blessing.....Jessica, Mason, Cooper and Dane we love you all so much!

Jayla gets to sing the National Anthem at the Portland,OR. Beavers Baseball Game; with her school choir!

2009-07-09T00:30:00.000-07:00

Take us out to the Ball Game...

Dad...buy us some peanuts and popcorn and cracker jacks!

We don't care if we ever get back.....

(to finish our homework and chores)

Josh (13) James (14) Jared (12) Jeremiah (12)

Yes we're really COOL... but we're really NICE guys too!

BASEBALL BURTON BOYS!

Jared at his very first baseball game, he had so much fun!

WE LOVE BASEBALL!

Wow..... this is a really long game

I still like it....I think!

Yeah for BASEBALL!

JEREMIAH AND JARED...THEY HAVE SUCH AN AMAZING FRIENDSHIP!

Go Beavers Go!!!

Our beautiful sweet Jayla

showing off her "beavers baseball cap"

BASEBALL! BASEBALL! BASEBALL!

Look at that beautiful Jayla smile.....

Her giggle is so amazing too!

**JAYLA GOT TO SPEND THE WHOLE NIGHT WITH HER FUN DAD AND BROTHERS**

Our sweet Jalidia's Evergreen Middle School Graduation; June 16, 2009

2009-07-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

Jalidia with a few of her good friends!

Pretty, Pretty girls getting ready for Glencoe High School...

...and the boys too!

* We love you so much Jalidia and we are so proud of you for working so hard on learning english

and getting such good grades*

Jillian's Kindergarten Graduation; June 16, 2009

2009-07-08T23:35:00.000-07:00

Finally....
Jillian getting her Kindergarten Diploma from her sweet teacher!

Jillian with her wonderful teacher;
Mrs. Pruss... the prettiest and nicest teacher any little girl could dream of !

Look at our precious little baby girl all grown up and
going on to first grade!

Waiting and waiting for her turn to get her diploma...
We love you so much our sweet Jillian!

Singing with all her friends!

No that's not a yawn!

My Adorable Grandson, Dane's Birth Anouncement:

2009-06-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

ADORABLE "DANE ALLAN DUFF" IS FINALLY HERE WITH ALL OF US! BORN; APRIL 3, 2009 * 7 POUNDS, 8 OUNCES AND 19 INCHES*

2009-06-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

Look at that proud new and wonderful "Daddy"he loves having his two little boys!
Can't wait to build them that Go-Cart...father and son camp outs and race car derby days!

Grammy loves loving her new little grandson Dane...He's just too cute! ( 2 days old)

Dane we all love you so, so much....You're so Precious!

Just came from Heaven above!
*Jessi made that cute little beeny*

Beautiful Jessica is now a "mommy" of two adorable little boys!

Look at her just one hour after he was born...wow!

Grammy hugging "big brother" COOPER and "littlebrother" DANE

I was so lucky I got to the hospital in Las Vegas just about 1 hour after he was born.

How can life be this amazing...these really are the moments that take our breath away...

I love being COOPER and DANE'S Grammy so much, they bring me so much happiness!

~ WE ALL LOVE YOU SO MUCH LITTLE DANE~

BACK AGAIN!

2009-06-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

My dear sweet Mother always said; Try Try again.....never give up.....one day at a time.....little baby steps....keep the faith.....
So here I am it's June 30th 2009 and yes I'm trying again, determined to have a "Burton Family Blog"

WOW .....It's really been another year come and gone at the Burton's...

2009-03-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

Its' really amazing to think that an entire year has gone by so quickly in our family! So many things have happened in our family in 2008 that have been wonderful and some that have been very difficult!
I'm so grateful for all of our sweet blessings and for our trials too...
It's always hard to try and go back and remember all the big events in our big family.
So I'm just going to try and touch the surface of our lives and some of our memories from 2008

IT'S BEEN A YEAR BUT....THE BURTONS ARE BACK !!!

2009-03-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

IT WAS A DAY OF BIRTHDAY CELEBRATING: FEBRUARY 18th IS A VERY SPECIAL DAY IN OUR FAMILY..... HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY...OPI...MOM...and JAYLA!!!

OPI; turned 85 yrs. young... MELODY,MOM and GRAMMY turned 29 again (44)... and our sweet little JAYLA turned a big 9 yrs.old

FOREVER YOUNG......FOREVER IN LOVE; TED AND MEL

JAYLA the birthday girl with her Daddy!

OPI had fun walking barefoot in the freezing cold Oregon water....he enjoyed teasing us all a little and letting the sneaker waves get really close! He of course had some of that "yummy"ocean water to drink along with his sea weed...so he could hear all of his grandchildren giggle and say "ooohh yuck"...That's my wonderful Dad, still doing the same things he enjoyed doing when I was a little girl. I can so clearly remember just the two of us walking along cabrillo beach holding his hand!

I LOVE YOU DADDY!

My two favorite men in my life....both kind, loving, fun and really good looking!

Jalidia(14) and her Daddy

TODAY IS FINALLY THE DAY WE THE "BURTONS" BECOME REAL BLOGGERS!!!

2008-03-05T15:57:00.000-08:00

FEB.18,2008 ~ We got to have a 3 generation Birthday Party Beach Day at Cannon Beach! It was OPI'S 84th-wow, me-MOM 43,what? and sweet little JAYLA turned her special 8- YEAH!
Of course it was a typical freezing Oregon beach day but... no whimpy girls in this family! It was just so great to get to all be together to celebrate our birthdays and especially to get to have OMI and OPI with us too!
I love my life and I love my cute family!