Personal History

The Beginning of the Beginning

I was born on December 14th, 1992 in Murray, Utah at 12:30 p.m. I was born to the Mark (34) and Shauna (32) Applegarth. I was their sixth and last child. My parents took me home to our house in West Jordan, Utah. My siblings are: Daniel, Keresa, Kirsten, Katelynd and David. I am the only girl in my family that doesn’t have a name that starts with the letter “k.” For quite a few years of my life this distressed me and I though that I was adopted. But with most childhood fears my Mom put that fear to rest by showing me pictures of her and I in the hospital after me being born. I loved to look at photos as a child and tried to remember each event.

My father has often told me that I was the first child he learned to be a real “Dad” with. He would change my diapers all to the chorus of “that isn’t how Mom does it,” from my older sisters. When I cried when I was a baby I would put my fingers in the mouth or ear of who ever was holding me. My dad says that taught him to cuddle me and let me be close to him. Two months after I was born my mother found out that she had breast cancer. This was a trying time for my whole family. My both of my parents had such great faith in the Lord that he would do what was best for our family, even if that meant looking our mother. I look at this and see the great blessing my mother is. My life would be very different if I didn’t have the mother I have. After many surgeries and painful months my Mom was cured of breast cancer. I am so blessed to have her in my life.

My first real memories begin in Brigham City. I moved to Brigham City when I was two years old. My parents built their dream house. My mom designed the whole house. She has a talent for numbers and visualizing what she wants. When you walked in the front door the tile was baby pink and it matched the walls in the formal front room. I though the front room was the most beautiful room in the house. It had high ceiling and long drapes that my Mom had sewn. The couches were blue with tiny pink flowers on it. On the far wall was our upright piano and above the piano was a painting to two little girls. I would often pound on the keys, pretending to make beautiful music like the girls in the painting. I always felt like a princess when I went in there, such luxury.

Also on the top floor was my room it the kitty-corner from my parents room. My room had wallpaper divided the wall in half. The bottom half was pink and the top half was white. The wallpaper had bunnies on it. I shared a room with my sister Katelynd.  Katelynd was very clean and I was not so much. She was constantly reorganizing her things and putting my things in new places. This caused some difficulty in our relationship. Most of my memories with Katelynd in that room are of her scaring me. At night she would pretend to be take over my aliens and trying to eat my fingers or bit my fingernails. It was terrifying in the dark! But it taught me to be brave in the dark.
My favorite part of our house was the kitchen. All the magic happened here! The kitchen was huge and had tons of windows. We had a dining table and an island bar. Every Sunday my family would gather together to make dinner and cookies. We all had a job. My job was to set the table and be Mom’s “special helper.” The kitchen was the heart of our home. In the mornings we would do family scripture study around the kitchen table and then have breakfast together. As a young child my Mom would whisper the words of the scriptures in my ear, so I could participate in morning scripture study. Sunday evenings we would have cookies and milk. Every Sunday. The batch of cookies we would make our make eighty cookies and by Tuesday they were all gone. Needless to say we love sweets in our family! The kitchen is where I remember spending the most time with my Mom. I would always help her make lunch and start the prep for dinner. We would sing and dance in the kitchen. One of my favorite things we would do is dress up as princesses and make lunch and dinner.

I loved to play outside and I spent more time outside than inside it seemed. In Brigham City we lived at the end of a circle and were surrounded by children my age, none of them were girls. I got a long really well with boys and ruled the roost. On particular friend Russell Jensen and I didn’t get a long. He was a crybaby and would cry if he lost a game. Sometimes I would rough Russell up and his parents weren’t okay with that. I got in trouble a lot with his parents. My parent stood by me and taught me to treat people how I would want to be treated. I started treating Russell better after that. One of my other friends was Michael and McKenzie, they were my next-door neighbors and they were my favorite friends. They had such fun toys to play with and dress up clothes. I would rush home from school just so I can go to their house and play!

Playing was my life! Playing dress up was my favorite imagination game. I loved to pretend to be a princess in a dramatic situation where she would always save herself. I loved all the Disney princesses, but my favorite was Aurora, Sleeping Beauty. She was so beautiful and I wanted to be just like her when I turned 16, but not prick my finger and fall asleep. See I would save myself because I was an “action princess.” To help me play the part of a princess I would slips; Big, beautiful, frilly slips. I had many dresses, but slips made me feel like a princess. There were many days that I would not even put on real clothes. I would just wear my slip wherever I went. Many of my neighbors thought I had not clothes, but in reality those were the only clothes I was willing to wear. These slips looked like beautiful ball gowns to me. During this time my Dad started calling me “Princess.” He still calls me princess.

I also loved to play Power Rangers. They were crime fighting super heroes that had amazing powers to help people. I would practice my fighting skills with my older brother David. My Mom soon put an end to our fighting matches and we weren’t allowed to watch Power Rangers again. My Mom was very careful about the media that was let into our home. She monitored what we watched and how much we watched. I am grateful to her for teaching me what is good and bad about the media.
Playing outside often entailed me playing with Missy, our family dog. I loved when we would play fetch and just run around the backyard. Missy once had puppies and I loved every single one of them. I loved their little tongues licking my face and jumping up on me. My parents decided to sell the puppies to a pet store in the Salt Lake City mall. The whole drive to the mall I was unhappy, knowing that I would be losing 7 beautiful puppies. As we put the puppies into their new home I cried and kissed each one of its head. I loved these puppies! When we walked away my Mom had to drag me away. I knew they were making a mistake of a lifetime. Since then I have always wanted a puppy! That is the first thing on my Christmas list every year. It has yet to happen!

I started Kindergarten at Lakeview Elementary with Mrs. Johnson. I loved school! There was so much to learn and I made a lot of new friends. Our classroom had large windows that faced the parking lot. The light always shown through those window and I thought it was so beautiful in the mornings to watch. Mrs. Johnson was such a sweet teacher. I knew that she loved me and wanted me to do my best. This year I learned to love school and be okay without my Mom. One of my favorite things about Kindergarten was that once a week we would have stations around the room. The most enjoyable station to me was water station. Mrs. Johnson would bring huge tubs of water into the classroom and we would get to play in them with water toys. I thought that was the coolest thing ever! Mrs. Johnson developed a love for school. That love would change though by the second grade teacher Mrs. Scothern.