Birthday Week 2014 (Sadie and Emma)

Last year we partied it up for all 3 birthday week kid's birthdays, so this year was more low key. Still busy, but nice not to have to plan any big parties. Except on Valentines Day we told Emma she could have some friends over for a Valentines party. Dana barbecued, the girls jumped on the trampoline in the dark, we had treats, they played "Cursed", and then they watched a movie. Emma's blessed to have a really great group of friends.
(My somewhat on-the-sly pic:)


Two days later, on Sunday, this little boo turned SEVEN!
 

We got her a carrying case for her doll, and some little fun things we knew she'd like.
 


Her favorite gift is probably the white wind up musical jewelry box with the twirling ballerina inside she got from Gram.

Have I mentioned our church time is 2 pm? The second-worst church time I've ever had only beating the worst by one hr. (3-6 my freshman year in the dorms at BYU). So since we had some time in the morning, we watched her "birth day" on her birthday.
 
After church I got set apart as PP, got home at 5:45, had dinner here at 6, and had to be back at church for "Priesthood Preview" for Eli by 7. It was a little crazy. In case you were wondering why Sadie's still in her church dress for her cupcakes:)
 


Luckily, I have some awesome sisters who cleaned up dinner and the kitchen for me while we were gone! Seriously such a blessing to have that done when we got home from such a busy, busy day!

 Happy Birthday to our sweet-pea!
Here are some interesting tidbits about Sadie:
-She's a big fan of the "sharing table" in the lunchroom and brings home all kids of interesting snacks. 5 rolls one day... oh and the butter packets to go with them.


- She loves her friends and loves playdates...
 
(Her friend invited her to go see the "Frozen" sing-along.)

- She's becoming a good reader and getting better at working on her homework independently.
- She's usually happy with the clothes I put out for her and actually asks me to fix her hair.
-. She's a fan of the loom bracelets (This is Holly though, who's an even bigger fan).
 

- After her whole first tooth coming out fiasco, the second one almost stopped my heart when she told me she "already had two teeth".
 
Amazingly, that tooth growing in back there is now right up front where it's supposed to be! She's excited for her first top tooth to come out soon:)
- She makes the best crazy faces and always has.
- She really misses Pepper...
 

- She LOVES gymnastics, and loves having Holly and one of her favorite friends, Megan, there with her!
 
- She gets to be "Baby Bear" in the upcoming 1st grade performance and is SO excited about it:)
- She's just an all around fun, happy girl (most of the time) and we just love her TONS and TONS. She brings extra joy to our family and has ever since we were blessed to add her to our family. Love you Sadie Boo!
 

Next day my big girl turned FOURTEEN!!! What-what?? She's growing up so fast! Her birthday was on Presidents Day as it tends to be from time to time. Kinda nice to have a day off on your birthday:) She chose "Lucky Charms" for her birthday cereal.


She asked for either an "IPOD Touch" or the "Narnia" series. Hmmm...that was a tough one for me, let me tell ya! I guess I never got a picture, but she sure loves those books! We got her a nice hardback set. It makes me happy that she still is not on any social media and I'll put that off as long as I can. In my opinion she gets in plenty of texting time with her friends already. I know it won't last forever, but I'll enjoy it while I can.

She started out her birthday doing one of her very favorite things- a horseback riding lesson. Later she and I went to get her free birthday meal at "Joes" for lunch. For dinner I let her choose and she chose pasta this year. And then we did a cake. She made the frosting.
 
I know what you're thinking....my cake skills are astonishing.:) But before you make any rash judgements, please notice the candles placed strategically to make a "14". Yep. Only the best around here.
 

Anyway, it wasn't the most exciting birthday she's ever had but she said it was a good one.:) I'm lucky she's easy to please.

I think her favorite present this year is the Betta fish her friend gave her. Bowl included:)
 

A few things about Emma:
- She's still obsessed with "Frozen". She's sung the song so many times that she learned the French version and now sings that half the time. Holly and Sadie have "learned" it too, so at any given time there are pseudo-versions of "Let it Go" from around the world being sung all over the house, and in some cases, off-key :). Not Emma though. Which brings me to the second item...
- She's has a beautiful singing voice.
- She's excited for HS. She just finished filling out the form for which classes she wants to take and I'm pretty impressed. The girl's no slouch. She pulls off great grades each semester. She recently told me she wants to go to BYU (to which I tried to suppress my squeal of delight) (but then I couldn't and it came out anyway.)
- She's an AMAZING artist.

Her favorite thing to draw...
 

- She loves climbing trees and being out in nature. She got every last orange off our tree for me:)
 

- She's going to EFY this year and is earning half (which is $240 BTW. I still can't believe how much it costs!)
- She loves to read and blows through books in no time.
- She is amazingly good-hearted and kind.
- She is an awesome big sister and babysitter- what would we do without her!? Happy birthday doll!
 

(This is becoming lengthy so I'm going to continue Eli on another post).

A New Calling

Well if you follow my blog- or happen to know you me in real life, you know that my church calling is Primary Chorister. It's been 2 years and a couple months ago since I received that calling. Our ward was brand new and as I drove to our bldg to meet with the new Bishop I sang (true story) "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go". It's a good thing I went with a willing heart because when he extended the call I was shocked first and then scared half to death second. I for sure had never been so nervous about a calling. I shook up there in front of the kids (and more importantly, teachers) and tried not to appear as nervous as I felt. But now, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and 2 Primary Programs under my belt, I can honestly say I feel pretty comfortable up there! It's pretty nice!
So....we all know what happens when you start to feel comfortable in your calling.

It's been just over a week now since I got a new calling as Primary President. When I received the calling I mostly felt honored that Heavenly Father and the Bishop would chose me out of the amazing women in our ward. I mean really. If you knew the women in our ward. And when I use the word "chose" I mean for this time. Basically I know lots and lots of girls in our ward would be amazing PP's, but it's my turn to serve. I want to do an awesome job. I feel blessed to be capable of serving. I'm going to stick with my "All I can do is my best" motto in life. And when I look back on the past couple years, first becoming chorister, which helped prepare for subbing, and then subbing which also helped prepare me for this, I feel Heavenly Father's hand in my life. It's really cool to think that the Lord may be preparing us for different things in our future. We just need to have courage and to be teachable.

As Dana and I walked out of the Bishop's office I remember thinking, "I'm not nearly as nervous as when I got called to chorister, but if I knew everything that will be required of me, I should be more nervous this time." We have the biggest primary in the stake with about 160 kids! Good thing I picked a few of those amazing women in the ward as counselors! We're having our first meeting tonight and are ready to go, say, and be, what the Lord wants us to. Off to a new adventure in life:)

California Trip

Back in January, baby Lucia was blessed. Of course, we couldn't miss that! Plus, we needed to give our new van it's inaugural trip:)
So Dana took off the Friday before, and the kids got a day off school. On our way out we took the opportunity to visit the new Gilbert temple open house. (Post on the temple soon). What a great way to kick off our awesome weekend!

In the few weeks since we'd seen her last, she really found her smile and was somehow even cuter than before!
 


I didn't catch any of the really big smiles but she's just so precious and we had so much fun seeing her and her sweet big brother too.
 

The little girls loved playing with him again:)
 

Nothing better than family time.
 


Love this cute family!
 
My grandpa was able to participate in the blessing too. It's hard for him to stand for a long time but he did it!
 

The other best thing about taking a trip to California is visiting the beach!
We were so excited! On our way down the kids got to eat the huge lollipops Dana bought them at the dollar store:)
 

Man, we had a great time there. We soaked it in as much as we could to last us until summer.
 





I was happy to see Emma still get down and play in the sand:)
 

Dana and I reminisced about meeting there at Corona Del Mar about 18 and 1/2 years ago:)
 
And Holly drew us a heart:)
 

We decided to take a walk over to the jetty.





What a perfect day.



After we went back to get our stuff and pack up, all that was left of our snack bag was dozens and dozens of seagull footprints. Those birds do not mess around! We only found 1 wrapper out of probably 15 granola bars!

And the empty bag:)

Coming home was a little painful, but we'll be back!

Beautiful January

As most of the country bundles up and hunkers down in January, we get weather chilly enough that the trees think they better lose their leaves and get it over with so they'll be able to grow Spring ones in about a month. I really love our belated autumn. And I really like the developers of our neighborhood for lining our streets with these beautiful trees. The leaves are all gone now but I went down the street to take these pictures before they were.


Oh, I brought Eli and Scout with me too :)
 

We recently went on a family bike ride over to a community lake with sidewalks all around. It was so picturesque. It really was breathtaking. Bike riding and picture taking don't really go hand-in-hand so it'll have to live in our memories, but imagine perfect weather, people walking around- some fishing, some walking, some picnicing, a group taking family photos, and hot air balloons up in the sky!

Recently, there have been hot-air balloons launching in my neighborhood. It kinda makes you smile when you walk out of your house Saturday morning and see this:

I'm grateful for where we get to live.