It's A Wonderful Life

Another picture post. Fun, fun. We have had several birthdays in the last couple months. When we hit the end of February we have a birthday almost every 10 days to 2 weeks. That doesn't end until mid June. This year we changed the celebration up a bit. Instead of the birthday person choosing what's for dinner we now take them out to eat wherever they want. We then come home to do presents and dessert. I love it this way. The kids get the one on one time and I don't have to spend my day cooking an elaborate meal. We have also had other activities and celebrations. We went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point last week with Kurt and Kayla (my niece) while they were here. We have a few pictures of people but the kids had the camera and we came away with mostly pictures of flowers, the sky, fish, geese and who knows what else. Buying our pass to Thanksgiving Point was soooo worth it. We will be doing that again this year.   I forgot this picture in the Easter...

Well, one more Easter has come and gone. Another year with a first Easter. This time it was Scott's turn. I would love to say that he loved it, but I really don't know. I was sick in bed ALL DAY LONG! I got up for about 30 minutes and before all the kids found their Easter baskets I headed back to bed. The nasty stomach flu hit me hard. One positive thing about it, I didn't have to host. :) I love holidays but they are so much work. I got to throw up right through it. Hehe. No, being sick wasn't worth it. Because of my banishment to my room there isn't much to narrate here. What you see is what I got to experience so we will do Easter together through pictures. On Friday we decorated eggs. We did 10 dozen. Then added some plastic eggs filled with candy.       Friday afternoon we made Rice Krispy treats in the shape of a nest then put M&M's in them.   Bria found her Easter basket. I have been hearing all year that Easter is ...

Oh, there is so much that happens at our home. Always changes and looking forward. New opportunities to develop faith and trust in our Heavenly Father. We have been led and protected and can testify of the reality of angels in all of our lives. When we are open and seek for the hand of the Lord He is able to bless us in ways that we would never even think to ask. Sometimes those blessings come in the form of stripping us of much of what we thought was our security. But by this we turn more closely to God and recognize our complete dependence on Him and the Saviors atonement and resurrection. What a gift Jesus Christ is and to have the love and tender mercies of our Father in Heaven. We were in the grocery store a couple of weeks ago and the cashier said "How are you?" Our first thought was to respond with "Well our son died 7 weeks ago and this and this just happened" but we knew she wouldn't believe us (No one would!) and it would probably traumatize her the...

We had two beautiful girls take the step of baptism last weekend - Malia and Emma.  In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we baptize our children when they reach the age of 8.  That is when we consider them "accountable" or old enough to understand the commitments and promises we make to live a righteous life following the example of our Savior.  Of course, that doesn't always go as planned, so 8 years old is also the age when we are old enough to understand the gifts of the Atonement and how we can remain pure by repenting throughout our lives to bring the blessings and purification power of Christ's sacrifice.   We don't believe infants children under the age of 8 need baptism nor those who don't have the mental capacity to understand the promises we make or the need for repentance.  They have a special place in heaven with all the blessings of our loving Heavenly Father in highest levels of that kingdom.  There...

  Hyrum has an obsession with hair. Not just his hair but all hair. He loves it so much that he puts things on his head and pretends it's hair. This is a fabric book cover that he decided was hair within the first week of being home from China. He wore it everywhere. When I say everywhere I mean even to the store or on family outings. I was so embarrassed that I didn't get too many pictures. Now that I am more mature, :), I wish I had.   Hyrum decided that his security blanket is my favorite sweater. He wears it like this all the time. He even sleeps with my sweater. Sadly, I never get to wear it. I gave up and bought a new sweater this year. It's not as fuzzy.       Hyrum is a ham!! This kid loves to have pictures taken. I wish I had recorded his photo shoot. I just wanted to take pictures of all his hair pieces. The next thing I knew I was shooting in rapid fire. Maybe I need to take photography lesson...

A year ago today we saw our Gideon for the first time. We had worked for 5 tireless months to get through the paperwork as fast as we could. We knew that any day Gideon could be called home. We hoped and prayed that he would make it to us. First we wanted him sealed to our family and second we had a glimmer of hope that the doctors may be able to do something to save his life. Our Father in Heaven was in charge and we were reminded that it was through His hand that Gideon's life was preserved. We had a blessed 10 months with Gideon on this earth. Looking back I can see why we felt the need to do more playing and making memories than we had as a family in the last 15 or so years. We took a lot of pictures and had Gideon with me all the time but on our date nights. Even then, he came with us sometimes. In the last week before we went into the hospital we brought Gideon with us to a play tryout. That is just not done. I couldn't leave him. He wasn't doing well a...