Month: December 2011

Princess Alyssa knew exactly how she wanted her birthday to go down. For those who know Alyssa she knows just what she wants and is hard to convince otherwise. She is stubborn, opinionated and good as gold. Her birthday plans started a month ago with the choosing of the perfect dress. I took Alyssa to the mall where I brought a big dose of patience and let her try on any dress she wanted. She picked half a dozen and we went to the dressing room. This was a first for her and she loved the whole process. She twirled in all of the mirrors and when she had tried on all of the dresses she asked if she could try them on again. She finally decided on a bright pink, sparkly dress. We found some bright pink shoes to match, picked out tights and then brought it home to wrap. This morning she opened her dress before church, of course I didn’t get a picture. Church is at 9am and Emma and Danny had to be there at 8:20 meaning they had to leave at 7:55 to get there on time and Hallie decided to have a fit at breakfast because Tanner took her cup away… Bringing myself back on topic… I didn’t get a picture, but she looked like a birthday girl. After church we had pizza and hot wings and cake, the cake had to be chocolate with bright pink frosting with her name in purple. I decided to just buy one, it tasted as interesting as it looked and no one ate much… hey I might be on to something. We opened presents and had a tea party.

It isn’t easy having a birthday close to Christmas, but Alyssa seems to enjoy her Christmas birthday and even insists that I wrap her gifts in Christmas paper.

Alyssa is a bright child who can talk faster than anyone I know, she loves to tell stories in an animated fashion. She cares about what she wears and carefully plans out her outfits and hair. She is a kind and loving child who just wants to grow up faster than I wish she would. I love you My little Lyss!

 

 

I just love Christmas. This year has been fairly crazy, but enjoyable. Emma had a flute recital and a school band concert and Aubrey’s 2nd grade musical is this week. We cut down our tree with some friends on the 3rd of December and my shopping is pretty much done. Just a few pictures…

One year ago today I got off a plane in Ohio with my 5 children. We were greeted with grey skies and snow. It was so cold and windy and we were very overwhelmed. In contrast today it is bright and sunny and a delightful day. I can’t even begin to put words to the feelings that are in my heart, and I’m not even going to try. I will keep it simple, we miss our friends and family terribly, but at the same time we are overjoyed for the wonderful blessings that we have experienced this year. My heart is full, my life if blessed, and we are Happy and really what more can we ask for? Our Heavenly Father has guided us and led us to where we need to be. The journey has been difficult at times, but I can honestly say in the end we can look back and see His hand in all things. Now I will dry my eyes and pull myself together.

(above) This picture cracks me up, look at those faces.

(below) Ohio in the Fall.

As most of you know we bought a new house last month, it is almost 4000 square feet of pure 1990 dated bliss, and I love every square foot and every brass fixture and laminate counter top. It is a home made just for us. The basement is finished and I could lose a child or 5 down there, and I often do. We can see ourselves here for a very long time. If you want our new mailing address send me an email and I’d be happy to give it to you. The house is within walking distance of a large lake where the above picture was taken. We walk down there to fish, swim, watch the boats come in and out, walk on the docks, throw rocks, pick up shells, walk in the forest and just enjoy nature at it’s very best. If anyone wants to visit Church History sites we’d love to have visitors and now have the room to put you up, come see us.

Lynda, a good friend of ours took our family pictures every year. This year I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. I tried a few people on CraigsList but some of their work was…well, not what I was looking for. I got the courage up and decided to try my hand at taking pictures. Here are a few of my favorites. They didn’t turn out too badly, I wish I was better with editing software, they might look even better. There’s a good goal for me this next year, learn Photoshop.

 

 

 

Life doesn’t stop, since I’m behind on my blog already I’m going to lump these two together in one birthday post. Seems like they have been twins since they were 2 years old and inseparable, I’m sure they wont mind sharing a birthday post.

Emma turned 13 this year. We have a teenager, for those of you who haven’t hit this great milestone, let me tell you… Nothing really has changed. She may have lost her sense of humor toward some things, but overall, it’s been a smooth transition. Emma is growing up so beautifully. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Emma is a great big sister, I will catch a few beautiful moments of her interacting with her sisters, and she is so sweet and kind with them. They like to come into her room and look at her jewlery and “make up” and she will often put it on them and so kindly tell them they are beautiful. It brings tears to my eyes, to see her so strong in the gospel, she loves her Heavenly Father and is always striving to follow His teachings. We call her our little DilEmma because she strives to hard to follow every rule to the extreme and it often causes her dilemmas.

She’s been invited to take the ACT test this year as part of a college talent program, she will get the chance to take it and the SAT test every year now until she graduates. She’s excelling in her flute, and started private lessons recently to take it up a notch. Marching band is in her future next year in high school–ACK.

Tanner is singing Happy Birthday to Emma in the top picture. She requested lemon meringue pie, which I drove out to Amish Country to find. She just finished up a great season running Cross Country and took almost 3 minutes off of her time from the beginning to the last race. We love you Miss Emma!

 

Tanner brings so much joy and screaming into our family. If I was supposed to have only one son, I couldn’t have asked for a better fit for this family. His sisters adore him and take good care of him, and he is really good at being a big brother. He’s loving, sweet, yet tough enough to make them all scream at once if he feels like it.

Tanner has also been invited to start taking the ACT tests and SAT tests, he will take his first one in February. He seems so young, but has some lofty goals. Although he is wearing a BYU sweatshirt, he really wants to go to MIT and go into robotics. I know things can change but right now this is his goal. He’s pulled all A’s so far in middle school. He ran with the Cross Country team this year as well, but couldn’t actually race because of his age. He’s doing well with his piano lessons, and playing everything less like a funeral march (that is his piano style we have decided). Music is not his natural talent, but I refuse to let him out of it.

This year Tanner wanted a game for the Wii, Smash Brothers. He wanted pumpkin pie…obviously my kids aren’t much for cake. Last year we spent his birthday with our good friends the Hamblins. It was our last day in Dayton, and instead of a celebration it was a bawl fest, so this year we pretty much partied the whole day for him. We picked him up from school and took him to lunch and then returned him to school. We were supposed to close on our new house on his birthday, but I moved up the date by a couple of weeks so that his birthday wouldn’t be part of a move again.

We love you Tanner!