2 Cute Dancers

Emma and Eve had a Christmas Recital Emma loves Clogging and Jazz

Eve Loves Tap and Ballet

A treasured gift from a Primary teacher

They're Home!

Mom and Dad have returned from serving Humanitarian Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They served for 19 months in the DR Congo. We are so proud of them!The kids worked hard making a "Welcome Home" sign.
Who would get to be the first to hug them?????

Everyone got plenty of hugs!

Grandma's first look at her name-sake.

Nobody gives hugs like Grandpa!

We all love you!

Happy Birthday Eve

Eve had a really fun "Bake-Off Birthday". All of the girls decorated bakers hats and aprons and had fun pretending they were real chefs.

The girls showed off their culinary skills making homeade pizza, decorating cupcakes, and testing their noses as they tried to guess the spices in our spice game. (You could really tell which girl's helped their parents cook...they had no problem identifying the spice.)

Eve, we love you! You are the sunshine in our family. We're so proud of you for all you've learned this last year. You've learned to read, play the cello, do the dishes (you do them so well that I don't have to go back and do them again), you are always kind to everyone, quick to smile and quick to laugh. You are not afraid to stand up for what is right. You do not give up easily when something is hard. You are always looking for ways to do good. We love you!

Shopping Cart Adventures

I can't believe how fast Mari is growing up. She crawls everywhere. She climbs as many stairs as she can before I catch her. She's even starting to "cruise" around furniture. Yesterday she started clapping whenever something was funny. She also waves "hello" or "bye-bye". She seems too little to be doing all this. Maybe it's just ME wanting her to stay little.

Anyway, today I made a trip to Costco. Hyrum wanted to ride in the basket (he's much too big but I let him so Mari would have some company). You see, today was Mari's first ride in the cart without being in her car seat. At first she was nervous about being strapped in but saw Hyrum and was okay. Having access to tasting samples was also a bonus for her!

As I looked at them I realized how fast life is going. Both of my babies are growing too fast.

Enough rambling.....

As we were waiting in line to get Hyrum his churro, a woman and her 2 children were in front of us in line. One of her children was about Mari's age was strapped into the basket, and her other daughter about Hyrum's size was climbing on the side of the basket. Suddenly, everything seemed to go slow motion as the woman's cart started to tip over because of her daughter who was climbing on the side of the cart was pulling it over. Without thinking, I rushed over to the cart and caught it before the baby hit the ground. (We were all lucky that the baby was strapped in tight.) Those baskets are heavy and it had landed hard on my knee. I wasn't strong enough to put the basket upright again, but another shopper came to the rescue just as the unsuspecting mother turned around. This poor mother was so upset at what might've happened. She held her crying 3 year old and thanked us.

Everything happened so quickly that all I could do was smile. My heart was beating too fast. If that mother happens to read this blog, what I wanted to say is, "Don't worry. Stuff like that happens to all of us at some time or another. You simply can't be everywhere at once."

Maybe I'll move Mari back into her car seat for future shopping trips. Hyrum is also a monkey you know!

Eve's Renewable Income

For her birthday, Eve got a huge gumball machine. I thought, "Oh great! Her teeth will rot right out." So, I was pleasantly surprised (that very afternoon) to find her out on the curb selling gumballs. She had quite a crowd. By the time she came in she had made over $5!

We had just read Grandma's post about the sewing machines in the Congo and how the girls could use what they sewed to sell and get money to buy more fabric to sew to sell, to sew to sell....

Eve was excited that she had her own enterprise. She has her money packed away and a store picked out to buy.......MORE GUMBALLS!

A Sweet Love Song