1 year birthday party

This is so 6 months ago but I had to document it so we are going to try and play catch up.  I just wanted to post about our baby turning 1.  She is so full of energy and extremely curious.  She is full of spunk and has a great sense of humor.  We all love and adore her and can't imagine one day with out her.  We had a Party for her at Chuck e Cheeses because sometimes it is easier to go somewhere else and let someone else take care of the mess.  She loved the singing and dancing Characters made out of plastic.  It was nice to have family come to celebrate this special day with us.  We tried something different and ordered sandwiches as well as pizza but we were surprised by how small the sandwiches were.  All in all though it was a fun day and a great memory.

 Here is her cake.  I did cupcakes and we had 3 different flavors.  There was chocolate with chocolate cream cheese frosting, banana with plain cream cheese frosting, and white with raspberry cream cheese frosting. 

 Great family and socializing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Eating her cake

 Opening presents

 Cute cousin drew this picture for her.

 Saying Thank you

 Some pictures of this cutie!

Fire

There was a fire on the mountainside up the street from us.  There are a few friends of ours that were fairly close to this.  They luckily didn't have to get evacuated but were ready to go a a moments notice.  Apparently a transformer blew and the sparks caused this to happen.  We have had 2 fires near us but thankfully the local Fire Department got both out within a 24 hour period.  It also helped that there was no wind either day I am sure.  We still think that our Fire fighters here are amazing. :)

Fourth of July

Summer Fun

 Playing on outdoor toys.  Oh and my oldest learned how to ride her bike without training wheels.

 My daughters car that we helped her make for the last day of school.  She told us what she wanted and then helped attach it with mod podge.

 My husband took this picture.  He is such a good dad to let his daughter dress him up all pretty.

 We went to a birthday party for our friends son.  The kids had fun in that foam pit.

 Look I can hula hoop!

  Our girls being cute.

She finished her first Chapter book.  

It had a recipe in it and we made the recipe as a prize for finishing her book.

Swim Lessons

 Both kids had swim lessons this year and they are doing great.  Our oldest is very close to independently swimming.  Her biggest thing is building strength in her swimming.  And our little guy is very comfortable in the water.

And this little girl got to come a few times with me and hang out wishing she could play in the water too.

KIndergarten Graduation

She graduated from Kindergarten with Flying Colors.  She is testing a year ahead and loves to learn.  She had so much fun this last year making friends and pushes herself to learn constantly.  My favorite part of the program was when she sang about being mail and when she said sang I want to mail myself to you she would look directly at me and point.  It melted my heart and I couldn't help being proud that she is my daughter.  I would mail myself to her as well.  Enjoy the pictures and video.

Marching in with all the Pomp and Circumstance.

Sitting in her place ready to sing.

 

Here she is with her Kindergarten Teacher, who will also be her First grade teacher as well.

Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer......

Oh what do you do in the wintertime.....

3 Bears

Mail my self to you....

To Grow Where there seems no Reasonable Place to Grow

There is a woman in my life ( a dear friend of my family) that I have heard on occasion tell me and others that if there was someone who had an excuse to no longer live the gospel and walk away it would be me and my siblings. I know that she is praising us and trying to tell us that she is impressed with our decisions. And yet I can't help but see it differently. For those of you who may not know I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka Mormon). It is deeply ingrained into who I am.

Some back story is that my Mom died when I was 14 years old. She had joined the church 2 years before I was born. My Mom had some rough patches in the beginning and eventually came to a point that I knew of active involvement in our church. My Dad made it a point to never keep us from church and at the same time regularly questioned our belief. I feel that he did this simply to make sure that we were not simply mindlessly following a path because our Mom did or because that is where our friends were. We always had an easy out if we wanted it. Maybe that is what this dear friend of that family meant. We never would have been told that we were wrong for leaving.

I have at regular intervals in my life had to stop and reflect of my membership and really my philosophy on life and try to know if deep down I still "believe". I can honestly say that belief has never been my issue. Always doing the daily things I should do like praying and reading my scriptures admittedly not as well as I would like. I try to be a decent person and hope that I somehow can make a difference. I am not perfect and even more admittedly not always kind. I struggle with pride and vanity as much as the next.

I have had great examples in my life. The Home Teachers who came monthly and built relationships with my family. The Bishops who were there ready to help at any given moment. Young Women leaders who were there to let me cry on their shoulder because I missed my mom so. Dear Friends of the family who never forgot us and still are actively apart of our lives. Family who has been there ready to help lift each other up. Random people on airplanes and people who I have run across on my walks. School teachers and counselors.

Experiences are also a factor. You can take two people and they can have the same stuff happen to them but how they experience it is different. How they feel about it will be different. And some times they will come away with the same outcome and sometimes very different outcomes. I can't help but feel that maybe we had less of a reason to leave the church. It was always our choice. It was something that helped us deal with our mothers death and gave us hope for a chance to be with her again. We could have been angry I guess, not sure that we haven't all been angry at one point or another about our mom no longer being on this Earth. But we had hope. We had each other. And we had a love for a Heavenly Father who I know for my part always knowing that he loves me. When I make a mistake or not he still loves me. I have learned that I do not have to be perfect, I only have to strive to do my best and to learn and grow daily in my life. Allowing the master to shape me into the Woman he desires me to be. My church encourages personal growth and revelation. I have felt the Saviors hand in my life.

I love this friend and if she is reading this I want to tell her how thankful I am for her and her family and for them being there for me and my siblings. She has made a difference in our lives. My nieces, nephews, children, siblings, husband and I have always felt loved by her. I know we are better people for having her in our lives. Thank you.