Draper Temple Open House

Alyssa and Cousin Jaycie await the video and bus ride to the temple.


Enjoying cookies after the tour in the nearby Stake Center. Maddie and Alyssa both wanted to wear their white dresses to the temple.

Our family outside the Draper Temple. (It looks colder than it really was. It was just breezy.)
It was so nice to be there with extended family and with our children. Maddie will soon be able to do baptisms for the dead and was taking everything in. Josh loved finding all the Sego lilies in the decor---stained glass, carpet, ceilings, etc. Josie didn't want to leave the sealing room for some reason. And my Alyssa compared the whole trip to Lehi's dream. She said, "We had to follow a path. At the end of the path we got a reward (the cookies), but as soon as we ate them and went outside there were people yelling at us." (There were a couple of protestors with signs that said the temple was a house of abominations and that Joseph had lied, etc.) I thought her comment was quite thoughtful. It is an absolutely exquisite temple. I love driving from Salt Lake in the evening and seeing it lit up on the hillside. I am excited to attend sessions there and have another temple so near. How blessed we are.

One Giant Step for Birdkind

Alyssa has been working hard to train her birds. She has had some success with both of them, but mostly with Magic. As you see in the picture, he will now "step up" onto her finger. It truly is fine to have feathered-friends!

Valentines At Our House '09

Breakfast was cheesy eggs, mini muffins, blood orange slices, strawberries and hot chocolate. A nice way to begin our lovely, snowy Saturday.

My little Sweetheart shared some M&M's with me later in the day (or was it before noon, who knows? Chocolate is legal any time of the day.)

We celebrated at home with the kids for dinner. I made lasagna and heart-shaped bread sticks. We had sparkling juices and candlelight.

Before we ate Mike presented me with my gift at the dinner table with the kids. He had made a notebook with a list of the things he has learned from me. I loved reading it. He also gave me two white wax battery-operated candles that we added to the table for our candlelight dinner with the loves of our lives, our children. (You can read his list of things he has learned, some sweet, some practical, some humorous at Mike's Blog on my blog list.)

Shiny Ears

Alyssa asked me if she could get her ears pierced. I said yes. She was ecstatic. We went to the mall together and she chose little diamond studs. She kept kicking her feet while she was in the chair because she was nervous. But, she finally relaxed and was still enough to have them pierced. I was in 5th grade when I got mine pierced and it brought back memories. She loves them and I love you, Beautiful.

Sometimes You Can't Resist

and you just have to grab the camera. . .

and take a shot of what brings you so much joy. . .

that you want to capture the moment
and forever remember what they looked like.

Happy 100 Day

For those of you who don't have children in school, and particularly kindergarten, you may not have known that Feb. 5th was the 100th day of school this year. Josh was asked to bring 100 of something to his class. He made this poster of 10 groups of ten seeds in the ground. We used sunflower seeds (from our garden). It was fun---especially being able to use the Cricut paper cutter Mike bought me for Christmas for the lettering---Thanks Honey!

Speech Class Graduate

This is my Josh, proudly displaying his box of Oreo cakesters. I bought him this rare treat because I got a call from his speech teacher at school telling me he had passed his recent evaluation with flying colors and no longer qualified for speech therapy!!! I was so happy. I called my mom right away. She sent him a "Congratulations" card in the mail. Thanks, Mom. And thanks Judy for all your support, too. He has been in speech since he was two years old! Back then he only said a few words. I have traveled to Kids on the Move, had them in my home, gone to school with him for therapy there and had multiple evaluations. We have had packets and games we have played at home to help him. Mostly we have corrected him and had him repeat the words correctly before continuing what he wanted to say. I noticed a huge improvement when he learned to read by sounding out words. This forced him to slow down and say each letter correctly. I was so worried about how he would feel being pulled out of kindergarten class for 20 minutes of speech each week. But, Josh took it all in stride. His teacher commented often on how cute he was and how hard he tried. He is my handsome, lovable, boy. I am so proud of you Josh. You tackled the obstacle and overcame. Congrats, my little speech class graduate! I love you!

Scrapbooking Joys and Sorrows

Josie noticed that their weren't many pages done in her baby book the other day. In fact besides the cover page picture of her, the only other pictures of her were in the womb (ultrasounds) or in my tummy (preggie pics). Yah, not so good. So I sat down at my craft table and made some magic happen, at least for Josie. She loved all the pics of her as a newborn that I began placing on pages and putting into her book. She has looked at it many times now. I'm still not done, but there is certainly more to her book now. She got very excited about the page of her footprints. She put her feet on the pages all by herself. I quickly grabbed the camera 'cause I thought it was too cute. Then, moments later. . .

I kept doing more pages and I thought all was going well. I knew Josie was behind me and I figured she was playing with some of my old punches---no harm in that. Well, I totally, completely forgot that I had, and I do emphasize HAD, a tube of coarse gold glitter in my little punch and scissors box. Yep, the picture doesn't really show it well (carpet color I guess) but there was a nice little mess of "sparklies" to vacuum up. Oh the joys and sorrows!
(P.S. Scroll to the bottom of my blog to see all of us as stick figures.)

Science Project

Maddie turned in her science project last week. We thank all nearby family and friends who were her volunteers. We appreciate you staring at objects for lengths of time. The conclusion was that there is no correlation between a certain color's length of afterimage and your memory of it, at least how we tested. Still, Maddie got 300/300 on the project. Awesome.

Happy Heart Day is Coming Soon

When the kids were out of school last week, we prepared our Valentines to hand out at school and to friends and teachers. We found some cute cell phone cards this year that you add sticks of gum to. It sure brings back memories of doing my own Valentines when I was in grade school. Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Believe and Magic

Alyssa is feeding Believe and Magic millet spray, which parakeets love. Our pair also really love chopped carrot. We are enjoying the birds' funny antics and "rain forest sound effects" (chirping). So far, so good in our first pet (other than fish) experience.

Reflections Award

Alyssa shows the certificate she received at the council level for her Reflections entry. She was a little nervous to go up on the stage with others from her school. But she did just fine. She thought it was really neat to see a picture of her sculpture on the big screen for the audience to see. Great job, sweetheart.