Cakes

Just before Aiden's birthday, I got really bad strep throat. My sisters came to the rescue! Christie and Leanna came in to help with the party and the cake. Isn't it great!

Then my Dad's birthday was the next day. Christie made a cake we are calling

The Chocolate Covered Strawberry. Yum!

Katie's birthday was before I got sick and I got to help Christie make her cake.

It is one of my favorite cakes. So pretty!

What a busy Birthday July.

1st Grade!

Wow, my little boy is in 1st grade!

The car-pool lane for the first day was ridiculous!

Jenna-grace thought so too.

Aiden's art projects

For his birthday Aiden got several art projects from his Grandma Elaine. He has so much fun! He pestered me everyday to let him work on it. Then once he started we would stay at it for as long as I would let him. He loved it.

He did all the painting himself too.

His Aunt Nicole sent him this giant puzzle. So much fun!

Max in motion

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Aruba

Eric's dad has a friend who lives in Aruba. It is a Dutch colony!

We were lucky enough to get an invite!

It was an amazing place!

My favorite part was land sailing. It was crazy fun!!

I will try to find some pictures and post them later.

Moving

Not the biggest truck they had. But pretty darn close. We have so much junk, they even had to strap a few of the garage shelves on the back "Clampet" style.

This is a picture of our new pool.

This is Aiden's new ATV.

And this is the best box-fort ever!

The most beautiful children being adorable.

With every new home, there is handy work that needs to be done.

Good thing I have such a handy man.

Letter to GT ward

It has been on my mind for weeks now that I needed to tell everyone how much I will miss them and how amazing my experience in GT has been. During the 5 years that I lived there, I gained friends, family and many cherished experiences. My heart aches that we had to move away from people that I have come to know and love.

I am from many places, mostly the south. I did spend about 5 cherished years as a youth here where we are living now. Even though I have lived more of my life elsewhere, those 5 years as a youth were influential enough for me to call this my home ward. Over the last 5 years I feel like I have gained a second home ward. With the people of the GT ward my little family has experienced times of health and times of sickness. We have been poor and prosperous. We have had miscarriages and births, blessings and trials. Through those experiences I feel I have gained more than friends. I feel like the members of the GT ward are like family. I miss you terribly! Thank you for your love, friendship and support.

I hope I do a much better job of keeping in touch.

Love to you all!

Butt size!

I am crazy busy and just plain crazy right now trying to unpack all my junk. We have incredibly too much stuff!! But I wanted to stop and share something incredibly funny. I am pretty sure it will sound like one of those things you had to be there to understand but I thought I was going to die laughing. So....
The kids were sitting at the counter eating lunch and I was (as usual) in motion cleaning and organizing. Aiden noticed that I was drinking a diet soda, and asked if he could have some. I explained that it was not good for him. "why not?" because it is not for people who want to get bigger like you do. "Is it for people who want to get smaller?" Yes. "why do you want to get smaller?" because when mommies have babies, their tummies get really big. When the baby comes out and start to grow into big kids like you, they want to get rid of the big belly, and the big butt.
(Then I get concerned about my son's future self image, his future body image.)
I go on to say that I am trying to make myself healthy, and that it doesn't really matter what size your tummy or your butt size is. What really matters is what is in your heart and how you treat others.
Max who has been completely silent, mostly because his mouth is stuffed with food, suddenly yells out, "I HAVE A LITTLE BUTT!!"
I really am not sure why, but I think the comedic timing of it all was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing.
So as not to leave Jenna-grace out, she really didn't care about any of it. After a few moments of laughter, Jenna-grace pipes up to ask us to be quiet so she can hear the radio!

Where do I start?

I have sooo much to say about the last few months. So much has been going on! But instead of waiting to post pictures until I have time to explain them. I am just going to post all the pictures and then go back and add in the explanations when I have time. So here are a few pictures from the last few months.

While I was away

Girls Week!

New York

For our anniversary this year Eric told me we were going on a trip, but the destination was a surprise! Then he left a web page 'accidental' open for a national park just north of Atlanta. He left a Six Flags park map (Six Flags over Georgia) in his car when he knew I would borrow it. He wouldn't let me pack more than a carry on. Then he told me to bring comfortable shoes as well as clothes for a nice evening. When we got to the airport and boarded a plane for Atlanta I tried to show surprise and excitement. Half way through the flight he handed me a card with our second boarding pass for the flight to New York and tickets for The Phantom of the Opera! Needles to say, I didn't have to pretend to be surprised. I was blown away! Then then next day I got a card that had "adventure day 2!" written on it. Inside were tickets for Wicked! Wow!!

The next day we went out exploring and saw so many amazing sights.

Some of Eric's favorite places were...

Some of my favorite places...

Two places got to me emotionally, unexpectedly. One was ground zero. I expected to feel the same way I do every time I see it on TV, or hear about it on the news. But this was so much more. There was a poster pined to a building wall, made by a family who lost their husband and father. It would have been his 50th birthday on April 19th. They were saying happy birthday and we miss you! I was overwhelmed with the pain that was still so very raw in that place.

The second place was the temple. New York is so BIG and so Busy. We were constantly being barraged with sights, smells and noise. Then amongst all the huge buildings Moroni pops out!

Can you see him?

We were walking past the door and the man at the desk inside the door saw us looking began waving for us to come in. He was a large man (reminded me of what I imagine a nephite warrior might look like) wearing dark sunglasses. He was sitting behind a desk that resembled a reception area. He handed us a pass along card and asked us where we were from. After we talked to him for a minute he invited us to go on into the main temple entrance. We knew we would not be permitted in with our street clothes on but he said we could go as far as the recommend desk and catch a glimpse of the amazing stained glass that decorated the entrance. After walking all morning all over the not so clean city, we didn't feel like we should. But there were glass doors that we could peek through. As we peered through the glass I was caught off guard by the strength of spirit that I felt. I've felt the spirit of the temple before. But the contrast between the feeling of the city and the feeling of temple overwhelmed me in that moment.

Thank you sweetheart for an amazing adventure! I can't believe that it has been Eight years! I love you more and more every single day.

Eric told me that if I had to blog about this trip, that I should make sure and tell everyone that he used all his hotel and airline points he racked up working for E&Y to pay for the whole trip. He is very frugal, my little dutch boy.

Mischievous Max

Hide and Seek? My sweet little Max is like an ostrich.

Every time I say "bed-time" he runs in his room to hide. He lays down on the floor between the air filter and the dresser with his legs laying out in the middle of the room. He hides his face in his blanket and giggles, like he is so clever and we will never find him.

Easter