Matt/Matthew

This is Matt.  Matt is married to my youngest sister, Jenilee.  He's in the Army and they used to live in Hawaii but now they live about 45 minutes south of my house (which is even more awesome than Hawaii.  Yes, I really mean that.)

Matt is a wonderful husband to my sister and a fantastic father to their four children. Matt and Jenilee are one of those rare couples who truly love spending time together and really are each other's best friend.  Matt is hilarious, smart and kind.

This is Matthew.  He's Jen and Matt's second child and oldest son and he turned 12 last week.  He's getting so grown up that he asked for clothes for his birthday. 

Matthew is super smart, loves to read, is the ASB president at his school and has a solo in his upcoming school play. He is a sweet boy and I absolutely adore spending time with him.


I drove down to their neck of the woods last week for Matthew's birthday dinner at Red Robin.  This is why their living here rather than Hawaii is way better because I could jump in the car on a whim to go see them.  I'm so grateful they're close!

Jen and Nathan

Natalie & the birthday boy

Natalie, Matthew, Nathan and McKenzie

On Sunday, we drove down to their house to attend church with them.  When a boy turns 12 in our church, it's a big deal because he is given the Aaronic Priesthood.  This ordination was even more special because we worried for awhile that it might not happen.  As I mentioned before, Matt is in the Army and he had his third deployment coming up.  For several weeks, we worried that Matt would deploy days before Matthew's 12th birthday.  My family prayed hard that somehow, some way, Matt would be able to stay home until March 15 and Heavenly Father answered our prayers.  Matt ordained Matthew a Deacon on Sunday and he left for a far away land two days later.

Sunday was wonderful and lovely.  Matt's parents and his brother and family were there as well as my mom, the Kings and me.  After church, we went back to Jen's for a yummy dinner.  After a fun day together, we said goodbye to Matt and I had to practically run out of the house before I started bawling.  I'm such a baby about goodbyes! Ugh. Thankfully, this deployment is relatively short and we should have Matty home by Christmas.

I'm grateful for family. I know I'm supposed to be in the family I'm in and I'm thankful to know that we are sealed together forever.