Mandy's Bridal Shower

I was the YW president in my ward almost nine years ago.  I can't believe it's been that long! During my three years as president, I had the great blessing of getting to know a darling girl named Mandy.

Mandy and Lisa

Mandy is just one of those girls that everyone seems to love.  She is always smiling, she's sweet and just so fun.  One of my favorite Mandy memories is when she was in high school and on the drill team.  I remember how the girls on the team were told to pick out a shirt to wear as part of their uniform one day.  Mandy was the only girl who wore a modest shirt on the entire team.  She stood out but in a wonderful way.  I love that she stood up for her beliefs and didn't care that she wouldn't look like the other girls.  Mandy has served a mission, is now a college graduate and she's engaged and SO happy.

I made treats for her recent bridal shower and it was so fun to get to hear her talk about her fiance and to see how in love she is.  I have a really cute pic of her with some of her fun gifts (ahem) but I'd better not put them on here just in case her fiance sees them before the wedding!

We had a fun day celebrating a beautiful inside-and-out girl.  I love seeing "my" girls grow up and move on to this next phase of their lives.

I'm including a few party shots for you, dear Kim...thought you'd like to see some of your friends again. :)

Marcia, Lisa, LaWana and Alberta

Louise, Miriam and Terri

Linda, Marcia and Sharee

Willy Wonka Kids

Two of my nephews were in their school play recently.  My nephew Matthew played the Candy Man (the guy who sings the song and sells the candy to the kids.)  

My other nephew Nathan was an Oompa Loompa (he's in the orange striped shirt.)

They did such a great job.  Matthew sang a solo, basically and he was SO good.  Yes I'm biased but seriously, he was fantastic.  I'm go grateful I got to see him on stage and I hope he decides to do more things like this because I think he's very talented.  

 For the millionth time, I'm SO glad these guys are a short 45 minutes away.

Sweet little Leah

Twice now, Leah has called me at work and then brought me a Slurpee.  I am SO spoiled!  Here she is with her cute friend Jamie making a delivery.

For the record, I used to prefer cola slurpees but I've since made the switch to blue raspberry. SO yummy.

We had Stake Conference this past weekend and when I was sitting in the Saturday night adult session, I got texts from Leah asking me where I was.  I of course told her.  I mean, she wouldn't do something to my car again, would she?

Um, I went to a different high school but okay... ;)

 Leah did some very lovely art work on my car while I was inside.

Thanks for the warning! My hands look great, don't they?

 She included my fun camp nickname.

Hi neighbor.

I love that Leah is always looking for opportunities to teach me new things.

I'm so grateful for Leah.  Knowing her and having her in my life makes my heart happy.

Leah also thoughtfully made my car a public service announcement.  Hopefully all of those people who are checking their phones while driving will make a stop at this awesome website.

She waited for me until conference was over and then I took her out as a thank you.  Where'd we go?  To get slurpees, of course.

I love you, Leah!

Easter

Every year, my mom hosts an Easter egg hunt in her palatial, park like back yard and we totally lucked out this year with actual sunshine.  My two younger sisters came over with their kids and we had a nice little party.  I decided the day before that I wanted to make sugar cookies for the kids to frost so I spent all morning rolling and cutting out and baking.  I loved it but I made way too many cookies.  The kids frosted like one each, basically.  I had lots to give away to my friends and visiting teaching ladies.

I have to say that these cookies were awesome.  So.  Dang.  Good.

The creative process is about to begin - Mom is already sampling in the background!

Beautiful Rylee

Carsen not wanting his photo taken

Nice frosting job, Matthew!

The kids ready to go hunt eggs.

Kenna and Natalie...can you tell Natalie was getting sick? The only kid with a coat on!

Someone found a golden egg!

Sisters!

Thankful

I'm thankful for the sunshine.

I'm thankful for stake conference.

I'm thankful for this fun little surprise that was waiting for me when I came out of the Saturday night session of stake conference (I'll blog more about this later this week.)

Hey, there's my head!

I'm thankful for the cute family who sat with me at Stake Conference today.

I'm thankful for goodly men who serve as my home teachers and who willingly gave me a Priesthood blessing when I started crying during their visit today.

I'm thankful for the sweet words of the blessing reminding me how much I am loved by my Heavenly Father and that He knows my tender little heart.

I'm thankful for the encouragement and reminder that I should continue to love and serve others while I wait for the blessings that will eventually come (just, please...before I'm 80...is that too much to ask?)

General Conference

For the past few years, I've driven a few hours south to spend conference weekend with one of my dearest friends, Patty and her darling family.

Her husband and oldest son were doing some humanitarian work in Guatemala (installing stoves in homes - so awesome) but cute Cameron (age 10) and Thys (age 7) were there and ready to play. I used my iPad for the pics. Not bad! I also started this using the Blogger app but they loaded in backwards order and then I couldn't do anything with them from the app.  Ah, technology.  I'll caption and it'll be fine...right?

My favorite talks were by Elder Hallstrom, President Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard. I also really liked Elder Rasband's talk.  Oh and the cute Scottish GA who talked about single parents was fantastic.  Oh and Elder Holland was great as usual.  So much goodness this time around. Hope you enjoyed conference as much as we did.

I helped Patty redecorate her oldest son's room during conference breaks.  We love the way it turned out.  Inspiration from here

The cute girl on the top was one of my YW - she's was in the MTC choir on Saturday. So fun to see her!

The remnants of monkey bread and my boring raspberry limeade on the table. I've decided I just really miss the fizz of DC. Well, amongst other things.

Cute boys doing their conference packets

The beautiful redhead in the center was one of my camp girls, also in the MTC choir. Yes I was just as excited to see my girls as I was to see Archie.

Copied this idea from Pinterest and it was a HIT.  It really helped the boys to listen and pay attention.  If you can't tell, the word "prophet" or the names of prophets were the most said during conference.  

I love my friend.  Patty and I are like sisters and we always have the best time together.

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.