My Missionaries

Earlier this month my sweet sister Becca turned a quarter of a century. She spent her birthday serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaching the gospel in the Spanish language to people in the south Salt Lake area. I can't wait until we can properly celebrate with her upon her return in December, but I know she is learning and growing and serving the Lord and I couldn't be happier for her or prouder to claim her as sister and best friend. It was wonderful to see her on skype at Christmas and her weekly e-mails make my Mondays.

My eldest nephew also had a birthday and finished his preparations to begin as a missionary for our church as well. He entered the MTC last week and soon will travel to Honduras to begin serving and teaching people there. I feel lucky to claim him too. He will be a wonderful missionary and, as you can see in the poorly-lit picture below, he is a great older cousin. Good luck, Tasi!

Just wanted you both to know, when you get home and if you feel like searching my blog archives, that we were thinking of you! (In effort to focus on the work they are doing, missionaries for our church forgo most forms of entertainment and media during their period of service, excepting weekly e-mails and a couple holiday phone calls and/or skype sessions.) We plan to keep those letters coming... xoxo

What We're Watching

With the onslaught of some extra cold weather last week and snow this week, we've found ourselves inside a lot. Some of our favorite YouTubes:

I thought The Piano Guys' use of the piano for "What Makes You Beautiful" was incredibly creative and the whole video so fun to watch. And it reminds me of one of our favorites from a few years ago, "Viva la Vida Meets Love Story":

Maggie thinks this violin-dancer, Lindsey Stirling, is so cool. My kids love making instruments out of shoeboxs, tin cans, rubber bands, etc. If Maggie finds a rubber band it is never safe--it will be made part of a guitar in seconds. The other night she made a homemade violin and was pretending to be Lindsey the other night with her homemade violin, even claiming cereal as her favorite food, just as Lindsey professes hers to be on one of her videos. Here's Lindsey shadow-dancing:

And just for fun:

Gotta love Downton Abbey. Still need to watch that last episode, so don't spoil it for me. I tend to wait until they are all out and then watch them via the website, as I can't stand the suspense between episodes. That's actually why I haven't been able to bring myself to make time for the season finale yet--things are just looking too pleasant to last...

My Valentines

Our Valentine's tradition, like that of many others, has become making valentines. We like writing letters to people, so valentine-sending is perfect for us.

When Maggie was not yet two and Kate was a baby, we made some cute ones for the grandparents by tracing hands and folding them into a card like a hug. We put on bear stickers and wrote "I love you bear-y much."

The next year we cut out fish-shaped ones and wrote little messages like "You're my fish in the sea." Then we attached little bags of goldfish for the girls' library friends. Of course, there were stickers again.

Then last year, we painted some for grandparents, cousins, and fellow story-timers. We sent out quite a few that year. (The girls have over twenty cousins and counting...)

This year, we decided to paint again. Our skills have improved and I love their uniqueness. So much so that I couldn't let them go without a snapshot. We didn't get to send out many, we gave out the majority at a party and a few more to Mike's coworkers (the girls are very popular over there), but we did make a quick run over to the post office on the 13th to mail a select few, mostly to grandparents.

I was glad we did valentines throughout the early part of the month though, because Valentine's Day was rather low-key. Em had a couple bad nights last week, so I was a bit run down; and the house wasn't looking so hot, so I mostly wanted to clean. Luckily, the girls are at a great age. They are easy to please and are even starting to take matters into their own hands.

Maggie woke us all with hand-written Valentine's Day cards she made all by herself. They were so sweet. Mine said, "TO MOM LOVE MAGGIE" with a picture of a heart. Mike's said, "TO DAD LOV MAGGIE HVTD DAD F MAGGIE." HVTD=Happy ValenTine's Day, of course. And the F stands for "from," if I had to guess. I love this girl. She just gets more grown up every day.

I had grander things in mind for the holiday, but I settled for making the girls toast with a heart cut out of it and scrambled eggs served in the cut-out. Mike made us a delicious BLT lunch and we ate it in peace with sparkling cranberry juice I had stored away for the occasion, while the girls watched Valentine's Day themed entertainment. While Mike was at a class, and I was putting Emily to bed, the girls cut out hearts and decorated the door. Then we read a couple Valentine's stories before bed. Mike and I got to spend some time just relaxing and watching Studio C on byutv.org. It is such a great stress reliever to spend time laughing together. And we also were able to spend some time reminiscing and remembering Valentine's Days past. You know, I think we really couldn't have enjoyed the day much more, even if it had been fancier. I know I couldn't have sweeter valentines.

Good Advertising

We like to watch Mormon spotlights. Here is our latest favorite:

My sisters and I are going to start our own singing group just like that lady. But our accents might not be quite as cool, since we're not from New Zealand. Also, I think it's neat she has three little girls like me and I think her kitchen/dining area is really simple and pretty.

Anyway, the bios work really well too, because the other day, out of the blue, my suggestible Maggie said to me, "Mom, I wish I could be a Mormon."

I was happy to give her the good news, "We are Mormon! Mormon is just a nickname for members of our church [the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]."

Our other favorite video clip right now is this one:

It illustrates much of our life right now. It made me tear up as I thought about how much I appreciate Mike and all he does for our family. Like the father in the video, he often leaves when we are still sleeping. I most love the part where the kids steal the cell phone and the father's voice narrates, "My wife's phone is now missing." I know how that goes. Except it used to be Dad's Maggie would try to snag when she first woke up.

I am grateful for men like my own husband and father, who in today's world set a standard for others to follow. Even as the media inundates us with examples of immaturity and even infidelity, I know lots of good, righteous men, family members and friends' husbands, both of my own faith and others, who are striving to protect and care for their families. They need support and admiration.

Most of all, I am grateful for the reminder of all parenthood teaches me about my Heavenly Father's love for me. And all of us. Don't know where I'd be without a testimony of that. A lot less happy, for sure.

Holiday Highlights

A month ago we were enjoying the beginning of 2013. We had just said good-bye to the last of our holiday visitors a few days prior and were trying not to be depressed by that fact and were instead immersing ourselves in deep cleaning and projects. (By we, I mean me and an obliging but less enthusiastic Mike.)

For memory's sake, though Valentine's day is quickly approaching, here are some Christmas highlights, though I wish I'd taken out my camera a bit more. I think my mom has a few pictures I need to get my hands on.

♥ Christmas: All gifts were a success and I was happy that Santa didn't go overboard. Wooden blocks were the big thing this year and Emily's castle. The girls were impatient waiting for Em to get up and get through her stocking, as our littlest one is still at that magical stage where they are enthralled by everything, be it wrapping or gift, and can spend a good five minutes with each item before moving on.

♥ Christmas dinner at the in-laws was delish. Mike's parents took care of all the food and the place settings were so pretty. We also were lucky enough to visit with some of his siblings and their families. Funniest part of Christmas was Emily diving in the tub, clothes and all, when I was getting them bathed and dressed for bed before the drive home. Except I forgot Em's pajamas and obviously couldn't put her back in her wet clothes. Luckily, due to a random cut that got blood everywhere during the family concert a couple days prior, we had borrowed some rather baggy little boy pajamas. I was going to return them to my sister-in-law, but instead had to put her back in them. Glad we had more than a diaper, because it was cold!

♥ Some Wii action: I need a couple hours just me and a wii by myself to get comfortable, so I can stop embarrassing Maggie and Kate by my lack of skills. So far I have found the kinnect to be more intuitive. But Tara on the other hand is a Wii master. And humble about it too, I might add. It was fun to get to see Tara and Scot, as they were in from Utah.

♥ My sister Catherine came into town, also flying in from Utah. Unfortunately, she didn't arrive until the wee hours of Boxing Day thanks to some terrible delays--a broken luggage belt and problems at the parking terminal, all after an unplanned layover in Nebraska because her plane ended up low on fuel somehow. (How they allowed that to happen, I do not know. Maybe it's hard to guess how much fuel a plane will burn?)

♥ Les Mis: All the ladies (Mike's mom, Jenn, Tara, Nadine, Cat, and me) went to see Les Miserables and enjoyed it. I hadn't listened to the score for a while and it took me back to high school when we sang a Les Mis medley. I wanted to break out singing, though I refrained so I wouldn't embarrass anyone. But belting out the songs with my sister and harmonizing all the way home was pure joy.

♥ More visitors! My mommy came to see me and my baby sister Rachel. (Thanks again for driving twenty+ hours to see us!! It means more than you know.) We enjoyed Christmas festivities all over again with them and loved every minute with them, even if the visit came to an end all too quickly. I told the girls they could have a sleepover with Rachel in the basement the first night and they were happy to take me up on it. I was surprised they all fell asleep...but shows how tired they were.

♥ 6 Years: Mike and I celebrated six years of married bliss. We went out to Coldstone for some ice cream thanks to a gift card and some babysitting from my mother. It was almost as awesome as last year when we went out to dinner, then opted for Mike's "kind of fun, kind of ghetto idea" of dancing at his office, came home to look through our wedding scrapbook and were surprised by the chance to dance some more in our basement. My sisters and mom had decorated and set up music for us--Catherine spear-headed that effort, no surprise.

♥ Monkeying around: Rachel wanted to see my niece Emma while she was out, as they have gotten together a couple times when my family has been out this way and become friends. My nieces came over to play and everyone went to a place called Monkey Business (a play place with blow-up inflattibles) while Mike and I were on our date.

♥ Ringing in the New Year: We rung in the New Year with the girls a little early, with some previous years' festivities on YouTube. The party blowers and goblets of sparkling grape juice were a big hit. Even with poor Kate who had the stomach bug earlier that day. (Poor Rachel had it right before she left and poor Maggie got it later in the week.) Then we rang in the New Year again alone when midnight came.

As we were YouTubing earlier in the evening, I couldn't help but think of last year when Cat and I couldn't figure out how to watch the ball drop because Mike was chaperoning a stake youth dance and our TV wasn't working right. I think we ended up celebrating about eleven minutes late and with the wrong year's ball drop on YouTube. That was also the night I made Catherine walk to the store for real swiss cheese, because Mike mistakenly bought the imitation, and we didn't have the key to the other car or something, and we needed the cheese for Emily's blessing luncheon on New Year's. Then we stayed up crazy late baking chocolate-peanut butter chip cookies and cleaning the kitchen. Good adventures.

And if you got through that, aren't you digging my heart bullet points? Forgive me for bragging, but I feel so nifty for learning how to do those. Computers are amazing. So are google searches.

P.S. Don't tell me if you've known how to do them for ages. Let me have my moment.