growing up

Nine months Old

And now...

She CRAWLS.

Last week Sophie turned 9 months old and felt so old she busted out crawling AND busted out with her 4 top front teeth... wasn't she busy. Her little white teeth are barely poking out up there. As witnessed by the baby slobber and snot in the pictures, they're still working their way out. Bless her heart. Now we know why she's been such a drooly kisser lately...

tough stuff that teething is.

So here it is, 5:00pm, right before we grilled hamburgers... and Sophie's still chillin in her jammies... but look, she doesn't even care, she's cool like that.

Love you Sophe.

D-Chuck

The Big D, aka D-Chuck

(short for Dallin Charles)

went and turned 12 on us.

The day after my sisters wedding, Bruce took Dallin and Logan to go camping for Dallin's birthday. His buddy D.J. and his dad came too.

They went to the Cavecreek campground because they had these cool organized activities. That night they did a "bug walk" with flashlights and the Park Ranger was there with a black light and he showed them all kinds of native bugs... (you are understanding that Dallin LIVES for this kind of stuff, right)... they saw bugs like:

Arizona brown spider, scorpions, tarantula, crane fly, and blister beetle below (oh yes, if their juicey guts squash on your skin, your skin will blister there)

and the next morning the Park Ranger did a "Rattlesnake Review" where they learned all about 'em. Logan demonstrated to Bruce what you do if you see one, he described what Logan did as "taking 5 steps back VERY slowly... then running like a freak" But then Bruce said after listening to the Park Ranger.... Logan was RIGHT, he said you take 5 steps back quiet and slow, then after that you can run and scream and do whatever you want.

So, Bruce came home from the camping trip looking like DEATH (and grumpy too), big surprise he didn't sleep a lick. After making him go to bed for the afternoon, later that night Bruce and I took Dallin out to eat... ANYWHERE he wanted... you guessed it,

Native Newyorker is where we ended up.

I was cracking up as they told me all about the campout for an hour.

Dallin told me all about the Park Ranger

and the funny things he said, like:

"You have to warn anyone who spends time in the Arizona

desert that everything you see will most likely:

bite you

scratch you

poke you

sting you or

carry a gun"

When we got home that night, we found Dallin's 2 buddies (DJ and Isaac) had decorated our whole driveway with sidewalk chalk for Dallin. (pictures below taken next day)

I had to take pictures of this because the messages were so cute... I was so impressed that 6th grade boys would write nice stuff like "We Y U Dallin" "You the man" "Best Buddies"

The special thing about turning 12 is that Dallin got to recieve the Aaronic Priesthood sunday after church. Now he can help pass the sacrament and collect fast offerings.

He had to be interviewed by the Bishop to make sure he was worthy to recieve this. And it was so sweet. The Bishop started asking him all these questions about the gospel, like quizzing him, and I panicked... I was thinking:

"WHAT, I didn't know he'd do this...WHY didn't I prep him, I should have figured that would happen?!!"... UGH, but it was such a busy week...

then to my wonderful surprise.... Dallin knew it all!! I guess thats why we have Family Home Evening every monday night, no fail, and family scripture study as a family EVERY day, and also make sure Dallin reads his scriptures on his own every night. Afterwards the Bishop said, "that boy knows the gospel". I was so proud of Dallin and so happy!

And we invited my only 2 sister's husbands to help with the blessing:

It was so special, you KNOW I cried, to have BOTH my sisters there with worthy priesthood holder husbands.... sniffle sniffle.... so so special.

Happy 12th Birthday Dallin.

We love you.

You the man.

All married

This has been such an emotional week for me. For lots of reasons.

One major one though was this. My sister got married thursday.

I have cried because it's been so busy.

I have cried because I am so happy for her.

And I have bawled because she is moving to Idaho.

Look at how beautiful she is.

Congratulations Chrissy!

They spent a couple days in Scottsdale, and are coming tomorrow because my son Dallin just turned 12 and is recieving the Aaronic Priesthood. Then they are leaving.

Today Lily asked if she could spend the night at Aunt Sissys house. I started bawling and bawling, I couldn't even talk. I couldn't even say to her that she can't ever sleep there again. It is so sad. But I am so happy for Chrissy and I know she needs her own little family and not just nieces and nephews.

I don't know why I am so bad about telling her how much she means to me and how thankful I am that she is my sister. But I haven't lived apart from her since we've really been adults. And I am so sad. It's going to be so hard.

I have been crying on and off all day today.

I love you Chrissy. I wish I could've been there for you more then I have.

Scorpions

So you have company visiting from Idaho... what "Arizona Experience" do you provide for them while here... besides swimming in April....

Since one of them is a 10 year old boy, how about...

Scorpion hunting along the wall behind the church, Br. Jones caught a few for the boys:

oooo, this even creeped me out... nasty little things, but Keaton was pretty excited, he had never seen a scorpion before, after the pictures were taken, he squashed them!

They're not the kind of pets I want around here.

Easter

Easter Weekend

We had such a wonderful Easter weekend. Saturday night we went to the Easter Pageant at the Mesa temple. It was so beautiful to sit out in the beautiful weather and see the life of Christ dramatized. At the end the feelings in my heart were so powerful, and I knew once again, that Jesus lives. I loved it.

Then for a WONDERFUL EASTER TREAT we got to stay home from church and watch General Conference on TV. This happens twice a year, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, instead of meeting at church, has a world wide conference where we watch via satellite broadcasts at church, or at home on TV if you have cable the Prophet of the world and the apostles speak to us. It is my favorite weekend of the year. When that ended I cried, for real. And then I told each of my kids with tears streaming down my face how thankful I am to have a prophet of God living on the earth today. The messages shared were so inspiring, so poignant for us today, and oh how much they made me want to be a better person. I especially loved how many talks were on the importance of family and the importance of loving and teaching our children.

Prophet Thomas S. Monson above

Prophet and some of the 12 apostles below:

Then our tradition of recent years, since the week before Easter is so busy.... we dye Easter eggs on Easter.

We look like retards, #1 because we didn't have to leave our house for church everyone is still in pajamas... and #2 it was so bright outside everyone went and got sunglasses to wear while dying easter eggs.

You see Bruce, he's so funny.... he made up this little cute game, that after you put an egg in the mug to color, you would run over to the trampoline and do 10 "bronco kicks" before you could get your egg out... you can see Logan in the background below doing his kicks...

Sophie in her 'Horton hears a Who' Onesie

60 Easter eggs were boiled, thats 5 dozen... my kids love hard boiled eggs. They're almost all gone too. They eat them for days. Tonight, seriously, for our Family Home Evening treat they each had a hard boiled egg... aren't they wierd. I had frozen yogurt.

I think the surprising Easter basket slam dunk for the Easter Bunny this year was:

Seriously, who knew. I am pretty sure the Easter Bunny threw this in as a last minute item.... and my kids played with them for HOURS and HOURS... Dallin, my almost 12 year old, is begging for a thousand boxes of these for his birthday next week.

They made cool stuff all day. Here is just one example.

And then ofcourse an

EASTER EGG HUNT

My sister Chrissy is getting married this week, and her fiance is here with his 4 children, so now we have 14 cousins.... they are lined up here waiting to be let out for the hunt:

Look at all the cousins now! 14. How fun.

My heart was so full of gratitude this Easter for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and family (and beautiful weather)

HaPPy EasteR