First half of February: divine orchestration airport, proposal anniversary, indian party

Last year for part of my mom's birthday present, I promised to make a trip out to see her in the next year. So February I flew out to Seattle for a long weekend with mom and it was wonderful! I tagged along with her to her gentle yoga and senior aerobics classes, 

 And we visited and hung out with family,

and I held Lani's baby spencer a lot, 

and we went to a cooking class at PCC where we made gnocchi and a couple of sauces (I LOVED this!)

 I had a lovely time enjoying every second with mama and the family.

 The Seattle airport was busy, as usual. While I waited at the airport to come home, I had my earbuds in and I was facetimeing the family, talking to Jane. A woman, probably in her 50's and she looked like she may be from India, but she approached me as I was sitting there talking on facetime, and she showed me her itinerary. So I pulled out my earbuds and I could tell she couldn't speak english well, or much at all, but I figured she needed help finding her gate and I noticed she was not in the right area of the airport. So I got off the phone with Jane and went over to the depature board and found out where she needed to be. I wasn't sure how long it'd take to get to the other terminal and I had about 15 minutes before I needed to board so I said a quick prayer in my heart that I'd make it and then I had her follow me and we walked out of my terminal and across the food court area and found her gate. Once we got there I motioned to her that she was to stay here and that this was where she needed to be and she smiled a big smile and said in broken english, "thank you sister" and gave me a hug. I'm not sure why she chose me to help her, out of all the people there, standing around doing nothing and here I am on my phone with ear buds in, but I'm glad she did. It was another divine orchestration. The Lord sent her to me because he knew I'd help her. Not all people here in the USA are kind to those from other countries who can't speak their language; they get annoyed and frustrated. But my dad was from Mexico. He had a very thick accent and most thought he was always speaking in Spanish. He was also considered elderly most of my life (he was 56 when he had me) and so I love and have patience for and understand those who are similar. I don't know which of us needed that experience more but it certainly made my day and I'm grateful the Lord put his trust in me and I hope I continue to deserve that trust.

When I walked in the house from the airport, this was in the doorway: love notes from each of the children.

15 years ago on February 6, 2003 Scott proposed and I accepted. Words cannot possibly come close to expressing the love I feel for Scott. He is my world. He is my strength and my anchor. My joy. When he's home, we both just automatically gravitate toward each other. During the day we send texts (not non-stop; he is a hard worker too), and we talk during his lunch break. I am so grateful for our marriage, for our sealing in the temple, that I can be with him for not just now, but for eternity. Here we are 15 years ago, and we thought we were in love then, but I don't think we could've thought it possible how much more that love would grow over the years and I am so looking forward to our time together in the future.

 Annie has learned how to make eggs in a basket! I love that our kids are learning to cook and do laundry and they're becoming such hard workers and amazing little people!

Scott's office moved closer and he will be closer for the next couple of years while they're working on a project nearby, so we try to meet for lunch a little more often (like once or twice a month). Nora and I met him for lunch at Cafe Rio which is a family favorite.

Charles went on an 8 mile bike ride with the Scouts. It was snowing during their ride, but they still did it and he loved it! He loves anything outdoors and active. He's definitely our son. 

 Scott's parents sent us a box of his old things. We found a couple of gems like these old school assingments that talk about what annoyed him as a child, and what he wanted to be when he grows up (a grocery bagger so she can spend more time with his family :)).

 I helped Annabelle cover this entire board with construction paper because her 5 year old sister didn't think it belonged to anyone and she colored all over it in pen. But I think the construction paper turned out looking really nice and she got an A on her animal report!

 Lizzie made crepes with Maddie and then came home and made some for the family! Love this girl!

 Decorating valentine's sugar cookies!

 My 2017 blog book. I printed it through blog2print this time because blurb has made it very difficult to convert my blog to a book, so it's not the same height as the others, but that's okay. As long as we have our family record and photos in one spot, I don't think the height matters.

 I got this book for Scott for his birthday. We read together every night, something spiritual, a lot of times scriptures, general conference talks or the relief society/priesthood lesson for the week but right now we're reading One By One and it's amazing. Elder Bednar, an apostle, often talks about Divine Orchestration and I love it.

 Nora received the Reading Scholar award at school! We love that our kids are good readers. Keep up the good work.

 Nora is obsessed with Stacey and Mark and their dogs. We sit by Mark and Stacey at church every week so she always has that time with them, and then sometimes we'll stop by. This particular time we had a lunch date planned in which we included a dog walk. We sure love this family.

 Valentine's morning love notes! I have years, and years of Valentine's love notes that I'm saving to put into books one day for the kids. Hands down my favorite Valentine's day tradition.

Valentine's Heart shaped pizza!

 Elisa Ludwig and her husband went to Hawaii for a week and she had babysitters stay with their kids, so one day we asked if Andrew and Annika could come play and another day when the babysitter had tests, I had ben and Sam over during the day while the kids were at school.

 On the day I had the boys, Nora and I were invited to an Indian birthday party for a boy in her class, Adi. THis is the same family that I've gone to cook with a couple of times, with Jaya. We were the only caucasion family there but I loved it! I loved learning about their traditions (eating on the floor, using their hands instead of utensils, that women don't come out of the house 40-45 days after having a baby, and that kids sleep in your bed with you until they're 10 years old), I enjoyed getting to know the women better, I loved that they all stayed for the party and helped out, and they were so kind and sweet. And the food was amazing (though our white kids didn't love it, nora or the boys)!

Second Half of January

Saige has been our neighbor for years. She's 7 years old but has a seizure disorder and the mentality of a two year old. We LOVE saige! She brightens up a room just by being in it. It's funny that we've lived by each other twice now; in our last house we were next door neighbors for a few years. Now we aren't next door neighbors but we live one street over. I miss her walking into our house, unannounced, and just wandering around, seeing what people were up to. We're just a little too far for that now. But we get to have her sit with us at church every other week and we babysit her on ocassion. We're lucky to know her and her family. 

 Scott turned 37! We celebrated with a pizookie (giant cookie and icecream) and I even made red meat in their dinner!

 This is what I call a labor of love. I only make this meat because I love Scott and it's his birthday :).

 The 4 of us were able to go to the temple together one day which was nice.

 This poor kindergarten girl is sometimes exhausted when she gets home. Partly because she has to wake up around 630 to be on time, and I'm sure she works hard when she's there as well.

 I took this picture after the kids were off to school with Scott (he drives them in the morning on his way to work, which is very nice). As you can see, the room was not tidied or the bed made, but he DID read his scriptures and that's something we've been trying to make into a routine each morning for the children and so it was still a win! One day we'll get both bedroom cleaned and scriptures read. One step at a time :).

First Half of January

Wow, this is the longest stretch I've ever gone without posting here! I will be better. Last month I printed out our 2017 blog book so I better get caught up since the New Year!

We celebrated the New Year by taking the kids to a Thai Restaurant. Scott and I love Thai, but we weren't sure if the kids would like it, but they did! And they really enjoyed using chopsticks. 

I started the Book of Mormon again, but this time with this Book of Mormon study guide which is over 900 pages. Stacey gifted it to me and I am loving having this to add to my study this time around of reading it through. 

 Scott and I try to go on dates each week, and usually it's to the temple, dinner or just a movie and treat night at home. We tried out an Indian place recommended by a friend from India called Saffron Valley. Very yummy! This huge cone thing is some sort of crepe that you dip in the sauces.

 January 6th, Charles turned 12 years old!!!! 12 is a big age as it means he can do some temple work and receive the priesthood.

 Charles had a few friends over to play ping-pong, Madden on the Wii, and watch Thor.

And we had some cream puffs, chips and donuts...Charles' faves! 

 I love this picture because it shows Nora sleeping while NOT sucking her thumb! She quit the habit!!! It was hard, but she did it! Prior to her deciding she wanted to stop, we talked about how much she was getting sick this year and let her know it was partly because of her thumb-sucking habit, she was putting lots of germs into her mouth every day and getting sick. We told her once she went 21 days in a row without sucking her thumb, we would celebrate. We offered lots of prayers on her behalf and she passed 21 days of no-thumb-sucking! She wanted to celebrate with ice cream sandwiches and a couple of games of hide and go seek.

Our gym is functional and it's been such a blessing this winter! I use the treadmill for walking almost daily (I hurt my IT band and haven't been able to run for awhile).

I am the Primary Music Leader at church which means I teach the children, ages 4-11, songs about Jesus. It's a hard-working but fun calling and I love getting to know all the children. I've been the singing leader since July and I'm still learning names! We do have over 100 kids in primary, plus lots of teachers, but I'm determined to get them down and I've come a long way. This is a game we did recently that the kids loved! We were learning the song "I am a child of God" and a child would come up and go fishing and on the fish was an action (ie clap hands, march in place etc) and under each fish was a dress up item that we would put on one person from the primary presidency, and they would have to keep it on if the children sang the verse well. It was a big hit.

Nora's in half day kindergarten and I love that we get to spend some one-on-one time together each day. Usually once she's home we make lunch (here we're making an Indian rice pudding called kheer), we do her homework and she reads me a book and then sometimes she helps me with prepping dinner or cleaning or sometimes she'll play close by, or we'll run errands or she sees if a neighbor can play. I'm going to miss our lunch dates and reading time next year.

Jane started gymnastics in January and is loving it! She wishes she could go twice a week, and I think we will have her switch to that once we get back from our trip to Europe.

Once a month I'm in a cooking club with mostly friends from my old ward. There are a couple of new faces in the ward that joined and Stacey comes too. It's fun to spend time with these ladies and share healthier recipes and foods.

Stacey and I were late getting to this cooking club meeting because when I stopped by her house to pick her up, my van died! It was a divine orchestration though because had it died at our house, we would've just taken the car in and spent lots of money trying to figure out what was wrong (Scott had changed the battery just a couple of months before so we figured it wasn't that). But Mark came out to jump it so I could take it home and he noticed that when Scott had put the battery in, he hadn't tightened it enough and it was in there very loose and so he just tightened everything up and it started without being jumped and we haven't had a problem since! I'm grateful for the forseeing care and guidance of God over us.

We got free tickets to a BYU women's gymnastics meet so Jane took her bestie Skye and Elisabeth took Bekah and Emma, all of which enjoy gymnastics.

These two girls are the cutest and we sure love Cosmo the Cougar!

Jane tried out ice skating for the first time at a friends birthday party. I rented her one of these seal trainers and after a short while she could skate without it!

Charles' first visit to do temple work was on an early Saturday morning. Our temple gets very, very busy and sometimes the youth have to wait 2-3 hours to do baptisms...unless you go early morning, then you get right in!

Jane received the Reaching Scholar award for her class. All of our kids are excellent readers and we've noticed that when Scott and I read more, they read more, so we're really working on establishing good, nighttime reading habits before bed where we all sit and read for 1/2 hour or so. It can be hard carving out time like that regularly in our busy schedules but it's so important and it will help them in their futures so we're making it a priority.

A couple of weeks after Charles turned 12, he gave his first talk in sacrament meeting and did a great job speaking about what we can do now to prepare to serve a mission.