Emily turns TWO!

Oh, we love this Emily girl! It took a lot of thinking for her to decide what sorta family party we would have. The biggest runner-up was a Grinch Party. But the winner was.....drum roll please...a CareBear Party!!! The girls insisted that they made the cake and not me - so here Emily and Angela are - all on their own building a beautiful masterpiece! Beautiful Rainbow cake for Carebears!

 The night before Emily's birthday, the girlies worked hard to build a beautifully decorated birthday house! Specially decorating chairs  - tons of balloons - "Love You" signs - etc. These girls know how to party.

 THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!

 Carolyn and Angela picked out gifts for Emily at the Dollar Store. 1000 stickers from Carolyn and Angela picked out a purple piggy bank for Emily. What thoughtful gifts...they sure love their sister.

 The best gifts are the homemade ones...Angela's beautiful birthday card to Emily...

 Carolyn spent HER OWN money to bring Emily McDonalds to get an icecream cone and then play. What a sweet heart!

Emily's new racetrack for her birthday!!!! Yahoo!

 Human obstacles for the cars to go through...over Carolyn and under Angel's legs. I love the creativity the race car track brings.

 Angela's good friend, Corrinia, shares the same birthday as Emily. Angela snuck out for a few hours to go to a fancy restaurant with her friend. Look at those pretty girls all dressed up to celebrate!!!!

 Daddy's Girl :) - Emily is obsessed with Clifford's books right now. She brings home about a billion after every trip to the Library and loves anyone that will read them to her! Clifford is her all-time favorite series right now!

 Daddy's Birthday Girl

 For the birthday party, everyone became a Care Bear. We all thought up of which Care Bears each person could be. Emily was "Chit Chat Bear" because Emily loves to talk to people. Angela was "Love A Lot Bear" because Angela loves life and everyday of life and loves everyone. Carolyn was "Friendship Bear" because she loves being a Social Butterfly and loves being a great friend. Daddy was "Champ Bear" because she's a Champ Dad and Emily said I could be "Silly Bear." Here Emily is in her "Chit Chat' tummy she made:

 Carolyn taking care of Dad's foot on Emily's birthday. He hurt his foot bad and Carolyn - on her own - took care of him :)

 Emily loves doing puzzle.s Esp her Little Mermaid puzzles. She is also a fan of her Arthur puzzles.

 Our "Love A Lot Bear" :)

Happy Birthday, Emily! Mom was a wuss and cried while singing "Happy Birthday" - how did I get so lucky with Emily! I am so blessed to have her as my daughter. I love you! Love you! Love you, Emily!
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Hehe Helper

I love this cute girl.

 Do you know what she is doing?

 She is helping me with laundry of course. 

 Emily saw that I was folding laundry so she went up to her room and pulled out all of her clothes out of her dresser. Then she brought it done stairs to me with the biggest grin on her face. She was helping me by bringing me her clothes to fold.

 Yes, I laughed for like 5 minutes. And, yes, I realize I am the luckiest.

Soaring! Flying!

Last week on Saturday we really thought we saw an eagle flying. Ever since then Carolyn has been inlove with learning about Eagles. They are so fascinating! My favorite thing I've learned is some eagle's wing span is 8 feet! That's insane! When we go to Carolyn's basketball practices I am just in awed - how high those hoops are are how wide some can be! Carolyn's favorite fact is that they can see in different directions with their eyes. One eye can look forward and the other sideways. Way cool! Carolyn is writing a book about Eagles right now. She has been working hard at drawing them. Look at her go!

Learning Time

I love Learning Tim with Emily and Angela while Carolyn is at school. This week Emily is working on writing her name:)

I love Angela's journal entries she does for Learning Time! Here is her response to the question - "What animal would you want to be?"

"I want to be a butterfly!"

I love the fact that when Angela writes she loves using exclamation marks.

Bronco Superbowl

The game was depressing. Nothing to report.

But we sure got a few cute pictures....

....and even if it was depressing, we had fun at Chris' house playing with cousins and eating some good food.

Carolyn's Testimony

Carolyn's testimony at sacrament was so powerful and faith-building. She said (to my best I quote):

“I am going through a trial right now. That trial is that I have to change schools. I know my Father in Heaven wants me to go to a new school, so I am doing it.”

It made Andrew and me get teary eyed and I don't know if I have ever seen Andrew get teary eyed at church. We love Carolyn. What a testimony of faith and understanding.

So many people came up to all of us at church and expressed their thankfulness for a testimony of such faith and obedience and understanding of the gospel.

The Relief Society President sent me an email about Carolyn. She said it perfectly. The email said:

“I wrote down something your daughter said in her testimony because it touched me so deeply. 'I know my Father in Heaven wants me to go to a new school, so I am doing it.' What faith! What trust! What obedience”