What a good boy! Exploring all sorts of things and making a mess while doing it!! Got to LOVE that cute tongue sticking out!! :) :)

For Christmas, Carolyn asked Santa give money to people in need instead of her. Santa was pretty darn proud of Carolyn and gave her a bunch of money to use to give and serve others. Carolyn found a service project on "just serve" where we made sack lunches for those in need and then brought them to homeless shelters. I have never been to a homeless shelter and especially the youth homeless shelter was a big eye opener. So glad for my sweet Carolyn in getting us out and serving those who need- afterall, aren't we all beggars? (Elder Holland's talk is forever in my heart)

Another shout out to my Carolyn. She is such a sweety. Here she is entertaining Emily and her friends. What a fun gal :)

And one more shout out :) Carolyn got Tommy to sleep a couple of weeks ago. It was basically sweetest.

For Andrew and my anniversary, Andrew totally spoiled me. He got me these fancy gifts. My favorite  thing is he filled the house with hearts. On those hearts he wrote nice things to me. It was fun finding it in places ALL over. (even when I got Tommy in the morning - he had a heart on his back :) I have the best husband ever. I am so blessed and I can't express that enough.

FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN!!! She wished she could go ALL day so that's a good thing she is loving it!!! (Mommy misses her, though - who wouldn't miss this cute girl, I mean, Really?!)

First day of Third Grade!!!!!!

Making a "3" with her fingers :) What a cutie

Yup, pretty much a cutie

First day of Fifth grade!!! Trying to make a "5" :)

What a cute :)

We love Daddy!! So happy he comes for first day of school drop off :)

Going out to icecream after Emily's first day of Kindergarten :) We got to hear about her amazing day over some yummy icecream :)

,,,,when Emily gets home from kindergarten, we get some good time together. We usually play games and read together :)

I agreed to having the girls do one lemonaide stand...so here it is. They were so excited for this day.

Cutest customer they got :)

For Young Womens, we had a talent show. The mia maids were in charge and it was really fun doing it.

Daddy's Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We love Daddy and were so excited to celebrate his amazing life! The girls made him a candy poster. I love the things THEY made up. Some of my favorite things they wrote about Andrew:
- You "STOP" us from making bad choices (Gobstoppers)
- You make us "Laugh" (Laffy Taffy)

The talent show :) The girls had to try out the set

Andrew and I made a "date jar." I love it. Carolyn loved the idea so we made a "one on one" time jar. It was tricky, but we figured out a time I get to have one on one time with each cutie. I love the things Carolyn came up with to put in the jar. It's going to be a fun year! :)

I love our "Question Jar." I love that the girls wanted to continue to put questions in our jar and talk about it during breakfast. Angela made the questions for this first while. She got some ideas for questions on lds.org/youth/learn - the questions the young women talk about are great questions for us to talk about!

This basically made my heart melt. Angela made this beautiful picture for me. I love it.

Today Tommy held up the basketball toy we have. It held it up high and looked at Emily and I and said, "Ball!"

What a cutie. And he loves that basketball!

The girls got beautiful Father's Blessings today for before school starts. We had a little lesson discussion about Father's blessings. We watched a video from lds.org about blessings - and asked and talked about questions. The spirit was amazing as we talked about it and amazing as the girls received their blessings! Blessings do come from our loving Heavenly Father,

Carolyn

• Blessings come from your Heavenly Father
• Come to your parents often for your guidance and counsel -when upset and when you have work – they will help you feel better
• When those times come, Pray – in the middle of lunch, class, etc – say a prayer in your heart
• Pray and Heavenly Father will guide you and bless you
• He will help you be strong in temptation
• Popularity and being in cool groups is not important
• You can be a light to many by opening your heart
• Seek ways to lead
• Be a leader
• Be a friend to those who are stuggling
• Learn a lot this year
• Grow in your education
• As you stay close to the gospel, your education will flow in your heart and mind. The gospel will help you do well.
• You will do great things. You will be a leader in the church. Your choices now will effect that. Always improve yourself.

Angela

• Blessed you to know your home is a safe place where you will be protected from the world. Bless you to feel safe and happy in your home. Your family are your biggest cheerleaders. Your family cares more about your happiness than even you.
• Your family is not at school. You can feel your Heavenly Father there. When you feel bad about yourself, PRAY
• You will have the special ability to smile and be happy in school. As you do this, people will be happy, too.
• People in school will see your light and want to be close to you.
• You will have fun
• You will have a special ability to connect with your teacher
• All things you need to know to progress, you will learn
• Desire to be the best you can be and you'll be happy with being the best you can
• God is always with you and He loves you

Emily

• Know how much your Heavenly Father loves you and is so happy you are going to school
• Know there are always things to learn – open your heart and think of how you can help others learn
• Happiness comes in this life by helping others to progress
• Happy for school
• Bless with a love to learn, play and listen
• Make lots of friends – learn from your friends
• Find way to help friends be happy
• Mom and Dad you sisters can help you
• Ask for help, don't figure it out on your own
• Heavenly Father loves you
• Jesus loves you

We had a late night with friends before school starts!! Tommy came and played. Madeline and Addie and CaLee came to play!

Tommy Tommy!

We love our Tommy!! I thought taking care of him would get old, but it still hasn't gotten old for the girls. They take turns getting him out of his crib when he wakes up; the girls rotate in the car as of who gets to sit by him and take care of him during car rides (each month, the girls switch spots so they can each have a turn by him every 3 month)...etc etc. We love our Tommy!

Here are some ADORABLE things he is doing that makes us want to squish him every day:

- He is an AWESOME sign languager!! His favorite sign is still "bird." He also signs "milk" when he wants his baba. He does this adorable thing that when he wants you to hold him, he holds out one arm and clasps his hand. It's REALLY REALLY cute. The other day at the pool (on Saturday), he would do this when he wanted me to walk him to something (so when he wanted me to bring him to a fountain, he would do this with his arm until I could bring him to what he wanted). Let's just say the pool was so fun with him. It's so fun he can tell me what he wants now :)

- He does this CUTE thing with his tongue. He opens his mouth a bit and then sticks out his tongue and moves it back and forth. Too cute. He does it ALL of the time! Maybe on Sunday, I will ask one of the girls to capture this on video. Good family history work, right :)

- He LOVES watching cars go back and forth outside. One night it was only thing I could do to cheer him up.

- He is really good at getting around. Last week he started crawling up the stairs. He like to go our fireplace a lot and climb up on the brick ledge and then crawl down it again. Pretty cute.

- We love our Tommy Tom!