On Saturday carolyn Angela and I got to go listen to the word of God at Women's conference. It was so special. All of the questions we brought were answered. Heavenly Father hears our prayers and knows out questions and concerns and answers them. I love that conference is uplifting, comforting, and strengthening every time. How blessed are we to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. I will forever be grateful for the missionaries (like Dan jones) and my ancestors who had such faith and pressed forward and now myself and my cute family has the gospel in our lives!!

Today we were driving home from church. Carolyn was talking all cute to Julie and julie laughed!! For the first time the most adorable laugh!! She is ridiculously smiley. Like if she is crying, I can just smile and talk to her and she'll smile back. Yes she is so smiley and now laughs!!! Yay!! Such a cute and amazing sound!

One thing I just love about Tommy is that he calls himself "tom tom" and he talks in third person quite regularly. "Tom tom on slide" and then he goes on a slide. I love him

I have found that I just love every stage of kids so far. Julie hit a great stage in life where she responds to people. This morning she was crying and I looked at her and said "julie" and I smiled big at her. She looked at me and stopped crying and smiled back. ❤️

Angela does between 12 to 14 hour practices for gymnastics every week. And that doesn't include her  5 hour meets!! (Which are to come next weekend. Her first one!!). I wrote Angela's gymnastics coach a letter letting her know that the meets on Sunday Angela could not attend. When we joined the gymn Angela made the amazing decision that she didn't want to compete on Sunday's and I made sure that was okay with the gym but I wanted to give a reminder with meets coming up. angelas coach called me and first said that she thought it was great Angela wasn't competeing on Sunday. She said something like, "you are doing what all of us should be doing. Honoring the sabbath day". My heart was full of gratitude for this. I have been so touched by how many good people are in the world. What the coach said next made my heart burst. Before getting off the phone, she voluntarily said that she thought Angela was so kind and so hard working. It just touched my heart. I am glad that she loves gymnastics but I know that that can't bring true joy into our lives.  It's keeping the commandments and loving. It touched my heart to hear someone see this in Angela. That she is so hard working at what she does and that she is so kind. I am so proud of her.

A few cute stories to remember...

When Tommy and I were heading out on our first day of Preschool to go see the temple, we were walking out the door and all of a sudden he got really panicky.  I couldn't understand what he was saying while panicking. It sounded like "choo-choo." I walked him around the house trying to find trains and such and understand what was upsetting him. Then it dawned on me. He was saying "Ju-Ju" (what he calls Julie). She was still inside in her swing sleeping. He was worried we were leaving her home. Love that Tommy.

Another thing I want to remember is Carolyn telling me the day before school started was that she was 31% excited. What a silly mathematical girl.

Angela melted my heart by telling me she wanted to wake up early every day before school so she could read the Book of Mormon each day (she is really really busy right now with school and gymnastics). What an example she is of making sure we always do the essentials every day.

As a family, we counciled together and decided to have Angela and Emily take the bus this year. We have had so many amazing opportunities with taking the bus and Emily and Angela (especially Emily) couldn't be more giddy and excited about the bus :)

Basically, Emily is so sweet. On her first day of school she and one other girls received an award because they were able to get their behavior up to "Awesome" only those two, her and our neighbor, Hannah. Her teacher (Mrs. Jackson) let Emily picked a couple of things out of a price box. She picked two googly eye rings (as pictured above). When she got home, tommy LOVED the goggly eyes. Well to his complete delight, Emily snuck off and came back a few minutes later with such a loving card and gave Tommy the eyes with it. I love Emily's heart.

On our first shopping trip out after the girls left, Tommy was happy to get a balloon.

This also melted my heart. Emily wrote her list of things she wanted to accomplish the first day of first grade. Here is a translation, if needed:
    - Wake up
    - Get Ready for school
    - Go to school
    - Ride the bus home
    - Play
    - Service (meaning, serve someone)
    -  missionary (Meaning, be a missionary and share the gospel in some way)
    - Play
     - Tickle Tommy (give him silly tickles)

Oh, what we can learn from children. I understand more and more each day why the Savior taught us to be like children.

Our garden doing amazing!!! Carolyn's zucchini smily face

The spirit was so strong and I feel it every time I think about Carolyn's blessing that as she is faced with more bad stuff this year than she ever has, she can shine BRIGHTER!!! We started a new Kim tradition this past summer. The summer before the kids go to middle school we study "For the Strength of Youth" together. "For the Strength of Youth" is a booklet from the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ. In it are amazing guidelines that we can follow to become more like our Savior. We studied this together. Online if you study it, talks and videos are provided. As well as questions we can discuss. After studying the booklet, Carolyn was given a beautiful CTR necklace to wear and remember the standards in the booklet. I can't wait to do this with all my cuties! Tommy and I will have to think of something special for the boys to have to remind them when that time comes:)

Actually, the day before middle school Carolyn was given a few things to help her shine and be a light! She picked out her favorite picture of the Savior to put up in her locker...

She also got a "SHINY" sea creature. In the Disney movie "Moana," a silly sea creature sings a song called "SHINY." So we have a joke that each day we can be "SHINEY!" That sea creature is a magnet to hang up in her locker!

This won't last long I am sure, but I love how the girls set out their clothes the day before the first day of school. Angela's set up (complete with the headband and socks) is my favorite :)!

Andrew and I celebrated 12 years. 12 best years ever. It was my turn to plan anniversary. We went to a Rockies game and got some icecream after. Too bad the Rockies lost, but it was fun. I realize every day how blessed i am to have him. He makes me better every day and I love him. He gave me my favorite kind of flowers to get :)! Love the white. Make me remember that I can be with him forever :)

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!

Emily's report: LOVED IT. Way better than kindergarten. Complete with THREE recesses!!

Angela's Report: "As soon as I got out of school, I wanted to go back in for another day right then!"

Carolyn's Report: Stressful!!!! That is how she responded it was stressful getting class to class. So much better than elementary school and she has her favorite teacher 3 times a day.

Even when he was working crazy hours with the firm, this amazing dad has been at every first day of school. He makes everything fun. He blasted music on the way to school :)

Also what Carolyn hung up in her locker. Perfect magnet!

Of course, Julie's first real bath was a HUGE event at our house!! JULIE LOVED it!

I took some pictures off of our cell phones. These are a little random but cute :)

More pictures when Carolyn was the absolute best Ariel EVER!!:

Picture of our family planning of "SUMMER OF SERVICE" We probably said "Summer of Service" a billion times throughout the summer :) It was awesome. Thank you for an amazing dad and husband for coming up with the brilliant idea!!

A very FUN birthday party at the Massiellos!!

A Firetruck at the ward 4th of July party!

A few more pictures of one of my favorite days ever, Julie being born:

Andrew took the 3 older girls to Lakeside Park. Can you tell how much they loved it? They are saving their money up right now to go again :)

NONE of the girls had fear there...just complete fun!

SUMMER OF SERVICE!!! Andrew and the girls helped build a PARK!!! How amazing is that!! They helped build these butterflies and did some painting.

And another one of our star...

A few pictures from the Ashton Reunion.  LOVE this picture of Tommy. THE EYES!!! THE MOUTH!! everything about this is cute to me.

Riding a carriage AND all the kids (except Julie) rode a horse/pony!

DINOSAUR MUSEUM!! Tommy's good place!

And more adoring fans with Ariel!

Tommy got a TREX stuffed animal after the museum. He's obsessed with it to say the least!

Tommy making us all CRACK up with huge laughter at dinner!!

A picture after the first day of middle school

TOMMY'S FIRST DAY of preschool this school year. We did some learning and reading (Tommy reads "Daniel's Dinosaurs" about a billion times a day. After we read it, he says "Again" over and over :)!! After that we went on a field trip to the temple and talked about the temple and then went to the big park close by (Tommy loves throwing his hands above his head and shouting "HUGE" park when talking about big and fun parks)

Prince Eric and Ariel. Obviously, our hearts were bursting during her performances.

What Tommy's learning set up looks like. I love talking about the gospel and our Heavenly Father and Savior the most with Tommy. Letter, numbers, etc will come but I love talking with Tommy about the Savior and His church.