Wedding Dresses

Now that Christmas is over, we are in full wedding planning mode. Teach is off in New Jersey for the week, so we are a little limited in some of what we can do, but I did get dresses all ordered for the girls although there are definite drawbacks to buying stuff off the internet.

I got in on a great deal with my Kohl's cash for three dresses for my girls that are a bit bigger. They arrived yesterday. Or should I say ONE arrived yesterday... The shipping labels said 3 and the order said 3, but there was only one in the box. When I called to get that fixed, suddenly they didn't have any left in the size I wanted so I had to settle for a size smaller. Fortunately the dress is stretchy so it shouldn't really be a problem, just that we have to wait to get them again.

Then there are the dresses I ordered for the other girls. This one was totally my fault. I had the girls check the sizing chart and then let them decide what size to order. Big mistake. Huge! The size two I ordered for Beauty fits Crafty perfectly, except that Crafty thought she needed an 8 and it just hangs on her. I placed a new order with two smaller dresses, but now I have to figure out how to do returns.

On the good side, my dress fits great!

Turning One

Yummy cake!

My Little Sis's baby turned one yesterday and we had so much fun at her birthday party! We are fortunate to have enough room to entertain the family at our house, but Little Sis does much better spreading people out at the church.

Pulled pork sandwiches are good too.

She moved the party back a bit because her hubby was sick, and we went down a bit early to help her set up tables. I love that our church has these resources for us and we don't have to pay anything to use them. We set the tables up like a large C on one half of the gym floor and then we let the kids play basketball on the other side. OK, I admit it, I put up a few myself. (I'm going to need a LOT of practice before we start playing next week.)

The party was fun and casual and her little one was so cute eating cake in the middle of the group. She loved opening gifts with the other kids all grouped around her. My favorite gift was the hat that Beauty made for her. The little hippo is so cute!

 We should have a family party like that every week.

Guest Blog:Daylen's Mission Letter By Princess

Here is the email I got from Daylen today. He's serving a mission in Minnesota right now.

 

Hello everyone from all over the world. I know you've all been dying to hear from me about this past week. But so you know, it's just as crazy as the previous weeks just in different ways. So Tuesday was the first time I've ridden a bike in about 3 years. (I tried to get him to go on a bike ride with me so many times but he wouldn't.) It was great to be back on but I was still cautious because of recent events that happened before I left Utah, (He got hit by a car while riding his bike in like 10th grade, in fact, he got $5000 for the damages and stuff and that is actually paying for most of his mission) plus there was an inch of snow on the ground and I didn't want to recreate that event. Needless to say though, my butt was hurting after 5 minutes of riding because my seat is so solid. :P Then when we played basketball that night, I actually played decently. Everyone said it's because I wear my g's when I play.(I have no idea what g's are) Yes, I where them when I play, don't judge! Then we had district meeting the next morning. It was crazy because we had it at 8 instead of 10. The reason for that is because one of the Waconia ward members came and made us breakfast at 9 and then we went and sang carols in the chapel. For any of you chefs that like to try new things, he made his eggs with cream cheese. They were really good, but I still prefer my mom's eggs with milk and Lawry's. :) After that we went home so we could exchange with the AP's (Assistants to the President). Most stressful day of my life!!! 1. It was the AP's. 2. It was Elder Tuna Fish.(No that's not his real name) 3. I was staying in Chaska. It was nuts! This basically means I was staying in my area, which I was still figuring out where everything was, and was in charge of all the lessons. Things were fine though. After we exchanged we went and caroled at a senior home in Minnetonka. The only nice thing I thought that Elder Tuna Fish was there, because he plays the piano very well. Then we went to the library to do service. We found 0/150? lost books in 2 1/2 hours. Then we went tracting (door knocking) until 5. He had weird methods of finding. He had me imagine a perfect investigator family, then we prayed to find those people with that description. At this point I thought this guy was crazier than the Mad Hatter. We knocked and caroled and only managed to give away 1 pass along card. Typical days tracting here in Chaska. Then we went to our dinner appointment with the Whale's. (Let's stick with the underwater theme.) Wonderful family who met in BYU. I think that everyone I meet here knows where South Jordan is, just because they went to BYU. That and there is hundreds of BYU fans up here!! After dinner we asked if he'd be willing to join us in an appointment. The rules are, that we must have someone else with us when we teach a single female. So he joined us as we went and taught Ariel (as in the little mermaid). A single lady who's in her mid 50's from Vegas. Here's where the cool part comes in. As we started to teach Ariel her roommate came and sat in on our lesson. His name is Flounder and he had a lot of questions. So as I talked to Ariel about some of the things she read, Elder Tuna Fish and Brother Whale started talking to Flounder. In no more than 2 minutes they started listening to what Ariel and I were discussing. It turns out that they have a lot of the same questions, but they bash each other and don't let the other one speak. So cool part is that we got a new investigator and a fellow-shipper for him, but bad part is that we have to teach them separately and they live in the same little apartment. After we went and taught King Trident. We had a really cool scripture study session that answered some of his prayers. It was really amazing and inspired. Then he gave Elder Companion (still on exchanges) and I our Christmas presents. (A card with $50 and DQ Blizzards) Then we went back home. The next morning, I got all my packages from the office. Elder Companion and Elder Boat came in with them when we exchanged back. Elder Companion and I then proceeded to decorate our Christmas wall, clean our apartment, weekly plan. After we went Christmas shopping where another tender mercy happened. We went to Goodwill (DI/Thrift Store in Utah) and saw a member that was in the Minnetonka ward before the boundaries changed. She recognized Elder Companion and as a Christmas present gave us $50. The missionaries weren't lying when they said that being a missionary could be a job! While she was getting change, cashier started talking to me...more like trying to flirt with me. We started talking about the church and we gave her a pass along card and told her to go check out the new church video. After we finished our Christmas shopping, we went home and wrapped presents before heading off to the Eel's for the night. We had a wonderful dinner! We had fondue. So there were oil pots in the middle of the table and we could fry different things in it. It was really good, but I think I undercooked mine, because I didn't feel good later that night. But we had a fun time. We had a talent show, then we read the Christmas story and sang carols in between, and then we played a game of Aggravation/Dirty Marbles. We did get presents and I won't say them, but you can see them when I send out pictures. Christmas day was the same. The Waconia elders stayed with us since their activities for the day were out our way. So we got up and made them breakfast. Then we opened presents. Elder Companion and I ended up getting more because Sister Salmon came and brought us presents from the ward. Then we went to the Octopus's (Octopi, Octopice?) for brunch, more presents and Skyping. I will say it was a little weird Skyping my family, but those feelings quickly left as we started talking. It was wonderful to see everyone. I even saw my grandpa who I was not expecting to see over there! So you know we only had about 45 minutes to Skype then we had to bear our testimonies for the last 5 minutes. Shortest hour of my life!!! It went by so fast that we dragged it out for ten minutes more than allotted. Then we went back to the apartment so the other elders weren't alone for very long, then we went to the Jellyfish's for Christmas Dinner. Such amazing food here! I feel like I never left home with how good it is. Then Saturday came. King Trident's baptism went wonderfully!! We woke up to about 6 inches of snow downtown! So happy it came, but we could have used that yesterday!! We filled the font which happened to be two hours shorter than we thought. Apparently the top step has an emergency drain, so when the ordinance happened it only went to mid thigh on them. We had to baptize him twice because the water was so low. Better than doing it in a frozen lake!

Guys, I know this church is true and I know that Christ was sent here to atone for our sins. I know that he runs his church today through Thomas S Monson and that he restored his church through Joseph Smith. And I know that we can all follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by priesthood authority and that we can renew those covenants every Sunday by partaking of the sacrament. I love each and every one of you and thank you all for your prayers and sacrifices. Stay true!

--

Elder Daylen

 

Aint' he a cutie? I try to get him to put more personal stuff but... Oh well.Love him anyways.

Sledding

Remember I told you we got a foot of new snow for Christmas? Well, there was no way I was going out on Christmas Day, but by Saturday morning, the kids were all itching to go sledding. It still took us until after lunch before we finally got everyone bundled up and out the door.

The park where we normally go was crowded with families and we could barely find a place to park. Both lots were totally full and people were starting to park on the street. We saw one guy even make his own spot on the sidewalk although you couldn't really tell it was the sidewalk since it was still buried in snow.

It was sunny but cold and there were so many people there! Moms and dads and kids of all sizes and shapes were enjoying the slopes. Our favorite hill is about 100 feet long and steep enough to get a little speed going. It wasn't long before Bossy's family showed up to join us.

Curly was absolutely fearless! I think he went up and down that hill about 35 times. Maybe more. He discovered a little jump and I explained to him how to lie down on his stomach and just as he hit the edge to pull up on the sides of the sled. It worked great! The first time he caught air he was addicted and he didn't stop until we finally loaded everyone in the van after more than an hour.

Scout was a bit nervous and I finally pushed her down the hill the first time, but then she remembered how fun it was and got herself back on the sled. I made 3 trips down, two with Baby Doll and one with Scout and Baby Doll. I even convinced my sweetie to get on a sled.

Once.

Bossy took Baby Doll down, but honestly, Baby Doll soon realized she could go all by herself and then she just made the trip alone. We were all cold and tired by the time we left, even Curly. Hot chocolate and candy canes finished off the fun. I'm pretty sure the kids will be up for another trip tomorrow.

May Your Days be Merry and Bright

We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas here! Ever since Teach came back from her mission two Christmases ago, I have gotten all I want for Christmas... having my family and all of my children around me. I hope that number will just keep growing and growing and growing.

We got to bed earlier than usual on Christmas Eve and because of work schedules and the snowstorm, we didn't get a pic of everyone in their new green (bay packers) blog shirts. Fajita was the generous giver this year and they looked great! The kids let us sleep in until almost 7:00 AM before knocking on the door and rousting us out of pleasant dreams.

It was a happy, exciting morning with much love and laughter... and SNOW! We got over a foot of new snow on Christmas morning. It was so beautiful, but it made things a bit hazardous so we didn't see everyone until Christmas dinner around 5:00. Even Grandpa managed the snow so he could have my sweetie's delicious rolls and prime rib.

I think my favorite gifts were the hats so carefully crocheted by Beauty. She made them each unique and warm. The ones that look like My Little Ponies are so cute! Sport's looks like a football and mine is perfect for chilly baseball games. It even has a B for Bingham. Bossy made me a calendar using Shutterfly and it has tons of pics of her kids and mine. And oh, you should see the beautiful painting that Drama Queen made for us! A pic won't do it justice, but I will try to put one up for you tomorrow.

Princess gave me 12 frames, each with a pic of one of the kids and the workings for a giant clock. I'm so excited to put that up on the wall as soon as we get the Christmas things all put away. The kids know that homemade is always my favorite and even Baby Doll repurposed frames from Beauty and The Beast's wedding and turned them into beautiful pics of Jesus with a different title on each one.

Not that I didn't love all of the things I was given. I'm just so glad my kids are loving and giving and kind to each other..

We spent the rest of the evening playing games and talking and sharing the nut prize. Sport was the winner of the $10 gift card when he pulled the giant walnut out of his eggnog shake. The kids slowly drifted off to their own homes and Teach packed her bags so she could leave for New Jersey to be with her sweetie. We waited out the rest of the day, not wanting the magic to end. I even managed to keep the Dog Walker from taking down all the decorations...

Maybe tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

Guest Blog: Light Display, By Dog Walker

I know it's the moment you've all been waiting for. I've done it again. I set up an amazing Light Display for Christmas. It took me more of a long time to get it ready for the rest of the holiday season for all of you to see. A lot of times, it's hard to try to become the best house with a lot of holiday spirit in the neighborhood. Since I set up the Corn Maze display for Halloween this year, I've been noticing on our News website in Utah that actually lets you set up a location for everyone around Utah to come see the amazing display they would ever see in a lifetime or even a holiday time.

As it turns out, since after Halloween and I took the corn maze and lights off, my mother told me that before a blizzard ever comes anytime before Thanksgiving, I should get all the lights on the roof and make sure they're securely on and that they won't be blown on a blustery day. On the weeks after Thanksgiving, I've been trying to make sure that everything was done, especially getting things looking good on our lawn and the trees.

After I ran out of ideas, I told my parents that I was permanently done putting up lights for the rest of the season. Unfortunately, by the week when it's close to Christmas day, I was wrong about that. As a matter of fact, when my parents found out that our house with the display was on the News, they decided that they buy more holiday display supplies to be added to the rest of it, so that everyone who's slowly driving by would come and see the display. For instance, Mom and Dad bought me for inflatable attractions, like Elsa and Olaf from Frozen, a teddy bear, and a giant Wiener dog dressed like Santa Claus, or maybe Santa Paws :P. Anyway, if Beauty and the Beast's dog, Franco saw it, he might be frightened or not. Maybe tomorrow they'll bring their dogs with to see it.

Every now and then, someone from a different neighborhood or city would stop and congratulate me for making the most amazing display throughout Christmas, because it brought them into the spirit of it. As for today, on Christmas Eve, a guy whom we didn't know stopped by and gave me a Christmas card for making it the best display in Utah as well as many of the other displays.



And another thing, someone taped a little note on our front door that said that we have the best display around this time of year. I received a text from Bossy saying that she received the same note. Okay...I'll confess, that I didn't just put our location on the News website that talks about a lot of cool displays around Utah to see, but I also put Bossy's house right on the website. I just didn't want to be the only member of the family who has the talent of putting up such a dazzling display on our house for the holidays.

I'm pretty sure a lot of you who are followers and live in either a different state or country would wish to see my house, but since I'm putting up pictures on this post, I'm also pretty sure that you get the idea of what I'm talking about. Just to be honest, I'm not really a professional of wrapping lights around an entire tree, because I feel like I don't have a better ladder to go around, or I just don't have an adjustable pole that can reach the very top and it wouldn't be a problem at all every year. Maybe next year, I'll be able to find a way to wrap lights around an entire tree so that it can look professional like everyone's houses or even the lights from either the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork or the lights around Temple Square. I hope you all enjoyed this post and I hope you have a great holiday season.

Merry Christmas to All! And to All a Good Night!

Christmas Adam

Making Gingerbread

Today was a beautiful, glorious day! Princess made gingerbread all morning while my sweetie put together sweet pork for dinner in the crockpot so it wasn't a huge deal tonight while we were at the temple. I'm happy to say that my Christmas shopping is done and the gifts are wrapped. (I don't know when that has ever happened before!).

We had fun buying candy and treats to deck out all these marvelous houses. My favorite is the one that the Drama Queen made. I would never have thought to make it into a nativity. But you can judge for yourself. My kids and my grandkids are just so creative.

I loved being in the temple today with the Drama Queen. She is such an amazing, loving, caring person. Seeing her in white and making those important covenants... having my oldest 5 children all in the temple at the same time with my dad and my son-in-law and daughter-in-law was the best Christmas gift I could have been given, except for very possibly the one my sweetie has been doing for me. He started 12 days of Christmas with a binder and one sheet of paper, Baby Doll's sweet testimony.

Each day he has added a testimony from a different child to help complete my book. He even rewraps the binder for me each day so that I can open it again and share the testimonies with all of the brothers and sisters. He also gives me a letter that I read aloud the tells how much he loves and appreciates each child. The spiritual gifts are the most important to me. Don't buy me diamond rings or fancy things...
  

More Fun Christmas Activities

Curly's Awesome Candy Race Cars (he didn't want a train)

I want to share a few more exciting things we did last week. On Friday, I helped with Curly's class Christmas party in the morning. The kids made candy trains that they got to take home and eat. I was in charge of Curly's table with 5 kids so it was pretty low key and fun. When some of them started to finish, I was put in charge of reading Christmas stories. We got through about six before I had the whole class on the rug with me. That was my favorite part! I would have made a great librarian.

Sweetie Claus

Then Teach had invited my sweetie to play Santa Claus for her class right after lunch. He presented each of them with a small gift and I got to hand out soda and frosted sugar cookies. It was so much fun to meet her students after I have heard her talk about them so often. Twiz was also with us. My sweetie drove all the way to Rexburg to pick him up and move him down here on Thursday (then he flew home to be with his family for Christmas on Saturday morning). Teach is flying out to meet them all on Saturday the 26th.

Then on Friday afternoon we had our Girl Scout Christmas party. The girls made cute crafts and of course I forgot to take pics while the girls were here, but they each made both of these snowmen. Then on Friday night I actually had a little free time so Drama Queen and I went to the distribution center to buy her temple clothing.

Did I tell you she is being endowed on Christmas Adam, the 23rd? We are so happy for her! I will fill you in a little more tomorrow night, but if I don't get some sleep, I'm going to be too tired for the session.

Christmas Party 2015

I know Princess wrote a beautiful post for me yesterday about our annual family Christmas party, but she didn't have any current pics and I had some fantastic ones on my phone (as well as about 2 dozen blurry ones...).

Love this pic of Grandpa!

We had dinner first, ham and baked potato bar. Then we got the family decorating sugar cookies. It is so fun to see how creative they all are.

 
Then it was time for Santa to visit. My sweetie does an amazing job with the kids every year. My dad shared his testimony and some precious memories with us before we exchanged gifts, finished off four gallons of ice cream swirled into eggnog shakes and said our goodbyes.

I love trying to keep the family together. It's not always easy, but when there is love there, all things are possible. I hope when my children get older, they will carry on this tradition for our family.

Including the sugar cookies...

Guest Blog: Family Christmas Party 2015 by Princess

If you haven’t discovered already, our family is full of traditions. In fact we have so many we are constantly pushing some in and out and cramming way more into our schedule than what should be physically capable (but our mom is Wonder Woman so it works out). Today we had one of my favorite traditions: the family Christmas party. Now I’ve been to about 19 of these now (I say about because someone will probably prove that we skipped a year or point out the fact that we used to do two a year) and let me tell you there are some classy moments. The first one I can remember Santa (played by the one and only Sweetie) brought all the little girls these big plushie dolls. The doll was as big as me and I loved that thing so much. It’s this really random memory but an important one.

You can't prove this is from 2 years ago...

Another Christmas Prima Donna and I weren’t being very helpful getting ready so my mom sent us up to get in the shower and told us to take a little while. We loved taking showers when we were little. We played store and restaurant and dolls. In fact there was one book we had that was actually made to go in the water. We read that book so much we had it memorized forwards and backwards. In fact I still know most of it… “shout me hears he fun was that gee out right jumps he done poppy’s when.” The point is Prima Donna and I spent a lot of time playing in the shower as kids. This particular day was no different and we ended up missing most of the party because of it. If I remember correctly we had a nice time discussing Prima Donna’s

From the talent show

crush on the next door neighbor.

Another Christmas party we had a huge nerf gun fight. Another one we had a magician come and I remember I was the lucky girl who got to keep a

a white rabbit puppet. One Christmas party we did a talent show… I’m not really sure why that happened but I think I danced and played the clarinet. We’ve also made all sorts of treats, gingerbread houses, candy, sugar cookies (that’s what we did this year). I love how my mom makes it a fun thing. I never felt like I was too young or too old for a family party. Good job Mommy. Keep it up.

Guest Blog: Hanging Christmas Lights in the Van by Sweetie

When you're the parent of an autistic son who is anxious to please and very resourceful, one needs to be careful with requests. After 20+ years you would think I would have learned this.  

Wrong....  

It all began last week. I got in the big van and saw a strand of LED Christmas lights. Wouldn't it be cool to get the inverter and spread Christmas cheer though the back of the big van? It didn't work out as planned because it turned out that most of our hangers were broken and there wasn't a good way to string them. The two little boys each ended up with a ball of lights in their laps.  

So I asked the Dog Walker to find some suction cups and get the inside of the van all decked out. When we got in to go to the Festival of Lights down in Spanish Fork tonight, I wasn't disappointed. He had the strand strung all around the van, including across the front! 

Oh, my! How was I going to drive with that? But it looked real nice, maybe it would be OK. How did he attach them? Only some were suction cups, others were stuck to the headliner. That was when I suddenly nearly went into shock. 

Nails!

From the looks of the heads, big nails. Then I remembered the 8-penny box of framing nails that had been sitting on my desk. How in the world did he get them in?  How were they holding and what kind of permanent damage had been done? 

I must admit at this point I don't have any answers to those questions, but I do have some awesome Christmas lights in my van....

Busy, Busy Days

Eating donuts and hot chocolate

The last couple of days have been so busy! Yesterday I had my Activity Days girls over and our wonderful friend and neighbors, the Johnsons, took us caroling in a big wagon behind two beautiful Clydesdales. Sadly, I left my phone in the house so I didn't even get a picture for you, but we had so much fun! We circled our neighborhood a couple of times until we ran out of songs to sing, the we went back to the house and had hot chocolate and donuts.

Then last night Teach and I went to the Christmas party for my Tupperware team. We won some fun prizes and ate yummy treats, then we went to someone's house for Teach to try on a wedding dress... which she bought! She looks beautiful in it, but we will have to alter the neckline a bit to make it a little more modest. That's a project for January.

We got home and got the kids to bed and then Bossy and I went shopping until about 1:00 AM. I had to get some things for my Girl Scout Christmas party today. I fell into bed after dropping off Bossy and begging her to put up a blog post for me. Today was just as busy! But since it's already 1:30 AM and Scout has a basketball game at 9:00 AM and the Dance Recital is at noon, maybe I will save it for tomorrow so I can get some rest.

Guest Blog: Christmas Letter by Bossy

Mom and I spent way too much time at the store getting last minute shopping done for our troop party tomorrow so she asked me to quickly post my Christmas letter. I also wanted to share a short story of Christmas magic from my Facebook post this morning.

Fajita was given a solo yesterday for Symphony at tonight's closing night of Candlelight. My mom had given us her complementary ticket + 1 she paid for and we had Fajita's complementary ticket, but she wanted both her brothers to come tonight. I told my mom we needed to find another ticket for Taco. This morning this appeared on the table. ‪#‎believe‬ ‪#‎christmasmagic‬

Now for the Christmas letter...

Merry Christmas!  Another busy year has come and gone. 

In January Gamer and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  It was a beautiful event and we were grateful to everyone who came and helped and celebrated with us.

March brought major changes when I quit my job at DCFS.  I am grateful for unemployment because the process of finding the career that my family needs has proved to be a challenge.  In March, Gamer and I submitted paperwork to become licensed foster parents, but were met with seemingly insurmountable roadblocks. And soon our talk of foster kids by June became wishful thinking.

Spring sports flew by.  Fajita tried out for the softball team last minute and was overjoyed to make the sophomore team.  The JV squad made it to state and she enjoyed helping them and participating with the tourneys. The boys also played baseball.  Bean Dip was the only experienced player on his team and we enjoyed watching him open his season as the pitcher.  He definitely prefers to play first base.  Taco was the MVP for his team and played a variety of positions.  He rotated between outfield and shortstop.  My favorite play was him stealing home against the coach’s advice because his mom told him too.  He stayed with a large lead off of the base and drew the throw to third. I was screaming run and he did it. It was a great learning play for both teams. Burrito’s team came in second place at the end of the tournament.  For a team that didn’t get their first win until game 6 it was an amazing comeback.  Burrito played left field, third base and catcher.  He hopes to be given a chance to pitch next year.  This was his first year of kid pitch.

Summer brought parade season, jobs, scout camps and driver’s ed. Gamer switched jobs in June and loves his new job with Independent Trust and I worked a temp job with the primary election. Fajita had a packed summer.  She worked at McDonalds and Astro Burger, played in the SLCC parade band, attended trek, and made up 2 of her credits for school.  Before school ended, she managed to juggle softball and ballet and did great at her recital.  She finally got her permit and I have to admit she is a pretty responsible driver. Bean Dip enjoyed scout camp and came home a second class scout with 9 new merit badges.  He helped me rebuild grandma’s network and repair a few computers.  As a non-member he remains an example to the other deacons for working on Faith in God and has a pretty amazing testimony. Taco and Burrito attended our ward-sponsored day camp with Gamer. They were rained out the first night, but enjoy a hot Saturday hike and water party. They (and Curly) stole the show with their jazz performance in the dance recital.  Their year round school makes for a short summer, but they had fun spending it at the middle school while their school received some much needed building updates. They both worked very hard to fundraise for their registration fees for football in July. 

Fall brought football.  Burrito played his first year as a scout with Gamer assistant coaching. Their team taught many advanced plays and they came in 3^rd place. Taco played his third year as a Pee Wee.  Most of his team was new and the coaches praised him for showing up ready to play.  He slimmed down a lot over the year and was not an X weight which enabled him to try many new positions. His team won the championship game for their division. Fajita went back to work at McDonalds after figuring out how to balance her schoolwork.  She is again in Youth City Council, TAB, and FCCLA.  She went two dances so far: Homecoming and Bingham Ball. Bean Dip started 8^th grade at a new middle school.  He has permission to be baptized when he chooses and is exploring the idea of moving into our house next school year.  He enjoys hanging out with Nephi and misses football.  He is an amazing young man.  We enjoying keeping in touch with Enchilada through Facebook and Instagram.  She did very well in her swim season, she placed 4^th, 5^th and 6^th at the Abilene Invitational.  She will be competing in three of her races for state. She also donated 14 inches of her hair in March shortly after I donated mine again.

As we have been trying to figure out what my employment should look like I have had temp jobs ranging from 60 days to 1.5 days.  This November, I have been able to focus my efforts on the roadblocks that prevented our foster parents license and we are in the final homestudy stages.  We hope to have a placement before Christmas. I also submitted my papers for a church service mission before my birthday.  It will be an at home mission, doing online and phone technical support for the church’s genealogy program, familysearch.org  As for working, I have been focused on finding something part time that allows me to spend more time focused on our kids.  I have really realized how much my focus should be on my family and not worrying about saving other people.  I have been giving both boys private clarinet lessons, finishing projects around the house, researching geneology, and enjoying my time as a busy mom.   

We wish you a wonderful and healthy 2016.

Love,

Bossy, Gamer, Fajita, Bean Dip, Taco and Burrito.