My girls are growing up!

My girls are growing up! When did that happen??? All of a sudden Kayla can wash her hands in the bathroom sink without standing on a stool and Melissa can turn on the water by herself... without the stool! Melissa can put together entire play tents by herself and Kayla can now wipe her own tushy when she goes potty! Melissa is bathing herself (properly) in the shower ALL by herself and Kayla can count to 100 right along with her sister. Really, is it supposed to be going by this fast???

Called to Serve

Last night I attended a really good Bishop Youth Fireside about serving missions. The returned missionary that the Bishop asked to speak to the youth was amazing. He served his mission in Sydney, Australia and actually sparked some interest in our youth to serve a mission. It seems that fewer and fewer youth have the desire to serve as a missionary and I feel that the Bishop was very inspired to have this as our topic. ANYWAY, talking about and hearing about missions made me very nostalgic and wanting to see the Sisters that I was privileged to serve with. My birthday is Wednesday and it also marks my 12 year anniversary of the date that I left for the MTC. If feels like I just barely served.

One of our District Activities... we went to Snowbird. Kamdyn and Me! :)

Julie Cunningham and myself. I was so sad to hear of her death several years ago, but very thankful for the knowledge that I have of what happens to us after we die.

Dressing herself...

Kayla has been coming up with some beautiful outfits lately. This was one of her most recent creations. Isn't she beautiful???

Back Yard Camping

I just spent a week at Girls Camp (and will write about that some other time) and our girls decided that our family needed to have our own camping trip in our back yard on Saturday. So, we set up the tent and prepared ourselves to camp outside. Friday night we had such a horrible thunderstorm that Ray and I decided it would be best for us to bring our airmattress downstairs and sleep on the floor instead of in the tent... just in case. Actually, I slept up in my bed and the three adventurous ones slept downstairs. We had SO much fun! We built a big fire using toilet paper to get it started and cooked our hot dogs and marshmallows on it. The girls LOVED eating Smores (well, Kayla ate off the chocolate from hers) and they LOVED eating the "unmelted" marshmallows. They told shadow puppet stories with Daddy-O in the tent and then they chased and caught fireflies for the first time ever. Melissa caught the first one and it was all over after that. We found a jar and they caught several more. When it was finally time to come in (around 9:30) the girls went up to shower in the "waterfall" with flashlights. They bathed with "flower soap" and some sort of shampoo bird gave them shampoo. Melissa even said her conditioner was bird poop. Oh their imaginations!! We came down and read about Lehi camping with his family for family scripture study and everyone was asleep within minutes of laying down... including Ray. We had SO much fun! As much as I hate sleeping outside, I think we will have to do it again sometime soon. This is what life is all about... making memories and enjoying the simple things.

Melissa sneaking up on a firefly... Me and my cuties.

Family Vacations...

Sisters...

Cousins My Beautiful Girls...

Kayla Brooke

Melissa Nicole

My Family

Family Vacations are the BEST!! We enjoyed our family vacation to the beach SO much this year. My family has been going to Sunset Beach in North Carolina for 23 or 24 years and we intend to keep up the tradition as long as we can. I think I have talked Ray into letting us go there every year instead of just every other year with my whole family. I LOVE it there!! I would recommend Sunset Beach to everyone.

This year our little family rented our own home there instead of staying with ALL of my immediate family. Over the years we have grown and grown in number (15) and now, there are just too many of us to stay in one house. My girls really enjoyed our little house up on the sticks. It was a small 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a 5 minute walk to the beach. PERFECT! We had so much fun. We spent most of the time on the beach and at the 2 houses... we did go to Broadway at the Beach one night and our girls made baby dolls at "Friends To Be Made." Evan made a Dinosaur. Those two shops are located in the "Build A Bear Workshop." It was fun watching the girls pick out their dolls and clothes, curl their hair, etc. Ray and I went on a date while there too! CiCi babysat for us and we went out to dinner and then shopping to my VERY FAVORITE store.. Callahan's. I love the atmosphere there AND it has a Christmas shop so we bought our Christmas tree ornaments for this year. Shopping AND Christmas music... I LOVE it there! Each night we took turns cooking dinner and I really appreciate all of the effort that everyone put into feeding all of us. The food was SO yummy! One day Ray took care of the girls for the ENTIRE day so that I could fish on the pier with my Dad and Brother Jeremy. We didn't catch as many fish as we would like to have caught, but we DID catch some pretty horrible sunburns. My girls caught a lot of fish from the dock behind my parent's house... they were SO cute reeling those things in. They are quite good at it. :)

All in all, we LOVED our vacation! We were able to relax while enjoying family time. PERFECT. I am looking forward to next year.

Sunset Beach

We are having fun at the beach!! Will post about it later. This is my favorite picture so far. :)

Never growing up

I had an interesting conversation with Melissa today during lunch. She said, "Mom, wouldn't it be funny if when we prayed we said please bless us that we won't grow, that we will stay the same and not get any older?" I laughed and said yes and asked her why she would say that. She said, "I don't want to get any older because then I can't play with my toys or ride Kayla's bike." I told her that was true but that she also wouldn't be able to get married and have babies of her own if she stayed a little girl. (She talks about having her own children all of the time!) She said, "Yes I will. I can go to the "put the baby in" doctor and then after the baby grows I can go to the "take the baby out" doctor to get the baby out." WHAT?? Oh dear... I didn't know how to answer that one... Technically, that is how we have babies at our house. I saw a fertility doctor to get pregnant with her and have had cesareans with both of the girls. After MUCH conversation, I finally told her that Heavenly Father doesn't let children have babies and that she needed to be an adult and married before she had one. She said, "Well, okay, but I'm not going to grow up for a few more years." She is ALWAYS thinking!!

Sisters

This is a picture of Me with my Sisters... aren't we cute?

Last Ballet Class

Melissa just before leaving for her last ballet class of the year. My friend Linda made these super cute bows. Melissa and Kayla LOVE them!

Melissa and Glenn's Wedding Weekend

We really enjoyed celebrating Glenn and Melissa's reception weekend with everyone. Here are some of the highlights!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com