Valentines Day

Since Luke was gone on Valentines Day this year we celebrated the day (Saturday) before he left on his trip by going to the Temple. It was a VERY wonderful experience.  The Temple always is, but there are times you go and you just feel extra blessed to be there, and that the Lord is very aware of you.  We had been praying about some very particular things in our life before going to the Temple.  Then we go in, barely sit in the busy chapel room, when we were asked to be the Witness Couple.  It seems like every time we have been asked, it happens to coincide with a time in our lives when we are praying about something important.  It just seems to testify that we are important to our Heavenly Father, and that He does hear our prayers.

Anyway, we had a beautiful time being in the House of the Lord and meanwhile, our kids were in great hands! These cute new girls in our ward offered to babysit for us and our girls had SO much fun with them. They brought cookie dough  to make and decorate sugar cookies, and beads for necklaces. Plus they played games, made cards for us for Valentines day, and made up songs.

After we took the babysitters home we drove to Nephi to have dinner at J.C. Mickelsons. It was SOOOOOOO yummy! Plus, how fun to have a train set pass all around the restaurant while you eat.
Sunday morning we left our little Valentine cards out for the kids and secretly packed Dad's treat bags away in his luggage for him to find when he arrived in California that night.  It was a wonderful pre-Valentines day celebration!

By the REAL Valentines Day, I was kind of burned out. I don't do Single-Mom well. It had been 4 days already and I was tired.... plus I had Tianna's school party to prepare for, and Scofield to pack for, so we could leave as soon as the party was over.  Decorating the house like I did last year was NOT on my to-do list.

However, when Tianna woke up and realized it was Valentines Day she took it upon herself to decorate the house.  She cleaned up anything that wasn't perfect, and placed a pink something on every single surface in the living room! What a cute girl!

When I told her I was sorry I didn't decorate this year she said, "its okay, you did it last year. It was my turn!"  Love her!
So I made up for my lack of creativity by making them breakfast :)

Tianna's class party turned out really fun! We painted the kid's hand prints in the shape of a heart on a paper that said, "I love you from the bottom of my heart" and played some V-day Minute-to-Win-It games.
They had to stack Conversation hearts as high as possible, transfer then to a plate with their elbows, eat a donut with their mouths only, get the cookie into their mouths from off their foreheads without touching it, and more! It was hilarious!

 Then we decorated cookies

As soon as it was over we skeedaddled home and left for Price as soon as we could.  That night my mom and I attended the Viewing for the Donaldson's in Price.  Scott Donaldson had murdered his wife, and then taken his own life.  It was such a shock to the family and the community!

I love the Donaldson family! Their youngest daughter, Scott's sister, Kristen, is my close friend from when we were about 4 years old.  Then Scott's dad was my Bishop in my College Ward.  He and I were very close and I LOVE him and Sister Donaldson. I wanted to support them in their difficult time.

I got to the Stake Center and found the chapel filled with people waiting to go in to the viewing line.  We were there from 6:30 until 9:15 when we got into the viewing. The outpouring of love from family and friends was amazing! The most amazing thing was the love and strength of the Donaldson and Oliver family's.  They were so strong and spoke to each of us of love and forgiveness.  If they can forgive each other in a tragedy like this, can't we all forgive each other for our petty and minor indiscretions?   

This is what their house in Price looks like. What a testament to love.  How grateful I am to have been a small witness to it's miracle. 

Girl Time

We had a lot of GIRL TIME this month. Luke went on a business trip to Anaheim, California for a trade show.  While he was gone we did lots of girlie things like have nail painting parties, making sugar cookies with lots and lots of pink frosting, and preparing for Tianna's school party.   We also hung out a lot with our friend Melissa and her cute girl, Sophie while her husband as in Cali with Luke. 

Adelia and Linaya watched a movie together :) for a minute... 

Snuggling with Mommhy

See! there's that concerned look she gets whenever the camera comes out. She WAS smiling before

So sweet! 

Linaya thinks she needs to start rolling over already. She gets very close but then ends up back on her back

It was so nice to be able to talk to Luke every morning and night on Google+ so we could see his cute face.  It was also nice that he was just 1 time zone away and not many hours time difference like when he was in Japan last year.  

Finishing up Random January stuff

Luke had a boys over-nighter and ice-fishing excursion with his friends on Jan 18-19th, so the girlies and I took off to Price to attend cousin, Jocelyn's princess tea-party birthday! Added bonus, we were able to celebrate cousin, Aden's birthday the night before at McDonalds play-place since we weren't able to attend his actual party the Sunday prior.  (wish we could make it to every family event!) 

But we knew well in advance about Jocelyn's party, and so luckily could make it. Tianna wanted to dress up as Rapunzel and Adelia wanted to dress like Minnie Mouse. She INSISTED she have her face painted like Minnie too. And if you know Adelia, you KNOW how persistent she can be. 

It was a really cute party. The kids loved it. 

Sweet Linaya dear turned 3 MONTHS OLD on the 23rd.

And she discovered her HANDS! Now that is alllllll that child wants to do! It was quite the task to get a picture of her without her fists shoved into her mouth. Silly girl. 

It is SO hard to get a picture of her smiling. She always stops smiling as soon as I take the picture and makes an "ooooooooooo what is that?" face instead.  Finally I got one, but I had to be looking at her and not through the lens to get it! 

So.... our cat has a crush. It's on the little Rapunzel polly pocket doll. This video shows him on the hunt for her. He bypasses all other dolls in search of his beloved. Whenever he does find her, he takes off and will defend his prize at all costs.. 

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of disk space RIGHT when he found her so you miss that part. In the end you miss him grabbing her in this mouth and running off to hide with his Rapunzel.  He captured the poor poor princess. 

And last on my January stuff.......... Winter. 

This has been a crazy winter. Between the continual snow fall, the COLD! and the inversion............ ug. After a few really nice days that melted much of the snow, winter showed her face again and blew really really hard, leaving these crazy drifts outside our house. 

That black thing is our barbecue! 

Now, a month later, it's still snowing and that drift is still present. I.Am.Ready.For.Spring! 

Tianna's INSPIRATION

In public school it's known as "Reflections" but at a Charter school, like the one Tianna attends, they refer to it as, "INSPIRATIONS." 

There are various categories like: Visual Art, Literature, Music, Photography, Dance, Film... etc.

And this year's theme was "Beauty Is..." 

Tianna decides she wanted to enter the photography category. She took a picture of a sunset (taken on my b-day!) and titled it:

"Beauty is.... At the Close of Every Day"  

 I thought it turned out pretty well! It was just with our point and shoot camera with absolutely no editing..... just enlarged and then printed at Costco.

She ended up winning 2nd place at her school in the K-2 division! 

I've never seen a child more proud of winning a ribbon! She told everyone she saw that day. 

ps- don't mind her ragged appearance. Her mother was really busy that morning and didn't leave enough time to make her cute for the assembly :) 

Her photo ended up moving on to the regional competition and the awards assembly was last Friday, February 22nd. 

Turns out SHE WON FIRST PLACE at the REGION level! GO TIANNA! 

 I love how Luke captured the pink-coat girl admiring the piece :) 

Now her photo is headed off to the State competition. Keep ya'all posted on that now :) 

_______________________________________________________________

And just because it's funny------- this is how I caught Tianna sitting while watching a movie. Seriously, how can that be comfortable? 

28 is GREAT

I turned 28 in January.  We celebrated by going to a DIVINELY yummy restaurant in Provo, called Bombay House. I discovered last summer, when I rather unwillingly, tried Indian food, that I am in love with this dish called Chicken Tikka Masalla. Ohhh it's soooooooooooooooo so good!

It may not look all that great, but trust me. It is. My mouth is watering just seeing this picture! 

 Tianna made me a birthday badge in which I was instructed to wear ALL DAY LONG :)

 For dessert the waiter brought me MANGO ICECREAM! oh, yeah!!!!!!!

 The cake, and my fun surprise from Luke----- my very own tablet! Unfortunately, we had to send it back.. it had issues. But.......it was awesome anyway!

 It's a sad day when you require more candles than the box holds. 

 Sweet Linaya gave me a wonderful gift. She slept all the way through dinner! And THAT, my friends, is a beautiful thing!

A few days later, Luke and I went on a double date with our wonderful friends, Janelle and Ed Robinson and of course, Miss Ellie :)

Janelle's birthday is just before Christmas and mine is a few weeks after, so in lieu of Christmas and Bday presents, we prefer to go out to dinner together (or something like that.)

This time we met up at Tucanos for Brazillian bbq, which means food, food, and more food! 

 the Robinsons's

It was a great birthday! Can't wait to enjoy the rest of my 29th year (wow that sounds so much worse than 28!) 

Why is it that I still feel like I should be 20?