I take too many pictures

Sometimes I take a picture just because that moment made me smile.  This was one of them.  These two are my happy thought.  They are my reason for getting up in the morning and smile.  

I saw these words of Facebook, on a family's page who just lost their 10 year old son.  I've been following their journey as they said goodbye to this little boy, as his life slipped away while no one could do anything about it but love him.  The day after his passing they posted this:

"As you grow up, you will learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it will get harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin." ~Unknown

So grateful for the ordinary, every day, silly fun we get to share in our home.  Time does go by way too fast. So grateful for the example of so many friends and family who know how to live their life, enjoy their moments, and know what really matters.  So grateful that we can all be so silly in this house, and laugh and play together.  So grateful for hearts that have healed, for forgiveness, for looking ahead, for leaving the past behind, where it belongs.  So grateful for the knowledge that a loving Heavenly Father is mindful of all of us.  

Get your cookies!

Here are some of our girls in front of a local supermarket.  They are so cute!  I just can't say enough about the Girl Scout program.  It's great to see Anna conquer her inhibitions and learn about her talents.  She's actually great at sales!  She's been goal oriented, and ready to work hard to earn her badges.  She's approached people and spoke to them very confidently, and has learned to deal with rejection very gracefully.  (Not everyone wants cookies from these cute girls, can you believe it?)  Learning to deal with rejection without discouragement has helped her in all other areas of her everyday life.

She's also celebrated her successes, and she's had lots of that.  We've had a chance to meet our neighbors, our church community, and school friends.  She's learned to show how grateful she is for everyone's kindness, their time and generosity.

One of my favorite cookie selling moments was yesterday.  The girls watched this HUGE Escalade stretch limo drive slowly and park right across from our table.  We all stared.  Anna asked us what kind of car that was, and her leader said, "A very rich person's car!".  Anna then says, "Rich?  So they have money to buy cookies!"  She grabbed her sign and started saying, "Get your Girl Scout Cookies, they're delicious, you know you want some!  What's your favorite?"  After doing that for a while, and putting on her cutest little girl smile, we saw the driver lower the partition between him and the back of the limo.  We saw a hand giving him money.  He walked out, came over and asked Anna which cookies were her favorite.   She pulled up four different kinds, and the driver purchased all of them, thanked her, and took it back to the limo.  It was so funny!  We still have no idea who the person in the limo was, all the windows were tinted.  We sure had a fun time coming up with ideas of who we had just sold cookies to. :)  Way to go, Anna!

So cookie season is almost over.  Just a few more weeks.  This has seriously been so much fun!

It never gets old

It seems that as much as I try, cushions are just not meant to stay on couches here.  Anna and Emma decided to build the best forts ever, and Russ decided to lend a hand to their endeavors.

Emma decided to call this masterpiece, "Blue Castle".  Daddy was very helpful, and even helped her have the laptop under there so she could play games.

Anna decided to build hers in the front room, and with daddy's help, they managed to get a lamp under it so she could read books inside.  She called it "Golden Green Dream".

Building forts seems to always be one of the best forms of entertainment for these two.  Actually these three! :)

Something else that was really cool last night:

Check out this moon!  It was huge, this picture really doesn't do it justice.  It was incredible how amazing it looked.  So while the kids had fun with daddy and the forts, I enjoyed this gorgeous gift.

 "I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me!" :)

Fun times in February

Here are some of the latest things our family has been up to:

We received lots of love for Valentine's Day from our family in Utah:

Thanks to our cute cousins for sending us their love!  We miss you Kate and Madi!

Thanks to our cousins Jack and Lily for sending us their love.  We miss you so much!

Emma and her "BFF Forever" Madi, at their field trip to a chocolate factory!  It was so much fun!  These two very smart kids realized that they could keep going round and round in line to keep getting chocolate dipped pretzel samples.  

Emma working very hard on her chocolate pizza.  This was really cute.  

Emma and Anna had their first Shine Your Light Singers performance at the Peoria Farmer's Market.  They are great little singers!

Anna got all dressed up as Cleopatra and her balloon snake, just for fun.  You never know what characters you'll find over at our house at any time.  We pretend and dress up a lot around here.

I also managed to be in a car accident this month.  I'm very sad that my gray car is no longer on the road, he would have been 10 years old next year.  A moment of silence for the car that drove both my babies home from the hospital.

So sad.  The driver's side got the most impact, you can't tell from this, but the driver's side door can't even open.  We are still dealing with trying to get this figured out.  No one was hurt, this is more of a really big frustration...  Fortunately I was not at fault in this little ordeal... :)  I'm a good driver, I promise! :)

Anna has been busy with Girl Scout Cookie season lately as well, we sure have enjoyed encouraging her as she earns badges and reaches goals and makes new friends. 

All in all February has been very fun.  Fun and a lot warmer than February 2012.  :)  We love Arizona winters!

Perfect Moment

Today we had a perfect moment.  There are no pictures to share, no major event to describe, just a perfect moment.

The kids are playing outside.  Russ is fixing something on the car.  I'm handing him things, and watching the girls.  They're running and laughing.

Russ and I are chatting.  We talk about how cute it is that instead of telling each other to "stop" during their game, they say "pause".  Smile.  "Anna, pause for a minute! :)"  It's cute.

We flirt.  We kiss.  We check on the car again.  The girls are running and laughing.  We're just all content.  We're all happy.  We're all together.  Life isn't perfect, we are fixing a car, after all.  But this moment...  this is the stuff I wished for.  This was my dream coming true right now.  This was a perfect moment.  I feel overwhelmed by the blessing of this one simple moment.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Russ and Anna had a very exciting, very memorable evening today.  They had a great time going to a Daddy Daughter Dance at Anna's school.  She was very excited to invite her daddy to accompany her, and even more excited when he said yes!

Being the sweet daddy that he is, Russ told Anna to go to the store and choose a pretty dress for their special occasion, and Anna was thrilled!  We went shopping and she made it very clear she wanted none of my input.  This was going to be all her choice.  I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best, and I have to say that she made a beautiful choice.  She wanted to look beautiful for her daddy!

She found the dress with the best "swishing" action, so it would swish when she danced with daddy.  I know I'm biased, but isn't she gorgeous?  She looks so grown up here.  My little girl is so adorable.

Oh Anna, why do you have to grow up so fast?  My smart, sweet, beautiful girl!

Now this is the cutest couple, isn't it?  There's a proud daddy and a loving daughter, ready to go dancing!

I guess they decided to practice a little before the dance. :)

Oh my goodness how I love these two.   

I love this picture  Each of my sweet little girls dressed in their own favorite way.  Anna is all ready for the "ball"  and Emma said she wanted to look like a rock star.  They crack me up.  This picture says so much about these two personalities! :)  I am so blessed.

I received a wonderful account of the dance afterwards.  They had a lovely dinner, and lots of fun dancing.  They took a picture at the dance, daddy gave Anna a rose, a real one and a chocolate one.   She was as happy as can be, and so was Russ.

My Anna went to her first dance!  I think I was just excited as they were.  I love these adorable memories we get to share.

The Amazing Emma!

Emma is one amazing kid.  She has no fear, and we spend several times in the day saying, "Emma, get off of that!", "Emma, don't climb on that!", "Emma, please stay still for a minute!".  She's an active kid, she needs lots of opportunities to use all that energy she was blessed with.

We've been looking for something that would interest her, and recently we found a perfect opportunity for Emma to use her talents.  She is in a beginning gymnastics class.

Finally, we've found a place she is asked to run, climb, jump, as much as she wants!  This is her first day of gymnastics, and as you can see, she took to it quite easily.

Now she waits all week for Monday to come around, when she gets to go to gym class.  She wakes up on Monday saying "This is the best day ever!"  

Now for her next class she was more properly attired, and she felt like a rock star!  She absolutely loves it!  It's really cute to watch her.  She is actually really good at all the little activities, and a little impatient with the other children.  We're learning to encourage our other friends who are scared of the balance beam, instead of just saying "hurry up, I wanna go again!".  Yeah... no patience.  But she does cheer for everyone once they do accomplish their goal.  "See?  I told you you could do it!  Good job!"  

That's my Emma.  She is my favorite Emma in the entire world.

Today she explained to me the reason she falls so much is not because she's not careful while she's doing her "tricks", it's because of gravity!  "Gravity is really strong, mommy, it just pulls you down really hard.  That's why I keep falling.  Gravity is everywhere, you know."

I told you she was amazing! :)