My Mom's Birthday

 February 10th was my mom's birthday

It kind of snuck up on us because we'd been busy

taking care of my dad after he had surgery

Parry planned an impromptu get together at the cemetery

(we missed having Susan with us)

We have not had her headstone placed yet

so we just placed flowers at the grave

Its no good celebrating our mom without her

but it was nice to get together and remember her

Young Women's New Beginnings

We recently had our New Beginnings for the Young Women

We had a Wizard of Oz theme

"there's no place like home"

 To start out with we spotlighted our new girls coming in this year

Our darling new Beehives

Carolyn, Francesca, Kiya, and Kiana

Our young women did a great job

presenting on each of the values

Four of our leaders each gave a talk from this year's theme that went along with the characters from Oz - Heart for Tin Man, Might for Dorothy, Mind for scarecrow and Strength for the Lion.
Our bishop gave great remarks on our desire to return home to our Heavenly Father.

Sweethearts Dance

Taylor all dressed to go to the Sweethearts Dance

Taylor with his girlfriend Sarah

what a cute couple!

Sarah is an awesome photographer and these a couple of my favorites that she took

Classic Skate Night

Kamryn and Jared go to a great school

with an awesome PTA that plans such fun events

We were able to go to the school's night

at Classic Skating

They had a great time riding their scooters around and around

Great turnout from the studentbody

Chess Week

Jared and Kamryn's school holds a chess week before school in the mornings.

Dads, grandfathers and big brothers are invited to come play

against the students

 If the students beat a "DUDE" then they get lunch at the end of the week

from Arctic Circle or Chick-fil-A

Jared and Kamryn were very excited about it

and talked about it for weeks

They even practiced at home

Justin came one of the mornings

He's playing one of the boys on his Jr Jazz team

Paul was even able to come one of the mornings

This Dad was very nice to Kamryn

and taught her a lot about the game while they were playing

Both Jared and Kamryn went every day and both beat a DUDE for lunch :)

Their Own Rooms

So with Brooke on her mission we have an open bedroom at our house.

After Paul spent some time refinishing it and painting it

Taylor moved back downstairs into that bedroom.

And that opened up a bedroom so that Jared and Kamryn could finally get their own rooms.

They have shared a room since they were born 

and now that they are almost 10 we thought it was time to separate them

Jared sleeping in his own room the first night

Jared likes his room very simple

and somewhat bare

In moving to his new room he cleaned out most of his "baby" toys

and lots of clothes

Kamryn was so thrilled to get her own girlie room

Her dad was very nice to paint a new pretty blue

We worked hard getting her room all cleaned up and organized

Her cute little American Doll corner

Kamryn's new bedding

and fun craft I made

I saw it on Pinterest and it actually turned out perfectly

It was fun to make and I love how it looks

We have one more wall that we need to hang up the decorations and I'll update when we get those up

Jared and Kamryn have adapted very well to having their own rooms

and have done a great job at keeping them clean

They even make their beds every day.

Its been a great change!