Henry

Every Mama thinks her children are the most spectacular, the most wonderful and beautiful creatures ever.

That's because it's true, for each of us.

Children are a gift.

7 Years ago, we were in the middle of the MBA program at BYU. We were just given our fifth gift..

We named him Henry.

He was round and chubby. But not scratched. That's just the photo.



But that little boy grew. He stayed as cute and sweet, not quite as chubby:)

But now instead of sandy shells, he loves Spiderman



And opening presents, apparently.







Henry is a squishy. Do you have a squishy at your house?

He's the child that just sort of melts into you when you hug him. He's snuggly and soft, and well, just squishy.

He is also kind and loving. He really is. We have this little friend who loves Henry. She calls him Haundry.

She bosses him slightly, convincing him to be her puppy. But it's ok because she's two. And he loves it. He never gets annoyed.

The other night she picked up a purse and said, "Come on Haundry. Lets go to Fred Meyers."

She seemed pretty confident he would listen. He's nice like that.

He will be a husband like his daddy someday. I just know it.

Thoughts on Henry.

Henry is a sensitive little man. Mainly because he does not understand when others are unkind. Simply because he would never purposefully hurt anyone's feelings. Ever. It's just not in his makeup.

He has this giggle. I don't know how to explain it. But when you hear it, if it doesn't touch your soul and make you happy just hearing it, then, well, you must be a grouch. Or an ogre. Or a grinch. Something grumpy.

He loves all of his siblings. But Anne Marie and Nora are his best friends. They are together constantly.
He plays dolls with them. They play Legos with him.
They perform plays, pretend they are different animals, play school even.

It's awesome and I hope they all stay the best of friends forever.

He is loyal. If you are good to him, he will be good to you. Always.

He loves his daddy. A lot. Which is nice. His dad is such a good example. I'm glad that Henry adores him so much.

Someday Henry will be grown up. But he will still be my squishy. He will still let me hug him and kiss his head. I hope.

Happy Birthday Mr. Henry. We love you.

Julia the brilliant

Something special happened in August.

As you know Anne Marie turned 10.

But Julia also had a birthday and turned 14.

It's a fun, crazy age.

She went to her first Youth Dance for our church(you have to be 14).

She started high school.

Milestones that add some spice to life.

We wanted to make her birthday special. Kate especially was teeming with an idea so grand and wonderful that it had to be done.

You see, there is this global phenomenon that has taken over the spare time of many teenage girls, and their parents ;)

It is a little television show called Doctor Who. And Julia is one of the biggest fans.

So Kate thought we should have a Doctor Who themed party. Not a small task

There had to be actual planning on this one. No last minute stuff.

The first thing that had to be done was to build a T.A.R.D.I.S.

That stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

It's a time machine. And the pilot is a time lord who travels the universe with different companions(friends), usually humans, saving civilizations and planets and having adventures. Oh, and he is over 900 years old.

The Tardis is bigger on the inside and the outside looks like a 1940's British police box.

So of course we, I mean Jeff, had to build a Tardis, and Kate and I had to figure out how to make it bigger on the inside.

Because the Tardis can takes it's occupants back in time, we thought what would be more fun than having the Tardis take Julia back in time to eat dinner with other time travellers in a Titanic inspired way?

Wee hoo this was so fun. You ready for the pictures?

We landed the Tardis in front of our garage. Seemed like a perfect spot.





Then I drove Julia around while everyone arrived and finished things up.

I made her close her eyes when we got back so that all she could hear was the whooshing noise that the Tardis makes.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the 10th Doctor waiting for her.



He took her hand and told her to run. The Doctor says that a lot. She seems a bit stunned.




She walked into the Tardis to discover that it is in fact bigger on the inside.


And it's ready for it's next flight.




Grandparents, parents and siblings all joined in the adventure.








It was really, really, fun.

She turned 14, she really did.



She is an amazing girl. We call her our Renaissance child because she does a little bit of everything.

And she does it well.

She is writing a book.( And it's really good.)

She writes beautiful poetry.

She is a budding artist. She draws all the time.

She sings and acts and writes songs.

She is a 4.0 student and most importantly to this mother and her dad, she is a good, righteous daughter of God.

She loves her Savior and desires to do good.

She is amazing.

Her and Kate are inseparable. Best friends. And Kate's love of Julia not only made this wonderful party a reality, but I know it is part of why Julia succeeds at so much.

Her sister/best friend is her biggest fan.



Happy Birthday Jules. We love you!

Someone turned 10 and other subjects

Um, hi.

I woke up today and knew that today was the day I could blog again. I have no explanation other than the thought of blogging has been making me feel very anxious for the past 3 months.

Weird right?

I haven't even read blogs, I got off Facebook even. There must be some sort of technological phobia that I temporarily became afflicted with.

I'm still off Facebook for other reasons, but blogging has worked its way back.

So, because this blog is technically for my children I am going to go back a few months and start catching up if you will.

I love my children, and I know that they have missed seeing their own faces and hearing my words on this blog.

This is for you my lovelies.

Anne Marie turned 10.

First of all, I had this idea. It involved an American Girl doll.

See, when we moved here, we tragically misplaced a box that held treasures for many of us. It was the last box we packed up from staying at my brother's house for the in between time of moving from one house to another.

It contained Anne Marie's Kit and Ruthie American girl dolls that she played with every day.

We think it may have ended up at Goodwill.

So, in my attempt to soften that blow some, my mother in law graciously gave us an American girl doll with cut bangs. And I attempted to make it awesome for her.

This was the end result:



She was a slightly punk doll whose hair I colored using a blue sharpie. Cuz sharpie never comes out of anything right?

Wrong.

The blue of the hair started to come off on Anne Marie's hands, which then transferred to the dolls face, neck, and everywhere.  It was very sad.

We ended up buying her another doll because we had to end the streak of bad luck for Anne Marie and her AG dolls.

But before we knew all this, she was really happy about it.



One of the things we love about Anne Marie is that she is very generous. She doesn't like ANYONE to be sad. She can't stand it. So she willingly does things that might make other people fuss.

Because we had such a large gluten free population at her party, and she herself is not gluten free, she happily agreed to having her own individual little store bought birthday cake so that the rest of the cake could be gluten free.

She is awesome that way.



Probably the sweetest gift of the day came from Julia. She painted a picture for Anne Marie, knowing how much her little sis wanted one.



What makes Anne Marie special:

She strives to help others feel good and be happy.

She is amazingly creative and artistic. We are stunned by the fantastic plans and ideas that come out of her 10 year old brain.

She is mother hen to Henry and Nora and to any other child younger than her who happens to be around.
It's seriously amazing, little children love her so much. They follow her around because she plays with them. And she enjoys it. She doesn't get annoyed and she never runs out of energy to play fun things with them.

Anne Marie is very self reflective for one so young. She is always trying to do and be better. Our job is to help her see that she is already amazing:)

Her generosity is inspiring. She will give you the last bite, her last dollar, her favorite toy, if she feels it will benefit you more than her.

She is a wonderful daughter. I love how she will just come and rest her head on me or half lay on me to get a really good hug in.

She is developing her own testimony of Jesus Christ. And her personal desire to do what is right is inspiring.

Anne Marie is a gift to our family. She has many precious talents and gifts that bless all of us.

We love her and are so grateful to have her in our eternal family.

Happy Birthday boo boo.