Kids for fun

Some random kid events:  Playing with Grandma and Zoey

Mother Daughter date for activity days.  Ella earned some awards for her faith in God.  She is almost as tall as me!  Oh yeah, Parker came as well.

One of Ella's best friends, Rebekah.  They were matching so I had to get a picture.

The kids got a new cousin. Sweet sweet Maize.  Yay for having 2 cousins now on the Alley side!

Dad could not resist stopping so Parker could see this truck!

Wrapping up

This is time of the year that everything is wrapping up.  Parker had his final playgroups.  It was a super fun year with these kids.  They finished up with a trip to Willow Park.  Parker took his Fisher Price phone and took pictures.  He has quite the imagination.  His favorite was Santas reindeer.

Parker hosted the very last playgroup.  We played with letters, colors, danced and games outside.

Ella was Helen Keller for the 5th grade history fair.  She was such an inspiration woman, I hope that Ella learned something from studying her.

Follow the Prophet

Lately I have been feeling really anxious.....confused....scared.  All that is going on in the world, and our country specifically, and to top it all off, this presidential season is really frustrating me.  I literally was getting caught up in "the world"
I realized that I don't know who I want as president, I don't know what to think or who to vote for.  I want to do the right thing, but what if there is no right thing.

One night as I was saying a prayer in my head, I asked "please help us make the right choice, and please help us know WHO TO FOLLOW"

As soon as I thought these last words, the answer came to me clear as day.  3 words.  "Follow the Prophet"

At that moment, it became so clear to me; both to my mind and my heart.  There is one man that will never lead us astray, will never bring us harm, that has our best interest and desires in his heart.  Our dear, sweet prophet.  He is my beacon.  The world has so much junk going on.  I can see it literally going away from truth.  And it was scaring me.  Until now.  I know who to follow.  If the world turns on me and my beliefs, laughs at me, or hurts me because of them, I still know who to follow.

The next day as I was in the kitchen, I looked up and saw our prophets picture with the words "We thank thee O God for a prophet"  As I saw his face, I started crying.  I felt so safe.  It was an amazing feeling.  To feel safe at such a scary time.  I felt so much love for President Monson.....A testimony to me about what I heard in my mind the night before.

I am so blessed to have someone to follow.  What would I do without this leader?  I would still be anxious, confused and scared.  Like most people in the world.  I thank my Heavenly Father for our prophet.

15 Years

To Dustin

May 08, 2001

180 months
780 weeks
5475 days
131,400 hours
7,884,000 minutes
473,040,000 seconds
One wedding
One Hawaiin Honeymoon
2 college degress
A couple of jobs
One boat
One move
Our first house
Many St George getaways
An Ella
A Parker
One Florida Family Vacation
Some loss
Some heartache
Some tears
Lots and lots of smiles and Happiness

15 years later....you are still my best friend.  I love you

Parker and Soccer

I have missed having a soccer player.  I think I will add Soccer mom to my resume because this #2 is a superstar.  The first game he tried to figure things out.  Each game after that he has been awesome.  He scores 2-3 goals (most the time the only one that scores)  Parker has been aggressive (which is not like him) and is on top of the ball the whole time.  He runs and never stops to catch his breath.  He's had a ton of family come to watch him play.  Ella even got to see 1 game (dance is on the same night)

He received a trophy at the end and thought that was the coolest thing in the entire world!

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This is right after a goal.  Parker has a HUGE grin on his face the whole game, but you should see him after he scores.  He looks over at us and BEAMS and has a little swagger in his step.

 I wanted to compare the two kids their first year of soccer

Competitions are DONE!

We still have LOTS to do for dance the remainder of the year, but at least we can say we survived another competition season. Next on the list was Adrenaline.  This was two day competition/convention.  Jr Elites competed on Friday morning (which meant ditch day at school) then had classes until 10 pm.  The next day they had classes from 3-10 pm.  

I got to hang out with my dance mom friends all weekend and it was fun.  Ella got to do what she loves most with the people she loves most.

Last but not least was Showtyme Competition in Clearfield.  Our boys came with us to this one.  Dance Illusion rocked it once again.  SO many first places and Overall Studio again.

Jr Elites took 1st place in 4 routines and 2nd in "No light"  They found out the next week that they lost by 1/2 point is all!

 Ella has been working very hard on getting her "needle"

Dance Illusion puts on a cancer benefit concert at the end of the year.  Ella performed Hip Hop and No light.  All together they raised 3,000 dollars!

 Dance pictures at 7:45 am.  I'm happy she was smiling (for the most part)