Happy Valentine's Day Alyssa!

For Valentine's Day, Alyssa's teacher did something special instead of just a party. She asked all the parents to write a letter to/about their child. The teacher will read the letters to the class and let the other students guess who it is. And its a surprise. I think it is a neat way to highlight the students' abilities and attributes and point those out to the other students. Steve and I wrote Alyssa's letter on Tuesday while we were out running errands. I love having him home (wish he was getting paid, but its nice to have him around)! Anyway, I really appreciated his help and insight with the letter.

Happy Valentine's Day to my oldest little girl (who isn't so little anymore)!!We were so excited when our first daughter finally arrived. From day one, you were strong-willed. You were always interested in things going on around you. No matter what was in your way, you climbed to what you wanted. At an early age you showed your love of music and moving and dancing to music. Your creativity shows in all the projects, crafts and activities you do.

You are a very caring girl. You show compassion and love for everyone and everything. We appreciate when you help with your sisters and around the house. We love all the little things you do like the birthday present for your sister. It has been fun watching you develop your dance abilities and we look forward to your competitions.

You are a smart, driven girl who has the potential to achieve great things. However, remember you are still young and have many things to learn and experience. Always be teachable and continue to love learning so you can excel now and always.

We love you Alyssa and are very proud you are our daughter!
Love,
Mom & Dad

Jessica's Spotlight at Preschool

In Jessica's preschool class, they spotlight the kids on their birthday. Since Jessica's birthday fell on a weekend, they did it on Thursday before the long weekend started. She was SOOOO excited about her poster. She helped me choose pictures to print and then after she went to bed on Wed night, I laid it all out. It was fun to do layout her poster, cut it all and mount it on cute papers - something I haven't done for awhile. Here are the digital pages I did tonight of her spotlight.
Credits: "Her Royal Highness" by Britt-ish Designs

My baby is 5!

Jessica turned five years old yesterday. She's my baby ... and she's FIVE!! Where does time go? It doesn't seem like that long ago that I sat on the front porch with Steve and told him I was expecting her (she was a surprise). We weren't quite ready for her (Taylor was only 19 months old when Jessica was born), but she came and she has been such a blessing to us!Jessica LindseyBorn February 7, 2005
9:49 pm weighing 9 lbs 5 oz
Jessica is our Valentine baby - born just a week before, she has always just been easy to love and loving to others. She sees her church nursery teacher (from 3 years ago) and runs to give her hugs. She sees her preschool teacher from last year and gets so excited. She just LOVES everyone.Jessica is a happy little girl. She's just fun to be around. She's outgoing and friendly and funny! She has always entertained us with her funny faces and sounds.A few of her favorites:
Candy: Starburst
Food: Mac n cheese or hot dogs - although she will eat almost anything and loves sushi!
Color: she loves them all!
Movie: Tinkerbell, but she LOVES Jessie from Toy Story 2
Best Friends: Her sister Taylor, Paige, Tess and Aly
Favorite thing to do: PLAY with friends. She really loves to be outside in the summer. Oh, and she LOVES makeup!
When I asked her what makes you laugh, she responded "MAKING FUNNY FACES!"A little more about Jessica ... Jessica sleeps on the top bunk. She does not like a light on, but likes the nightlight. She likes to listen to music when she sleeps - especially Disney music. She wakes up in the mornings very happy and wants to play. She goes to preschool 4 days a week at Eaglecrest Elementary School. She also takes gymnastics from Miss Heather. She was taking dance at Alpine Peaks until we recently pulled her out (due to Steve's job situation). She loves to ride her scooter, make believe in her kitchen, play games, work puzzles, dance, practice gymnastics, play on the swingset, help mom or Karianna, give her daddy hugs on the leg, make funny faces, be silly and just about anything that makes her feel like a big girl. She loves to learn and knows all the letters and sounds they have worked on during preschool. She can count to 30 with no problem, write her name and even write her sister's names. She is very easy going. If she doesn't get her way, she's ok with that. She loves to sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house and loves seeing her cousins. She enjoys fast rides at amusement parks and ones that spin you all around.I love how happy she tries to make me and others around her. I love her laugh and her smile and all her different funny faces. I love when she gives me big hugs and kisses just because. I love that she likes to be near me and help with whatever I am doing. I love that she loves to learn, even if it means she is growing up too fast! I love that she can remind me not to be grumpy and remind me to focus on the little things that make life great! Jessica just makes me happy and I feel so blessed to be her mom!

Digital Scrappers - Blog Train!

As part of being on the Creative Team for Scraps of Ellay, we have started a new blog "CT Stars of Ellay". To kick off the blog, we are doing a Blog Train! FREEBIES!! These aren't just an element or paper per blog, we're talking mini kits (4-8 elements, 4-8 papers) and FULL BLOWN kits with LOTS OF STUFF plus a few Quick pages. FREE!! I've done 3 spreads from it.

If you digital scrapbook, you will want to check it out. If you haven't done a blog train before, you start with the first blog and download the freebie. Then you go to the next one and download there. (Leave some "love" along the train in the comments). Hope you love it! You'll see more sample pages throughout the train! Start by CT Stars of Ellay blog.

Oh, and here is a preview of the stuff you'll get!

Some more old pics ...

Was looking through old pictures that I haven't scrapbooked yet ... trying to get some inspiration and creativity and had to laugh at these of Taylor and Jessica. They are from September 2007, but haven't been scrapbooked and like I said, made me laugh tonight ... something I needed. Wasn't sure what title to give the pages ... Double Trouble or the one I went with. I still may change it. I always love looking at old pictures of my kids ... wow have they grown up. My baby turns 5 on Sunday!! CRAZY how time flies. Credits - Rachel's Room by Scraps of Ellay

Inspiring friends

I want to share a story about a friend of mine from high school. Her name is Dana. Dana was raised Catholic, went to church every Sunday, believed in God all her life. As an adult, her kids were attending a preschool at a local church so they attended there on Sundays ("flew under the radar" - as she put it). She is a good person but as she says, she didn't always put God first in her life or even include God in her life on a daily basis. She had a life changing experience that has changed all that. Her story inspired me and I want to share parts of it with you (I hope I get it all correct). Last May, Dana got sick. At first it was diagnosed as the flu and a kidney infection (and dehydration) so they put her on an antibiotic, gave her fluids and sent her home. But after a couple more days, she was readmitted to the hospital with pneumonia, kidney failure and liver failure. The machines did 60% of her breathing for her. The doctors couldn't figure out why her body was shutting down, but gave her less than a 10% chance of surviving if she didn't have a complete blood transfusion immediately. After being in the hospital about 24 hours, she had 80 pages of "charts". She was moved to another hospital and the doctor there suspected that her symptoms were advanced stages of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever - (from a tick - despite the fact that nobody ever found a tick). He changed her medication and she began to recover. She spent 10-11 days in the hospital and lost 30 lbs in 2 weeks (and she's always been petite so she didn't have it to lose!). She spent several more weeks recovering at home. Through all of this, she was blessed her family and by a very supportive church who has loved her and prayed for her, brought meals, visited her, and created a testimony scrapbook for her. It has taught Dana to turn her life over to God and to believe and trust in Him for all things. It has taught her to view coincidences as God's little miracles. It has taught her to truly put God first. She has started attending a Bible study group at her church - despite the fact that she felt inadequately prepared to be there (didn't know where all the different books were and hadn't studied it much in her life). She has realized the power of prayer and the importance of prayer ... not quoting scripture or being perfect in her prayers, but in real, sincere, heart-felt prayer.

She shared all of this on a local tv show that focuses on faith promoting stories recently. She and I "chatted" online the night before her interview. She was so nervous. She has always hated public speaking, even doing class presentations back in high school made her nervous. But she said she was doing it with fear but with God. I am so inspired by her faith, her testimony of God and of prayer and the strength she has gained from putting God in her life daily and putting her trust in him.

I am so very grateful for the faith and testimonies of my friends and thankful for the inspiration their faith can be to me. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I hear the testimonies of other members of my church on a regular basis - during lessons or talks given at church (we don't have a paid clergy so we are all called on to teach and give talks), messages from visiting and home teachers, even talking with friends on a regular basis and I see their testimonies through the things I see them do, through the stories I hear of their famlies, etc. But I don't hear the testimonies of my friends from other faiths as often, probably because I am not around them as often (my area is very predominantly members of the LDS church) and I feel truly blessed to have heard Dana's story and testimony. As members of the LDS church, we believe in some things that other Christians do not believe in - the Book of Mormon as another testament of Christ, the blessing of eternal families through our temples, living prophets today on the earth and priesthood power to name a few. While I am willing to share those beliefs with anyone interested (feel free to ask me or visit http://www.lds.org/), I am grateful that despite our differences, we can all share our belief in God who loves each of us, our gratitude in our Savior Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us and in the power of prayer. I am grateful we can all feel His peace and love. I am grateful for my own testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Christ and how much I grow because of the testimonies of others. I am grateful for the testimonies of my friends because they lift me up, inspire me and help me be a better follower of Christ on a daily basis.

Thanks Dana for your friendship, your inspiration and for sharing your testimony and story with me! So glad we have facebook to get us back in touch. I didn't realize how much I've missed you until I heard your voice on that video!! I never would have survived that first year or two in NC without you! Love ya!

With Love

These are some pictures I took awhile back of Taylor's baby blanket ... made with love by my mom, and used with love almost every day of Taylor's life ... as you can tell by the many holes in the blanket. :) I've been trying to scrapbook every day things lately as well as the events in our lives. This blanket ranks up there as one of Taylor's most prized posessions so it needed a page of its own.
This is made with a new kit by Scraps of Ellay. Just barely released tonight! Its called Rachel's Room and it has some DARN cute papers! I LOVE the quilted papers. And there is a boy kit to match - released a few weeks ago called Thompson's Room.

Our weekend!

Friday night - we had plans to have homemade tacos and watch a movie with our friends Jason and Michelle while my parents had our girls. But the homemade part of tacos fell through so we enjoyed Rubios instead. Then we watched a movie. Love our theater!!

Saturday - we picked up the girls in the afternoon and did soem chores. Then we went to In-n-Out Burger for a family splurge and went to Robyn and Dallas's house to watch BYU beat Utah in basketball. We didn't win by as much as we'd hoped, but it was still a win! Go Cougs!

Then, Sunday we decided to make our homemade tacos. Our family LOVES homemade tacos. I had thought the meat for Friday so I decided I'd make them Sunday. Without telling me, Steve invited Jason and Michelle (the their 3 kids) to join us as well as our friends the Bowens (three kids plus 2 friends staying over). I was a bit surprised and confused when we were about to sit down for dinner and in walked Jason and the kids with a tray of taco shells and some meat. But it was TONS of fun! 6 adults and 11 kids all 12 and under. A little crazy at first but it turned out well and actually very relaxing. Everyone just brought any part of tacos they had ... meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, shells, plus rice and a yummy dessert! Totally a night I needed. Thanks Jason, Michelle, John, Lisa and Steve for planning a fun family dinner night.

I am so grateful for our friends! Love you all!