Anal Fizzures

I began writing this post with a nice comment about how great these ladies are...but then I remembered what I learned on girls night out....anal fizzures! Thanks Susie for the picture and the VERY informative night!

My first black eye

After all these years of volleyball, skiing, wakeboarding, and ALL the other crazy things I love to do I haven ever had a black eye until now. It was not any of the above activities that put it there. It was given by playing with my kids! I was playing with Emma and its kinda funny when kids have so much trust in you that they assume you will catch them even when you are not looking. So, Emma's head ended up in my eye socket. This picture is not great....but man it HURT!!

Valentines Day

I normally do not really care for this day...I think it is just more of a "Hallmark Holiday" (an excuse for stores to advertise "sales" and to get you to buy stuff you dont need....) but this year one of my FAVORITE aunts dropped this by my house. This was SOOOO yummy!! My cousin Erin (who is a pastry chef) and my aunt Connie spend all day baking and this is what they came up with. It looks like a box of chocolates,but it indeed a box of mini cupcakes with mini rolos inside and topped with candy like hearts and chocolate covered marshmallows.....It was SO GOOD. It was just the "pick me up" I needed as I was in the middle of packing to go up north for some skiing that weekend. THANKS ERIN AND CONNIE!!

Another park day...

One of my favorite things about living here in AZ is all the fun I am able to give my kids by taking them to the park. This is just another one of those GREAT days.....

Swimming with the turtles??

So, Caleb heard that Papa had gotten more turtles in his pond and he was DETERMINED to go swimming with them and catch some. After SEVERAL days of persistence I just had to take him over there. Remember it is still February and the water is still a bit chilly. I was curious to see what he would do. He put on his swim trunks, his goggles and grabbed the net. He got in about waist high. I was pretty proud of him for going that far in!!! He was disapointed, however, that he was not able to catch one. Better luck next time buddy!!!

Aruba, Jamacia oooooh I wanna take ya.....

Ok, well we did not go to Jamacia too, but I really think this song fits our trip well. Spencer and I had a BLAST on our trip. We missed our kids terribly but we also had lots of fun to keep us busy. We were on the Princess Caribbean (I would not go on this cruise line again fyi) and it took us to 5 stops in 7 days. The stops included Aruba, Bonaire, Greneda, Dominica, and St. Thomas. We had only one sea day and it was the first day of our trip. SO, I was able to catch up on A LOT of sleep that day. After about my 3rd nap that day, Spencer walked in our cabin and said (imitating Forrest Gump), "that Caroline...she sleeps alot....". Yeah, needless to say, my kids make me really tired. We were able to go on plenty of adventures: Scuba diving (spencer), Kiteboarding (spencer), Snorkeling (both of us), Massages on the beach (caroline), Hiking to a BEAUTIFUL waterfall in the rainforest (both), shopping (more for me), Moped riding (both), eating eating eating (more me than spencer), and of course much much more. Here are just a few pictures....Waiting at the airport.....

The "Mothership"

Octopus in Aruba (no I did NOT eat it)

Hot Springs in Dominica

Waterfall in the rainforest in Greneda

Snorkeling EVERYWHERE!!!! This was Boniare.

Riding the Moped in St. Thomas

One of my favorite beaches in St. Thomas. GREAT snorkeling!

Kiteboarding in Aruba. Yes, that is Spencer. The instructors told him it would take at least 3 lessons to catch wind and get up...it only took Spencer 1.5 hours. He's a natural! He caught the wind and literally TOOK OFF down the ocean dodging windsurfers in his way. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to see him again.....

Sweet Abby

We had a special opportunity to be a part of a baptism. Here is a quick version of the story. We have been taking 2 girls who are daughters of good friends of ours, who are not members of our church, to our ward with us. One of the girls turned 8 last month and begun reading the Book of Mormon every day and expressed to her parents that she wanted to be baptized. Spencer and I then got the missonaries over to her home and have been teaching the family. Last Sunday Spencer was able to baptize her. Her whole family was there...tearful and feeling the spirit. We pray that the family will follow in this little girl's example. The REASON I titled this entry "Sweet Abby" is about 20- minutes before leaving for the baptism I found Abby in the office writing on paper. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was writing a letter to Madison (the girl who was being baptized). This is the letter she wrote (all on her own):

Dear Madison, I hope you had fun getting baptized. You are now the cleanest person on earth. I am so happy to hear that you are reading your scriptures everyday. Now if you make a sin you can ask Heavenly Father for forgiveness and that sin will be washed away. If you continue to stay clean and repent of your sins you will go and live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the Celestial Kingdom. I'll see you in the Celestial Kingdom! Love, Abby.

I was touched by Abby's letter to this girl that I told her she needed to write it in the new Quad Scripture set that we bought for her. I just love this sweet Abby girl and feel very blessed and honored to be her mother.

Happy Birthday Dayson!!

Dayson's Birthday was last month on the 11th. I have been SOOO busy I have not had time to post the pics but here they are thanks to my SIL Kelly. My camera was not working real well and lucky for me they were here from Colorado to capture this birthday party for me!! Thanks Kelly!!

4 things I LOVE about Dayson:

1. He puts all his clothes on backwards, not because he doesnt know how, but because he doesnt want to spend the extra time to do it right...he wants to go PLAY!!!

2. He is infatuated with "Movie, The Cars" and needs to have one everywhere he goes. He gets sad when he buries them in the sand while we are playing at the park and cannot find them when it is time to go.

3. He loves anything with honey.....he must have his mother's sweet tooth.

4. He is a GREAT big brother and little brother. We were at swim practice last summer and the boys were playing with some other boys. One of them pushed Caleb down and without missing a beat Dayson (smaller of the two) jumped right in and gave that boy a good push back. While we dont condone retaliation, I thought it was sweet he would stick up for his OLDER brother even though those boys were bigger than him.