Spence

My dear little brother, Spencer, left for his mission in December. We are very close, so it's been hard not having him here. He had a few months at home (my parents live five minutes away from me. Awesome, I know.) before entering the MTC and we were able to spend a lot of time hanging out, a lot of time laughing together and a lot of time talking about the books we are both trying to write, the books we read, movies, and anything and everything. I was able to be there when he was set apart. I can still see his face the last time I saw him, smiling, his wave, how nice he looked in his new missionary clothes. I bawled the whole way home. He made it to Mexico and is serving in his first area. I was able to talk with him on the phone during his layover at LAX about a week ago, and the bubs both sang him songs on speaker phone. We have exchanged some letters back and forth and I can already see his testimony growing and am so excited to hear about all of his wonderful missionary experiences. It just struck me how much I love him and miss him, how incredibly grateful I am to have him in my life. Thank goodness my parents had ten kids. Spence is #10. I think they saved the best for last! :)

Here's a recent picture Spence sent us. He's on the far left. Doesn't he look so happy?!

An Update in Pictures

Here are some pictures of Afton, Maeryn, and Eliza from the past few months. We did take a fun trip with Oma and Opa to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. The pictures of the bubs crack me up - they just say it all. The rest of these pictures are just random shots. Enjoy.

Birthday Pix

Alrighty, I finally have the pictures from the bubs' birthday. There were a lot of blurry shots since the bubs were full of energy that day, but at least a few pictures turned out. It's a miracle that we got a family picture where we are all looking forward. Cody's not smiling in this one, but the bubs were all over the place in the ones where he's smiling, so I guess this will have to do. :)

Happy Birthday Bubs!

That's right, the bubs turned 4 today. Can you believe it?! I can't. Seriously, where did the time go? I took a lot of shortcuts on their birthday this year because I am still so sleep deprived that I'm not sure I'm conscious half the time. I bought a cake from the bakery last night when the thought of baking a cake at 10 p.m. or early in the morning was just too much for me to handle. The bakery worker was just walking out but came back when he saw me browsing the cakes and took the time right then and there to write a personalized happy birthday on it. I don't know if he knows how that one small gesture of kindness saved my sanity! So cake, done. I had a birthday banner I found at Old Navy a few weeks back along with a matching table cloth and my mom picked up some balloons. Decorations, done. And we had take and bake pizza for dinner. Birthday dinner, done. And you know what? I think they still had a great day. Which is good because I already gave myself an enormous guilt trip. We gave them a Lego Duplo supermarket, mailman and mail plane, and a couple other little things, but the Lego Duplo zoo set from Cody's Oma and Opa took the cake. Afton was jumping up and down she was SO excited! Now they have Duplos coming out their ears, but it's great because they can be entertained for hours at a time, their little creative minds in Lego heaven. :) Pictures to follow.