Ehlana's 4th Birthday

My baby girl turned 4 years old today. She has been such a blessing in our family. I have loved watching her grow into such a beautiful, loving, spunky, strong willed little girl. This morning she woke up to 40 balloons in her bedroom. She was really surprised and excited. We had "letter" pancakes and sang Happy Birthday. After church we Skyped with Grandma Kay and Grandpa Jim.  Then we had a family party with pizza, presents and cake. Ehlana was sick yesterday and we had to postpone her princess party. She was a good sport about it and she's feeling a lot better today.

Happy Birthday, Lovey Bug. We love you!

Balloon fun.

All of the balloons ended up downstairs in no time.

Opening presents.

And now for the big surprise....

My Sister

Do you have a friend in your life who knows everything about you?
Who has walked life with you?
Who understands exactly how you feel?
And understands why you do the things you do?
A person who has listened to your every need?
Who has been happy for you when you are happy?
A person who will talk with you for hours and hours
even though they know all there is to know about you?

I do.
Heavenly Father gave her to me as my sister.

Happy Birthday, Terra. You are my best friend. I love you.

Just Another Saturday

Today was supposed to be "the best day ever!" according to Ehlana. It was supposed to be the day of her pink princess birthday party. We had to reschedule it because she is sick. Instead I am cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming the upstairs and doing a couple loads of throw-up laundry. The children are playing on the piano and racing through the house. Jakob is following me around and unloading the bathroom drawers. I finally put him in Ehlana's room and closed the door. Steve is at the hospital. He said he only had 5 patients to see and he'd be home in an hour. It's been 2 and a half. Sigh. Today is not going as planned. This week was really busy getting back from vacation, planning for the party etc. I feel like my house is a mess no matter how much time I spend cleaning. And then I wonder what it would have been like if we had built our "dream house". At the time I was so sure that's what I wanted. I was so disappointed when the appraisal on the land came back so low and we could no longer agree on a price. We bought this house as a "starter home" and planned on building our dream house one day. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking. An acre of land and a 3,500 sq foot house? That's a lot to manage. I no longer long for the giant house and the huge yard. I'm so happy with where we are. Things don't always turn out as I originally planned. But, it's not always a bad thing. Today I listened to Stephanie and Christian Nielson's Conversation on the Mormon Channel as I was cleaning. They are so inspiring. And I said a little prayer of gratitude for today being just another Saturday.

Crabs Taste Delicious

While on vacation in Seaside, OR we rented a crab pot and tried our hand at catching a crab or two for dinner. We used squid bait that we bought at the gas station and after a few hours we had two crabs and no more bait in the trap. We had left over seafood from our dinner the night before so Steve and Matt decided to put that in the trap and see if we could catch more crabs. We caught a total of 14 crabs that day! We had to throw back a lot of them but we boiled, cleaned and ate 8 delicious crabs for dinner. Nancy also made a fabulous southern boil with potatoes, corn on the cob, carrots and shrimp. I made a garlic butter sauce and some fry sauce for dipping. It was a really fun and delicious experience. We even had enough crab left over to make omelets with it the next morning. Mmmmmm.

A Day at the Beach

While on vacation in Seaside, OR we went to the beach that was less than a block from our beach house. It was sunny but only about 65 degrees. I put the kids swim suits on but warned them about going in the ocean because it was so cold. They were so excited when we arrived they happily began playing in the sand and didn't care that it was a bit chilly.





I LOVE the beach. It is hands down my favorite place on earth. I don't really care about swimming in the ocean I just want to play in the sand, nap on the beach, and put my feet in the water. One of the things I really wanted to do on this vacation was build a sand castle.




While I was playing in the sand like a child on Christmas morning I wasn't watching my children very closely and they began to get closer to the ocean. As I finished I went to go tell them to be careful and not go in I looked up and saw Jaxson and Ehlana running out of the ocean soaking wet, covered in sand and crying. They had been knocked down by a wave and Ehlana was yelling, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" I felt horrible that I hadn't watched them more closely. It all happened so fast. I was so grateful they were okay and that they knew how to hold their breath under water. They were freezing and couldn't stop crying so we packed up after less than an hour of being at the beach and headed home for a warm shower.




We got the kids settled down and left them with Steve and Matt for some quiet time. Nancy and I went back and took a long walk on the beach.
Later that afternoon we went to another beach that had swing sets for the kids to play on. It was Jakob's first time feeling sand on his toes. He really liked like it!





Our very friendly neighbor (who looked just like Santa Claus) gave us a kite. We are now convinced that Santa does not live at the North Pole but in Seaside, OR. Unfortunately for us we didn't know how to put the kite together (or fly it for that matter) so it didn't workout too well. Instead we played some football, swung on the swings, and dug in the sand.