Fun Times in February

Our top ten list of activities for the last few weeks:

1. Celebrating Valentine's Day complete with poetry, chocolates, a candlelit dinner, cherry cream cheese pie, chocolate milk and karaoke.
2. Planning/attending Young Women in Excellence/New Beginnings - see pics.

The cute invitations the YW president made.
The excellent decorating the 1st counselor came up with and the handouts the president made.
The door Logan and another husband made into a purse. It would look better if I'd taken the picture from the other end, but you get the idea.
It was a fun purse theme - In "Purse"-uit of Excellence. We did purse games, talked about "purse"onal progress, and our adviser gave an excellent talk on not being a counterfeit and how to be a true young woman of excellence. It was a great night!

3. Working.
4. Sleeping.
5. Playing.
6. Enjoying seeing the grass for at least a couple of weeks.
7. Looking for/researching digital pianos (hopefully purchasing one very soon- hooray for tax returns!)
8. Carrying out two callings. Logan is now the Young Men's president and the clerk. Hopefully that won't last long. He will miss being the clerk, but he's really excited to work with the young men too.
9. Planning youth conference for the stake this summer. We're on a committe of 3 couples who will put the 2-day event together. So, if any of you have ideas as to what youth might enjoy, we'd be happy to hear them!
10. Learning more crock-pot recipes. By the way, I will try to make a post dedicated to how I do my food budget, since some of you seemed interested. I can't promise how soon it will be, or how interesting it will be,but I'll do it.

Obviously not an all inclusive list, but those are the major things. I guess the important thing is that we are enjoying life, and we hope you are too!

100th Post! (and some pics)

My big girl finding her favorite song on the CD. I can't believe how grown up she seems these days.

We had a fun weekend with Uncle Ben, Haven and Rory. Haven and Carli had fun riding "Snap" the horse together. Carli got caught at an inopportune time, but Haven's smile was so cute, I had to include the picture.

We had a major melt so we went on a long walk and then raced paper boats in the gutter. We tried the big pond in our backyard, but it was too soppy, we thought one of us might fall in. (Yes, my husband is wearing shorts. How warm was it, you ask? Well into the 40s. You'd think it was 80 with the way everyone was out and about.)Logan, Ben and the girls ready for the walk.

Carli, snacking on Wheat Thins while she watches Baby Einstein. She really is getting so big, I can hardly believe it.

Cute things she's done lately:

1. She continues to say more words each day, yesterday she learned stretch and stretches her arms when she says it.

2. We usually try to give her a bath every couple of nights, but she now wants one every night. Right before bedtime, she knocks on the bathroom door, grins from ear to ear and says "Bath!" so excitedly and expectantly we can't say no.
3. At church she could hear the kids in nursery playing and knocked on the door for them to let her in. For the first time, I am excited for May when she can go play with them.

Pride

Well, I just had a moment of pride - you know the kind that everyone feels when they realize they really are good at something. Teachers feel it when they make a breakthrough with a student, lawyers when they win a case, engineers and artists when they create something, doctors/nurses when they heal, and so on. Well, this really isn't as important as all of that, but my husband just pointed out to me that I consistently feed my family for not much more than a $1 per person per meal. And we haven't had ramen for years! Yay for Home Eckies! (And anyone else who knows how to live on a budget!)

To make this post worth your time, here are some pictures and a video.

I know it must seem like I'm obsessed with her saying kitty - it's ok, I've moved on, my new favorite word of hers is Binky. She says it so cute "bee-bee". But, I've learned she won't be forced into anything, so maybe you'll hear her say it someday, maybe you won't. Here she is dancing to her Daddy's music.