Dear Blog,

Madelyn is such a cutie pants.  I look at her sometimes and I wonder how we got so lucky?  She has this smile that is infectious.  I love it.  She does some funny things like still calling every drink "water."  No matter what it is, if it's in her sippy cup it's "water."  I was telling a friend the other day about how Madelyn always calls the phone the "hello."  She thinks the phone is really called "hello."  Its adorable.  Then there is her blanky that is called "de de."  You really know who knows our family by who calls her blanky "de de."  She is attached to her thumb and loves to play with her sisters.  She is starting to like Elmo and her hair is really growing in.  The last thing that was pointed out to me this week is the fact that Madelyn has a deeper voice.  I never noticed.  The minute I did though, it has me cracking up all the time.  You have this cute little Gerber baby face and then this husky voice.  SO CUTE!!!  She truly is becoming a little person...it's hard to swallow sometimes.

It was also pointed out to me that when Savannah and Ellie get really laughing they have the same laugh.  I also had never noticed it before.  It makes me smile to think of their similarities because the differences are so much easier to see.  I love that our girls have each other.  You can truly see that there is love there. 

So blog, today I am grateful for our funny kids that enrich our life. I am also grateful for hair dye because with children has brought grey hair(s). 

 

Pride Rock(s)

This weekend has brought so much pride into our life's and has made me realize yet again how blessed we are. It all started out on Friday when Moroni and I were blessed to be able to go see the Broadway show The Lion King. Which takes place on "Pride Rock."

  Standing by the famous Lion King sign.

"Here kitty, kitty."

Prrrrrrr

The theatre. The show was amazing.

It was a fun night, and it did not end until early in the morning. Thank you to my Sis, Bro and his wife for watching our kids. They love their Aunts and Uncles.

The Pride continues Saturday morning as we go to Ellie's soccer game and she scored her second goal TWO WEEKS IN A ROW!! It was AWESOME! I missed last weeks because I was at my dear friend Amy's baby shower. Ellie scored her first goal just for me. So Saturday I asked her if she could score another one for me, so I could see it. It was the last minute of the game, she ran it down, and SCORED!! Pure PRIDE!

Go Ellie!

Saturday night comes and the Pride factor capped out as one of the greatest people in the world to me, the person I wanted to be when I grew up, one of my best friends, and Brother graduated from Marquette Law School. Doug has worked so hard. He has done all of this while having a small growing family , working and every day life stresses. It was such a proud moment to be able to see him earn something he worked so hard for and deserved!

Dougie! An amazing person and brother!! Go Lawyers.

Just the five of us! Me and my amazing siblings. Dave, Marilyn, Doug, Me, and Robert. I know...we are all so good looking:)!!

Little more casual. Yes, Doug and Robert are twins.

My whole growing up years this was my family. Now that I have a family of my own, I look back and I am so grateful for my parents, brothers and sister. Thank you Mom and Dad for raising five(if I do say so myself) great kids!

Doug is truly one of my best friends. I trust him with everything and I know how much I am cared for. He was the perfect older brother and I meant it when I said I wanted to be him when I grew up. Thank you for always being a great family member and a person that didn't judge others. I love that you are a great Dad, husband and to the other four of us...Brother. I love you Doug and I am so PROUD to be your sister!! Congrats...here comes another Lawyer world!!

Sisters gone WILD!

Who has a sister?  Well, I have one and she is an amazing human being and I grateful she is my sister.  I love my sister Marilyn so much that we named our second daughter after her.  Even more than that she was there when Savannah was born.  The moment that she found out that this new little baby girl would  be her name sake was a moment I will treasure forever.  I have never seen my sister so touched in her whole live.  This past weekend us sisters got together in my Sis's "hood" and we partied it up!  Okay when I say "partied" I mean we ate...a lot, we laughed...a lot and we watched a lot of funny shows.

Me and My little Sis!

First we started at the Cheesecake Factory.  Oh yes there was avocado egg rolls, Godiva chocolate cheesecake and bang, bang chicken and shrimp.  SO GOOD!

Next there was shopping, fun and really load music.  After all that, we started to get hungry again so we went to this AMAZING pizza place that cooks your pizza in 90 seconds.  Its all about this wood burning oven.  I was a skeptic...until I ate it...WOW.

That's right Marilyn and I had our own 10 inch pizzas

YUM!

Through out all this fun, her roommate Mandy STUDIED.  That's right STUDIED!  Here she is with her nose in the books.  That girl has the best discipline. We had some great laughs though.

Sunday came and it was time to go to church.  Marilyn has this amazing singles ward there.  So many fun people and we had a great experience.  Here we are driving to church.  Yes, Marilyn was driving when I took this picture...sorry Mom:).  Remember it was a WILD weekend.

Next we we got home changed out of our Sunday best and went for a walk around Monkey's favorite spot.  This is her lake.  It was about a 5K walk and so beautiful.

Isn't my sister BEAUTIFUL...inside and out!

Thanks for a great Sisters weekend, I can't wait for the next one! 

On a side note, thank you also to my sweet hubby, wonderful friends and family who helped out this weekend and picked up the slack so I could be with my Sister.  Love you all!

Royal Feast and long lost friends...

I had the pleasure of being a servant in Ellie's class as they wrapped up their study of fairy tales. They had an old fashion royal feast where there were costumes, food, a royal parade, parents as servants and lots of fun.

 Here is Ellie during the Royal parade through the whole school.

The AMAZING table.  Notice the bread and grapes laid out for the eating.  No utensils at this feast.

The kids were really into it.  The best part was when they wanted more food they simply clapped there hands and stated "more chicken" or "more drink."  Just like it would of been back then.  Ellie got very into it.  They were told that they shouldn't say please but, that they should say thank you.

It was so much fun.  I was so grateful to be a part of it.

LONG LOST FRIENDS...

Sometimes you meet people in life and they are forever a part of it.  I look back to my days of college and there are about a dozen people that I feel truly changed my life.  One of them I got to re-connect with yesterday.  Her family has recently moved to WI and we got to get together and play.  The last time we saw each other we had blond hair, no kids, and I swear she was shorter...

Jen and Me.  Sorry about the 'mist' we had to endure.  We laughed about how funny our hair would look in all of our pictures that day.

Our kids: Madelyn, Savannah, Ben and Ryan(Ellie and Brooke are not pictured). 

Savannah was so cute.  We drove separately to the zoo and the whole way she kept asking about "the boys."

Even Madelyn joined in the Zoo(rainy) fun.

Savannah and Daddy.

Thank you to Jen and her family for a great day. I love our memories that we share and I am so glad we get to make even more of them.

It takes too...too much fun that is!!

What an AMAZING weekend our family had.  We had a very fun Friday night celebrating Cinco de Mayo, with our church family.  Pictures are truly going to speak a thousand words in this entry.  Because their are a thousand pictures...

The party started out with great food and great entertainment.  We had a live band to dance and listen to.  Our girls are dancing with their little friends.  The funny part was how they separated into their respected age groups to dance. 

Our music director did a great job teaching the kids the 'rockin' version of "I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."  They sang loud and proud!

Savannah all ready to sing.

Great band!!

So it's true.  Guys in bands really do get all the cute 'chicks.'

Pinata time!  Go Ellie!!

Savannah was very determined.

We also had a great weekend celebrating Mothers Day.  I love my Mom so much and I am so proud to be her daughter.  We got to go to breakfast on Saturday before we went to Women's Conference.  I am also so grateful for the Mom I got when Moroni and I got married.  She is wonderful and so good to me and our family.  Love you Moms!!

I felt very loved as a Mom this weekend from my sweet hubby and our girls.  I got sweet cards, gifts and Moroni of course spoiled me.  Saturday night he took me to one of my favorite restaurants.

That's right...it's five o'clock somewhere ;).  Cheeseburger in Paradise!!

That's right...still silly...still mine.

Thank you for making me a Mom, Moroni.  Oh how I love you!!

Mothers Day was filled with love, laughter, relaxation and as you can see a dozen roses.  I love you girls and what a joy our life is.

Ringing off the hook

If you know our oldest you know she is a sunny, outgoing and loving personality. She loves everyone and trusts unconditionally.  The other night we came home from soccer practice and many other activities to find a lot of messages on our machine.  This is not to unusual especially if I was gone for the day.  However, the messages themselves are what I had to scratch my head about.  They were from little boys.  A couple of them.  They wanted to talk to Ellie and were just calling to say "hi."  Mind you Ellie is 6, that's right 6.  Not 16 or 26, just 6...kindergarten.  She is still our baby.  I was very confused until the phone rang again and there was no one on the line.  I kept saying hello until finally a women answered. She said "I'm sorry my Son dialed your number my name is _______ _______ and my Son is_______, do you know why he would be calling you?"  Yes, I did and her name is Ellie. 

So the Mystery was this:  Ellie gave her phone number to every one in her class.  When asked why she did this, she simply stated "because I wanted to talk to them."  We were so surprised and once it set in I realized something.  The only kids that called were boys.  No girls. I'm so sorry Moroni! 

 Here's to anyone who is or lives with someone outgoing, bubbly, life of the party, loving, caring and just brings a smile to your face.

Dear Blog,

Sometimes I think your blog can be like a journal.  So I am writing in my blog like it is a journey entry today and not like dozens of people read this.

Ellie does the funniest thing and she has since she was a baby.  You will go to take a picture of her and for some odd reason when  you say "3" or "cheese" her eyes turn to look at something else.  She is still facing you smiling all ready expect she is looking at something else.  I realized it again yesterday as she was getting her dance pictures and I laughed.  She truly has done this for years.  I started to wonder what she was looking at?  A fairy perhaps or some really cool hula dancer?  I just want to remember moments like that.

Savannah likes to get your attention by coming up in your face and making her eyes as big as they can go(and they are already big and blue).  This is to let you know she is serious about what she is talking about.  It truly is the cutest thing.  Sometimes she even adds "Mom, this is serious."

Madelyn can not say the word Milk.  She can say "I luv u Mommy," but can't say Milk.  Everything she drinks is "water"(in her cute way of saying water).  I tried to practice with her last night and I would show her water and then milk.  Both things are apparently water and that's just how she likes it.  She also has a nick name for Savannah...its "Sa Sa."  I love to hear her say it.  She runs around the house(literally now) sayings "Sa Sa," " Sa, Sa."  "I luv u Sa Sa."  I think "Sa Sa" has a new fan.

I think Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he sent you three to us!

Gotta Run

I think when it comes to Moroni my rose colored glasses will never come off.  There is something about this man that makes me love him more each day(I know cheesy...but true).  These past few months I have got to see a different side of Moroni that I never thought I would.  My love, with help from his buddy Eric has been training for a half-marathon.  That's right running 13.1 miles. So for two months Moroni has been running and training.  This past Saturday he has his first race.  It was a 10K and he was excited and I was nervous.  I didn't know what to expect on race day, and I was not disappointed.  There were runners, walkers, ambulances, food tables and friends.  It was a good Saturday morning.  As my girlfriend and I waited for our hubbies to cross the finish line(with our 6 children in toe) I thought about how proud I was of Moroni.  I thought about the many times he supported me in the many endeavors I wanted to try.  I thought about the many times I set goals and no matter how silly he supported me.  So I stood there and heard my friend yell "there coming," and the pride I felt is more than I can describe in words.  I am proud everyday to be your wife Moroni and I was so proud to see you accomplish a goal that you are working towards.  The girls and I can't wait for the next race and we will be there at the finish line.

Our "Captain in Training"

Moroni and his buddy Eric.  They finished the race together and with a good time.  We are so proud of both of you guys!!

Eric, Erica(a good friend of ours who also ran and beat our men folk too) and Moroni

Moroni and his "groupies."