Shanna and Haley turn 9!

The big day came that the girls were counting down for....their 9th birthday! They were so excited for their birthday.  I just love "kid excitement".  It's so cute and refreshing. 

This year they decided (more Shanna) to share a cake instead of having two little ones.  I didn't want to bake two cakes, which I have done in the past.  They both wanted a temple (love that!) and Haley wanted a butterfly on it.  I did my best to deliver!




A glimpse of the butterfly...which actually was supposed to be purple. Oops!




I know Shanna wanted a friend party, and probably Haley too, but I just am not a party planner/carrying out person.  I love having guests in our home, but I like to keep it simple.  And I love having birthdays with family.  We missed having our friends the Franke's with us. 


The kids.  Wow, I'm going to blink and they'll be all grown up too soon!




It's always fun getting a $2 bill from Grandma and Grandpa Bartholomew.  The girls loved their card and money from Grandma and Grandpa Robertson too.












The requested present....crutches!  (Brittany, does Clara still play with hers?)  Shanna has been using them almost EVERYDAY since her birthday.  Too funny.


The other requested present: Pokemon cards!  It's funny because I don't like the Pokemon movies or the books (the books are annoying to read....for my brain anyway).  But oddly enough I don't mind the cards.  I think it's fun when the kids get together to look at them and play games together with them. 


The girls received dolls for Christmas and I thought their birthday would be a fun time to gift some clothes and accessories. 




Haley put on one of the new outfit on her doll.  And her lunchbox?  I can't get over how cute and little it is!  I was never into dolls growing up. Okay, I was a little but not a whole lot.  But the little items that go with these dolls are just soooo cute.  I think I might need to save more money for Christmas presents....ha ha.




More crutch action.  She hasn't pulled them out yet today, but I am sure she will!  And it was perfect timing (sadly) the night before the girls' birthday Shanna's friend and neighbor broke her foot and was on crutches too.  Glad Shanna is just using them for fun.


It's such a joy to have Shanna and Haley in our family! I always wanted two girls at least, so they could have a sister. Well, that happened and they came at the same time much to my shock. (I thought I was having one baby, not two!)  Check out a few of their birth photos here. We love our girls! 

Lisa's Baptism!

A couple weeks ago my niece Lisa was baptized!  She lives 5 hours away, so it was a quick trip for us.  Lisa and her sister Kylie also share the same birthday so it was a bonus for us to be there for Kylie's special day as well.  To be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you need to be at least 8 years old--old enough to know right from wrong and be accountable for your actions.  We believe that infants and little children are holy and innocent and need no baptism. It was wonderful being there for Lisa's baptism.  I love being with family.

My random picture....Haley saw a "man" running in the sky.  Love the cloud shape!  Totally looks like some buff superhero or something running in the sky.


Also, the night before we headed up to Pennsylvania for the baptism and festivities we attended a spaghetti dinner and fundraiser/auction for the teenage girls in our ward to raise money for their annual Girl's Camp.  It was a fun night.  Lee and I enjoy the live auction.  It's so fun to be married to your best friend.  I think Elden captured our feelings about each other quite well!


We arrived at Darrell's house around 3pm after picking up Clark early that morning from a scout camp out, and then a quick trip to the temple with Lee and I switching off.  We enjoyed visiting, working outside and inside, and had fun roasting hot dogs and brats that night for dinner.




Darrell and Stacie are moving soon and are doing some fun changes to their house.  The did a major renovation which is hard to explain on the blog.  Basically all their rooms were connected without a hallway.  You could walk from room to room to room to room.  They created a hallway where their closets were, and added new closets.  Here are the new ones in progress.  Don't they look great?!




I went on a few outings with Darrell on Saturday which I really enjoyed.  Just Darrell and I went to Home Depot that afternoon.  Later that night Darrell, Lois, Lee and I went to Walmart for ice cream for the upcoming birthday party.  It's always a party when Darrell is around.  On our way out he was talking about taking home the Icee bear.  Then he said we should get a picture of it.  It was definitely a "you had to be there" moment.  Lee asked: Is there a story behind this? Meaning, why in the world do we want a picture with the Icee bear?  I said no, no story, but there is now!  We asked a fellow Walmart customer to snap a picture.  It was pretty funny.


After we got home, we turned around and went back out again to the Suburban Diner.  Stacie came with on this wild jaunt.  The Suburban Diner is a 24-hour diner owned by a Greek fellow.  Fun place and the menu literally had over 200 items on it.  Can't wait to go back again.  It was a fun ending to the night!  I thought it was funny that we went in our Suburban to the Suburban Diner.  I thought Darrell was joking about the name of the place, but he wasn't.  The heated seats in the Chevy were quite the topic that night.


Lots of yummy desserts.




After church on Sunday Lisa and her friend were baptized.  Since it was after church many of the ward members stayed.  The chapel was almost filled!  I was asked to give the talk on the Holy Ghost.  I talked about how the Holy Ghost teaches us, warns us, and testifies of truth to us, among other things. We loved being there for Lisa's special day!  She even let me style her hair that morning and paint her nails.  I love my nieces and nephews! The birthday girls and I.  Kylie and Lisa are the youngest kids in their family.  Too funny that their birthdays are on the same exact day!


After church we had a little party!  Of course gifts!








We ate outside, visited, and played a game.




Thanks for the wonderful weekend Stacie and Darrell.  We always love visiting you guys!  I'm so glad we are close to family to come to special events.

The Smart Conference

A few months after my birthday I redeemed my "big" present from Lee.  He bought tickets for us to attend the Smart Conference in Orlando, the middle of April.  Thankfully we had been saving vacation money for the summer anyway, and it worked out that we had the funds already to pay for our trip to Orlando too.  Lois watched our kids that weekend as we spend two days in Florida.  I must say, it's so nice that the BWI airport is practically 15 minutes from her house.  Even during rush hour.  The perks of living in a city! 

This is where we parted paths with Lois.  As soon as we arrived at her house we shooed the kids out of the van, and Lois hopped in.  I didn't want to miss our flight.  We timed things just right.


We had an uneventful trip down which was great.  I didn't realize that the car rental place wasn't at the airport.  We had to wait for a shuttle.  At first I was annoyed that I hadn't looked into that further.  But after we got our car (they let us use a Nissan Rogue which was pretty fun!) we realized our hotel was just about 4 blocks away.  That was great!  We stopped at Taco Bell for a second dinner and headed to the hotel. 


The Smart Conference started at 8:30 and went till almost 6:00pm.  I thought if we left at 7:30 we would have a half hour to park and get to our seats.  Lee missed his exit and we decided to take the very next one.  That was a bad idea.  That exit led directly to the church for the event.  I think everyone at the exit was going to the church that morning for the conference.  We parked about 8:15 or so and ran inside.  We made it to our seats, whew!  The church seats 6000 people, so it was huge.  We were on the second row down front and center.  Pretty awesome.  The music was super loud though, but it was worth having the terrific seating. Ramsey Solutions put on a fantastic event that day.  There was a band, some giveaways, and we found out about Rachel Cruze's new book.  I knew she was writing one, but wasn't allowed to reveal the title yet. This conference was her big reveal.  I was excited to find out what the book would be about when Rachel spoke.  Funny thing though, if I would have flipped through the booklet they gave us, I would have seen the book advertisement right in there!




To give you perspective of where we sat.


Big church, right?!


Rachel spoke about contentment, which was really good.


There were a few breaks that day.  The first one we walked around to use the bathroom.  This church has some separate buildings.  We finally exited the main building of the church and found the youth center.  I didn't have to wait in line at all for the facilities.  When I came back out others had the same idea and there were about 20 ladies already inline!  Weird story, I know. But there are always lines for the ladies' restroom and it was nice avoiding that!

Lee and some guy played a quick game.  Too bad they didn't have ping pong. 


There were 10 speakers that day for the conference.  They talked about almost every aspect of life: parenting, finances, marriage, relational boundaries, living life intentionally, life balance, personal development, contentment, and retirement. This guy here, Chris Hogan, spoke on retirement.  Loved what he had to say.  He gave a powerful "speech" at the end about the importance of being prepared for retirement so that we can live our dreams, serve, and be there for our family.  It was great.  The first speaker of the conference was Les Parrot.  He talked about marriage and was hilarious.  It would be really fun to go to one of his own conferences.  Henry Cloud spoke on having healthy boundaries and told some funny stories too.  I love hearing personal experiences.


With the backstage experience we had lunch, and then a Q&A with the speakers.  They asked the people that would be attending the lunch what questions they had. We each received a free book too, The Total Money Makeover.  I have a copy already, but it actually worked out to get two more.  I give them away as wedding presents and I actually had just run out.  Nice timing!




I was holding up my phone to take a picture of the panel group and Chris Hogan tapped the screen for me, which was funny.  The photo was really blurry. 


Here is the line-up of speakers.  They asked one of my questions!  It was basically how can I teach my kids to find a good spouse.  Henry Cloud, second in from the right answered it.  After Dr. Cloud gave his answer (one thing he said was make sure your kid is independent...can't remember what else!) Dave was confused about the question.  He thought it was for me to find a good spouse.  I said something about already having one, and we have five kids, and Lee raised his hand showing that he was the spouse.  Anyway, it was kind of funny. The banter between the panel was fun too. 


Meg Meeker spoke on fatherhood and how crucial our fathers are to our society.  There are so many problems in the world today, and so many ineffective government/school solutions to the symptoms of the problems.  What would fix many societal "problems" that we have is if parents had a good strong marriage, and taught their kids to be a good citizen, choose the right, and help others. She didn't say that specifically, those are my thoughts, but she did touch on that.  Problems of society are reflections of problems in the home....or no home at all.


After the conference we exited the side door and I saw Dave Ramsey coming out.  I asked if I could get a picture with him and the guy leading him out said walk and talk.  Lee snapped a quick photo.  It was nice of Dave to oblige since he obviously didn't want to stop and chat.  He was on a mission to leave.  It was really windy.


In all, it was a fabulous conference.  It would be so fun to go again in a few years with family and friends.  I've read one of Dr. Cloud's books, two of Dr. Meg Meeker's, of course Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze and am almost done with Chris Hogan's "Retired Inspired" book.  I listen to Chris Brown's radio show occasionally too.  Anyway, it was fun seeing these people in person and hearing them speak.

We found a cute little sandwich shop and ate dinner there. We drove around and found the night-life party place of Orlando (well this one anyway) while trying to find an ice cream place.  The one we wanted to go to was in Universal Studios.  On the way back to the hotel we saw a Walmart and stopped to get food for Sunday and our trip home, plus some Ben & Jerry's for ice cream.  We should have found a regular grocery store.  No joke, we were waiting inline for at least 15 minutes.  Probably 20 or more.  It was so busy.


We attended a nearby church for Sunday services.  Apparently the church building had undergone a renovation and the members had been in the church building only about 4 weeks since completion.  What started out as a small renovation, turned into a three year fix when they found extensive termite damage!  We chatted with the Bishop after Sunday School.  We told him were were there for a conference put on by Dave Ramsey and he said he loved Dave's principles and taught them to the members that sought out food or financial help from the church.  When he became Bishop (like a pastor) over his congregation, $150,000 was being giving out in funds to help the members a year.  He worked with those seeking assistance and whittled that number down to $10,000 a year by teaching them to live the money principles that Dave teaches.  So cool!

After lunch at the hotel we found the Orlando temple.  We spent time there walking around, talking to family on the phone, and read our scriptures.  We hoped to go to the Orlando temple that weekend, but our schedule didn't line up.

A friend of mine from our ward taught a lesson a few weeks back in our women's group--Relief Society.  She told a story of how when the Orlando temple was built there was a lot of opposition from the community.  And even after it was completed there were vandalism problems.  When she was Stake Relief Society President down in Orland she attended the temple one morning and wondered why the front glass doors were covered up.  She saw her counselor in the temple and asked her what happened.  The counselor said that someone had come by and shot the front doors with a machine gun.  But the church just fixed the problem and kept moving forward.  There wasn't any hoopla about this particular event.  The work of God will keep going onward and forward! When I served a mission in LA there were certain things we would recite together as missionaries.  One of them was the end of the Wentworth Letter Joseph Smith wrote to an editor at a Chicago Newspaper...click on this to read.  Here is the end of the letter that we would recite: "the Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear; till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done."






I also worked on my blogs that day and we talked again with more family.  We left early Monday morning (security was CRAZY at the Orlando airport!) and arrived back safely in Baltimore.

Cal had a field trip that day to the National Aquarium, so Lee and Cal went to the aquarium for a couple of hours.  He even saw his class for a little bit. After that we drove to Pittsburgh, then home.

Thanks Lois and Jeff for watching our kids!  Seemed that like weekend went okay.  Another selfie of Elden.....


While we were away....the kids set up tents in the backyard Friday night and hung out there.




They played with some other kids at the library for a Lego time.


They enjoyed some reading time after a library trip.


It was a great weekend.  Thanks for the birthday present Lee!