Super Saturday

Today was a great day. Celia and I went to the stake activity day. It was quite the production  put on for mom's and their daughters, ages 8 to 11. There were classes, and treats, and meaningful messages shared all the the theme of "Theres no place like home" from the Wizard of Oz. My favorite parts were singing with Celia and hundreds of other women and girls  and hearing a sweet toddler sing her part in a family musical number. My children are growing older, but I'm glad they still need me and we can share precious moments together. Since Emmy had a mock AP test and I was off with Celia, we quickly got her ready for Senior ball. It was hectic, but it worked out and she was happy and looked lovely. I'm glad to support her. The rest of my kids and I went for a car ride after pictures with Emmy for her big night. I loved seeing the my children smile, laugh, and sing. Celia is excited for more activity days and I'm excited for her to meet more girls her age at church.

We had a few hiccups getting ready for Prom. Her hair is curly, but it was awfully hard to get a loose tosseled curl. I painted her nails and there seemed to be a smudge by surprise quite a bit. She had a sparkling nail polish coating so it worked out. Emmys corsage bracelet was too big, so for once she pinned the boutinere with one try and the  corsage required more tenacity to put on. We used a safety pin. I realized Emmy was driving to Prom and so I had Brian put on the new correct fitting hubcaps just in time. They were off to the Serrano country club where they only have valet parking. It should be a fun fancy smancy occasion. Emmy and Andrew are going to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance together too, before school ends for Andrew and he embarks on his two year mission. As a creative invite Emmy made Andrew a pillowcase with cute lyrics from a Relient K song written on it. Yes, she made a pattern by drawing letters, cut them out and we sewed them on until two in the morning. I'm glad she was so creative and I'm sure he can have the fun pillow case as a memory keepsake for quite some time. These years are fun for me. Celia's next!

Andrew's Dad took some great shots of these kids too, so I added them here. Emmy and Andrew are so cute together!

Never a Dull Moment

You would think that after all of the birthdays and parties happening around here had passed that things would be pretty uneventful for awhile, but that is definitely not the case.

The day after Spencer's birthday Emmy invited three of her friends over and they made a sarcastic hot pink birthday cake for a boy that one of her friends used to like. They had lots of fun baking and driving all over town, and Spencer sure enjoyed having all of teenage girls at the house.

On Monday Celia got to have "her hair done" for an E.E.G. like the ones that she got when she was four. We went to visit Dr. Chez, hers and Spencer's neurologist, for the first time in almost four years and he remembered us. He said that he wanted to get to know Celia again and to make sure that the nightmares that she sometimes gets aren't from any seizures that we don't know about.

On Wednesday Andrew came over to pick up a guest pass from Emmy so that she could go to his Senior Ball next week. She had forgotten it at school, but luckily I was able to go pick it up from the office at her school and bring it over to the office at Andrew's school a few hours before the deadline. While he was at our house, him and Emmy decided that they wanted to make a pizza from scratch. They went out and bought all of the ingredients that we didn't already have around the house and spent the rest of the evening making the dough, waiting for it to rise, putting toppings on the pizza and then putting it in the oven. They seemed like they had lots of fun doing all of that while in the meantime Brian and I went on date night to Costa Vida. I decided to try their raspberry chicken salad, and I think it has become a new favorite of mine!

On Friday afternoon I dropped Joseph off to go on a campout with his boy scout troop, and he felt like he was better prepared for camping this time around since he could use the hiking backpack that he got for his birthday to carry his things during all of their hiking instead of having to carry a couple duffle bags. Celia felt like she wanted to go camping too so while Joseph was packing his things she took out all of her own camping supplies, only all of her things were much smaller and all pink. He seemed like he had a great time and enjoyed telling me about all of the hatchet throwing contests they had at the campout. He didn't get home until late on Saturday night, but he was all smiles and didn't even seem to mind that he was covered in dirt.

Also on Friday, I got around to replacing the hubcaps on Emmy's car. She had been missing her front left hubcap for awhile, so Brian decided to order her some new ones. I put them on her car by myself, but they turned out to be too small. We had barely even gotten off of our street before three of them came off. Oh well. We're ordering some different ones that are the right size, and after a carwash and a week and a half of being in the repair shop her car will be all the way nice and spiffy again. It's so nice that we have a working car for her to be able to drive herself places and we're glad that it will be working for another few years.

And after all that, we all enjoyed just being able to relax.

Spencer Doodle is 16

 Spencer is Sweet Sixteen today. He is a loving boy, a teaser, mischievous, yet aware boy. he cleans up his trash better than the rest of my kids and loves riding in the car and being around Emmy and Joseph's teenage friends. He does amazing at school and keeps me young. He is looking like his Dad these days. Such a handsome boy. We love you Spencer. Happy Birthday!

It poured rain today. Good thing Spencer loves the rain. It was raining hard when his van dropped him off, but he hopped right out when he heard we were having a birthday party with pizza and cake. The light up necklace and many balls with texture were a great hit with him. The Piñata was fun and I love seeing him so smiley. I got a few Thanks mom looks and several kisses. I'm glad I could see on his face he felt celebrated, loved and enjoyed his presents. Spencer's tutors; Alicia, Stephen, and Ricky were there and today was Allie's last day for Celia, so It was a big party with lots of adult friends too.

Celia had her friends over to celebrate her Birthday too. They didn't seem to mind sharing a big Chocolate mouse cake from Costco and loved all the birthday balloons and fun.

Happy Eighth Birthday, Celia

The squirt guns were a big hit this morning for Celia's Birthday. Especially the one shaped like a cupcake. Celia was running around watering the plants with her squirt guns and saying "Put your hands up, I'm a cop." She loves her lalaloopsey sister dolls , new shirt and a whole bunch of new socks. Celia has kind of been getting her birthday presents all week and for Easter. She is happy and spoiled. It was a beautiful day. We were forecasted to have rain, but instead we had beautiful fluffy white clouds and blue skies with a cool breeze.  She let me cut her bangs and her hair flys everywhere s she runs, but I love it. Celia is excited to have friends over for a party to celebrate some more on Friday. She is excited to be baptized. She tells us she knows everything and that she'd like to ride in the front seat of the car now. She is so fun and has a great personality. Love you, Celia!

Celia got to do some more celebrating with Rah Rah, Willow, and the rest of the family on her Birthday Evening. Celia loves her Laloopsey backpack from and we loved visiting. I loved the baptism dress Rah Rah and Papa got for Celia. It is great to be Eight and she is going to be baptized next Month. We are all so excited!

Visiting the Castle

Many times we had passed the "Castle" nearby our house and Celia noticed it. It is known as "Sun Splash" and we were excited to be invited to go mini golfing there with a few friends. It was Celia's first time and she did pretty well, much better than I did. I think she liked how chaotic my ball was and the adventure is cause. I didn't get it in to the water, but others in our group did and we even had to call an employee to come and get our balls out of the house that swallowed them up. Alex is such a nice friendly friend of mine. I'm grateful for her. She was so kind to take to me have my foot surgery and bring me food, and now she is my visiting teacher, lucky me! Her teenage kids are pretty nice too. We went to the park with them during spring break and Spencer came out of the car and sat with us at the picnic table. Spencer loves teenagers and I'm so pleased when they are kind and accepting of him. I love that he is calming down quite a bit. he bites his hand less and aggresses toward other infrequently these days. I am hopeful he will continue to calm adown and we can take him out in the community more and have fun.

Easter Sunday 2014

We've had a lovely Easter. it is beautiful outside. Church was nice. We gave the opening and closing prayers with Spencer lasting about 10mins as usual. Brian is so good to go for car rides with Spencer. It is relaxing for Spencer and it makes it possible for us to attend church. Celia got interviewed after church by the Bishop to see if she will be ready for baptism. She passed( she says she knows all that stuff when we talk about it) and said she answered a thousand questions for an hour. We had dinner at Lunchtime and had a great visit from Rah Rah. I like that Easter is Sunday during spring break so there isn't a lot of things requiring our time and attention away from home. The kids got Easter shirts and dresses for the girls. It felt a little bit like I was stuffing stockings rather than Easter basket last night. Christmas and Easter seem similar to me in the way that there are celebrations of Christ and for traditions or fun. I tried to make open tomb rolls, but they just turned out as cinnamon rolls with a marshmallow on top. I guess the stone is still in front of the tomb, hehe.

I'm grateful for My testimony that Christ is the redeemer of the world. He atoned for or sins, died and resurrected on the third day. We can live with our families together forever. I have a hard time getting the family together for a family picture, but I know we are happy and I hope we can appreciate our time together here on earth being nice to each other as much as possible.