what a beautiful mess

Is it Batman dressed as the Lorax  or  is it the Lorax dressed as Batman?  Actually, it's just Josh.  Fooled you though, right?

Tonight was our first missionary report for 2013 given by:  Annabelle! She fixed us a great meal  of fried chicken, grits, deviled eggs and cornbread with a peach crisp for dessert.  We gave each of the kids a copy of Preach My Gospel for their own study and  to use on our missionary FHE's.  Anna did the first lesson in it which is on the restoration of the gospel.  She worked on this most days of this last week and her lesson was very well thought out.  I love hearing my children teach the gospel and I especially  love hearing them bear their testimony of what they have taught.  And Annabelle did that really well.  Next week is Emily's turn and we get to experience a little of Turkey...

That my baby is almost no longer my baby.  Almost...but not quite.    For Joshua's sixth birthday we got him a big bike and some batman toys.  He loves Batman! For dinner we had his favorite: spaghetti and meatballs.  And he requested that we watch "Batman: The Movie" streamed to us all the way from 1966 via Netflix.  We all enjoyed watching it and laughed a lot...even at the not-supposed-to-be-funny parts.  Movies have just changed so much since the twentieth century! Joshua received the traditional birthday spankings. The kids have a love/hate thing going with the spankings and I can't say I blame them.  I hate having my rear getting hit, it hurts no matter how hard it's done... It was a great day.  Joshua is really such a good kid.  He makes us all happy like any youngest child will do.  I'm already preparing for the day when he will no longer let me hold him on my lap: Carl's n...

He is so super excited he can hardly contain himself. I've never had one of my children so excited for their birthday. He's laughing, can't stop grinning and keeps jumping up and down! Josh received a gift from Grandma Barwick today and I'm not sure who loves it more, me or Josh... We love this book! It has all of our favorite Dr. Seuss stories in it and the illustrations are beautiful and bright. Thank you Grandma! We love you! I still can't believe he's going to be six years old. Time goes by fast. But hopefully for his sake, tomorrow is a very long and awesome day!

This last weekend, our email got hacked. It happens to the best of us, sometimes many times. In fact, I assumed most people knew about it and also knew that the links in the email were spam. Apparently not. Today Trevor got a text from his boss saying that he couldn't open the link on his phone but that when he got home he looked at the website and his wife went ahead and bought some of those weight loss pills. We laughed and laughed until I cried... Anyway, sorry to everyone who received it. You all are beautiful people...and I would absolutely never send a link like that to anyone, not even an enemy.

Well, not quite. I was standing there eating a cookie and suddenly realized what I was doing.  I had on snow boots and my hand was in the band of my skirt.  I made Trevor take a picture cause it was so funny.  I'm such a lady.  But at least now we know why the boys sleep with their hands down their pants.  (although I don't actually sleep that way...I promise.)

This is what our Valentine morning looked like.  You may think it's lovely and maybe it is (debatable),  but I prefer what the day looked like about 6 hours later.  It turned into a beautifully sunny day.  But no matter what the weather was, it was a great day. We had the Elders over for dinner,  I talked to my brother on the phone,  and I got to spend the evening laughing with my family.  I've never had a better Valentines and I hope you feel the same way about your day.  Oh and I'm married to the greatest man ever who gives me really funny cards that the kids are not allowed to read... Happy Valentines Day!