Newsies!

April 23, 2016

Emma received tickets to see Newsies as a Christmas gift.  The day had finally come! 

We got to the Keller in plenty of time, unlike when we went to see Phantom of the Opera.  So we had time to hang out for a bit at Keller Fountain Park.

And Emma did her best Newsie impersonation.

By the time we got in the auditorium we were definitely ready to seize the day! 

We were so excited!!

And we were not disappointed.  The show was so amazing, we both loved it.  The energy, dancing, singing, and the cute guys made for real entertainment.  Even better?  Emma donated a dollar and got to pose with a real newsie.  :)

We really had such a great afternoon.  It started a Newsies binge at our house.  We were always listening to the music, so much that the twins have the songs memorized and are dying to see it themselves.  I would love to see it again myself!

Mormon Prom

April 9, 2016

Djeryd Hawkins asked Emma to Mormon Prom.  We love Djeryd so we were all excited!  Djeryd and Emma are good friends and it was fun to see them go to Mormon Prom together.  We didn’t have much time to find a dress for Emma.  She was so busy so it fell to me to do the inital leg work while she was at school.  She gave me strict instructions to send her pictures as I shopped. Before I went shopping for the dress I said a little prayer.  I was worried about finding a modest dress that was in our budget AND that Emma would like.  That was a pretty tall order!  My first stop was Burlington Coat Factory.  I didn’t really think I would find anything there but it was right next to another place I wanted to go, so I decided to see what they had.  I found a dress there that I loved that was only $19.99.  I figured it would take some convincing for Emma so I didn’t send her a picture of it.  In fact, I wasn’t very confident she would like the dress at all so I went to several other stores after that and bought a few more dresses that I didn’t like nearly as well as the first one.  There weren’t many to choose from that were modest right off the rack.  When Emma got home that night I showed her the dress I liked the best and I was totally surprised that she loved it!  It fit her perfectly, was very classy, and totally different from any other dress her friends would be wearing.  I was thrilled that I found it so quickly and so cheap!!  What an answer to that prayer.  I spent another day looking for shoes and accessories.  Again I had to send pictures to Emma and she helped me decide what to buy.

It all came together perfectly and she looked beautiful!

A friend in the ward did her hair.  I can’t french braid like that to save my life. 

She couldn’t be completely serious…

Djeryd came to pick her up and Lee had a nice little talk with him (and probably scared him to death). 

They looked so good!

And then they were off with a group of friends to dinner and the dance.

They had a blast at the dance “A Night in the City”, and Emma came home happy!  A successful Mormon Prom. 

General Conference Weekend

April 2-3, 2016

One of our favorite two weekends of the year!  We started the Saturday morning session with cinnamon rolls…of course!

I love how excited the kids are to watch conference.  It’s something they look forward to!

The Jensen’s came down from Vancouver for the Priesthood session, so a bunch of moms and kids met at the church for a little party while the men went to Priesthood.  It was a beautiful night so most of the kids ended up outside.

A big game of boys against girls Red Rover was played.  It was a fun night!

My family came down for the Sunday sessions of conference.  We had our delicious brunch between sessions…of course!

We ended the night by playing games. 

It really was a great weekend.  It’s always sad to see General Conference weekend come to end.  It is so nice to relax with family and to listen to uplifting and inspiring messages from prophets and apostles.  But we LOVED Elder Holland’s closing address and we were determined to not be afraid of tomorrow.  He said “Keep loving.  Keep trying.  Keep trusting.  Keep believing.  Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, forever.”  What a great push to make the changes in our lives that were inspired by listening to General Conference.  A few weeks later we had our FHE General Conference review. 

We put the new topic pictures up on our wall of prophets.  We are ready to continue studying and learning!