Yesterday, we took our family skiing. It was a fabulous day. We brought a friend along to help with the kids and Dave even got her up on skis. Thanks Melissa! The weather was perfect- most of the day I just wore a sweater. It was so sunny that Tom has a nice red ring around both eyes where we didn't rub the sun screen in fear of getting it in his eyes. Next time they will use sunglasses or goggles because at school the next day he was scaring the girls with his red eyes. Kids and Melissa Lily's favorite thing- when she walked outside she laid down on the snow on her belly and just started licking and eating the snow. She loved the open buffet. I just tried to direct her to a spot that everyone wasn't walking over. Ari on the Magic Carpet. She was riding up and skiing down all by herself. It was the best! We are definitely going back to this resort for our future family ski holidays. After 4 years of hiatus, I finally got back on skis and I actually enjoyed it. I

And it came to pass that after 2.5 years of trials, mummuring, and tribulation that our family completed the Book of Mormon. Yeah!!! So it was time for a party. Our family voted and we decided that the reward for all of our early morning reading would be a ski trip. But I also wanted a little more to celebrate this momentous occasion. My creativity was at a low but here was what I came up with. We had Mexican food take out because it was Native food.(Of course my husband had to point out that we really don't know where the Nephites lived but...) We had Lemuel and Lamanade Punch (Lemon and limeade) We made Nephite/Lamanite headbands and the kids each decorated their own. I made the Title of Liberty. I decorated with pictures from our Gospel art picture kit. And to make dessert easy on myself we had promised land sundaes where the Nephites(vanilla ice cream) and Lamanites (hot fudge) lived in harmony.(Kind of a lousy idea but I really didn't want to make a plates of gold cake

Less than 30 days to my 30th birthday. Any suggestions? Another decade of life is pretty special so I don't want this one to just pass me by.

Sunday evening we had the chance to celebrate the birthday of Lily's sunbeam teacher. Guess what she turned 89 ! Can you believe it? She is the best and Lily loves to pray for her every night. Lily used to just pray "bless everyone and everything". I told her she should pray for her teacher and she said "I already blessed EVERYONE" so we talked about the importance of naming individuals now she goes on loooong lists of people to bless to the point where I interject a "in the name of..." to get her to finish. We had a delicious cake too. Some wonderful strawberries I froze last year mixed with sugar and clear jel between to layers of homemade yellow cake and topped with whipping cream. Between that and the chocolate chip cookies I made with real butter instead of margarine-I haven't had a lot of control on the sweets this week.

Seeing this right outside your window.... Pretty Wow! But having this right inside your house... You can't tell from the photo and I don't get how to do videos but somebody wants to start walking. He can walk behind this little car now and is so proud of himself. Our house is only safe from destruction during nap time. But what a cutie!