Just a thought.

Certain recent events, specifically the supreme court ruling on same sex marriage, have been on my mind lately.  I don't always find things in my daily personal scripture study that stand out to me as being particularly relevant to that day, or week, or whatever, even though I always learn a little something when I read.  But on Friday I found myself sitting in the waiting room at my doctor's office and took the opportunity to read my scriptures on Dar's iPad.  As I was reading, I came across a scripture that I felt certainly applies to our worldly turmoil today.  I hate how things are looking for the future of our country.  Anyway, I wanted to share it with you because I felt it was significant, especially in regards to Proposition 8 being overturned:

Mosiah 29: 24-27

24 And now behold I say unto you, it is not expedient that such abominations should come upon you.

25 Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which are given them by the hand of the Lord.

26 Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law--to do your business by the voice of the people.

27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

It makes me sad to think that the voice of the people is being overthrown by the few.  Sometimes I feel like I have to hold on to my faith with all the strength I can muster in order to face what feels like white water rapids up ahead.

P.S. Completely unrelated, but important to Dar and any interested family members, I updated my Father's Day Post with pictures from Father's Day :)

6.22.13 - 3 months!

I know I say it all the time, but time is going TOO FAST!  In some ways I can't believe Savannah is 3 months old already, and at the same time it feels like she has always been with us because she fits into our family so perfectly.

 At three months:

-Savannah is SO close to laughing.  She can kind of get little giggles out but hasn't quite gotten a full on laugh out yet.

-She is so pleasant and mild-natured.  She really only cries when she's hungry, needs a bum change, or tired and wanting to be held or needing some help to fall asleep.

-She's so happy all the time!  We frequently catch her smiling at us, and it totally brightens up any moment, even if it's already shiney :)  Luckily it's really easy to make her smile, so she smiles a TON!

-She's growing so fast!  I had her weighed on the 21st when we had to take Aurora to the doctor, and she weighed 13 pounds 13 ounces, with her clothes on.  She has almost doubled her birth weight already.

-She has some pretty awesome baby chunky rolls that I just love!

-Her personality is starting to poke through more and more.

-She sleeps pretty well at night, usually waking up 1-2 times to eat, but she eats fast and goes right back to sleep.
-She loves to be snuggled in the mornings and usually ends up in bed with us for a little while so we can get a little more sleep.

-She likes to be held for nap time during the day, otherwise she doesn't sleep very long.

-She discovered her thumb and prefers to suck it over the binky.  I pop her binky in every time I catch her though.  I don't want her addicted and sucking her thumb until 2nd grade like I did.

-She is in 3-6 month clothes and #2 diapers already!

-She loves her sister and Aurora seems to be able to get the biggest smiles from Savannah :)

-She loves to snuggle and I wish I could hold her and snuggle her more than I get to.
-She opens her mouth to give kisses--I absolutely LOVE her kisses! :)

And here are a few pictures of our munchkin over the last month

It's so stinking cute, but I just can't let her get hooked!


Morning snuggle time with Daddy

Tummy Time!  I just LOVE that face! :)

Cute jammies--I couldn't resist taking some pictures.

Love that smile! :)

06.18.13 - First time sitting in the bumbo

She and Rori like to play with my gerber daisy's

06.22.13 - First time in the big bath tub
She's too big for her baby bath tub already, so we've started bathing her in the big bath tub.  She doesn't like it very much.  It's a big tub for a little girl!

Our snoozy little sweetheart :)

Can't resist her baby chunks--I love it!

Our happy 3 month old princess

Happy 3 months, Savannah!  We love you!!

Art City Days

I feel like I'm WAY behind in my blogging.  Maybe someday I'll catch up.  Art City Days was the first week in June, the week we potty trained Aurora.  Most of the events we like to go to don't happen until the end of the week anyway so potty training that week worked out well.

Early in the week we were trying to encourage Aurora with her potty training by telling her if she got it down well we'd be able to go see the hot air balloons.  She was SO. EXCITED.  We had to get up super early, and this was our first venture out of the house with a newly potty-trained toddler. :)

We picked a spot right next to where one group was setting up their balloon.  Aurora really liked it until they started filling it up with air and it got really loud.  She clung to me pretty much the whole time until they were up in the air.

I had to move away with Aurora but had to snap a shot of how close Dar and Savy were to the balloon :)

We had shown Aurora some pictures of previous years we went to the balloons and she was super excited to see the "Piggy Balloon", at least until we were actually there and the noise scared her

Daddy and Rori checking out the balloons taking off

Our traditional family shot--I love how our family is growing!

We had the opportunity to ride in a tethered balloon for free, so I filled out the waivers and we (especially Dar) were super excited to try it.  Unfortunately Aurora wasn't so excited.  She kept telling us the balloons scared her, so we opted to skip the balloon ride for the sake of our sweetheart, but we were able to give the opportunity to ride to our awesome home teacher and his kids.  Maybe next year she'll be more willing to try it.  She did like "driving" the tractor the balloon was going to be tethered to though!

Later that evening after a nice nap, we met Papa at the carnival for Rori to ride some rides.  She was intently watching the carousal, trying to decide if she wanted to ride it.

She's ridden one before, but I think our sweet little fearless Rori has become WAY more timid in her old age ;)  She didn't want to sit on a horse, even with Daddy holding her.

After a minute or so, she thought this would be a fun place to sit for the ride :)

She ended up having Daddy hold her for the whole ride, but at least Papa and I got some waves from her!

After a not-so-good carousal ride, for some reason she thought she wanted to ride this little space ship ride by herself.  We decided to go ahead and let her try it.

She liked driving the space ship, until the ride started.  She wasn't prepared for the jolt of the ride starting and wasn't holding on and fell backwards a bit when the ride moved forward.  She immediately started crying and was crying so hard the operator had to stop the ride to let Aurora off.  Yep.  That was OUR kid :)  We were proud of her for trying it though!

She was really pretty hesitant with any of the rides after that, but Dar was able to get her to go on the really big slide with him.  She didn't like that one either.

We tried to get her to go on a couple other rides, but she wasn't having it.  Luckily Papa and Gramma's neighbors were there with their son, so we gave the rest of Auroras ride tickets to them.  Thanks again, Papa, for taking us to the carnival!

We had planned to go to the fireworks that night too, which we always love, and Aurora was looking forward to that too, but she was being super grumpy and not very nice so we ended up staying home so she could get a good night's sleep.  Maybe next year :)

This is a REALLY BIG deal!

June 3rd was the BIG day for us.

NO MORE DIAPERS!!

Aurora seemed pretty ready to potty train back in January right around her birthday, but several people had told me to wait with potty training until after Savannah was born because a lot of kids regress when such big changes come in their little lives. So, we waited. However, I didn't want to be buying diapers for two kids for very long, so we set a date and stuck with it. We planned to do it after Darwin was done teaching so we'd both be here to help and support each other and Aurora. It was a good plan. I'm glad we could do it together.

She went straight from diapers all the time to no diapers at all. No pull-ups or anything. Not even for nap time or bed time.

The morning of June 3rd, Aurora wore her last diaper, ever!

 Our big girl wearing panties!

On her way to throw away her diaper - it was in the front red "pocket" of her car

Bye-bye diapers!

Rori wanted Vannah to wear panties too :)

What a cutie!

Sister hugs are the best!

We had lots of "hanging out" time over the next couple of days

Playing on Daddy's iPad

Enjoying her ring pop (she thought it was a candy binky) she got for waking up dry after the first night - we're so proud of her!

After a couple of days and we felt she got the hang of things and thought we were ready to leave the house, but then she got a fever for two days :( So we were home-bound pretty much the entire week

The first day she had lots of accidents--like every 45 minutes, but she eventually figured things out.  She wakes up dry from almost all of her naps and night time, with only a couple accidents, but overall she has done amazing and it has been a pretty good experience.  She's had a rough time with #2, but we'll get there eventually!

Great job, Aurora!  We are SO PROUD of you for doing such a difficult thing and doing so well with it! You're not even 2 1/2 yet! You're awesome, babe!

Happy Fathers Day, Darwin!

You are the best daddy in the world, and our girls are so very blessed to have you!

I love watching you play with Aurora and that you help her with anything she asks you to.  I love that if anything is broken, Aurora always knows Daddy will fix it.  Rori loves you so much and says she's going to marry you someday.  I love that she loves tagging along with you to scouts every week and that you're always okay to take her with you and have her as your little sidekick.  I love that she loves to wave goodbye to you from our window in the morning when you leave for work and misses you from the second you step out the door.

I love that you talk to me about Nastassia, and that you miss her and want to see her again just as much as I do.  I love that she will get to play with her Daddy someday and on into the eternities, just like Aurora and Savannah get to now.

I love to see you with Savannah, especially when you get to cuddle her, and how easily you make her smile. I love that she looks like you and that she has your beautiful blue eyes.  I love how tiny she looks in your arms and that you're always willing to help me with the girls because my two hands aren't enough to get things done.

Thank you for all you do.  For the patience and love you show to us daily.  Thank you for all the messes you clean up that I don't have the stomach to do myself :)  Thank you for making me admire you more when I see catch you in the middle of the night comforting Aurora or rocking Savannah so I can get more sleep.

You are the most amazing man I know.  I love how much you love our family.  You mean the world to us!!

Dar got to snuggle Savannah while I tried to hurry and make him breakfast before our 9:00am church meetings :)

 After church we went to his parents house for our usual Sunday dinner.  I noticed while we were in the barn yard that there are tons of tiny yellow flowers (you could call them weeds) growing in a circle around Nastassia's nectarine tree Papa planted for her.  I couldn't help but feel like those flowers bloomed there on purpose--yellow daffodils will always make me think of Nastassia, and these tiny yellow flowers are perfect in that spot!

Daddy and Rori shared some good fun time on the trampoline together

Cheesy grin :)

Rori took this picture of Daddy

Thank you for being the amazing man and father you are. Happy Fathers Day, my love!

Family Photos

A couple weeks ago we went up north to spend some time with my family and have some family pictures taken.  Long story short, we ended up not being able to do pictures of the whole clan due to some very important people not being there.  So, we made due with what we had since we still had our appointment set.  All four of our little family members were present, so we did our first official family-of-four photo, and some other great additional pictures on the side :) {Most of these are unedited, just FYI}

I like it okay, but it's not my favorite.  I decided yellow (although it's my favorite color) is probably not the best for family pictures (Thanks, Martha and fam, for the girls' adorable outfits!), and I feel like the light background ended up washing us out.  Oh well.  It'll due for now.  We may have to get our picture re-done when we get together again for the whole group.
(Little side note: We couldn't get Aurora to smile at first and were trying all kinds of things to break the seriousness on her face.  Then she let out a fake sneeze and a huge smile! Every time we needed her to smile again we'd tell her to sneeze. Haha.  Funny girl!)

Rori loves her sister so much!

I actually really like this one--bummer that Aurora isn't smiling and Savannah looks a little goofy.

Sweet Savannah with her beautiful blue peepers

Our darling little Aurora :)


Classic.  This was totally her idea.  I love her fun personality :)

We love these beautiful girls or ours!

Koda wanted a picture with Rori.  It turned out cute :)

And my mom wanted a picture of the two youngest grand-kids together (they're 10 weeks apart).  Hyrum is such a handsome little hunk.  He's so adorable and so smiley!  Savannah is too, but just doesn't smile as much as Hyrum does.

Hopefully we'll be able to get everyone together soon to get the big group done, but this was a good start :)