Wrapping up January

January 17, 2016
Although we moved from our condo just after Christmas, we continued attending church with our ward (congregation) for a few weeks in January.  I had been serving as the Primary President (I was over all the children in the ward ages 18 months to 12 years old) and was serving along side some amazing ladies.  I felt like my time with them was cut short because I was only in that position for about 4 months.  We accomplished a lot together, we learned a lot together, and we grew really close to each other.  The amazing ladies I served with surprised me on my last Sunday there with a very sweet and thoughtful "thank you" from the primary kids and leaders.  I was very touched and couldn't hold back my tears.  Thank you again, Denise, Alice, and Courtney!  You are all greatly missed!!

 

 Darwin and the girls helped me eat the yummy rice krispie stars. They were delish!


January 26, 2016 - Australia Day!
We didn't get very good pictures of Australia Day this year, but we got enough to document that we celebrated with our favorite Aussies :)  The food was delicious, the games were a blast and the company was fantastic, as always!
Savannah won the grand prize for this game! Way to go, Sissy!


 And the adults always get a little crazy and really competitive when it's their turn to play.  It's pretty hilarious actually :)


Happy Australia Day!  Thanks for the invite from our Aussie family.  We love you guys!

Playing in the Snow

One of our girl's favorite things about moving to Grandma and Grandpa's house is having a yard of our own to play in.  They're really familiar with the house and the yard because we've spent a lot of time over here in their lifetimes, but it's different being here all the time and having more space for them to play and run around.  They're loving it!  Another bonus is that we've gotten a lot more snow this year than we have in the past few years combined.  The girls LOVE playing in the snow and get super excited anytime they see snow falling outside.  It's especially fun for them to wake up to new, fresh snow!  Luckily Daddy has been awesome with taking them outside to play.  He's a super trooper when he has to lace up my snow boots for me to go outside with them too.  I'm sure it's quite the sight to see me try and bend over to put anything on my feet at this point in my current condition! ;)

January 16, 2016

Our little snow angels!

What a happy girl! Haha!


And of course no play date in the snow is complete without a snowman.  Or a "snowbug" in this case.

Cuties!

Here's their snowman from this time playing in the snow.  Pine cone face and all!


Waving at cars driving past.

Silly Savannah :)

Aurora wasn't quite ready to come inside when everyone else was, so she stayed outside on the porch by herself for a little bit.

Then after warming up they had some quality sister time playing on the electronics.  Haha!


January 24th, 2016
Sometimes playing outside in the snow has to wait until Daddy gets home from work, which means we don't have a whole lot of time to play before it gets dark, but that doesn't stop these kiddos!
Happy to be out in the snow!

Rori started working on making another snowman.

Sometimes it takes team work!

And of course they only get to eat the snow when it's fresh :)

Their snowman turned out HUGE this time!  It was taller than Daddy!



January 30, 2016
We got a LOT of snow this day.  The girls got to play in the front yard this time while Daddy worked on shoveling the sidewalks and driveway (I think he shoveled everything 3 times while they were out there because it just kept coming down!).  He's such a fun Daddy and made a snow slide for them to play on.  It was a huge hit!  Everyone at church knew about it because the girls told everyone they saw that "Daddy made a snow slide" for them.  He even made steps on one side so they could climb up on their own.  He's pretty awesome. I certainly can't deny it!
Aurora going down sideways.

Savy's turn!


They seriously had a blast!


How fun it is to be a kid!

Savy giving Aurora a little assistance :)

We all miss our little condo, but it certainly is fun to be here and have our own space!  Here's to many more adventures at Deming National Park :)

Provo City Center Temple

We have a new temple in our area.  The Provo City Center Temple was rebuilt from the original Provo Tabernacle after it burned to the ground in December 2010.

It's absolutely beautiful and has personal significance to our family.  Darwin and I attended Stake Conference there several times, and even served as ushers, when we attended a BYU Married Student Ward when we were first married.  It was a beautiful building before but has been transformed into something even more significant and beautiful!

We were able to attend the open house together on January 20th.  It was chilly outside, but such a special experience to  be together as a family on the inside.

You can't take pictures of the temple on the inside, but we got a few pictures to prove we were there.
This one is actually taken in front of a canvas :)

This one was taken by a sister missionary who was a young girl in the ward my family attended when we lived in New York many years ago.  Sister Emma Ricks was serving her mission in this area, and her family actually doesn't even live in New York any more.  Small world!

Panoramic shot of temple after our tour.  It's so beautiful!

After the tour we went with Grandma and Grandpa to Sweet Tooth Fairy for cupcakes.  Thanks for coming with us and for treating us to dessert!